When the wall turned transparent again, Fitz was expecting it to be Pao or Coulson or even May, not the worn down angel who stood before him instead, calling to him like a siren though she neither spoke nor moved for several long seconds.

They stared at each other, her sizing him up and him simply unable to look away, frozen in position at the desk he'd been sitting at, body twisted around to see behind him.

"I'd like to help you," she said at last, low, formal. "If you're willing to cooperate."

"Everyone here has my full cooperation," he told her automatically. It slid easily off his tongue after days of practice, but it didn't mean that it wasn't the truth.

She paused, seeming to mull something over. Then she took a breath, eyes shining determinedly. "I'm giving you a choice. This isn't an order."

He frowned, confused. "A choice to do what?"

"To find out what you are," she answered evenly. "I'm assuming that you don't know- provided you've been telling us the truth-"

"I have been," he said quickly.

She nodded. "Good."

He fidgeted uncomfortably, hesitating with is next question. "And… and then what will happen to me?"

"I think that depends on the answers we find don't you?" she answered. She kept her voice level but she was straining, he could tell. He could see the pain just behind her eyes and it became his pain too, twisting and mixing with the dead weight of guilt in his gut. "It'll be your choice."

"I can't stay here though." It was a statement, not a guess.

She shook her head, almost apologetically. "No, you can't stay here. You may think this is your home but it's not. Th-..." Her gaze fell to the floor, her words fading to whispers. "There's nothing for you here."

He swallowed the hot ball that crawled up his throat and nodded obligingly. "Yeah. I know."

Don't cry, don't let her see that.

Why did his limbs suddenly feel as if they'd been filled with hot mortar, his stomach bubbling with tar? And why was he always so damn tired?

He straightened and lifted his head, forcing himself to look at her. "I'm sorry," he murmured before clearing his throat, speaking louder so she'd know he meant it. "I'm sorry for all this. I'd never…"

His courage wavered and he stopped, taking a moment to choose his next words, because he needed to be careful with his phrasing, he needed to protect her.

She watched him, looking more defeated than he'd ever seen her, with the endless, run down patience of someone who'd given up making their time worthwhile. It shattered him, to see her like that, to know that it was his very existence that was causing it, but it also lent him the resolve to say what he thought he needed to.

"He'd be sorry too…," he told her softly. "The… the man I'm not. He'd be sorry that he left you and he'd… he'd want you to be happy." Jemma sucked in a sharp breath and look away but she didn't protest so he tiptoed ahead. "And he would have hated me, for what I did to you… for what I said. So… so I know I can't take that back but…" He was frightened, of what he was trying to say, but he had to try so he forced himself to be brave. "But I think that I can at least tell you what… what he felt. Or what I remember… even though I wasn't there."

Stop rambling, get to the point.

"He loved you, more than he loved anything else. You were his future, and I think… I think he was yours." He watched as she gave the tiniest of nods, her eyes bright and her lips pressed tightly together. "He didn't want to leave but he did… he's…. he's gone. But you're still here, in the world with everyone else and the world still needs you in it. It's still beautiful Jemma."

He bit his tongue, cursing himself. You can't call her that, you don't even know her.

"It's still beautiful agent Simmons," he repeated, unable to keep his love for her from warming his words, though he resisted adding that it was more beautiful for having her in it. She didn't need to know how madly in love with her he was, it would only complicate things. "And he'd want you to be a part of it. You deserve to be a part of it."

He stopped there, waiting with his insides in knots for her to respond.

It was as if she'd been filled with cement. She stood, stone still except for her heaving chest, a storm in a glass jar, and he was afraid she was going to yell at him again, that he'd overstepped his bounds.

Then she exhaled slowly, tears welling onto her eyelashes but otherwise contained. "Thank you," she murmured. She frowned, seeming to catch herself, but her expression quickly softened and when she spoke again she had none of the venom he'd come expect from her. "I'll see you in the morning. Bright and early so…," She cast him the tiniest of smiles, so small it might have been his imagination. "Try and get some rest."

"I will," he promised.

He watched, wondering if he'd made a mistake or if he'd somehow managed to make her feel even the slightest bit better, as she slowly pivoted around and made her way up the staircase.

She left the cell wall clear and he stared at the top step for nearly an hour, willing her to return and hating himself for it, until at last he found the strength to tear his eyes away from it and go to bed.

/-/-/

That night, Fitz lay awake, curled up in a tight ball under his blanket as he shivered against the suddenly icy air. His stomach was doing loops inside of him, sending horrible waves of nausea across his body that he had to work harder and harder to stifle.

Something was very wrong.

Everything hurt, from his head to his toes he ached with the exhausting pain of a fever. He felt like the element on a stove, stiff, coiled and radiating heat, his stomach the bubbling pot.

His throat burned, screaming for water, but all he wanted was Jemma. He wanted her cool touch on his cheek and her soft words in his ears. He wanted her telling him that he was going to be OK, that it was just a fever and it would pass, that she'd pull him through.

He'd felt sick like this once before, his body left weak and sore from an electrical burn into which an infection had crept in, taking a hold of him before he even knew what was happening.

She'd been there though, back then, laying beside him and whispering stories and jokes as the antibiotics took effect. She'd painted loving lines down the side of his face with her fingertips until he'd fallen asleep and he'd awoken to find her sleeping in the chair next to him, his fever gone along with the infection.

But that hadn't actually happened. Not to him. The memory wasn't real and neither was he. Jemma wasn't coming to make this better, no one was.

He was completely alone.

His stomach lurched, the battle lost, and he scuffled forward so that he could leave his mess in the trash can, rather than all over his sleeping space.

He didn't think he'd have the energy to get out of bed if he did.

/-/-/

That morning, Jemma waited for him in the lab, doing her best to convince herself that she wasn't looking forward to seeing him again.

She'd been up all night, lost in her own confusion and ridiculously outmatched by the doubt that had begun to whisper in her head, now shouting and screaming and twisting her insides into knots.

They had an archive, of the prison cell recordings, and she'd forced herself to rewatch hours of it, feeling like she was seeing the events for the first time. It struck her how flawlessly and consistently the man who was their prisoner was also the man they'd lost. It made her heart jump and an electric buzz crackle through her veins, but it didn't sear into her the way his ever-present sorrow did.

He cried every day. Sometimes he'd try to hide it, other times he didn't seem to have the will to cover his face and she saw the tears roll down his reddened cheeks. The further forward in time she went, the more defeated he seemed, until it was a wonder he ever left his bed. He was crumbling, and from everything else she saw happen, she understood why.

She saw him in the beginning, when they sprayed him with cold water until he cried out, and her hand had been pulled towards the screen, her arms aching for her to embrace him and take him away from there even though it was far too late for that. She'd let them do that to him. And she'd shouted at him, spewed hatred like acid, before then, after that too, allowing her rage to blind her to how much damage she was doing. She'd allowed him to be driven into the ground like a wooden stake, hammered over and over, taking the hammer into her own hands at times, and she wasn't sure how he could ever forgive her for that. How could he, when she was certain that she'd never forgive herself?

He came with Pao this time, she heard him chatting amicably with her from down the hallway, though he sounded tired.

They entered together, he a pale, weary shadow beside the lively, chipper girl who seemed to be slowing herself down so that she could keep up.

"I bet it was the chicken salad," Pao was saying, her head bobbing up and down in a nod as she raised her eyebrows seriously. "They let it sit out too long before they gave it to you, no wonder you threw it up."

"You were sick?" Jemma asked, an unwanted tendril of concern twisting it's way into her heart. She narrowed her eyes, trying to appear businesslike, as if he were a subject. Because he was. He was her subject. Her patient at best. "When?"

He couldn't seem to look at her, his gaze downcast, chin tucked towards his chest while he mumbled his reply. "It's nothing to worry about. Shouldn't affect what we need to do."

"What are we doing?" Pao wondered, skipping over to a rolling chair and plopping herself down onto it.

He followed, finding another chair and easing himself into it, wincing and massaging the bridge of his nose when he sat down. The way he held himself, taking deep, slow breaths as he leaned on the side of the desk for support, suggested that he was plagued by more than just nausea and she was rattled by the transformation.

The night before he'd been upset, eyes pink and swollen and his mouth having forgotten how to smile, but today he looked downright ill.

Without thinking she glided forward, stopping only about a foot away and reached her hand out instinctively to feel his forehead. She saw his jaw clench but he either lacked the energy or the will to pull away.

"You're running a fever," she told him needlessly.

He knew, anyone would notice a fever that high. He must have been light headed, aching all over. The poor thing.

'I'm allowed to feel sorry for him,' she defended prickly as the voice at the back of her head called out a sharp warning. 'I can feel sorry for a stranger. He's been kind to me, as kind as he knows how to be. I'm allowed to repay that. It doesn't mean I think he's someone he's not.'

This ran deeper than simple empathy though and no amount of lying to herself was going to change that. She hadn't been talking with a stranger last night, she'd been talking with the man she'd known and loved for half her life. When he'd tried to console her, when she'd seen how brave he was being, how kind, she'd seen Fitz. As impossible and irrational as it was, she'd seen her lost love, back from the dead.

And now he was all she could see, whatever she tried to tell herself. He'd wormed his way into her heart, despite her earlier resolutions and she was torn between being furious with herself and wondering if, just maybe, her heart knew something her head didn't. Hope was cruel thing when it fluttered away but in her hands, gently flexing it's wings, it was spectacular.

"It's not that bad," he said, the words coming out small and low. He coughed, his next breath wheezing out his throat, and her chest tightened in concern.

"No, it feels really high," she protested, touching it again with the back of her hand before stepping back, pressing her lips together as she looked him over. "If you're sick it may affect the results." And you need to rest to get better. She swallowed the last thought back down, unwilling to allow herself to admit how much his laboured breathing and dulled eyes were bothering her.

"You just need a blood sample though, don't you?" he asked quietly. "And another swab from my cheek?"

Her eyes narrowed and she tilted her head, unable to comprehend why he wasn't taking her advice to rest when his exhaustion was so apparent.

"I think it's best that we get this over with as quickly as possible," he added, gaze darting up towards her before it flickered away, as if she were a light too bright to look at, burning magnesium, and she suddenly understood.

He wanted answers, the same way she did. He was suffering, trapped in a life that wasn't his, with feelings that weren't his own and he wanted to know why.

She bent in front of him, trying in vain to get him to look at her, her eyes gentle and, once again, feeling oddly protective. "We're going to figure this out," she promised firmly. "And then you can… you can…." She frowned, unable to think of a conclusion. Surely when they understood what he was, he'd know what to do?

"Then I can leave you all be," he finished dejectedly for her. "You'll have your answers and I can go."

She stared at him, struggling between her need to reassure him and her desire to keep things professional. He wasn't Fitz.

But he was like Fitz. And he was in pain, lost and frightened. If he really had his memories did that mean he had the same heart? Wasn't he brave and kind, like the man she'd loved so much? Did he love monkeys and science as well? Did he eat pretzels in one bite and cry when dogs died in films?

She remembered again, down in the cell when he tried to comfort her. She remembered how cooperative he'd been, how careful he'd been with her, and felt a lightning bolt of shame at the way she'd been treating him. She'd been so cruel to him.

Whoever he was, he didn't deserve this, and she was about to tell him as much when a loud boom shook the walls, startling the three of them into a chorus of yelps just before an alarm sounded above them.

And then the lights went out.

/-/-/

Thanks to notapepper for all your great input for this story :D And for suggesting that Jemma go through the video footage.

Dadadum! What is happening? Did Fitz really eat bad chicken salad?