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It’s not gradual at all. He’s asleep, and then he’s awake, and there’s no time for drowsiness, no buffer of putting his thoughts in order while he convinces his eyes to open.
He’s asleep, and then he’s awake, and it’s a surprise that he wakes up at all, because when he kissed Simmons he honestly expected that to be the last thing he did on this earth before all the energy that made up Leopold Fitz was washed away into the ocean to become something different. But no, here he is, himself, and before he notices the wires and tubes and machines hooked up to him he notices the woman sitting beside him reading on a tablet, exhaustion plain on her lovely face.
“Where are we?” he asks, and his voice has the rasp of disuse. She looks up sharply, eyes gone wide, tablet falling to her lap. “Jemma, you saved me…”
“Oh, Fitz… oh,” she gasps, her hand clutching his wrist, warm fingers tight and welcome around him, “you’re awake!”
“Yeah,” he agrees, “how long have I been…” There’s a word that he needs, and it’s on the tip of his tongue, but she comes up with a different one that also works.
“Comatose? Nearly a month. We’ve been worried sick about you. How do you feel?” That’s a good question. It takes a bit of thinking to answer it.
“Thirsty,” he says after a moment, “and surprised.” She squeezes his wrist gently and crosses the room to pour a cup of water, sticks a straw into it, and holds it up for him to sip. The look on her face is… is…
“I’m so relieved that you’re awake,” she says, and that’s close enough to the word he was looking for. “I knew you would come back to us, but no one could tell how long it would take.” Her smile is wide but somehow fragile, and he can’t take his eyes off of her, too happy that his first sight after so much darkness is the person he loves best in the world. “We’re in the Playground-- it’s a SHIELD base, one of the last safe places. Hydra was everywhere, Fitz. Even…”
“Even Ward,” he says quietly. “I remember.” He wishes he didn’t, almost. She’s had a month to cope with the betrayal, but it’s still fresh to him, an open wound where that friendship was torn out by the roots what seems like only hours ago. “The team?”
“We’re all here. Coulson is Director now, of what little is left to direct. It’s been devastation, really. We’ve been reverse decimated.”
“Ten percent left?” It’s a staggering thought, and she nods grimly.
“If that. We’ve… I’ve needed you. So much.” He reaches to pat her arm, IV tubes tugging at his hand, but the motion is aborted midway through when he realizes what he’s seeing-- or not seeing.
“Jemma, what happened to my… my…” He knows what he’s missing, what’s the word? It’s part of him, dammit!
“Your soulmark,” she supplies, and wraps her hand around his wrist again, bearing it down to the bed. “You died, Fitz,” she says gently, “only for a few minutes, but… you were gone.” He stares up at her, horrified, not that he was dead (he expected that, only permanently) but that her words were gone from his skin with not so much as a punctuation mark left behind. “Look…” She pulls up the hem of her shirt and there’s only the faintest trace of his words left behind, like a scar, something that healed over long ago and left only an afterthought.
“But-- you and I-- we--” It’s not the word that’s missing this time, it’s the whole thought that’s made him speechless, the very concept of being severed from her in the instant after he confessed his love too appalling for words.
“Shh, calm down, Fitz. Look, look at this.” She rolls up the sleeve of her blouse and shows him the bend of her elbow, the tender skin there marked where it had been flawless before, his own writing where he’s never seen it. Where are we? Jemma, you saved me… This time when he reaches, she lets him do it, lets his fingers brush over the new mark and bites her lip at the way his touch trembles. “You’re alive. You have a new life, and a new soulmark.”
“Where is it? Are you sure? It’s still you?”
“It’s still me,” she affirms, “Who else would it be? Here…” She pulls the loose neck of his hospital gown to the right, and he can’t quite see all of it, the new words written on his shoulder right along the collar bone. Damn it, Fitz, he can read, and it makes him laugh a little, that the sign of her love is also an expression of frustration.
“What’s the whole thing say?” She traces below the words, following the sturdy line of bone until her fingertips rest in the hollow at his throat, and there’s that fragile smile again.
“Damn it, Fitz, come back to me, please,” she says softly, and the steady beep of the heart monitor that’s been background noise this whole time becomes noticeable when it speeds up, his pulse leaping under her touch. “Thank you for listening,” she adds, and she leans in to kiss his cheek, a soft brush of lips that he can’t help turning into, transforming it into a clumsy but heartfelt kiss. Her hand spreads against his chest, feeling as well as hearing his racing heartbeat, and he covers her hand with his, willing her to stay just there.
“Is everything--” The voice that comes from the doorway startles them apart, Simmons falling back into her chair with her hand flying up to cover her mouth. The doctor blinks, realizing that Fitz is sitting up and very much aware of his surroundings. “Oh! The Director will want to know you’re awake.” He comes in, checking the monitors, Fitz openly scowling at him for ruining the moment. “How do you feel, Agent Fitz?”
“Alert,” he responds, “and like I want to get up.”
“Yes, well, perhaps you should stay put for the moment, until we can get you disconnected from everything. How long ago did he wake up?” the doctor addresses Simmons, making Fitz frown more deeply.
“About ten minutes,” she says, and reaches for Fitz’s hand, slightly easing his stormy expression. “He’s lucid, he knows who he is and what happened to us.”
“That’s a good start,” the doctor says, pulling out a penlight and shining it into narrowed blue eyes. “We’ll do some testing to determine the extent of the damage of the hypoxia, but I have to say that you’re already exceeding expectations.” That makes Fitz blink.
“What do you mean? People didn’t… er, didn’t….”
“Some of them doubted you would wake up at all,” Simmons says softly, “If it hadn’t been for our new soulmarks proving you would…” The way she looks at him is a bit more concerned than it had been before they kissed, and he squeezes her hand reassuringly-- or he tries to, but his fingers only twitch slightly around hers. “I knew you would wake up,” she repeats.
“That’s because you’ve always had… um…” He’s looking right at her, and he can see the instant her face falls, the way her eyes darken and her fragile smile shatters.
“I’ve always had faith in you,” she finishes his sentence, the way she’s done several thousand times in all the years they’ve known each other, and he realizes how few of them he’s been able to finish himself. He’s at a loss for words, and he doesn’t even know how to phrase that.
“Jemma…”
“We’ll figure it out,” she says, and it’s she who squeezes his hand in reassurance. “We always do, don’t we?” They do. They always have. But he’s not entirely sure what’s wrong, only that something is, very much so. They’ll figure it out… they have to.