Night had fallen that same day, the darkness forcing the three of them to go indoors where they played card games and ate snacks until well past midnight. It felt like those times, when Jemma had been a little girl and her parents had known that school would be cancelled the next day, giving her an unforeseen holiday. It was giggles and grins and no rules, no worries, only fun and extra ice cream.

Tomorrow wasn't a holiday, but today felt like a celebration. They were together again, not just her and Fitz, but Fitz and Skye also. All of them were together and the world was right.

Or at least almost. She still wanted to kiss him, to hold him and tell him she'd missed him and she loved him so much, but she was terrified. Terrified he wouldn't believe her, that he'd be angry that she'd rejected him before, that those three little words would shatter whatever it was they had happening right then and she'd wake up from whatever desperate dream this was.

One night, she told herself. One night with him by her side. She'd give herself that before she risked it all, because she was going to, because she couldn't stand to see him so miserable not knowing who he was. He didn't deserve that, no one did.

Fitz was exhausted though, she'd been allowing him to lean on her for nearly an hour as they marathoned their way through the last three Harry Potter movies, his eyes barely managing to stay open long enough for him to see the final scene of The Deathly Hallows, part 1 from his place beside her on the sofa. His fever was gone, but he still seemed to be feeling the dwindling exhaustion that it had left it its wake.

At last he'd succumbed and fallen asleep, his head weighing on her shoulder, and she carefully readjusted herself so she could support him better, laying back against the cushion to support her own weight as well. His breathing remained deep and even and he didn't stir, even when he slowly moved her head to kiss his curls, something she was still working up the courage to do while he was awake.

Which, she knew, would seem ridiculous to anyone she told. She'd kissed him countless times, his head, his nose, his lips. That was before though, before all of this madness had torn them away from each other, before she'd been so cruel to him. What right did she have to kiss the cheeks of a man she'd once shouted such poison at?

"You really think it's him, don't you?" Skye murmured, watching the pair of them carefully, her expression turned guarded.

Jemma's eyebrows rose in surprise. "You don't?"

She'd been acting as if he were all day, teasing and joking with him, even calling him by his name. Perhaps it had all been a front, for Jemma's sake, or perhaps she'd wanted to believe it as much as Jemma did.

"I just want to be sure," she explained quickly, eyes running over him once more before returning to meet hers. "You were getting better, you…" She chewed her lip, eyes shining. "You were coming back to us. I just don't want to see you get hurt again."

"I…" She sighed, stopping herself from saying 'I won't' because she knew that wasn't a satisfactory answer.

It wasn't the whole story and the woman sitting across from them, who'd grieved too, for the man in her arms, and who'd almost lost both of her best friends, should know why she wasn't about to lose them again. She'd been Jemma's guardian angel for over a year, even when she'd tried to push her- and everyone else- away. She deserved at least to know the truth.

"It's Fitz," she told her firmly. "I know it's him. I don't understand how, but I know." She looked back down at him, radiating affection at the sight of his peaceful, sleeping face. "It can't be an imitation, he's too perfect."

Glancing back up, she caught Skye smirking at her, clearly biting back a giggle, and she rolled her eyes because that wasn't what she'd meant (even if it might have been halfway true. No one was perfect in the strictest sense of the word, but he was perfect to her.)

"He doesn't just look like him," she went on. "He responds in the exact same way, has the same mannerisms-" His fingers twitched against her arm and she smiled. "-even when he's sleeping. He has his heart, his mind, when he speaks to me I hear him. And I know it sounds ridiculous, because people don't come back from the dead- not usually, but we know that it isn't impossible. What is impossible, is creating such an exact copy. The level of detail…" She paused, gently flattening his hair with her free hand as she tried to collect her thoughts.

That wasn't the whole truth either. This wasn't only something she'd thought out, it wasn't calculated.

"And… and I see him Skye," she admitted quietly. "I look into his eyes and I know."

She chewed at her bottom lip, unable to face her friend as she wondered if she sounded crazy, or desperate, or both. She was scared, so scared, of what she was feeling, of being wrong, but something inside of her, an instinct that she couldn't quite explain, was telling her that she wasn't.

"OK."

At her friend's easy acceptance, Jemma's head snapped up in surprise.

"OK?" she asked hesitantly, searching her face for any ounce of doubt. "You believe me?"

Skye chuckled softly, shaking her head as if the answer should be obvious. "No one knew him better than you. If you say it's Fitz, then it's gotta be him." She shook her head again, grinning at him in amazement. "He came back."

Jemma smiled too, her heart singing with joy. "He did. We'll need to figure out how obviously-"

"Obviously," Skye teased, scrunching her nose in amusement, and she rolled her eyes at her again.

"-but not before we figure out what's making him sick."

Skye frowned, turning somber. "Do you think the two could be related?"

"That whatever brought him back is doing this?" Jemma guessed, feeling dark clouds gathering above them. "I don't know. I hope not. Perhaps these are simply side effects… growing pains as it were."

"I hope so," Skye mumbled. "He does seem to be getting better."

She nodded enthusiastically, forcing a smile to push aside the knot of worry that had grown in her gut. "He's much better than he was last night, he probably just needs some rest, some good food… maybe a night or two outside that awful cell…"

"Maybe he just needed a hug," Skye suggested sympathetically, her eyes narrowing as another thought occurred to her. "What are we going to tell the others?"

Jemma puffed out a breath, at a loss. "The truth I suppose."

"I guess Coulson really isn't someone who can argue against people coming back from the dead," she pointed out fairly.

Jemma chuckled. "That would be a bit hypocritical of him wouldn't it?"

Smiling softly, she turned back to Fitz, grazing the backs of her fingers down the side of his face with a gentle fondness, trying hard to keep back the incredulous tears of joy that waited under her eyelids.

He came back. My sweetheart came back to us.

Her heart sank, however, when she reached the spot where his jaw met his neck, feeling him wince and squirm further into her shoulder as her skin met his, unconsciously seeking out her protection as he slept. The poor thing must have been completely wiped out but worse than his obvious exhaustion was the angry red skin that seemed to have crawled up his neck, lightly blistered as if it had been scalded.

"Oh no," she breathed, carefully tilting his head for a better look. "How did… I was sure he'd covered everything…"

"What are you talking about?" Skye asked, rising to investigate with a look of concern. She grit her teeth when she saw the burn. "Ouch, how did that happen?"

"It's going to hurt when he wakes up," she fretted. "I shouldn't have let us stay out for so long, I should have known. He's never been outside in the daylight before…"

Skye frowned, tilting her head. "What do you mean? I've seen him out in the daylight plenty of times and, you know, he burns, but not like this." She gestured towards his neck.

A slow, shaky breath escaped her and Jemma felt her heart squeeze tightly in her chest, frightened again and debating how much to tell her friend. Would she understand? Did she understand herself? She'd been suspecting it for the past few days, pieces slowly clicking together, and it wasn't until only a few hours ago that the final one clicked into place, that she'd realized what the unidentified substance they'd found him covered in actually was.

However that was only a piece of it all. The slime, in its own incredible way, made sense, but the rest? The slime held the key to why he'd burned in the sun but how he knew her, how he'd come back to her, was something else entirely. It bordered on magic and fantasy and it was certainly well within the realm of what Jemma Simmons did not believe in.

Or at least not until now.

"D-do you remember what… what that man said?" she asked slowly, overtaken by a sudden need to study every inch of Fitz's face, sweep her gaze across it over and over until she had it memorized again, unable to meet her friend eyes as she spoke. "The one who… who…" Her voice wobbled and as hard as she tried she couldn't say it. It had haunted her for far too long.

The man who killed him.

"I know who you mean," Skye said gently.

She swallowed, nodding gratefully. "He said he'd saved him. That he put his soul somewhere safe. He said his soul Skye… what…" The last word turned into a squeak and she closed her eyes, concentrating, focused on reining in her emotions, drawing on months of practice. "I know this sounds ridiculous… it is ridiculous… impossible but… but what if-"

The shrill screech of an alarm cut her off and her stomach clenched fearfully as the walls were blanketed in blinking red light and a familiar explosion rumbled the room.

It was happening again. The Playground was under attack.

/-/-/

Poor Fitz and his baby skin. I bet what happened is starting to piece together? Hopefully :P

Thanks to notappeper for betaing this chapter. And speaking of babies if you haven't yet you should go check out her Jemma is pregnant fic :D It's so great.