It was gorgeous out. The moment Jemma stepped into the light she felt the sun on her face, her arms, in her hair, and it was wonderful. Despite what she'd insisted back down in the base, Skye was right, she couldn't remember the last time she'd been out under blue sky and she'd forgotten how good it felt.

Bubbling like a can of soda pop, she turned back to beam a smile at Fitz, but her face fell when she saw him flinching away from the light, squinting as if it were hurting him.

"Has it always been so bright?" he asked warily, remaining a good foot or two behind the line of shadow.

Skye rose an eyebrow, pausing in her prancing to shoot him a look. "Yeah, it's the sun, that's what it does. What is it bothering you? I have some sunglasses, if you need them." She rummaged through the sack, a brightly coloured bag of things she'd thought they'd need, pulling out chapstick and a deflated beach ball. "You never know!" she replied to Fitz and Jemma's questioning looks. "At least I came prepared to protect our new friend the vampire from the mean old sun."

"He isn't a vampire," Jemma mumbled uneasily, accepting the glasses from her and carefully gliding back towards Fitz, ignoring the goose bumps that shot up in protest on her arms when she left the light. "It's really bothering you isn't it?" she asked, watching keenly while he slipped them on, the muscles in his face visibly relaxing.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled. What was he apologizing for? "Thank you. And thank you for the glasses Skye," he called past her.

She waved back cheerfully. "It's no big deal. Are you coming out or what?"

He started to move forward but Jemma held out a hand, stopping him. "Just a minute." If his eyes were sensitive to the sun, she could only guess at what it would do to his skin. A theory was forming in her head, one she didn't particularly like, and she had a feeling he was going to need protection. She turned back to Skye, eyes falling to her bag. "Did you happen to bring any sun block?"

"Yeah, SPF 40," she told her, pulling it out and holding it up for them to see.

"Jemma I don't think-" Fitz started to protest.

"Trust me," she said, moving her head to meet his gaze. "I really think you should put some on."

He stared back through the glasses, curious and maybe just a bit frightened. "Why?" he asked.

"I don't know yet," she replied honestly. Skye had wandered over and she took the bottle from her to hold out to him. "Trust me," she repeated, wishing she had the courage to tell him everything she was feeling in that moment, that when his hand brushed hers her skin buzzed and burned, that the tiny smile he gave her left her breathless.

"I'll always trust you," he told her, as if his faith in her were a given. A constant, like the speed of light.

He gave the bottle a squeeze, squirting the cream onto his arms, rubbing it into his ears and his nose.

"And the back of your neck," she reminded him, unable to keep herself from hovering around him, making sure he didn't miss anything.

He chuckled. "Anywhere else you think needs a greasy barrier?"

"No, I think you've covered everything," she answered seriously, circling around him to check.

While he wasn't looking, Skye met her eyes, silently asking her what was going on, but she could only shake her head and drop her gaze.

'I don't know,' she thought. 'I have no idea how this is happening.'

"So," Skye chirped, evidently deciding to leave it for the moment. "What do you guys want to do out here? We have a beach ball…. uh… what do you do with a beach ball again?"

Jemma stepped out of the shade and Fitz trailed cautiously behind her, hesitating again at the very edge. He kicked at the dirt with the tip of his sneaker, staring at the ground in front of him, perplexed, frightened and sad all at once.

"Or… uh...maybe we can just start with walking into the yard…" Skye suggested, quickly losing her colourful cheer.

"What's the matter?" Jemma asked gently, moving towards him so that they stood less than a foot apart, watching his expression with concern.

He lifted his gaze, eyes shining, and he looked so lost, filled up with sorrow, that it was all she could do not to bundle him back up again, take him back inside where the sunshine couldn't hurt him.

That wouldn't solve the problem though, it wouldn't take away the confusion she saw gripping him now, so instead she lifted a hand to cup his cheek, shooting him a tiny smile when he lifted his own to place on top, leaning into her touch.

"It's OK, you can tell me," she assured him.

He broke eye contact, looking past her as he gently took her arm to lower her hand away from his face, letting her tangle her fingers into his halfway down and clutching her tightly while he studied the world outside.

"It's… It's not the way I remember it," he told her, so low she wasn't sure that Skye could hear, though their friend waited patiently beyond, letting him speak however he wanted to. He sucked in a sharp breath, a tremor running through him. "Everything else is the way I remember it, you, Skye, the Playground… things have moved around… the… the…" He glanced quickly at her before looking away again. "Your hair is longer, but… but it's still… you're still you and the Playground is still the Playground but this…" His voice broke and he took a step back, shaking his head and pulling his hand from her grip. "It's the sun Jemma, the bloody sun! Why… I… What the hell am I?!"

Once again, she stepped into the dark with him, taking his face between her hands and waiting until his eyes met hers, her heart breaking for him and yet somehow letting her find words to comfort him, telling her what to do like a deep seated instinct.

"You're a man," she said firmly. "And you're my friend, and you're kind and good and you remember the name of every monkey species in the film we watched together. So your eyes are a bit sensitive, that's alright," She smiled encouragingly. "That's OK." After a moment's hesitation, briefly assessing whether or not it would help if she acknowledged his obvious fear, she softly added. "And I won't let anything happen to you. We're going to figure out how you ended up here and I promise that no matter what I'll protect you."

With a start, she realized that she meant that. Whatever he'd been created for all he wanted to do was exist in peace. He didn't want to hurt her, or anyone, and she certainly didn't want anything to hurt him. Wherever he came from, he was Fitz and he needed her.

"You will?" he asked. In his desperation, he wasn't even attempting to deny the fact that he was frightened.

Completely aware that Skye stood only a short distance away, able to hear everything they were saying, she smiled at him again, allowing her affection to show on her face, trying as best she could to show him into her heart. "I will."

He smiled too, stars in his eyes as he stared back at her. "Thank you. For everything."

It didn't really feel right, accepting thanks for all the awful things she'd allowed to happen to him, but this wasn't about how she felt so she nodded and held out her hands, inviting his back. "C'mon. It's OK, we'll do this together."

Encouraged, he took them, his own soft and dry, still a bit cold but far warmer than they'd been as he'd slept. She tiptoed backwards and, cautiously, he followed, inching forward until his arm was bathed in daylight, then his nose, his face, his hair. Slowly, step by step, she brought him into the light until the shade was several feet behind them and they stopped, hands locked between them as he took in the new sensation and her own skin practically purred in satisfaction at the return to warmth.

"How does it feel?" she asked softly, watching him, heart in her throat, while he processed it all.

After a few seconds he looked up, breaking into a wide grin that she instantly returned.

"It feels good," he proclaimed joyfully. "It's… it's so warm and… Jemma I remember this, I remember this feeling. It's the same!" He turned to Skye, absolutely ecstatic. "Do you still want to try out that beach ball?"

"I'm still not sure what we're suppose to do with it," she laughed, but she took it out anyway, blowing into the tiny plastic tube to inflate the brightly coloured ball. " But yeah, sure," she added between puffs, speaking through the tube between her teeth.

When she was through inflating it she tossed it his way and he caught it lightly between his hands in a smooth, easy motion.

"Hey look, you can catch," Skye said, grinning at him. "I bet that's the first time you've done that."

Maybe it was, Jemma reflected. But his body knew how to respond anyway because he remembered catching balls even if he hadn't ever actually done it. It was a new body with an old… what? An old mind? An old soul?

That was ridiculous, complete nonsense.

And yet here he was, turning her legs to noodles and her heart to putty in his hands.

"Jemma?" he called, his body pivoting towards her, preparing to throw. Her name sounded right on his lips, his eyes meeting hers the same way they always had.

She smiled at him and rose her arms, snatching it easily from the air when he tossed it over, before passing it on to Skye. Pleased, she noted that he threw the same way too, his arms and shoulders moving in the same familiar pattern.

"What do we call you?" Skye asked, spinning on her heels to throw the ball towards him again. "I mean, you need a name don't you?"

"I'm probably numbered actually," he mumbled unhappily, expression rapidly clouding and he kept the ball for long moment, worrying the plastic between his fingers. "Isn't that what they do with experiments?"

Jemma scoffed, shaking her head and trying not to let his sorrow cloud her too. "That's nonsense, we named the DWARFs. We name all of our creations. And besides, you're made from the same stuff as both of us, I've seen it, I've done countless tests. You're as human as anyone." She hesitated, the final wisps of doubt grabbing at the thing she wanted to say next, cruel, sharp little fingers that pricked as she fought them off. "And your name is Fitz."

"I'm not-" he protested at once, voice rough with pain.

"It's OK," she assured him. "It's your name, no one's going to take it away from you."

His eyes studied her face, careful and hopeful at once. "Yeah?"

'Of course it is sweetheart,' she thought, despairing at how lost he was and angry with herself for being too afraid to lead him home. "Yes it is," she whispered.

He looked back at her, brimming over with what could have only been love, and she stared back, bursting with the very same thing, absorbed in the way the tiniest of smiles had lifted his mouth and the light turned his hair to gold.

After what must have been over a minute, Skye coughed, reminding the pair of them that she was still standing only a few feet away, witness to something only they could truly see.

"Ah… right." Fitz blushed, nervously fumbling with the ball before passing it to Jemma, resuming their game.

Her own cheeks hummed splendidly, hot from the blood rushing past her skin and singing along with her merry heart.

After a minute or two of awkward silence, he risked lowering the glasses, peeking over the tops only to wince at the incoming light, quickly sliding them back up his nose.

"You know, I bet Jemma could make us a tarp that acted like a giant pair of sunglasses," Skye remarked, noticing his discomfort. "Then you wouldn't have to wear those things- not that you don't look cool."

"Very cool," Jemma agreed fondly, warmed by the shy smile that brought to his face. "But Skye's right, I probably could, it'd be better for everyone actually. I'd just need to find a material light enough to be supported by the fencing that would let in light but also protect against UV radiation - perhaps we could add benzophenone for that..."

"You could add cloaking to it as well, so we could go outside even when we're under lockdown," Fitz suggested. "It wouldn't be as flexible but-"

"We really wouldn't need it to be," they finished together, beaming at each other.

They spent the next half hour discussing the construction plans for what Fitz was adamant on naming the No-Sun-Roof. Skye followed the conversation alright at first, but she soon became bogged down by the more technical terms, though that didn't seem to bother her in the slightest. The more they talked, the happier she seemed to grow, looking between them with quiet delight, like being home again after a long journey.

It felt like home to Jemma too, familiar and good, like she belonged there, like she and this man belonged together. She'd been apart from her love for far too long, she'd almost forgotten this feeling, how happy he'd made her.

And now, by some miracle he was back. He was back and she loved him just as much and as unshakably as the day she'd lost him.

Now if only she could find the courage to tell him that.

/-/-/

Thanks to notapepper for your help with this chapter and for helping improve the No-Sun Roof :D

Benzophenone is a preservative used in clear plastic packaging of products like soap to protect the product from discoloration or other damage from UV radiation (From the book 'Why There's Antifreeze in Your Toothpaste' which is actually pretty cool). I'm not 100% sure it'd be the best thing for them to use for their sunroof, but I stumbled upon it as I was working on that part and I thought it fit nicely :D