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He was breathing heavily and clutching at a stitch in his side, but nevertheless he couldn’t help the smile that was tugging at the corners of his mouth. It was the same feeling he had become accustomed to over his past few years in the field, both a mixture of relief and unrestrained exhilaration. They were alive, perhaps beaten and bloody, but alive, and they had won. He met Skye’s gaze and she offered him a weary smile of her own.
The moment of relief was only too quickly interrupted when their comms crackled back to life.
“Fitz?”
The effect of her words was almost instantaneous. A heavy weight seized his chest and time seemed to stop for just a moment. He knew that voice anywhere, but had hoped to never hear it like this. She was supposed to be safe, on the quinjet, and out of harm’s way. So why did she sound so scared?
He took a moment to find his voice, and to steady his erratic heartbeat. “Jemma? Where are you?”
She let out a shaky breath. “I found a way into the lab, but Hydra was closing in and there wasn’t enough time, and-”
“What are you saying?”
“I can destroy the device and all the research. I can’t let Hydra get it, Fitz. Millions would die.”
He looked frantically up at Skye, trying to find some kind of reassurance but seeing instead his own terrified expression reflected back to him. “Jemma, please, we can get you out.”
He didn’t want to picture where she must be, huddled alone in hostile territory and trying not to cry, but he did all the same. He heard her take another shuddering breath before speaking again. “There’s not enough time, Fitz. I have a few minutes before they find me, and I can’t hold them off. There’s too many of them.”
“Jemma-”
“I took your prototype for the modified splinter bomb. It can take out the whole facility and… and everything in it.”
He felt an icy dart of panic rip through his chest. He couldn’t let her do this. He couldn’t let her die. He was on autopilot, shouting into his earpiece and barely registering what he was saying. “I’m coming, just sit tight! We’ll get you out of there.”
“It’s too late.” She said, and her words hung heavily in the air. Neither really knew what to say, but Jemma took only a moment longer before she broke the silence. “Fitz,” she whispered, and her voice was small and scared, but she didn’t let it waver, not even for a second. “This is my choice.”
He knew that he was crying, and now that he had started he wasn’t sure that he could stop. He had been hurt before, had been without hope, and feeling like he was at the end of the line. But this was something entirely different. This was a cold vice clutching his heart, a weight in his stomach, and silent tears mapping tracks across his cheeks. This was hearing your best friend’s final moments, but being unable to hold her and tell her that she was so, so brave, and far too good to die like this.
He heard a series of beeps and he knew what was coming, but tried not to think of the seconds counting down far too quickly. He wanted to say something, but try as he might, he couldn’t find a single word important enough to tell her.
But she was always there to answer his silence and to offer her own words when he didn’t know what to say. “I’m going to need a rain check on that dinner you promised me,” She said, pausing to allow herself a small laugh. “We never did get around to that, did we?”
They had always seemed to live on the same wavelength, even psychically linked as some would say, and he knew immediately what she was doing. And though his tongue felt like lead, he had to keep going. He had to give her the only comfort he could. “Alright, what about next Friday? Do you think Coulson will give us the night off?”
He could almost see the slight tilt of a smile on her lips, almost as easily as he could imagine her trembling breaths and shaking hands. “Well, we’re not going to give him much of a choice. We’ve done so much for him already, we deserve a night out.”
“So next Friday then at 6 o’clock. Don’t you dare be late.” He said, speaking with as much conviction as he could muster though his voice was thick with tears.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” She breathed. “And Fitz, you should wear that one tie, the one that I bo-”
The line went dead and his heart dropped, but he hardly dared to believe what he knew was the truth. “Jemma?” Nothing. “Jemma?” Silence. “Jemma?”
Two shadows passed in front of the door, and the ashen faces of May and Coulson showed him everything he already knew. She was dead and they had all beared witness to her final moments. Somehow that made it real.
The ground was rumbling beneath his feet as Skye wrapped her arms around him. He leaned into her trembling shoulders, and listened to her breath in a half-hearted attempt to steady his own.
He wasn’t sure how long he was there, allowing himself to be overcome by his grief. But as he held on tightly to Skye one thought continued to run through his mind. Despite how it ended, it had been a miracle to know and to love Jemma Simmons.