Chapter Text
There are many possible reactions a person can have to being told they are capable of time travel. Leopold James Fitz, on being sat down by his mother on his twenty-first birthday and told just that, experienced many of these reactions in a very short space of time.
First, he had stared at her, before bursting out laughing. Then, upon realising that she wasn’t laughing with him, he had felt a rush of panic and begun to worry that she had lost all of her remaining marbles instead. It was only after he had begrudgingly shut himself in the cupboard under the stairs – light off, fists clenched: as per Andrea Fitz’s instructions – and found himself transported back to the day before that Fitz came to understand that she was telling the truth.
He had travelled back to the present, opened the door, and said the only thing he could think of to say.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’
Over the next few years, Fitz experiments tentatively. As much as his mother had been able to explain to him about how their family’s gift of time travel worked, she had been decidedly less helpful in explaining what he was supposed to use it for. And so, he feels obliged to try and figure it out for himself.
He trials it sparingly – suspicious of paradoxes, the butterfly effect, and his own judgement. And each time he uses it, Fitz notes glumly that he always ends up exactly where he’d started, or even worse off than he had been at the beginning. No matter how hard he tries, it always feels like time is pushing him in a certain direction and there is never anything he can do to change its course.
After a particularly disastrous attempt at travelling through time, Fitz makes a decision. Figurately, he shelves his ability, imagining it stacked behind the marmite jar in his kitchen cupboard until an opportunity arose when he might need to use it.
At the time, Fitz is tempted to believe that this might never come.
~
21st February, 7:26pm
‘You mean to tell me that all the waiters in this place are blind?’
Following half a stride behind Trip on their way to the restaurant, Fitz begins to wonder whether he had made a mistake agreeing to go out with his old university friend tonight. It’s a bitterly cold London evening, and he thinks rather wistfully of his sofa at home, where he could be right now listening to his flatmate Hunter recite the latest lines of his next play.
Not that that was particularly riveting, mind you, but at least he’d be in the warm.
Trip turns back to him with a grin. ‘Yeah, that’s the whole point of the place! The waiters are blind, we eat in the dark. Makes the food taste better, apparently.’
‘I can taste my food perfectly well in daylight,’ Fitz mutters, before Trip claps him on the shoulder.
‘Come on, Fitz. Live a little!’
Fitz braces himself for complete darkness the moment they enter the restaurant, but the reception is atmospherically lit with candles, presumably for adjustment. The front of house approaches them and smiles, before inviting Trip to place his hand on their waiter’s shoulder so he can lead them to their table. Resting his hand on his friend’s shoulder in turn, Fitz strains his eyes against the darkness as the waiter leads them down a flight of steps and into the main restaurant, tapping his stick in front of him as he goes.
‘If I may,’ the waiter tells them, ‘I will seat you beside these two young ladies, gentlemen. We are rather full tonight, and I can only hope neither of your parties will mind?’
‘Oh, absolutely not,’ Trip says, and Fitz almost falls flat on his face as his friend ducks out from in front of him to take his seat.
‘Come back to me at the end of the meal,’ Fitz hears a female voice quip from the other side of the table. ‘And I’ll let you know then.’
The waiter guides him to his own chair and Fitz spreads out his arms as he sits, hoping to find the table amid the darkness. He finds its angular corners easily enough, but as he feels along the surface for his napkin, his fingers touch someone else’s hand, warm and soft.
‘Oh!’
Fitz pulls his hand back quickly, hearing the gasp from the person on his right.
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘I, uh, didn’t realise you were so close.’
There is a laugh, and a rustle of skirts.
‘That’s alright, I feel like there might be a bit more fumbling before the night is out.’ His companion pauses before adding hastily: ‘because it’s so dark, I mean.’
‘Oh! Yes.’ Suddenly, Fitz is grateful for the darkness, because it means she can’t see how deeply red he has flushed. ‘Um, yes. It is very dark.’
(Across the table, he swears he hears Trip.)
‘I was actually looking for my wine,’ the girl says apologetically, and Fitz hears a chink of metal against glass. ‘I don’t suppose you can feel it anywhere…?’
‘Oh…um…’
Tentatively reaching out his hand again, Fitz feels his way to the table and over his plate. His fingers touch the cool base of a wine flute and he catches it up.
‘Is this it?’
He waits, holding it in mid-air until he feels her find it.
‘It is! Thank you.’
‘No worries.’ Fitz rubs his hands against his thighs, before remembering why he had been fumbling in the dark in the first place. ‘I, ah… I don’t suppose you have my napkin over there, do you?’
He hears her chuckle, and for some reason the sound goes straight to his heart.
‘Here.’
She presses it into his hand, and this time Fitz doesn’t flinch away at the touch of her fingers.
8:44pm
Over the meal, he learns that his dinner companion’s name is Jemma, that she thinks every joke he makes is hilarious, and that it is possible to start to fall in love over a roast chicken breast in a blacked-out restaurant.
‘Rather bizarre, isn’t it?’ Jemma says to him once their desserts are served. ‘I know exactly what strawberry cheesecake looks like, but because I can’t see it directly in front of me my perception gets muddled.’
Fitz hears the scraping of her fork against the plate.
‘The image in my head of what I’m eating rather resembles a Monet, as opposed to what I know cheesecake looks like.’
Fitz snorts, digging his spoon into his sundae dish. ‘Do you like Monet?’
‘I love Monet.’ Jemma sighs. ‘If I had my way, the entire world would look like one of his paintings.’ She nudges his shoulder playfully. ‘Can I try yours?’
Taking a mouthful of ice cream onto his spoon, Fitz frowns.
‘Wait, where are you?’
‘Fitz, I’m here…Oh!’
‘Oh no! What was that?’
‘My cheek…’
‘Jemma, I’m so sorry…’
‘No, it’s alright…I’ve got it…’
Fitz imagines her using her fingertip to wipe up the ice cream before tasting it, and a shiver runs down his spine.
‘Mmm…that’s delicious.’
9:26pm
Once their desserts are finished, the waiter asks Fitz and Trip out to pay first. As Fitz stands, rather reluctantly, to leave, he feels a hand tug at his jacket.
‘Maybe…’ He hears the hesitation, and then the hope, in Jemma’s voice. ‘Would you mind waiting outside? Until we come out?’
‘Yeah.’ He answers too quickly, but he is too relieved and too elated to care. ‘Yeah, we’ll wait outside.’
As they emerge from the dining room, Fitz can’t tell whether it is his eyes or his heart that is most disorientated. Somehow, he manages to pay for his food before falling out of the door after Trip, both of them rather dazed.
Standing on the cobbled street outside the restaurant, Trip stands with his leather jacket wide open while Fitz blows on his hands to warm himself up.
‘So,’ Trip says, glancing at him from the corner of his eye. ‘Nice girls, huh?’
‘Nice girls,’ Fitz murmurs in agreement, before hearing the click of the latch behind him and spinning around with his heart in his mouth.
A tall, blonde woman in staggeringly high heels walks out first and when she speaks with an American accent it is with more than a twinge of relief that Fitz realises that this is Bobbi, and not Jemma.
‘Could either of you gentlemen tell me the best place to order a cab?’
Despite addressing both of them, Bobbi clearly directs the question to Trip, whilst flashing a quick, knowing smile in Fitz’s direction. Trip jerks a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the nearest taxi rank.
‘Although, I’ll tell you what…’ he says, as Bobbi steps down to join him, ‘I think I’ll escort you.’
They leave over the cobbles together, almost conspiratorially, and Fitz has just enough time to direct his attention back to the restaurant entrance before another figure appears in the doorway and his breath catches in his throat.
This, he knows without a shadow of a doubt, is Jemma.
She closes the door behind her and walks across the pavement to him. In her slight heels, she is almost his height and as she stands toe to toe in front of him Fitz notices that she has a smattering of freckles over the bridge of her nose. When she smiles nervously up at him, they crease.
‘Hi.’
‘Hi.’
‘It’s nice to…’ Fitz gestures vaguely at her, before instantly regretting the gesture, ‘…see you.’
Jemma purses her lips together as though she is trying not to laugh, but Fitz watches her smile falter as their eyes meet. Her gaze softens, and he thinks his legs might give way underneath him.
‘Likewise,’ she says thoughtfully, before looking up and blinking. ‘Where did Bobbi-?’
‘Oh!’ Spinning on his heels, Fitz points up the road. ‘Uh, she and Trip went to find a taxi for you two.’
‘Ah.’ Jemma nods, with what might have been a flicker of disappointment. ‘In which case, I suppose I had better follow her…’
She lingers for a moment, and, realises that it will be now or never, Fitz takes a deep breath.
‘Would it terribly wrong if I asked for your number-‘
‘You can say no, of course, but could I possibly ask for your-‘
They both speak at exactly the same time, before breaking off with matching embarrassed laughs.
‘Here,’ Jemma holds out her phone to him with a quiet smile. ‘Put your number in. And if you give me yours, I’ll give you mine. Then, maybe you could text me tomorrow? And we could come up with a time and place to meet again?’
‘Yeah.’ Fitz feels himself grin. ‘That sounds perfect.’
With fumbling fingers, he taps his details into her screen, before passing his own phone to Jemma. He watches as she types in both her name and number, her brow furrowed with concentration as she does so and her shoulder-length brown curls falling across her face. It takes Fitz by surprise quite how much he wants to reach forward and brush them out of her way.
Once she has finished, she holds his phone out for him and he takes it, tucking it carefully back in his jacket pocket.
‘It’s a terrible phone,’ he says apologetically. ‘Awful battery, cracks across the screen. But suddenly, it’s my most treasured possession.’
A slow smile spreads across Jemma’s face, and when she looks up at him her eyes are shining.
‘Goodnight, Fitz.’
Taking a step forward, she lifts herself onto her tiptoes to kiss his cheek before walking away, glancing back over her shoulder just once to give him a final smile.
Fitz stands rooted to the spot, watching her until she is out of sight. On his cheek, the skin where her lips had touched is still tingling.
‘Goodnight, Jemma.’
22nd February, 8:15am
The next morning, Fitz practically skips into the kitchen of the flat he shares with Hunter, cheerfully avoiding at least three empty cereal packets on his way to the sink.
‘You alright, Hunter?’
He receives only a despaired groan in return, and turns around to find his friend slumped at the kitchen table surrounded by open sheets of the morning’s newspapers and pools of milk. He has a pair of large sunglasses perched on his nose and is nursing an overflowing bowl of Frosties.
Shaking his head, Fitz makes two cups of tea and carries the mugs over to the table. Setting one down in front of Hunter, he gives him a sympathetic look.
‘How was it?’
Pushing the glasses up onto the bridge of his nose, Hunter shoves a few of the papers at him. Straightening out the broadsheets, Fitz sees that they are all open to the reviews of his flatmate’s play, that had opened the night before. He skim reads one, before flicking to another, feeling his mouth run dry as he struggles to find a positive word in any of them.
‘Oh, no.’
‘Oh, yes.’
Reaching the end of the reviews, Fitz gulps. ‘I, uh, take it that it didn’t go so well then.’
‘Didn’t go so well?’ Hunter repeats, before pulling off his sunglasses to glare at him. ‘It was a bloody disaster, mate. I don’t think you can call it anything else, not when your lead actor forgets his bloody lines in the first bloody scene of the play!’
‘No, I suppose not.’ Fitz can feel his mind ticking, like the seconds on a clock. ‘What about the second showing? That’s tonight, isn’t it?’
Hunter snorts. ‘Too late now, isn’t it? The word’s out. People aren’t about to come and spend their money to watch some poor bugger stand on a stage in silence for an hour.’ He sighs and lifts his mug of tea to his lips, downing half its contents in one gulp. ‘Last night was my last, and only, chance. And there’s no bloody way of getting it back now.’
Knowing exactly what he has to do, Fitz pushes his chair out from under him.
‘Stay here,’ he says, ‘I’ll fix this.’
Leaving Hunter staring after him, and before he can ask him exactly how he intended to fix it, Fitz hurries to his bedroom. As he shuts the door behind him and pulls the curtains closed, he sees his phone light up on his bed. Glancing over, Fitz feels his heart jump when he sees that the message is from Jemma.
Steeling himself, he takes a deep breath and closes his hands into fists.
He’ll text her just as soon as he gets back from yesterday night.
21st February, 11:52pm
It takes Fitz three attempts to make sure Hunter’s play runs smoothly.
On his first, he suggests to the wrong actor that he refresh himself on the lines before taking to the stage. On his second, he finds the right actor, but the stubborn man evidently refused to take his advice and ended up tongue tied in front of the audience after all.
On his third try, Fitz decides to leave nothing to chance. As soon as the curtain comes up, he tells Hunter he needs the bathroom and edges out of his seat, before sprinting backstage to collect the cue cards he’d made. When the lead actor inevitably goes blank, it only takes a well-aimed Skittle to his head to get his attention and show him the lines he needs to deliver.
Much to Fitz’s relief, the rest of the play goes without a hitch and when he catches up with Hunter at the after-party, his friend has a beer in his hand and is in much higher spirits.
‘Six reviewers!’ He tells him, slapping him hard across the back. ‘All wanting interviews for tomorrow’s papers. How’s that for an opening night, eh?’
Fitz grins, trying to not let on how much the thump had hurt. ‘I guess you’d consider this to have been a success then?’
‘Success,’ Hunter claims dramatically, ‘is an understatement.’ He takes a swig of his beer and then frowns. ‘Although you missed quite a lot of it, mate. Everything alright?’
Remembering that Hunter thought he had been in the toilets for half the performance, Fitz thinks quickly. ‘Oh, yeah. Just, uh…had a dodgy kebab for lunch.’
The ease with which Hunter nods understandingly at the lie tells Fitz that they really need to find a better takeaway.
When the reviewers start to crowd them at the bar he takes his leave, nodding at Hunter before he goes, and slips his phone out from his jacket pocket. Maybe, he thinks absently as he scrolls through his messages, he’d get a chance to see the play the whole way through sometime. He wonders whether Jemma likes the theatre…
Her text doesn’t come up in his messages and Fitz frowns, sinking onto a nearby chair. Switching to his contacts, he types the letter ‘J’ into the search bar, but when her name doesn’t come up there either he starts to panic.
It takes him an embarrassingly long time to realise what has happened. He’d travelled back in time; Jemma’s number had never been in his phone and, when Fitz glances at his watch to see that it has gone midnight, he knows that it never would be. Even if he ran across the city to the restaurant now, she and Bobbi would be long gone by the time he got there.
With a frustrated moan, Fitz drops his phone onto his lap and, not for the first time, curses his family gift.
He might have helped Hunter, but in doing so he’d let something that could have been incredible slip right through his fingers.
15th March, 6:48pm
Over the next few weeks, Fitz tries to forget all about Jemma and the night they’d never actually spent together after all. He goes to work, comes home, listens to whatever snippets of dialogue Hunter had written that day, and then he goes to bed.
But it’s no good.
As he is lying there, staring up at the ceiling and waiting to fall asleep, all that he can think about is the way her eyes had twinkled when she’d laughed, the way she’d touched his hand in the dark room, and the way that three hours with her had started to feel like home.
He tries not to let his disappointment show too much, but it is difficult, especially when Hunter is still so smug over the acclaim of his play.
‘Oi!’ Over dinner one night, about three weeks after he and Jemma had not gone for dinner, Fitz gets another review waved in his shepherd’s pie. ‘Can I read you this one?’
Knowing that Hunter is going to read it to him whatever he says, Fitz groans. ‘No.’
‘According to this wanker,’ Hunter says, reading off the newspaper excitedly, ‘you’re living with the best playwriting talent Britain has produced in a decade!’
With a scoff, Fitz pulls his attention away from his dinner plate and is about to shove the broadsheet back into Hunter’s face when an advert on the back of the paper catches his eye. It is for a new exhibit down at the National Gallery opening the next day, utterly exclusive and there for a week only. The painter being exhibited, Fitz reads with a thumping heart, is Monet.
‘That’s fantastic,’ he mumbles.
‘Too right it is!’ Hunter sounds delighted as he rips the review out of the newspaper before tossing the discarded sheets onto the floor. ‘And about bloody time somebody noticed, if you ask me…Fitz? What are you doing?’
While he had been speaking, Fitz had gotten clumsily to his feet, his head spinning with ideas.
‘I…I have to plan. I’ve got to take a week’s holiday from work, figure out a shift schedule. I’ll have to ask Daisy down, she won’t mind. Oh, and provisions! I’ll need flasks of tea, energy bars, sandwiches…’
‘Fitz, mate.’ Hunter has put down his knife and fork, and is staring up at him utterly baffled. ‘What the bloody hell are you talking about?’
With a giddy laugh, Fitz reaches out to pluck the play review from his hands.
‘She loves Monet!’ he tells him, before hurrying out of the room and leaving Hunter staring after him once more.
16th March, 9:00am
Inside the exhibition hall at the National Gallery, Fitz finds a reasonably comfortable bench with a full view of the visitor’s entrance to make his base for the week. From the information desk, he purchases two unlimited passes to the exhibition, one of which he tucks into his wallet and the other he gives to his adopted sister, Daisy.
He had texted her the night before, giving the barest minimum of details: in love. need help. staking out impressionist paintings all week. fancy it? x. He had never received a text back, only a phone call at 6am the next morning, informing him that she’d gotten the overnight train down from Glasgow, that she was waiting at Euston station, and could he come and pick her up, please?
As Fitz had driven them both back to the flat at 6:49am, Daisy snoring on the backseat behind him, he had thought with a yawn that there was no one in the world better than his little sister.
‘Thanks.’ Daisy tucks her ticket safely into her bra and settles back on the bench. ‘Do you really think we’ll be here all week?’
‘Uh, maybe.’ Fitz scratches at his cheek. ‘She might not be able to get out of work until Friday, so I figured it was best to be prepared. Thanks for doing this for me, though.’
‘Hey, no problem. You fall in love about once a century, so I figured the least I could do was play Cupid and help your heart along.’
A swarm of people enter the exhibit, and Fitz sits up a little straighter, scanning their faces. There are several women in the group, but none of them have Jemma’s eyes, hair, or smile. Disappointed, and annoyed with himself for thinking it would be that easy, he slumps back down again.
‘Speaking of love,’ he turns to Daisy. ‘How’s Miles?’
At the mention of her boyfriend, his sister rolls her eyes. ‘Dumped me, again.’
‘Bastard.’
‘Yeah.’ Daisy screws the cap off his flask and pulls a face when she realises it contains only tea. ‘He’s going to ask me out again soon, though.’
Turning his head to look at her, Fitz frowns. ‘What, and you’re going to say yes?’
Daisy gives him a pointed look and reaches out one hand to the top of his head. Slowly, she turns him away from her so that he is facing the door again.
‘Eyes on your own prize, dingbat.’
18th March, 1:34pm
Monday and Tuesday pass uneventfully. Daisy plugs in her headphones and listens to audiobooks with her feet swung onto his lap, while Fitz fidgets with his hands, eyes forever on the doorway. Hundreds of people pass through the doors each day, and his disappointment grows every time that none of them is Jemma.
It is on Wednesday that his luck finally changes. He and Daisy have just finished eating lunch, a laborious process which involved multiple discreet ducking of heads to their bags to take bites from their sandwiches, all without the security guard noticing. It takes about an hour for them both to eat their Tesco meal deals and when Fitz looks up again, licking mayonnaise off his fingers, his heart drops to his stomach.
He has no way of telling quite when Jemma had arrived or how long she’d been there, but, frankly, that didn’t matter at all. All that mattered was that she was here, and that the universe had given him a second chance.
Fitz doesn’t realise that he’s jumped to his feet until Daisy appears at his shoulder.
‘Is that her?’
He nods, incapable of words, as he watches Jemma approach a painting. The look on her face as she stares up at it is full of excitement, passion and awe; somehow, it makes her look even more beautiful than he remembered.
‘Well, then go!’
Daisy gives him a gentle shove in the shoulder, and when Fitz glances back at her she is grinning from ear to ear. Giving her a dazed smile in return, he takes a deep breath and steps towards Jemma.
She turns away from the painting before he can reach her, and Fitz follows her into the next gallery. Despite the way his every nerve is tingling with anticipation, he finds himself strangely reluctant to disturb her. There is something so endearing about the way Jemma is regarding the paintings, as if she is trying to absorb every aspect and commit it to memory, which makes part of him want to keep on watching her.
Eventually though, he musters up the courage to reach out and tap her on the shoulder.
Jemma turns around, and she blinks at him before smiling pleasantly.
‘Oh! Hello.’
‘Hi.’ Fitz breathes out the word, feeling himself start to grin involuntarily. ‘It’s so great to see you again.’
The smile on Jemma’s face doesn’t falter, but she tilts her head at him in puzzlement. ‘That’s very kind of you to say…but I don’t believe we’ve ever met before.’
‘Oh.’ Fitz’s jaw drops as the realisation that, for her, they haven’t hits him like a ton of bricks. ‘Oh, no.’
For one, horrible moment, they stare at each other wordlessly until Jemma reaches out a hand with a sympathetic look to pat his shoulder.
‘I’m afraid you must have mistaken me for someone else.’
‘Yes,’ Fitz says dumbly, ‘I’m afraid I must’ve.’
With a last, uncertain smile, Jemma steps away from him and into the next room. Fitz’s body starts to move of its own accord, and he shuffles back into the main gallery feeling like he has just been slapped in the face.
Daisy is waiting for him when he gets back to the bench, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
‘Well? How did it go?’
‘Bad.’ Fitz groans, running both his hands down his face. ‘Really bad.’
‘Oh, crap.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Really bad?’
‘Really, really bad.’
‘Oh, crap.’
Fitz can’t believe it. He almost wants to laugh; a gurgle rises in his throat and he chokes it down. The universe had given him a second chance and he’d managed to blow it, once again.
Daisy exhales slowly, before pursing her lips and fixing him with a determined stare. ‘Then we’ll try again.’
‘Wait, what?’
Daisy doesn’t answer him. Instead, she dives down to collects their bags, throws his rucksack onto his shoulder, then places both hands firmly on his back and starts to steer him through the gallery.
They pass the room where his disastrous second first-meeting with Jemma had happened and into the next, where Fitz recognises Bobbi instantly, her blonde head bowed over Jemma’s darker one as they stand together next to a set of paintings. Before he has a chance to process what is about to happen, Daisy had positioned them both right behind the two girls before clearing her throat pointedly.
Jemma and Bobbi both turn to face them, and Fitz feels his heart skip a beat at the smile that flickers over Jemma’s face as she recognises him.
‘Hi,’ he says for the second time.
She chuckles softly. ‘Hello, again.’
Next to her, Bobbi looks stumped. ‘I’m sorry, do you two know each other?’
‘Not really, no,’ Jemma answers, and Fitz notices the curiosity with which she is regarding him. ‘We’ve never met before.’
‘Yeah,’ he croaks, before quickly clearing his throat. ‘We, uh, ran into each other in the other room.’
‘Which,’ Daisy interjects, popping her head around his back and waving at the girls, ‘I guess means you two kind of do know each other after all.’
Jemma laughs politely, but Bobbi isn’t quite convinced. ‘Wait, aren’t you the guys that the person on front desk told me about? The two weirdoes who bought weekly passes and have been here all day, every day since the exhibit opened?’
‘No,’ Fitz lies, at the same exact moment that Daisy says, ‘yes.’
He shoots her a glare, before hastily amending: ‘I mean…yes, that’s us. But I wouldn’t say we’re weirdoes, not exactly, I just…’
Hesitating, he glances up at Jemma’s expectant face and gulps.
‘I just really, really like Monet.’
‘Oh, brother,’ Bobbi mutters, as Jemma’s eyes light up beside her.
‘Really?’
‘Uh, yeah.’ Glancing around him wildly for something suitable to say, Fitz gestures to the pictures on the walls. ‘I just love the way he uses his, uh…paint.’
Behind him, he hears Daisy slap her palm against her forehead, but Jemma doesn’t seem to notice as she takes a step closer to him, eagerly.
‘You know, it’s his use of colour that always takes me so by surprise. Wouldn’t you agree that that’s really what makes all the impressionists stand out, especially in a world that was becoming so permeated by photographic art, that they were able to create a snapshot of such ordinary life and infuse it with such extraordinary colour?’
‘Um…’
Fitz is saved from having to respond to her passionate outpour by Daisy, who interrupts again with an apologetic grimace.
‘Listen, the thing is, I really have to go and I promised my brother here that I’d stay with him until we’d seen the whole exhibition. Is it okay if he comes along with you guys?’
‘Of course it is!’ Jemma gushes, before glancing up at Bobbi. ‘I mean, it is, isn’t it?’
Bobbi sighs, before nodding at Fitz begrudgingly. ‘You’re kind of cute, and seeing as you’re not a weirdo, sure. I don’t see why not.’
‘Perfect!’ Fitz screws up his face, as Daisy grabs him and kisses his cheek enthusiastically. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to see a man about getting a refund for a mistakenly purchased weekly pass.’
She drifts off, and Jemma tucks her arm into Fitz’s contentedly. ‘Now, we’ve already seen the early works room, since that was where we first met. So, if we just consult the map, it’ll tell us where we need to go next…’
As she leads him off into the next part of the gallery, Fitz twists his head around to watch Daisy leave. His sister has half a cereal bar in her mouth as she makes for the exit, and as she catches his eye he manages to mouth: thank you.
Daisy winks at him, before flashing two thumbs up and disappearing out the door.
4:04pm
They end up in the Gallery café, once Fitz’s stomach starts grumbling as they pass the Holbein’s. He flushes red to the tips of his ears but Jemma only laughs, before gently turning him in the direction of the café.
He agrees to share a strawberry scone with her, and takes charge of the teapot to pour them both out a cup while Bobbi settles back in a chair with her latte.
‘Mmm.’ Jemma closes her eyes as she takes a bite of the scone. ‘That’s so delicious. I love strawberry.’
‘Me too.’ Having already polished off his half of the treat, Fitz brushes the crumbs from his fingers and glances sideways at her. ‘You know, whenever I’m in a restaurant, strawberry cheesecake is always my desert of choice.’
‘Is it really?’
‘Yeah.’ Feeling a pang of satisfaction at the stunned look on her face, Fitz sits up a little straighter. ‘It is.’
‘Huh.’ Jemma appears to consider this information, before lifting her cup to her lips with a smug smile. ‘Personally, I’d always go for ice cream.’
Fitz is almost about to laugh out loud, when Jemma’s phone buzzes on the end of the table. Bobbi leans forward expectantly.
‘Is it him?’
Checking the screen, Jemma sighs. ‘Yes, it’s him. He’s heading over now.’
With the stirrings of uneasiness starting in his gut, Fitz swallows hard. ‘Who is it?’
Jemma turns to him and gives a slight roll of her eyes. ‘Just my boyfriend.’
Boyfriend.
The word turns the blood in Fitz’s veins to ice, and he has to put his cup and saucer back down on the table.
Boyfriend.
As Jemma and Bobbi discuss the quickest way for him to get to them, Fitz sits in silence with his stomach churning as he tries to figure out how the hell this had happened. He is fairly sure Jemma had not mentioned having a boyfriend the first time they had met; after all, she had asked for his number and willingly given him hers. And he can’t believe that she is the type of person to cheat on somebody else, she simply couldn’t be.
He taps tentatively at Jemma’s shoulder and she turns to him with one eyebrow raised.
‘So, uh…have the two of you been together long?’
‘Oh, not long at all. Actually, I don’t even think it’s been a fortnight yet.’ Jemma leans towards him conspiratorially, and Fitz can smell the perfume on her skin. ‘He seems to think he’s in it for the long run, but between you and me…he’s a bit boring.’
She chuckles, and Fitz laughs unconvincingly, his head still spinning.
This, he decides, must be what was known as a cruel twist of fate. He had, quite unbelievably, been given a second chance with the most incredible person he’d ever met – and he’d met her twice, now – and yet he was still too late for their timing to be right.
It takes far too long for the realisation to dawn on him, but when it does Fitz could kick himself for being so slow. The universe, he thinks with a rush of adrenaline, could take a long walk off a short plank. From here on out, he was making his own fate.
‘Where did it happen, then?’ he asks, feeling his foot start to tap on the floor.
Jemma looks a little bemused at the bluntness of his question but obliges: ‘oh, at Bobbi’s flat. She was holding one of her ghastly parties…’
‘Hey! My parties,’ Bobbi interrupts indignantly, ‘are the exact opposite of ghastly.’
‘It was ghastly,’ Jemma says decisively to him.
‘Okay, but where exactly was this party being held?’
Bobbi pulls a face. ‘Why is it so important to you to know?’
Seeing the map of the Monet exhibit lying on the table, Fitz thinks on his feet.
‘It’s just that whenever I’m told a story, I like to really imagine it. I like to create a snapshot of it, you know?’ He glances over at Jemma. ‘I like to paint an impressionist painting in my mind.’
She nods, emphatically, and looks beseechingly at Bobbi. ‘Oh, what harm can there be in telling him?’
Bobbi throws up her hands in defeat and gives him her address. ‘And it started at eight,’ she adds, ‘in case that helps you imagine what colour the sky was, or whatever.’
‘It does help,’ Fitz says, sincerely. ‘Thank you. And, Jemma, what time did you get there?’
‘I was there all afternoon, helping set up.’
‘And your…’ Fitz stumbles over the word. ‘Boyfriend?’
Jemma snorts. ‘He was late, as usual. What he would call fashionably late, but I would call rude. I told him so; in fact, our first conversation was when-‘
She stops, as Fitz stands abruptly and takes a ten pound note out of his pocket and tucks it under his cup.
‘I’m afraid,’ he says apologetically, ‘you’ll have to excuse me, ladies, because I have to leave. Immediately. Right now.’
‘Oh.’ Jemma’s face falls, and she starts to scramble for her handbag. ‘Well, let me find a pen and we can swap numbers, maybe go for coffee sometime…’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ Fitz assures her. Crouching down so they are face to face, he looks into her eyes and smiles. ‘Trust me, Jemma. I’ll find you.’
For a moment, Fitz thinks he sees a flicker of recognition cross her face, but then she laughs.
‘It’s only because I like you, Fitz, that I don’t find that creepy at all.’
Fitz grins, raising his hand to both of them in farewell. ‘That works for me.’
Their table in the café had been next to an empty archway leading into a dark, cordoned-off room, and it is into this that Fitz ducks to prepare himself to time-travel.
‘Do you think he knows,’ he hears Bobbi’s voice drift around the corner, ‘that he just marched into an empty conference room?’
‘Hmm.’ Jemma gives a concerned hum. ‘I’m sure he’ll come back if he can’t find a way out.’
‘I’m not sure I entirely agree that he’s not a weirdo,’ Bobbi decides, ‘but I liked him, in the end. He was cute.’
‘Yeah,’ Fitz hears Jemma say, almost to herself. He might be imagining it, but he is fairly sure he can hear her smile. ‘He really was.’
Bracing his back against the wall, Fitz tucks his fingers into fists and waits.
5th March, 8:02pm
Bobbi’s house is exactly what he’d expected – sleek, modern, and fill to bursting with people. As he squeezes his way through the front room, Fitz wonders how the hell he is supposed to find Jemma when all the guests here are at least a head taller than him.
He turns around, and finds himself face to face with Bobbi herself.
‘Uh, hi,’ Fitz mutters, holding out the wine he’d brought as a gift.
Bobbi gives him a strange look as she takes the bottle. ‘Hello. Do I know you?’
‘No, you don’t,’ Fitz says, deciding that it was best to be truthful as far as he could be. ‘But I do know Jemma.’
Bobbi nods her head, as though this cleared everything up, and places a beer into his empty hand. ‘Well, thank God for that. I was starting to worry that I was her only friend. Sausage roll?’
She offers him a platter full of the snacks, and Fitz politely takes one. Popping it into his mouth, he immediately regrets the action. Bobbi leans in and covers her face with her drink.
‘Don’t tell anyone,’ she murmurs, ‘but I accidentally tipped the salt packet into the dough mix while I was making them. My plan is to get everybody so drunk that they don’t notice.’
She winks at him, before floating off with the platter in her hand to offer the offending rolls to more unsuspecting guests. Fitz waits, a smile pasted on his face, until she is out of sight and then discreetly spits his out into a napkin.
Ghastly indeed, he thinks.
Wiping his hand across his mouth, he wanders out into the garden with the hope of subtly depositing the napkin under a bush or something, when something stops him dead in his tracks.
Jemma is sitting on a cast-iron bench under a trellis of warm fairy lights, both her legs tucked up underneath her and huddled under a coat. Only the top of her head and her eyes peek out of the collar, and the sight of her makes Fitz feel warm to the bone.
He hastily shoves the sausage roll into a nearby plant pot and takes a step forward.
There is a part of him that knows, deep down, that this is his last chance. If she rejects him now, or chooses the fashionably late boyfriend instead, then that is just the way it is meant to be. No amount of time travel that can make a person love you but Fitz has hope that, just maybe, it can help set you on the right track.
He takes a seat on the bench beside her and smiles. ‘Hello.’
Jemma looks a little embarrassed, and quickly pulls her coat down. The friction makes her hair go static, and she pats at it hastily. ‘Hi.’
‘I’m Fitz.’ He holds out his hand to her. ‘Please to meet you.’
‘Jemma.’ The hand she offers him is ice cold. ‘And likewise.’
For a moment, they sit in silence while Fitz franticly searches his mind for something to say next, realising that for all his bravado he really hadn’t thought this far ahead in his planning.
‘What do you think about Monet?’ he blurts out unexpectedly.
Jemma’s head swivels to him. ‘What did you say?’
‘Monet,’ Fitz repeats. ‘Let’s talk about Monet.’
There is a look of disbelief in Jemma’s eyes, and he almost thinks that she is going to laugh. ‘I love Monet.’
‘Personally, it’s his use of colour that amazes me so much,’ Fitz says, stretching back on the bench in an attempt at nonchalance. ‘I think that’s really what makes all the impressionists stand out, especially since their world that was becoming so permeated by photographic art. They were able to create a snapshot of such ordinary life and infuse it with such extraordinary colour.’
Jemma clamps her hand over her mouth, her eye dancing under the glow of the lights above them. ‘That’s…precisely what I think. Yes!’
I’m falling in love with you, Fitz thinks, as he finds himself saying: ‘do you want to get dinner with me?’
He doesn’t regret it at all, not even when Jemma blinks at him incredulously. ‘Do…do you mean now?’
‘Why not?’ He shrugs. ‘I don’t think we’re going to get anything decent to eat around here, and I am bloody starving.’
This time, Jemma laughs out loud.
‘You know,’ Fitz continues, feeling his confidence grow with every second he sits with her, ‘I was actually wondering about skipping dinner altogether, and going straight to dessert.’
‘Straight to dessert?’ Jemma raises her eyebrows.
‘An ice cream buffet,’ Fitz teases. He turns his head to her. ‘How does that sound?’
Jemma purses her lips, as though she is pretending to consider.
‘I think,’ Fitz muses aloud, feeling his heart start to thump inside his chest. ‘That I’ll get strawberry ice cream first…’
Jemma lets out a short laugh, her breath coming out in a cloud in front of them. Shaking her head, she slips her arms into her coat properly and unfurls her legs, before getting to her feet and holding out her hand to him.
‘Aren’t you coming?’
8:23pm
After all that, Jemma insists that they ought to go for a proper meal before heading on to the ice cream parlour. As a compromise, Fitz suggests that they choose their restaurant based on its dessert menu to save them time, and Jemma readily agrees.
They end up in a small Italian place, with red checked table cloths and candle sticks burning low. They have the place almost entirely to themselves, and Fitz can feel the waiters’ smiles as they watch on from the bar.
‘So,’ he asks, digging into his pasta dish, ‘what do you do?’
Jemma finishes her mouthful of ravioli before answering him. ‘I work at a publishers’ office. I read the manuscripts that get submitted before they get put through to editing.’
‘Wait, wait…’ Fitz drops his fork to stare at her. ‘So, not only do you get to read books for a living, but you get to read books that no one else had read yet? That sounds like a dream.’
Jemma laughs. ‘Oh, it’s far harder than it sounds, I assure you. It took me months to perfect my filing system and don’t even get me started on the colour coding…’
Fitz drops his head to his dinner, if only to hide the grin on his face and the warm affection he can feel radiating from his every pore.
‘What about you?’ Jemma pats the corners of her lips with her napkin. ‘What do you do for a living?’
‘I’m a lawyer.’
‘Ah!’ There is a mischievous glint in her eyes. ‘Does that mean you have to wear the wig? And the gown?’
‘Sometimes,’ Fitz admits, and Jemma claps her hands and giggles.
‘Oh, I can just imagine it. I bet you look absolutely dashing…’
‘Okay, enough of that.’ He waves away her teasing, red faced, and eyes the heap of mushrooms she has side-lined on her plate. ‘Tell me more about reading for a living. Does it ruin it?’
Jemma frowns, and tips the mushrooms into his dish. ‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘I mean when you read a book for fun, is it ruined because it’s what you do for work?’
Lifting her wine glass, Jemma shoots him a look that Fitz interprets as a challenge. ‘When you have an argument with someone, is it ruined because it’s what you do for work?’
‘Touché.’
The waiter who clears away their plates hands them the dessert menu, and they order three flavours of ice cream and a vanilla panna cotta. Jemma doles out portions for the both of them, and Fitz smiles as he watches her carefully place the fresh strawberry that had come with the ice cream into his bowl.
‘What made you come up to me?’ she asks quietly after a few minutes. ‘At the party?’
Fitz swallows his mouthful. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘There were dozens of people at that party,’ Jemma notes. ‘And you came and sat with me.’
‘Yeah. I did.’
‘Why?’
For a moment, Fitz doesn’t reply. He wonders, fleetingly, what she would say if he told her that he’d met her twice before in two separate versions of the past and the future, and that in every timeline she had stolen his breath away. He wonders what she would say if he told her that he was already half-way to being head over heels in love with her.
In the end though, he decides to tell her the truth.
‘Because I love your smile,’ he says. ‘I think it’s beautiful.’
Jemma’s entire face softens, but before she can reply the waiter returns with their bill. After paying it, they step out onto the street, the cool chill of the spring air fresh on their cheeks. The comfortable energy between them that had grown throughout their dinner doesn’t disappear; instead, Fitz notices that it has changed into something low and exciting that feels like it could be ignited at any moment.
He shivers, feeling the anticipation curl around them both like smoke.
Jemma turns to him. ‘Would you like to walk me to my car?’ she asks softly.
‘Yeah. Sounds like a plan.’
She slots her fingers into his and leads him off into the dark.
10:24pm
‘Did you have trouble parking?’
Jemma blinks up at him. ‘Beg pardon?’
Fitz hadn’t mentioned anything when she’d begun to walk him away from the direction of Bobbi’s flat and the party. Truthfully, he’d been far too wrapped up in the feel of her hand in his and the hilarious story she was telling him to notice at the time, but now, as they walk arm in arm along Greenwich Park, he feels he ought to speak up.
‘Your car,’ he repeats, hoping he doesn’t sound like a complete idiot. ‘I mean, I know London’s a nightmare for parking, but we passed Bobbi’s twenty minutes ago.’
‘Ah.’ Jemma tucks her hand even tighter into the crook of his elbow. ‘Fitz, I’m afraid I deliberately misled you earlier.’
‘Oh?’
‘Mmm. You see, I took the bus to Bobbi’s. I didn’t take my car at all, it’s still parked in front of my house.’
‘…Oh.’
Fitz feels Jemma’s eyes on him, and when he glances down at her he sees that she has coloured underneath her freckles.
‘So, I suppose,’ she says slyly, ‘when I asked if you wanted to walk me to my car what I really meant was if you wanted to walk me home?’
They had been walking slowly in the first place, but when she says this they come to a complete stop, their hands slipping apart. Fitz gives a slow exhale, his breath as visible in the air between them as Jemma’s delicate proposal.
She smiles at him, unassuming, and he gives her his answer as he takes her hand once more.
‘I think I can handle that.’
10:51pm
Jemma’s flat is on the corner of a quiet residential street with a handful of independent shops and a Co-Op. She pauses next to a deep blue Fiat Panda and taps the hood.
‘My car,’ she says, before turning to point to a second floor window above a greengrocer. ‘And my home.’
‘Ah.’ Fitz nods, suddenly finding that his mouth has gone incredibly dry. He swallows, and licks his lips. ‘That makes sense.’
Jemma chuckles quietly.
She is still holding his hand, but loosely enough for her to step in front of him without twisting their arms together. Their bodies are close, closer than they had ever been before, and Fitz can feel his heart hammering underneath his jacket. They are close enough for him to feel the warmth of her breath on his neck when she speaks, and it makes shivers run down his spine.
‘Thank you,’ Jemma says, ‘for such a wonderful evening.’
‘S’okay,’ Fitz murmurs back.
Jemma’s eyelids flutter, and when she lifts herself forwards towards him, Fitz feels his own eyes fall shut too.
The first kiss is soft and sweet. Both their noses are cold and Jemma’s lips are slightly sticky, the taste of ice cream lingering on them still. Fitz can feel her heart beat in tandem with his as their bodies move together, their lips exploring each other’s.
When Jemma starts to slip away he isn’t ready, and his hand moves from her waist to the small of her back as he kisses her again, holding her as gently as he can. Jemma cups his face, her fingers trailing all the way down his cheek to stop on his chest. She kisses him back, and Fitz can feel the rest of his life in the shape of her lips.
He isn’t sure how long it is before they pull apart. All he knows is that the instant they do, he wants to kiss her again.
Jemma’s lips form a smile, still pressed against his own, and Fitz hears the jangling of keys in her hand.
‘Want to try and make it an even better evening?’
She lets them into her flat and leaves him standing in the living room as she hurries into her bedroom next door. Fitz can hear the slamming of drawers and muffled cursing, and he imagines her stuffing her clothes out of the way and kicking things underneath the bed. Glancing around the room, he notices the neatly bound folders on the bookshelves, with a stack of manuscripts and pack of marker pens sitting on the coffee table. When he leans in closer, Fitz can see the colour coding chart lying next to them and feels a sudden affection bloom in his chest.
After a few minutes, the commotion in Jemma’s room falls silent, and Fitz takes that as his cue to enter. Sucking in a deep breath to try and control the butterflies in his stomach, he knocks softly at the door.
Jemma is waiting beside the bed, her hands clasped in front of her. She has taken off her coat and her make-up, and she has brushed her hair so that it frames her face like a copper cloud. She gives him a strangely shy smile, and Fitz smiles back, just as he trips over the rug and almost falls flat on his face.
‘Oh, Fitz-!’
‘I’m okay!’ Quickly righting himself, he reaches out to take the hand she is holding out to steady him. ‘I’m okay,’ he repeats, and straightens up.
Jemma had hurried forward to help him when he’d stumbled, and now they are both standing at the foot of her bed. The bedroom curtains are open, the street lamps outside casting the room in warm, amber haze, and Fitz notices the way that the light catches Jemma’s eyes as she stares up at him.
She is looking at him with the exact same want he can feel shaking in his fingertips.
‘Good,’ she breathes, before drawing him down to kiss her once more.
She reaches up to push off his jacket at the exact same moment he moves to unbutton her dress, and as they fall back onto the bed sheets together, Fitz allows himself to be lost, utterly, to the moment.
11:39pm
Jemma sighs leisurely, her hair prickling at his bare chest.
‘Well, that was rather lovely.’
‘Yeah,’ Fitz murmurs. His hand is resting on the warm skin of her shoulder blades. ‘And I’m sure that, next time, it’ll be even better.’
Jemma had been tracing lazy circles on his abdomen with her finger; now, she stops and lifts her head with a mildly miffed look in her eyes.
‘I…thought it was perfectly fine that time.’
There is a beat, and then Fitz realises what he has said wrong.
‘Oh, no,’ he says out loud, as Jemma tilts her head at him. ‘I mean…yes, it was perfectly fine…’
But, he thinks with a sudden rush, it doesn’t have to just be fine.
‘I really need to use the bathroom,’ he says abruptly, and pushes back the duvet to search for his trousers on the floor. ‘Do you mind if I…?’
Jemma shakes her head, evidently a little bewildered. ‘Second door on the left. You have to give the hot water pipe a hard tap for it to work.’
‘Thanks.’
Once in the bathroom, Fitz locks the door behind him, just to be safe, and closes his eyes. Imagining himself back at the exact moment he had decided to enter her room, he clenches his fists and concentrates.
11:39pm (again)
‘Wow.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And I mean, wow.’
‘Yeah.’
‘That was…’
‘…incredible?’
‘That’s approximately the word I was looking for, yes.’
‘…’
‘…’
‘Hey, Jemma?’
‘Hmm?’
‘I’ll be right back.’
11:07 pm
The third time Fitz travels back in time that night, he doesn’t wait.
As soon as they are inside her flat and the door is closed behind them, just as Jemma is turning around to suggest he wait there while she got her room ready, he surges forward to catch her lips with his.
The boldness of the move takes Jemma by surprise and she starts a little, before melting eagerly into his touch. Sliding his hand around to cradle the back of her head, Fitz walks them backwards until she is pressed flush against the wall and deepens the kiss.
He anticipates her hands moving to push off his jacket and, not wanting to lose the way her fingers are pressed against his neck, shrugs it off for her. Jemma gives a stifled laugh of delight and kisses him harder, her body arching towards his.
‘Well, this is…unexpected,’ she breathes out, as Fitz plants a string of kisses down her neck.
‘I don’t like to be predictable,’ he murmurs, returning to her lips as she threads her fingers through his hair.
Jemma gives a low chuckle. ‘I can see that now-ohh…!’
Her laughter turns into a groan as he grazes his teeth against her bottom lip, something he’d learnt she particularly enjoyed during their second time, and her grip on his hair tightens.
Feeling his veins flood with the now familiar heady rush that came with being so close to her, Fitz takes the opportunity to let his hands slide a little lower. With a small grunt, he lifts her up against the wall and feels her legs wrap around his waist, her weight warm and deliciously heavy.
Jemma kisses him again, her lips suddenly hot and hungry, and Fitz tries not to stagger as he carries her towards the bedroom. He lies her down on the bed without breaking the kiss, and crawls on top of her, feeling her press her legs into his sides as she races to unbutton his shirt.
This, Fitz thinks, and the thought is ringing in its clarity.
This is what time travel was meant for.