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He is laying in his bed, trying to look asleep but unable to sleep a wink, purposefully not looking at Jemma The Second, who is sitting in his desk chair, not even pretending to act like a regular human being would. He knows she is not real, he knows, but would it kill her to at least pretend for his sake?
(Let him answer that for you: No, it wouldn’t, because she is not real.)
Lately she has been coming and going all the time, spending less and less time with him; she believes it’s a good sign, that he is finally being able to exteriorize his feelings and his thoughts in a way she considers more healthy, and Fitz is pretty sure that if it weren’t because he misses her- The Real Jemma, not her- so damn much, she would have vanished by now.
The minutes trickle down his back, and maybe only a handful have passed, but Fitz feels like this is a quarrel that has lasted for all eternity when he tosses the covers aside and turns to glare at her.
“Why are you so obsessed with Mack anyway?”
He goes straight for the throat, because he doesn’t need to ask to know which is the lingering issue between them. Jemma The Second- yes, he feels the need to call her that even inside his head, especially inside his head, because he needs to make the distinction as clear as possible- tilts her head, considering him.
“I don’t know, why are you?”
“I am not!”
Jemma The Second rolls her eyes.
“Then why can’t you sleep?”
“Because you wouldn’t stop looking at me! It is, um,” snap, “it is,” snap, he can't find the word and she doesn't provide it, so he goes for a poorly-crafted synonym “non, non-polite to stare at people in the dark!”
“Well, we have long established that I’m your subconscious, so if I won’t let you sleep maybe it is because you won’t let yourself sleep.”
He would like to argue with that, say that she can't exactly be his subconscious, because other people don’t have almost-corporeal representations of their best-friends as their subconscious. Or at least he thinks they don’t. He rubs his hands down his face, too sleep-deprived and tired for this.
“Bloody hell, Simmons.”
She keeps looking at him when he opens back his eyes, and the supportiveness and the openness are all Jemma, The Real Jemma, but the sheer calculation on her face is not.
“Don’t you have a comeback for that?”
“Why would I? It’s not like I need to win this argument. It would be like winning an argument with your-.”
“Okay. What do you want to talk about?” He would rather talk about this than listen to her speak about herself being a part of him again; the fact that it’s true doesn’t make it less unnerving. “It was just a casual observation, it doesn’t mean anything, we already established that.”
She blinks and blinks and blinks, and shows no other emotion on her face, and it makes Fitz’s skin creep.
“What are you so scared about, Fitz?”
“Scar-, what-, I’m not scared!”
Jemma The Second does a little skeptical grimace with her mouth that is one hundred percent The Real Jemma, and Fitz just wishes his brain were as good at remembering nouns as it is at remembering her.
“Please. Why else would you refuse to talk something over with me? ”
He doesn’t know if that tone means with me, your best friend or with me, your subconscious, but he lets it slide anyway. He got bigger fish to fry.
“Because there is nothing to discuss.”
“If there is nothing to discuss, what makes you so uncomfortable?”
He splutters, outraged. Jesus Christ, what’s the use of having an imaginary friend if she is going to harp on him so damn much?
“I’m not! It was just a, a simple observation. There is no need to blow it out of, out of-” He snaps his fingers, anxious, and looks at her pointedly until she supplies the word he is missing. “Out of proportion, yes, thank you.” She keeps looking at him, and her silence makes him feel inadequate. “I am a man, and I fancy women. Well, one woman. Women!”
He does not talk about his attraction to The Real Jemma with Jemma The Second, because it feels like pushing a boundary that shouldn’t be pushed. He tries to have in mind all the time that it’s not her, but it’s hard sometimes, and he would rather not give himself misguided expectations.
“Nobody denied that, Fitz.”
“Then why won’t you drop it?” His voice makes it sound and feel more like a plea than an actual question, and Fitz looks down at his trembling hands. Fuck, he can not lose control this easily. He tries to focus on getting the shaking to subside, hoping that a tighter grasp on his body would also push the flashes of his father further back on his mind.
“Do you want me to drop it?”
There is the obvious answer, that is, yes, of course. But at the same time, she said it herself: there are reasons why she wouldn’t drop the subject, and maybe it’s because twenty-seven years means that he has been ignoring this line of thinking for one day too many.
“Does it, does it, m-matter either way?” He is careful that his wording encodes only a tacit agreement, and nothing else. He is not ready for more; he knows there are things he is hiding, but he is not sure what those things actually are.
“Why wouldn’t it matter?”
“Since I, I… you know.”
He doesn’t say that he loves her; he didn’t say it to her face, he will not say it to this namesake he is conjuring.
“Since you are in love with her? Well, first of all, because you might not always be in love with her.”
He inhales and exhales, and tries to think of a universe where that might be true.
“Doesn’t feel likely.”
“No. But it could happen. And even if it didn’t… Fitz, this is about you. This is about your identity. Why would you let Simmons define you? You are the only one who can define yourself.”
That’s a The Real Jemma kind of answer, and just to distract himself from his eyes welling up, he wonders if maybe he should discuss it with her, the real her, in a time and place where he has not utterly ruined everything, if such time and place could ever exist again. Jemma The Second moves swiftly to sit down next to him on the bed, and puts the usual hand on his shoulder, and even though he feels like he's being punched in the gut, he doesn’t ask her to move.
“Not everything in your life is about her, nor should it be.”
It’s a statement that sometimes he wishes someone would say to him, someone made of flesh and bones, someone not made out of thin air from bitter regrets and loneliness and just the necessary amount of imbalance in brain chemicals. Of course, that way of thinking brings him back to Mack, and without knowing exactly why Fitz dips his face in his hands and allows himself to cry.