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‘Psst.’
The hiss is so quiet that Jemma almost misses it. Pausing half-way through the garden gate, she frowns and turns to glance back down the lane, just in case there was anyone coming along it who might have wanted her attention. But the lane is as empty as she had left it and so she shrugs it off, assuming that all she’d heard had been the wind in the trees. But as she steps into the garden and closes the gate behind her, it comes again.
‘Psst. Jemma.’
This time, Jemma is not only certain that she had heard someone call her name but also that the voice had come from her own garden. Her suspicion is confirmed when from the corner of her eye she sees the wood shed door creak open and her husband’s head pop out. Fitz glances this way and that before beckoning to her.
‘Fitz?’ Jemma tilts her head at him, taking a step forward. ‘What on earth are you doing in the shed?’
He sighs. ‘I’m playing hide and seek with the kids.’
Ah. That explained the air of stealth about his actions.
Jemma has to purse her lips together to hide her bemused smile. ‘It got that bad, did it?’
Fitz gives her a look that tells her all she needs to know.
The nearby village held a market every Saturday afternoon, and for the past few months Jemma had taken to visiting it every week to buy fresh fruit and vegetables for their family. Sometimes, she’d even pick up freshly baked bread and bacon rashers too, and make hot butties for tea. She enjoyed the peaceful walk down the lane just as much as the friendly chatter she had with the stall holders, and the trip had quickly become one of her favourite parts of her week.
There was, however, a downside to her excursions. The only time she had taken Fitz and the children along had been an absolute disaster – the aisles between the stalls had been too narrow for the buggy to go down and there had been a frantic half hour where they’d lost Cecily, before eventually finding her petting a cat underneath a table cloth.
Since then, Jemma had gone to the market on her own, leaving Fitz and the children to spend the afternoon together. Most of the time, Ces and Alfie were very good for their father, whom they rightfully adored, but Jemma also knew perfectly well how much work they could both be on an energetic day and from the look on Fitz’s face today had certainly been one of those.
‘Here, just come inside and I’ll tell you about it,’ Fitz says, still peering anxiously up the garden, as though he expected to see the children pop up from the grass at any moment. ‘Please?’
Jemma chuckles, standing on her tip toes to squint through the cottage windows. ‘I can’t even see them; I think we’re safe for now.’
Fitz shakes his head, closing the wood shed door just a fraction.
‘I don’t think we’re safe anywhere, Jemma. They can smell fear,’ he says darkly, to which Jemma cannot help but roll her eyes.
‘Fitz, I’m not afraid of our five- and two-year-old.’
‘You might not be,’ he replies, ‘but I am.’
Jemma laughs again, but when Fitz holds out his hand once more she steps forward to take it and ducks her head to enter the wood shed.
They only have a small store for their one wood burner, and it is on these logs that Fitz is perched, carefully keeping his head out of sight of the small window. Putting her canvas bag down in a corner, Jemma finds that she has to stoop to fit under the sloped ceiling.
‘How on earth did you end up playing hide and seek, of all things?’ she asks. ‘You hate hide and seek.’
‘I know,’ Fitz groans, dropping his chin into his hand. ‘But Ces asked if we could make some fairy cakes, and you know how bad I am at baking.’
Jemma snorts, remembering the multiple times she had tried to teach him over the years and how utterly awful the results of each of those times had been.
‘I am aware, yes.’
‘Right, so I knew that was a bad idea and I told her she’d have to wait for you to get back, and was there anything else she wanted to do instead? And she looked up at me with those big brown puppy-dog eyes of hers and asked for hide and seek.’
‘And you couldn’t say no twice?’ Jemma guesses.
Fitz looks up at her. ‘Jemma, only a monster could say no to our daughter twice.’
A warm wave of affection for him rises in Jemma’s chest and she smiles, shuffling forwards to stand in front of him. Fitz’s hands come up to steady her by her waist, and as she leans against him Jemma notices a Hello Kitty sticker stuck in his hair. She plucks it out, and sticks it to her jacket.
‘I left them to count to one hundred,’ Fitz continues, ‘and then ran out here to hide.’ He taps his fingers against her side. ‘And before you ask, yes, I did check that the gate down to the stream was locked and that the padlock on the Workshop was secure.’
Jemma smiles again, and bends down to kiss his forehead. ‘Have I told you what a wonderful father you are yet today?’
She feels Fitz’s skin pucker into a mock-frown. ‘Do you know, I’m not sure that you have.’
Feeling his hands move further around her middle, Jemma loops her arms about his neck and allows him to pull her down to sit on his knee. They are now both balanced rather precariously on a wobbly log, but Fitz miraculously manages to keep them upright.
‘You’re a wonderful father,’ Jemma tells him, meaning every word of it. ‘The very best.’
Fitz grins, and turns his head to press a kiss to her hand, resting on his shoulder. ‘Thank you.’ Then, he frowns. ‘Hey, can you still see the house from down here?’
Suppressing her chuckle, Jemma lifts her head to look out of the window. Even now, almost six years on, she still feels a jump of pride whenever she looks at their home and remembers all that they had gone through before they’d found it.
They had bought the cottage just after they’d learnt she was pregnant with Cecily. While the Lighthouse was now a proper SHIELD base, with a high-tech security system and a kitchen stocked with food that wasn’t once dehydrated, neither Fitz nor Jemma found they wanted to raise their child there, now that they had the choice not to.
The first cottage to catch Jemma’s eye during her online search had been situated in a small valley in south Perthshire, with a babbling brook at the bottom of the wide-open garden, a barn, and a small apple orchard next door. Within days they’d set up a viewing and had boarded a quinnjet to cross the ocean to see it in person.
Once they arrived, they had found that the cottage was far more rundown than it had looked in its pictures – its pipes were rusty, and there was no central heating to speak of – but none of that had mattered because Jemma was already falling in love with it, and it wasn’t only their daughter’s puppy-dog eyes that Fitz was unable to resist.
By the time they’d returned to the Lighthouse, their names were on the dotted line and the keys were in their pockets.
Fitz had worked on the cottage sporadically over the next nine months. It had needed complete renovation and modernisation, and he’d drawn up the blueprints in their bunk during the evenings before flying over on weekends to oversee the construction. It had been an important part of his therapy, the act of working towards building something good and something to last a lifetime, and Jemma had made sure she was by his side every step of the way.
She’d even tried to help out with the building work at the start, but as her pregnancy had progressed and the most she could manage in a day was painting half a wall eggshell blue, she’d been relocated to a deckchair in the garden with a flask of tea and her tablet to scout the nearby nurseries. Jemma had felt guilty about this at first, but as Fitz had pointed out as they lunched on the grassy lawn at the back of the cottage, he’d much rather she and the baby be safe than risking themselves on a construction site.
‘Besides,’ he’d said, ‘it’s not as if I’m doing this on my own. I know that we’re both in it.’ He’d linked his fingers through hers, and squeezed tight. ‘Together.’
They’d moved in when Cecily was five months old, once Fitz had deemed the cottage complete. It had been extraordinarily difficult to leave the Lighthouse and the team that had become a family to them over the years, but a fleet of quinnjets and multiple spare bedrooms made transatlantic visits a regular occurrence.
And it wasn’t as if they had left SHIELD for good, either. Fitz had converted the old barn into a functioning lab, nicknaming it the Workshop, so they could both consult for their team on challenging missions.
By the time Alfie had been born three years later, Jemma found that her family had settled seamlessly into their new country life and that there was no part of it that she or Fitz would change, not for all the world.
Looking up at the house now, she thinks she sees a pastel-coloured blur pass the kitchen window and if she strains her ears she can just about hear the childish voices of her son and daughter, chattering away to one another, carried towards her on the summer breeze.
‘No sign of them yet,’ she reports to Fitz. ‘But I think they’re in the kitchen, so you’re in danger of being discovered very soon, I’m afraid.’
Fitz groans, but Jemma notices the slight smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. ‘Too soon, if you ask me.’ He glances at his watch. ‘Still, I guess they gave me a good quarter of an hour’s peace. That’s not too bad, I suppose.’
‘No,’ Jemma agrees. ‘For our two, not too bad at all.’
‘And…’ At the hopeful tone in Fitz’s voice, she turns to look down at him. ‘If we’ve still got a few more minutes alone, can you think of anything we could do to fill the time?’
‘Hmm.’ Jemma pretends to consider the question, before tipping her forehead forwards to rest it against his own with a wide smile. ‘I might have an idea or two…’
Fitz grins back at her, then, with one hand resting gently on the back of her neck, he catches her lips with his. The kiss sends a familiar rush of delight running through Jemma’s body and she returns it eagerly, fanning her fingers out through his hair.
It takes them no time at all to fall into the rhythm that has become as natural to them both as breathing, their lips tenderly giving and taking, pushing and pulling, filling them to the brim with all-encompassing love.
Jemma slips her tongue inside Fitz’s mouth, feeling him moan slightly against her before his hands shift to lower down her back. He lifts her a little on his knee, angling her body towards his own, drawing her closer and deepening their kiss.
For a while, Jemma is lost in the mental fog of pleasure that kissing Fitz always produced in her. Despite having left the messy, dangerous world of being super spies behind them, they still seemed to find the time to be like this – limbs tangled together, lips dancing over each other – far too infrequently for her liking. The only difference now was that instead of killer robots and Nazis, they were now interrupted by the patter of tiny feet and the impatient tugging of sticky hands.
Which, Jemma has to admit, was definitely an improvement in her book.
And so, she allows herself to fully indulge in this impromptu make out session with her husband in their wood shed, letting him press kiss after kiss onto her waiting lips and brushing her fingers across every inch of his skin that she can reach.
When Fitz’s hands start to slide underneath her shirt, however, Jemma reluctantly pushes them back. In spite of how much she adores kissing him, and how much kissing him like this makes desire rise inside her like the morning sun, she is painfully aware that their time must be running out.
There were only so many hiding spots Fitz used on the property, and Ces and Alfie knew every single one. It was probably only a matter of moments now until they were discovered, and she’d rather they were both fully dressed once they were. They didn’t want a repeat of the night of her thirty-fourth birthday, when Ces had burst into their room after a nightmare. They’d had to keep the bedsheets firmly up underneath their chins until morning.
But as the minutes continue to pass by, and there is still no sign of any kind of interruption, Jemma begins to feel a little suspicious.
Breaking away from Fitz’s kiss, she lifts her head to peer out through the window again.
‘Fitz?’
He presses a string of contented kisses to her exposed throat. ‘Hmm?’
‘How long did you say you’d been hiding here?’
‘About fifteen…’ He pauses, and checks his watch. ‘Wait, no. Almost half an hour now.’
Jemma nods, silently making the calculations in her head. If Ces and Alfie had begun their seeking inside the house, they ought to have made it into the garden by now, and even if they’d started by checking the orchard first, they would most definitely be on the main lawn by this point.
Her suspicion rising, Jemma starts to form a theory, just as Fitz returns his attention and his lips to the base of her neck. She sighs, as much from exasperation as from pleasure.
‘Fitz?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Darling?’
He blinks up at her. ‘Yeah?’
‘We’ve been waiting to be found for almost half an hour, correct?’
Fitz’s eyebrows narrow cautiously. ‘Yes…’
‘And didn’t you say,’ Jemma queries, ‘that before Ces asked for hide and seek, she wanted to bake some fairy cakes…?’
She gives him a pointed look, and waits for the other shoe to drop. Sure enough, as soon as her insinuation has sunk in, Fitz’s eyes widen and his mouth falls slack as he realises what has just happened.
‘Oh, no.’
During their time at SHIELD, both Fitz and Jemma had seen their fair share of carnage. They’d fought battles, been to a post-apocalyptic future and even spilt blood on the face of a desert planet, but somehow the scene in front of them now managed to reach a level of disaster even they had never seen before.
Jemma was the first to admit that their kitchen was rarely pristine, but it had never looked quite as bad as this. A full bag of flour had been spilt on the island, and small pools of it were sprinkled about the flour as if it had been carried about in a sieve. Cecily’s stool, which she used to reach the height of the countertops when she was helping with the cooking, was tipped on its side next to the open store cupboard, and three broken eggs were splattered beside the fridge.
And, in the middle of all this, sits their two-year-old son with a large jar of golden syrup on his lap. He spots them, standing in the doorway and gawping, and grins, but before either of his parents can cry out NO, he lifts the jar up above his head.
Jemma winces, as the thick, gloopy liquid hits Alfie’s curly head and drips down onto his ears. Clearly, he rather likes the sensation as he drops the tin to clap his hands towards her.
‘Mumma!’ he crows in greeting.
The sudden clatter of a wooden spoon tells Fitz and Jemma that their second child has now been alerted to their presence and sure enough, Cecily soon crawls out from behind the kitchen island. There is flour in her hair, and a smear of butter on her cheek that she wipes at sheepishly.
‘Oops.’
Shooting her a hard stare, Jemma steps around the small pools of syrup to bend forward and lift Alfie up. She tries to keep him at arm’s length, but his eagerness to burrow into her chest means that soon she is covered in sticky fingerprints and glops of sugar.
Settling him on her hip, she turns to face Fitz and raises one eyebrow at him. They had always been experts at holding entire conversations with one look, and today is no exception. Fitz heaves a heavy sign and nods.
‘I’ll go and run the bath.’
Cecily scampers out of the door after him, guiltily avoiding her mother’s gaze, and soon enough Jemma can hear their matching footsteps on the stairs and the sound of running water. Glancing back down at her sticky son, she catches Alfie’s eye and he beams at her, before lovingly plastering his syrup-covered hands on her cheeks.
Not for the first time, Jemma thanks her lucky stars that her children were, on the whole, rather well behaved. How on earth could she manage to be strict with them if they weren’t, especially when they looked at her as adorably like that?
An hour later, Jemma is pulling the last tray of fairy cakes out of the oven.
She knows that she shouldn’t be rewarding bad behaviour, not really, but since Cecily had already managed to cream together a good load of butter and sugar she couldn’t bear to see it all go to waste. At least, she reassures herself, she isn’t going to spoil her children by icing the cakes; instead, she’s just dribbling melted chocolate across the tops.
This, Jemma thinks with smug satisfaction as she licks the remaining chocolate from her fingers, was five-star parenting. Even if she did say so herself.
Carrying a plate of cakes through into the living room, she sets them down on a stack of books and curls up on the sofa. She picks up a cake and peels the paper down, soaking in the warmth from the fresh sponge and inhaling the sweet, sugary scent, but before she can lift it to her lips and take a bite there is the thundering sound of footsteps on the stairs, drawing closer by the second.
With a gentle roll of her eyes, Jemma sets her cake back down.
‘All I’m saying,’ Fitz is telling Cecily, as he enters the room carrying Alfie in his arms, ‘is that I don’t think you really deserve to pick the story tonight, after tricking Daddy all afternoon. You were really naughty, Ces.’
Jemma has to hide her smile at her daughter’s frustrated pout, but, clearly aware that she was in the wrong and isn’t one hundred percent out of trouble yet, Cecily doesn’t try to argue.
‘What if I chose the story tonight instead?’ Jemma suggests, in an attempt at mediation. Lifting the plate of cakes from the stack of books, she spreads them out across the carpet. ‘I rather fancy Mrs Tiggy Winkle…’
The set of books had been Deke’s latest present to the children, delivered about four months ago. He’d stayed on at the Lighthouse after they’d left but, since the world was now safe again, the new SHIELD system was generous enough to allow him to take long, frequent breaks, which he used to explore the world he’d thought had been destroyed long before he’d been born.
Of all the team, he visited them the most often and always brought little gifts for Alfie and Ces, and he would sit cross-legged on the floor with them to explain where they’d come from. Sometimes, Jemma would catch him gazing thoughtfully at Cecily, as if he was trying to analyse her mannerisms and micro-expressions to see if they matched up to his memories. Since they’d broken the time loop, they had no way of knowing yet whether Cecily truly would be his mother– and honestly, thinking about it for too long gave her a headache – but one thing Jemma knew for certain was that her adult grandson had a very special connection with her five-year-old daughter, one that made her heart soften every time she saw them together.
During Deke’s last visit, he’d been on his way to Disneyland and, after presenting them with the collector’s editions of Beatrix Potter, had done his best to persuade Fitz and Jemma to let him take the children with him. With difficulty, they’d managed to convince him to wait until Alfie was a little bit older and then promised that they’d all go then. It was an unusual family set up, granted. But somehow, it always felt exactly right.
‘I certainly feel a bit like her today,’ Jemma muses, picking up the book with the hedgehog washerwoman on the front cover. Reaching up, she tickles Alfie’s stomach and watches him squirm in Fitz’s arms. ‘After washing all of your sticky clothes…’
Alfie chuckles, but when Fitz sets him down on the floor he makes straight for the pile of books to dig out his favourite.
‘Duck,’ he insists, lifting up the rather dog-eared copy of Jemima Puddle-Duck. ‘Duck!’
‘Oh, and what makes you think you’re off the hook to pick the story, hmm, little man? You weren’t very kind to Daddy today either!’ But even as he speaks, Fitz is lifting Alfie, along with his book, onto the sofa and settling him on his lap.
‘It wasn’t really Alfie’s fault,’ Cecily pipes up. She had sidled up to stand next to Jemma, who is absently threading her fingers through her hair. ‘He was only doing what I said, so you should read him the story he wants, Daddy.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘And I’m sorry we played a trick on you.’
With a stab of pride for their daughter’s behaviour, Jemma turns to Fitz, just in time to watch his face, that had long been thawing, completely and utterly melt.
‘Thank you, Cessie,’ he says, his eyes shining gently, ‘and it’s okay. Just never do it again, yeah?’
‘Never,’ Cecily promises solemnly, and when Fitz reaches out a hand to her she clambers up the sofa to tuck herself in between her parents. Over the top of her head, Jemma meets her husband’s eye, and returns the loving smile he is giving her.
She passes him a fairy cake, and can almost feel Cecily’s sharp eyes following her. Sure enough, only moments later, there is a tentative tug at her sleeve.
‘Mummy…can I have a cake too?’
Jemma purses her lips together, and glances back at Fitz questioningly. He tilts his head to one side and gives her a slight shrug: your decision.
Five-star parenting, Jemma thinks, was all about balance. You had to admonish the bad behaviour, but you also had to reward the good.
‘Yes,’ she decides, and offers Cecily the plate to pick her cake. ‘But,’ she adds sternly, ‘this is only because you were nice to your brother, and let him have his story first. Understand?’
Cecily nods, the fairy cake cupped in her two hands and an expression of utter contentment on her childlike face. She bites into the cake, sending sponge crumbs flying, and licks her lips.
‘Mmm.’
With a grin, Jemma leans back against the sofa cushions to observe her family. Cecily is happily licking her chocolatey fingers while Fitz is sharing his fairy cake with Alfie, breaking off corners of the sponge to eat himself while their son picks at the chocolate covered top.
There is something so whole about the moment that it makes Jemma wish she could capture it somehow and frame it, hanging it in pride of place in her heart. But she also knows that no picture, or photograph, would ever be able to do her love for the three of them justice and so she has to content herself with the feel of Cecily’s small hand tucked into her own and the warmth in Fitz’s eyes as he kisses the top of Alfie’s head.
Their love for each other is in everything they do, and that has always been enough.
Along the back of the sofa, Fitz stretches out his arm to allow both her and Cecily to tuck themselves into his side.
‘Right then, Mrs Puddle-Duck,’ he says, opening Alfie’s book to page one. ‘Ready or not, here we come.’