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California is a strange place. Lance Hunter learns this on the day he moves there.
Having lived over half of his life in England, he is so unused to the sun that he gets a wicked sunburn the first day and spends the rest of the first week slathering himself in factor 50 and aloe vera, keeping his shades on even when it's cloudy. Jemma had called to laugh at him when he sent a picture of himself looking entirely too much like a lobster, and Bobbi had shouted dumbass in the background.
He should have expected that sort of response, really.
University is worlds away from what he is used to. He is mostly on his own, though May has taken it upon herself to be his mentor. She even tries to teach him tai-chi to calm him down, but during the first ten minutes of their first session, he nearly breaks his fist punching a wall in frustration. He is expected to keep his grades afloat in order to keep his full scholarship, and this is something in which he thankfully doesn't anyone's assistance, not when he is determined to stay on the football team and become its star.
In his sophomore year, they make it to the championships and come in second. Lance secretly thinks that they lost because he wasn't allowed to play the whole game, but then he remembers the injuries that some of the players sustained and he thinks it's probably a good thing he was benched.
May tells him that even without being on the field for most of the game, he is still one of the best players on the team. He knows he could go professional and there is nothing more he wants in his life, but he still almost punches a hole in his wall when he gets back to his flat.
"Anger isn't everything you have."
Her words echo in his head long after he is supposed to be sleeping.
He spends most of his waking hours studying and practising and socialising, doing his best to suppress his anger or at least channel it into football. He doesn't call home often now that he's trying to be an adult, and Jemma is away at school and doesn't call him, either. He tries not to be angry about that.
Come his final year, the team makes it to the championships and he makes the winning goal. Not long after that, leagues from all over the world are clamoring to have him join their teams.
"I'm quitting," May says one day, unceremoniously and quietly enough that Lance thinks she is kidding or maybe he misheard her.
He stares at her, brows furrowed. "You're joking, right?"
She shakes her head. "I'm quitting the scouting business." His jaw drops. Before he can voice his surprise, she holds up a hand. "You're stuck with me, I'm afraid. I'm your new agent." She pulls out several manila folders and drops them on the table in front of him before pushing his feet off of the chair opposite him, taking her seat there. "Time to do your research."
-----
Here is the truth of it: Bobbi Morse doesn't know what she wants to do with the rest of her life.
There are so many options open to her. She isn't even sure if Northwestern is the best place for her just yet, but she knew she needed out of the small pond that was home and it wasn't like her family was able to afford tuition at an Ivy League school, even if she had the grades and leadership skills that would get her in. Northwestern was willing to offer her a small scholarship in the general studies division, and if she could just find that one thing she wanted to do with the rest of her life, she could easily get another one.
She dabbles about in several departments, having filled a decent number of general education credits in high school and giving herself the ability to discover what she wants to do.
Journalism isn't necessarily her first choice, but it certainly popped into the back of her mind when she was applying to schools. She takes a course titled "Philosophy of Modern Journalism" in her first semester, on a whim, and that is when everything changes.
She switches her major to a double journalism and global studies degree and gets and finds herself travelling to Washington DC and Ecuador and South Africa, learning about events shaping the world and those that are shaking it down. She finds herself entangled in press and media and wonders why the media is so heavily weighted against showing the truth sometimes, relying on puff pieces and celebrity gossip to distract uneasy minds instead.
Bobbi graduates at the top of her class with every award possible and The Associated Press scouts her. She claws her way to stories that she finds the most interesting, and manages to make a career in investigative journalism and the pursuit of a Master's degree seem like child's play.
It isn't long before she earns a name for herself and though she doesn't care much if her broadcasts air on television, she still flips through the channels one day when she's incredibly bored and feeling the need for a pick-me-up.
She catches a football game and she can't entirely resist seeing who is playing.
Liverpool scores a goal and she spies the name HUNTER written across the back of a jersey. He still looks like the pain in the ass he always was, only older, his hair shorter. Seeing him strikes a sour note in her memories and she quickly shuts off the TV, feeling somehow worse than she did before.
-----
Memories get fuzzier around the edges the more time passes. This is a fact with which Leopold Fitz is intimately familiar. He loses his grasp on Hunter's disbelieving laugh, on Bobbi's commanding voice, and worst of all, on Jemma's sweet smile.
Scotland numbs him until he considers himself nothing but a walking sack of meat and bones, hardly even a person anymore. He channels all of the sadness he feels into his writing, and throws out draft after draft, turning sloppy notebook pages into crumpled balls of paper and tossing them across the room, sinking most into the bin. He tries to make friends, but no friendship holds a candle to the overwhelming warmth of his friends in the States.
He feels no right to complain, though, not when his mother is miserable enough. The move was a last resort and he keeps thinking that if it wasn't for him, maybe she wouldn't have pretended that everything was all right for so long. It makes his stomach clench when he sees her struggling to keep afloat, the two of them living with his uncle and grandmother to lessen their own financial burden.
When it is time for Fitz to go to university, he doesn't dream as big as he might have done years ago. Instead, he applies to schools in Glasgow so he can commute to and from classes. He accepts a spot at the University of Glasgow, studying English literature and spends the majority of his first year going through the motions. The only task that gives him any direction is the novel he decides to write.
He refuses to explicitly draw on his own experience for his novel, avoiding any coming-of-age nonsense. Instead, he pens a thriller, about how fear strikes true to the heart. It takes the better part of a year, but when he finishes, he doesn't even look it over before sending it to as many publishing houses as he can.
He frames all of the rejection letters and they start coming in droves. Sometimes, he gets no responses and that's okay, too. He isn't expecting anything of this.
One day, he gets a letter from a small publishing company called Mackenzie House, whose logo seems to be in the shape of an axe, and he is more than surprised to learn that they're interested in his manuscript. He meets with one of the editors, who happens to be the son of the owner, and within months, his manuscript is printed and out for sale.
Fitz tries to pass the days as normally as he can, the anxiety of his work not being out in the world gnawing away at his ability to sleep. He comes across articles written by Bobbi Morse and he leaves a few comments to congratulate her on her success, though there's not much he can say after over 5 years of not seeing her. He isn't expecting much from his risky move, either. All he wants is a few sales and for at least 30 people to have read his book, something to show that his pet project wasn't for naught.
He certainly isn't expecting a phone call.
"Hello?"
"Is this Leopold Fitz?"
He winces. "Just Fitz, please. Yes, that's me."
The voice on the other line toes the line between professional and casual. "I'm Phil Coulson. Have you checked the New York Times bestsellers list lately?"
Fitz's brow furrows even further, if possible, and he quickly sits down at his laptop, bewildered. "No. Should I be?" His fingers fly across the keyboard.
Number one. His book is number one on the list.
"I think you might need my assistance."
He nods numbly, forgetting that Mr. Coulson can't see him, but the voice chatters on and he tries his best to listen.
-----
to js, bm, lh
the ghosts of my past.
Jemma stares down at the dedication in the book that she's holding. Fitz's name is emblazoned at the bottom of the cover, seeming to burn a hole through her fingers. She knows that he means her and Bobbi and Lance and if the others have read it, they will know it, too.
She has been purposefully avoiding his book for weeks now. When she saw it on shelves, pushed toward the front of the store for its rave reviews and unwavering hold on the #1 best seller spot, she felt her heart leap into her throat before dropping somewhere in the vicinity of her stomach. Since he moved, they've written the occasional letter and made the even more rare phone call, but it's been several years since they've spoken and she tries to forget how hurt she is.
It becomes inevitable when all of her friends are raving about the book and she finally purchases it so she can figure out why everyone loves it so much.
The book pokes out from her bag as she drops it unceremoniously on the floor, nearly late for rehearsal. Kara raises an eyebrow at her, her gaze falling to the cover, and Jemma shrugs. Daisy and Lincoln are tuning up their guitars and Kara's electronic drumset is set up next to the keyboard where Jemma settles in. "I guess the easiest way to do this is for us to improv something? Because if it fails, we can forget this whole crazy idea of mine and go back to quartet stuff."
Lincoln grins, strumming an Em7 chord. "Challenge accepted."
As she predicted, it goes much better than what she had imagined and when they finally take a break fifteen minutes later. She pulls out a song and with cheeks flushed, starts playing chords. "I'll sing through this once and then maybe we can figure out backgrounds."
It is a fairly simple song, the lyrics scribbled on a sheet of notebook paper with chords written over it, but she embellishes where she feels it's needed. Kara is watching her, her mouth set into a thin line because she has correctly guessed who the song is about, and Jemma fights the urge to drop her gaze down to the book in her bag.
With each rehearsal, they find their sound and how much they can change it. They spend the better part of the next year playing covers and only sometimes developing one of Jemma's pieces. Lincoln graduates and though they make a big deal of it, he still chooses to stay near campus and work as a bartender to make ends meet, not sure what he wants to do. Kara starts buckling down in her studies and Jemma and Daisy feel as though they've settled in enough.
When they reach Jemma and Daisy's third year, they feel comfortable enough working solely on their own music. Some pieces they unanimously decide need quartet back-up, while others need the classic band set-up. They record 6 tracks in the practice rooms and Daisy mixes them, sitting at her laptop with the most obnoxiously large headphones Jemma has ever seen.
As soon as the EP is finished at the beginning of her final year of university, she sets up a Bandcamp account and uploads it, not expecting much to come from her little freshman year pet project. Daisy and Kara check the page more than she does--they're doing fairly well in sales, and Daisy even finds their music being shared on social media.
It takes another two weeks when Jemma notices that they might be going viral. Their sales skyrocket and their boring little Youtube page explodes with views. It's overwhelming, to say the least, and she tries to tamper down the fluttering feeling in her stomach at the thought of her music reaching such an audience.
Jemma wakes up one morning to find Lincoln out cold on their couch and she makes a face at the memory of trying to get an absolutely hammered Daisy home when a nearly as drunk Lincoln was stopping every few blocks to point out the most mundane objects. The light is already on in Kara's room and she smiles knowing that at least one of her flatmates will be coherent.
She drops down into the one-seater, freshly showered with her hair still wrapped in a towel, her laptop in one hand and a bagel in the other, trying to get as much work done as she can before the flat erupts into chaos as it usually does when all four of them are present. Kara comes in and out from her room, trying to keep quiet, though Jemma sees the rising irritation in her eyes.
Daisy stumbles out of her room at five past ten, looking entirely too disoriented, her headache subsiding enough to collapse on top of the lump under the blankets on the couch that is supposed to be Lincoln. He makes a noise but doesn't move, and Daisy seems to fall asleep a few minutes later. Jemma shakes her head.
At nearly one in the afternoon, Kara walks into the bathroom, the sound of running water from the bathtub echoing against the tiles, walking out a few minutes later with a bucket that must be only halfway filled if the sound of sloshing is anything to go by, and before Jemma can even ask what she's doing, Kara dumps the cold water over the couch.
"AHHHH!"
"WHAT THE HELL, KARA?!"
Kara gives a smug grin and gives a small bow in Jemma's direction before retreating to her room. Jemma is laughing too hard to respond when her mobile starts ringing. She has been expecting this call after the emails that she sent a month ago and she has to pause to take a few deep breaths before she gets up from the seat and moves toward her room.
"Hello?"
"Hi, this is Anne Weaver. Is this Jemma Simmons?"
Her heartbeat is thrumming in her ears. "Hi, yes it is."
"I'm calling because of your inquiry regarding representation. I put a few feelers out there and there are several studios interested in signing SOLAR, if you're looking."
When the call is over, she runs out shrieking into the front room.
"Holy shit, Jemma, I didn't even know you could make a noise like that," Kara exclaims from her doorway.
Daisy and Lincoln are glaring daggers at her, or would be if they weren't trying to recover from the cold water incident. Jemma is smiling so hard that her cheeks hurt.
"WE'RE. GETTING. SIGNED."
There is a moment of the strangest silence that she has ever experienced, particularly when surrounded by these three, and before she can acknowledge it, it is ruined by the shouts that follow.