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Jemma Simmons loved Doctor Who. She had seen every available episode of the Classic Doctors, marathoned David Tennant and Christopher Eccleston more times than she could remember, and had scrolled endlessly down Tumblr and watched them rave about this new guy, Matt Smith.
And today was the day that the new guy got his first shot at glory. His first episode was set to air in approximately half an hour, and she was on her couch, curled up in her favourite TV viewing blanket, buttered popcorn in her lap and a steaming mug of Earl Grey in her hands. This was the pinnacle of dream TV viewing positions, and she was sitting comfortably in it.
For the next ten minutes, she couldn’t bring herself to move, not even to fetch the remote to turn the TV on. Instead, she just placed her steaming tea down on the table in front of her and shovelled popcorn into her mouth and closed her eyes, relishing in the silence.
However, that silence was very quickly broken when her roommate Skye came bursting through the doors, her arms piled with electrical junk.
“Hey Simmons!”
“Hey Skye,” Jemma said with a sigh.
Skye was someone who always made her presence known, usually by the sheer amount of electrical junk that she managed to cart around with her all day. She was easily the more outgoing of the two, and had a tendency to tinker with any electrical object that was given to her. She was a double major, in electrical engineering and computer science.
“I hope you weren’t planning to use the TV tonight Simmons.” Jemma’s eyes opened, and she turned around to look at Skye.
“What have you done?”
“I may or may not have broken the TV but it’s okay, my laptop’s charged and you can livestream whatever you want on there.”
If this was anyone else, Simmons would have launched at them and verbally attacked them until they fixed the TV, all while watching the episode on the offered laptop. But this was Skye, and if she was 100% honest, she had probably already expected that something like this was going to happen.
Jemma sighed. “Whatever. Can you pass me the laptop?”
“Sure.”
She logged in, waiting for the laptop to load in an agonising wait, and opened her internet browser, only to be greeted with a grey screen with that terrible little dinosaur game displayed.
Fucking shit.
Today, out of all days, was the day that they just had to fix the internet cable. Jemma’s plan of watching Doctor Who had been crushed, because Skye had chosen today to try to ‘fix’ the TV and the internet around campus was down for the next three or so hours.
This was Doctor Who, and she couldn’t just wait three hours to see it, because her way of waiting would be scrolling down Tumblr, and she couldn’t go there, or else she would be bombarded by spoilers of the latest episode. People were extremely fast when it came to putting up spoilers and reviews, and most of the time they weren’t even under the cut.
Jemma took a deep breath and checked the time. 11:46 was sitting neatly in the corner of the laptop. She still had 14 minutes to scour the campus and find someone else who was also preparing to watch the new Doctor Who episode.
She gathered up her popcorn and her blanket and sprinted to the door, but Skye stopped her before she got there.
“Yes, yes, I know the internet’s down. I just realised and I am so super-duper sorry. But if you sneak over to the boys dorms; I know my friend Hunter’s roommate is watching it too. Well, probably. Room 184 I think.”
“Thanks Skye!” Jemma yelled as she ran out the door and basically flung herself down the stairs, gripping tightly to her blanket and her popcorn. This was basically a matter of life or death, and she knew that from her dorm to the boy’s dorm was about a fifteen minute walk. She now had twelve.
She was never very good at sports, which made this the fastest she had ever run. But, she reasoned, Doctor Who was worth it. It was always worth it.
She made it to the boy’s dorm in record time, with approximately two minutes to spare. But now, there was another issue, and that was finding the damn room. How the hell was she going to locate 184 in time to watch the start of the episode?
As she ran down the corridor, she noticed that there was someone standing in the hallway, staring at a noticeboard. Jemma may have been the most socially awkward person she knew, but yet again, Doctor who was worth it.
She pulled up next to them and panted, “Excuse me? Where is room 184?”
“Uh… down the hall and to the left.”
“Thank you!” She called out, after she had already started sprinting again down the corridor. There was approximately a minute to go until the Doctor Who episode aired, and right now, the occupants of Room 184 were her only hope.
Thanks for the Star Wars reference, brain, she thought as she arrived at the dorm room and knocked anxiously on the door.
A few seconds later, a tall man with scruff answered the door.
“Hello?”
“Hi, I’m Jemma Simmons, and I’m one of Skye’s friends. Can I come in for a second, I just need to see something.” She was rambling, and before he had even given his consent, she pushed past him and barged into their dorm room.
The moment she was in there, she breathed an audible sigh of relief. There was a small man sitting, perched on the sofa, eyes staring intently on the screen at a familiar sight. Doctor Who was playing on the screen.
“Sorry about this, but do you mind if I stay an hour? My roommate Skye broke the TV and the internet is down and I really really need to watch Doctor Who right now.”
The man on the couch spun around and faced her. “I don’t think I could ever turn away a Whovian in need, especially one with the offer of free popcorn.”
He patted the seat beside him and Jemma moved to sit down, bringing her blanket and her popcorn with her.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching as the new Eleventh Doctor shovelled fish fingers and custard into his mouth. It was only when the opening credits came on that they had a moment to introduce himself.
“I’m Leopold Fitz, by the way. You can call me Leo or Fitz or whatever.” The man held out his hand, a little greasy on the fingertips from the buttery popcorn.
“Uh, Jemma. Jemma Simmons. Thanks so much for this, by the way.”
“No problem. I’m engineering, what about you?”
“Biochem.”
“You know, he’s usually a lot more awkward around girls.” The roommate had spoken up, and Jemma smiled.
“Sometimes awkwardness is endearing.” Mentally, Jemma slapped herself. Why did you say that? He probably thinks you’re dumb now.
Jemma could feel the roommate’s heavy gaze on her, and she tried her best to ignore it. She didn’t say anything else for the next forty-five minutes, instead staring at the TV, engrossed in the adventures of Amelia Pond, Rory Williams and the Doctor. And even though their adventure around the small country town was amazing, she couldn’t get the man sitting next to her out of her head.
Doctor Who was a lovely distraction though, but she knew the moment the episode was over she would have to talk to him again.
And as the end credits flashed up, she could feel butterflies spring up in her stomach.
“Sorry guys, leaving you now. Lecture in five.” The roommate, Hunter, she recalled, excused himself, and somewhere in Jemma’s heart she could feel that he didn’t have a lecture in five, and that he was just giving them a moment alone.
His timing was impeccable.
“So…” He began.
“So…” She finished, chuckling a bit to herself.
“You wanna do this next week or…” Fitz said awkwardly, scratching his neck.
“Only if you have Earl Grey,” Jemma said politely, cocking her head to one side, a smile flitting over her lips.
“Done deal, Ms Simmons.”
It took Fitz the rest of the season to ask Simmons out on an official date. They were married by the time the Twelfth Doctor’s first episode rolled around.