Work Text:
Fitz looks at his reflection in the mirror, barely recognising himself.
His skin is pale and looks almost greyish. His eyes are hazy - clouded over with the dull coat of resignation.
He hasn’t been sleeping properly for days, his nights interrupted by nightmares. He wakes up gasping and bathed in cold sweat when the night is darkest and he isn’t able to fall back asleep, until the birds start announcing the next morning.
He’s almost glad Jemma isn’t in the city and won’t be for another two days, since she's visiting her parents in Ashburton.
Jemma … The mere thought of her is warming up his heart. He carries around a picture of her in the pocket of his jacket. He pulls it out, flattening it with a few careful strokes of his fingers. He looks at her face, her sparkling eyes and her bright confident smile, and his heart aches with what he’s feeling for her.
Not so long ago, he didn’t think Jemma would even cast him a second glance. But now here they are, sharing a bed and whispering about the future. About a cottage in the countryside. About a family …
Things were good. And they could have been wonderful.
But … He messed it all up. He didn’t listen. Didn’t want to listen, as Jemma warned him about Radcliffe and all his experiments about separating and controlling human emotions. But Fitz had been fascinated and Radcliffe was talented at luring him, acting like the caring and proud father Fitz has never had. “We will make the world better,” Radcliffe used to tell him. “We will help so many people with this, Fitz. So many people who suffer from the instability of their emotions. We could make things like depression or anxiety vanish!"
So Fitz joined in. And in the beginning, he felt like they could do it. But in the end, their experiment was a disaster. The serum drove people mad. Soon, Radcliffe didn’t find any more willing test persons. And he did the unimaginable thing: He drank the serum himself. He ended up in a closed psych ward, talking to himself about ghosts. That is what everyone knows. But what no one knows, not even Jemma, is that Radcliffe made Fitz drink the serum too, when he was manic.
Now, Jemma doesn’t know – can’t know – what’s living inside him. And she won’t have to learn about it. He can control it. He can …
“Are you lying to yourself again?”
Fitz freezes. A shiver runs over his spine at the well-known cold and arrogant voice. He looks up from Jemma’s picture reluctantly. There he is, standing in a corner, his arms crossed and his face wearing a thin-lipped smile expressing both mild amusement and disgust.
It’s The Doctor. That’s how he likes to call himself. He is … Fitz isn’t entirely sure what he is. A demon. A ghost. A reflection.
He looks exactly like Fitz and yet … He is different. It’s how he moves and how he talks. Arrogant, confident, disdainful. A perfect counterpart.
Fitz doesn’t exactly understand, where The Doctor came from. But he understands he his bad. Really bad. He likes hurting people. Likes hurting Fitz. His eyes start to glimmer in an ugly spiteful glee when he does.
Apparently, the unpredictable and fragile serum split his personality. Into good and bad. That theory scares Fitz to no end, because that would mean, The Doctor and all his maleficence has always been inside him …
The Doctor is awful but bearable, when he’s just like this. When he’s just an image that disappears when Fitz closes his eyes. But … he’s not only appearing like this. He’s also walking around inside Fitz’s head. Fitz can feel him trying to take control sometimes.
Once, he woke up in a dark alley and couldn’t remember how he got there. He looked at his hands and they were bloody.
No one can know about this. No one … Not even Jemma.
“God, you’re pathetic,” The Doctor scoffs. “Jemma, Jemma, Jemma … Do you ever think of something else?”
“Shut up,” Fitz murmurs, his fingers involuntarily tightening around the picture of Jemma he’s still staring at.
The Doctor walks closer. Fitz hears the steps. He comes so close, Fitz thinks he can hear his breath – which can’t be, because he isn’t real - and looks at Jemma’s picture over Fitz’s shoulder. The Doctor smirks. “Lovely. I can’t wait to lay my fingers around that pale delicate neck …”
Fitz feels a sharp hint of anger. “You … Don’t you dare touch her,” he snarls.
The Doctor laughs quietly. “Do you think you can keep me from doing it? I don’t think so … I think, your walls are getting thinner. I think, you’re going to let me take control again. Let me be free,” he says, his voice filling with excitement.
“Never,” Fitz whispers. But he doesn’t know, if he can keep the promise. He is tired, exhausted and confused. He wishes, he would have never met Radcliffe with his bloody serum.
Jemma …
I have to keep her safe, Fitz thinks sadly. And since I am the danger, there’s only one option left for me.
“I only wanted to make the world better,” he murmurs when he starts to pack his things, throwing them into a small dirty suitcase.
“I only want to destroy it,” The Doctor who is standing behind him hisses into his ear and laughs.