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Jemma Simmons is afraid of falling.
--
Two weeks is a long time to go without your best friend. Her days are spent by his bedside, as close to him as she can possibly get, but she hasn’t heard his voice in fifteen days and she’s scared she’s going to forget what it sounds like.
If she spends too long in that room, saying nothing, holding his limp hand with both of hers and staring down at his pale fingers, is the beeping of the heart monitor going to replace the words of his that loop forever in her head? Is she going to forget the little things: how he pronounces her name, how his accent gets heavier when he yells, how sometimes she thinks the swear words he uses are just made up sounds?
She doesn’t want to.
Those long hours by Fitz’ bedside are spent with her head bowed as Jemma recalls every little thing he’s ever said to her and plays it back, and yet the same words keep coming to her, over and over again, against her will: “You’re more than that. You’re more than that. You’re more than that.”
Those words are too heavy for her. They carry too much meaning for someone who hasn’t slept more than an hour in the past three days, even when that someone is Simmons. She either can’t think about them, or she just doesn’t want to. Maybe it’s a mix of both.
Skye is trying to help. A week into Jemma’s vigil of silence by Fitz’s bed, the dark-haired agent shows up with a few old audio recorders—simple tape recorders, cracked and well-loved old things that were used to record their most fascinating scientific endeavors. One tape is just an hour of Fitz talking at her, muttering things under his breath even though she was too busy at the time to respond.
At first, she’s glad for the tape—it sits at the edge of his bed, whirring softly beneath the steady rhythm of his voice, until the familiar sound of it lures her into the first deep sleep she’s had in days and she wakes up hearing her name in his familiar accent. For a moment, just one, she thinks he’s woken up, that he’s talking to her again, and her heart fills so fast she thinks it might explode. Then the fog of sleep clears from her mind and she sees the little gray box beside her hand, and the happiness drains out of her so fast she almost throws the recorder to the ground and crushes it with her foot. Almost. Instead, she clicks it off and puts it on the table beside his bed.
She doesn’t want to destroy any trace of his voice she might have left.
--
There’s more than one kind of falling. Jemma is terrified of every single one (the nightmares about plummeting through space are much scarier when Fitz isn’t there to break her out of them and hold her tightly until she falls back asleep). Maybe it has something to do with the fact that she’s also scared of heights, ever since she jumped from the bus’s loading dock. Even if she trips these days, she feels her heart rate quicken and her muscles seize up, until she catches herself and realizes how stupid it is that she’s afraid when the ground is just a few feet away.
That kind of falling is the sort of scary that makes her fingers go numb and her head spin and her throat close up with panic, but somehow the other kind is worse. Somehow, heart-stopping terror has nothing on falling in love.
She’s not even the one who is—or, at least, she doesn’t know quite yet, and she doesn’t trust her feelings enough to think about it right now. It’s Fitz, it was always Fitz and she was too stupid to realize it. Then he told her, knowing full well he might die right after that, and she could barely get any words out, and now she might never get to. Jemma holds his hand tighter, because now she feels like she might cry and the last thing she needs is for Skye or Coulson to come in and find her crying again. A few tears slip out, but she sniffles and blinks them away, then closes her eyes and leans her head down so her forehead is resting against her hands and Fitz’s.
When they were down there in that pod, she didn’t have anything to say, but now she’d give up anything just to talk to him again. All she wants is to hear the warmth of his voice, feel him standing by her side. Just to know he’s okay, that he remembers her, that the Fitz she cares about more than anyone else in the world is still the one inside that body would give her mind a rest it hasn’t had in fifteen days.
--
The only thing that’s harder to get through than those two weeks with her best friend in a coma are the two weeks afterwards when she thinks every moment might be his last. It’s been twenty-nine days and there are doctors left and right telling Jemma that Fitz, at this point, will probably never wake up. She’d like to cling to the hope that they’re wrong, but she can’t. After all, she’s also a doctor, and a damn good one at that—and she’s come to the same conclusion as they have day after day after day, sitting in the quiet of Fitz’s hospital room, memorizing every detail of his pale face because she can’t bring herself to do anything else.
“You’re more than that.”
Twenty-nine days, and those words still repeat in her head, a constant hum beneath every other thought she has. If only they were still in his voice, she might not mind so much (because now, when she tries to remember their old conversations, she’s starting to forget how his half sounded), but they aren’t. The phrase is like a toneless whisper, hissing, always reminding her of what he did for her and driving nails deeper into her heart every time she thinks about how she didn’t know he cared like that. She should have known: every time he held her hand, every time he hugged her when she needed it, every time he put her before him he was showing her. He’d shown her so many times, and yet she hadn’t got the message until he almost sacrificed his life.
Oh, god. Now she is going to cry. Jemma slumps halfway out of the chair next to Fitz’s bed, knees pressed to the side of the mattress and face buried in the sheets over his chest, and breaks down. Twenty-nine days. Almost a month, but every time she thinks about the fact that she might never talk to him again, all the pain bubbles up. Sometimes, she thinks that her heart shattered at the same time as that window, ninety feet below the ocean’s surface. She wishes her heart was the window—she can’t exactly place the feelings flooding in, but she does know that saltwater would hurt a hell of a lot less.
--
Thirty-seven days, and maybe it’s useless to stay by his bedside any longer. Jemma can see them passing at the corners of her eyes—doctors, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents (mostly Skye), each one walking by the door, stopping halfway, and just…staring. She can feel their eyes on her, but she doesn’t care. She doesn’t care if they’re scared of her, worried, or just annoyed that Coulson keeps deadweight around anymore, but no one comes to talk to her about it so she assumes it’s the first. The other day, she caught sight of herself in the reflection of a glass of water May brought her, and she almost wasn’t sure if the pale, hollow-faced girl with the stringy hair that looked back even belonged in the world of the living.
Skye sits with her now, listening with her to the steady beeping of the heart monitor and saying nothing. The company of someone who moves and sighs softly and feels generally alive is a welcome presence.
But then, she does say something. “Are you doing okay?”
Jemma wants to scoff, but her throat feels too dry to. Of course she isn’t, she wants to say, because why would she be? “He’s alive,” She manages, finally, her voice coming out quietly. “And he’s… not suffering. Not right now.”
“Well, yeah,” Skye says, “but he’s your best friend.”
“You’re more than that.”
Jemma winces at those words, her fingers closing tighter around Fitz’s limp hand. “Right. Best friend.”
Skye coughs. Jemma has to remind herself that she still hasn’t told anyone about that conversation at the bottom of the ocean. “Just that?” Skye can read her far too well for someone she’s known for less than a year.
Jemma closes her eyes. The words sting. “I don’t know.” Please leave me alone now. Then, out loud: “Please leave.”
Skye does.
--
Forty-five days, and damn it, if Fitz ever wakes up Jemma swears to god she’s going to kiss him.
--
Fifty nine days, and it looks like he never will.
--
Seventy-two days, and Fitz’s vitals are on a slow decline. Jemma has been awake for forty seven straight hours, holding his hand, praying to powers she doesn’t believe in that somehow, somehow he’ll pull through.
A doctor has already come in, laid a hand on Jemma’s shoulder, said all the normal, doctor-y things that are supposed to be comforting but only deepen the pit in her stomach. Why should she care if they’re going to make him comfortable? He’s in a coma. He can’t feel it.
Skye has already offered—twice—to be the one to call his mum, because she can tell how hard this whole thing has been on Jemma, but Jemma finds herself refusing anyways. Out of everyone on the Bus, she’s the only one besides Leo who personally knows Mrs. Fitz. If it has to come from someone, it should at least come from her.
People have been wandering past the door all day, stopping as they pass to stare through the window at the beaten-down girl and her broken other half. Whenever she meets their eyes, the pity and fear etched onto their faces makes her feel sick, and she just tightens her grip on the hand of the dying boy next to her and wishes he was there to get her through this.
Oh, how she misses him.
--
Eighty days. He’s stopped declining, and instead is hovering right at the brink of death. A doctor asks Jemma if she thinks it wise to consider pulling the plug on the life support, and she breaks down so violently that Skye and Trip both careen into the room, yelling threats and curses at the poor man and telling him to get out before they make him. Jemma knows they’ve been keeping an eye on her via the security cams. Secretly, she’s glad.
It takes twenty minutes to calm her down, twenty minutes hugging Skye like she’s the only thing keeping Jemma afloat (which she is, in a lot of ways). Once her sobs have subsided to trembling hiccups, Skye convinces her to go take a shower, because Fitz isn’t going anywhere and she’ll watch him with Trip until Jemma gets back.
Jemma takes the longest shower she’s had in three months.
The water is ridiculously hot, scalding even, but she closes her eyes against the pain and breathes in the steam and the feeling of liquid fire peppering her skin because it hurts just enough to remind her that she’s alive, and that she exists beyond the dull, heavy ache that’s been spreading over her bones like mold.
She loses track of herself and just stands there as the minutes drag on, until she hears a faint thumping sound from somewhere down the hall and someone starts pounding on the door.
“JEMMA!” Skye’s voice is raised in a scream, a high-pitched shriek that shocks Jemma out of her trance and turns her blood to ice despite the hot water streaming down over her. “Jemma, you need to come! Now! NOW!”
Oh no. Jemma’s hands fumble at the taps, and she stumbles out of the shower, registering somewhere in the back of her brain that she needs to actually dry off, not just run out of the bathroom in a towel. Her hair is still dripping wet when she pulls on the clothes and yanks the door open. Skye is standing there, too out of breath to talk, tears shining in her eyes. Jemma stands there, dumbstruck for the briefest of moments, and feels tears start to well up in her eyes because somehow she never prepared herself for this, no matter how hard she tried.
Skye is still planted right in the middle of the corridor, but Jemma plows straight past her and races down the hall, terrified of what she knows she’s going to see but wanting to make sure she’s there for her best friend in his last moments, even if he doesn’t know it. Forget a racing heart—she’s sure hers stopped beating the second she heard Skye’s fists against the door. She’s barely breathing as she accidentally runs straight into Trip outside the door, and instead of continuing she stands there blankly, staring straight ahead, feeling like she should easily be able to get around him but just can’t remember how.
He looks down at her and chuckles, and Jemma snaps back to reality. How can he be laughing at a time like this? Why doesn’t he look as upset as Skye does?
“You all right, there?” He asks.
“I…” She blinks a few times. “Fitz. I need… I need to see Fitz. Now. While I still can.” She realizes he’s standing in front of the door. “Move.”
He does, and she stumbles through the door, tears already spilling down her face, steeling herself for the warning shriek of the heart monitor, the pulse of the lights on the other machines, the sight of Fitz’ body.
She’s prepared for a lot of things, in that moment.
Just not what she actually sees.
The heart monitor is humming normally—normally, she realizes. Not the sluggish, erratic sound from before. Normally.
Her eyes travel from the screen to the bed.
He’s moving slowly, turning his head from side to side, raising a hand to scratch at his hair. She lets out a tiny gasp—tiny, ridiculously quiet against the sound of the hospital equipment—but immediately he looks at her, focuses on her, his blue eyes flashing in the bright light.
Oh god.
He looks at her.
She’s not sure her voice is going to work. “Leo?” She manages, the name weak and quiet when it leaves her lips. She’s not sure she’s capable of feeling emotions right now.
And just like that, he’s fighting his way into a sitting position, eyes wide, hands clutching the sheets for support, chest heaving. “The med pod!” He blurts out suddenly. “Jemma, what happened? We got out, I mean, but are you okay?”
His voice isn’t much better than hers—he sounds raspy, and after he speaks he coughs a few times, but she doesn’t care. Something warm is filling up her whole body, something that feels less like scalding shower water and more like sunshine. More like…like Leo Fitz.
There are still tears dripping slowly down her cheeks. “You’ve been in a coma for three months, and all you can ask is if I’m okay?” She laughs, but it sounds thick in the back of her throat.
“Three months?” He meets her eyes, and lets out a slow breath. “Bloody hell.”
Jemma is still standing there, warmth trickling through her veins, when Fitz adds, “Still. You’re okay. That’s what matters.”
It’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever heard, and she has no idea how she ever thought there could be someone out there who cared more about her than Leopold Fitz. She’s been standing at the far edge of the room for almost five minutes, but something inside her comes loose and she can move again, and she does. Even though her knees feel like jelly, she practically flies across the room and flings herself onto him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and burying her face against his neck. She’s laughing and crying and smiling at the same time, and his arms are around her and even though his fingers are shaky, she feels safe.
She’s the one who pulls away from the hug, and now she’s sitting on the edge of the mattress, and her hair is still dripping wet and her feet are bare and awkwardly positioned just to keep her from sliding off the edge. Fitz’s hands are resting on her upper arms, thumbs brushing her shoulders, and she realizes he’s only a few inches away from her now, and his eyes are dizzyingly blue.
Thirty five days ago, she promised herself she’d kiss him if he ever woke up.
So she does.