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Fitz didn't know how long he had slept, but when he woke up, it was with two dead legs and a heavy weight on one of them. He frowned, his eyes still closed, and tried unsuccessfully to move. He reluctantly opened his eyes and found Jemma asleep on his lap.
She was really back; it hadn't all been some exhausted fever dream. He bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut as all the emotions he had tried to keep in check whilst looking for her flooded through him. He skimmed his hand over her hair, hoping he wouldn't startle her, not knowing all she had been through. Wherever she had been - that awful, whipping sandy place from which he had rescued her - he couldn't imagine what she had had to do to survive. He hoped eventually she would tell him. It didn't matter how long it took her to recover, or how long she needed to take to talk about it, he would be there. He was scared to death to ever let her out of his sight again, though he knew she would have some words with him about that in the long run.
Right now, all he wanted was to touch her, to feel her breathing against him, to know that she was safe. All the time he had been without her it was like a part of him had died. It always did when he was without her, and he never wanted to feel like that again. He could only hope she felt the same.
He knew she needed to continue to rest, but even though he didn't want to wake her, they both needed to get off of the floor. God only knew where she had slept for the last six months if his leg was an acceptable respite.
Fitz gently caressed her face, and he heard the slightest hitch in her breath. “Jemma,” he said softly. He tried to move a bit, but his legs being asleep wasn't doing him any favors. “Jemma, come on, there's a perfectly good bed over there...” Her only response was to “Hmmm” lightly in her sleep and burrow further into his thigh.
He sighed, but he couldn't be upset with her. He didn't know if he could ever be upset with her again, not after all they had been through.
He shifted enough to get her upright against him, then gingerly rose from the floor. It took a bit more effort than he would have liked on his part, but he managed to pick her up off the floor, her arms automatically going around his neck. He stopped for just a moment, looking down at her face in the dim light, a bit scratched and battered, but still his Jemma.
When he put her down on the bed and momentarily lost contact, she shot straight upright, looking wildly around her.
“It's okay, Jemma,” he said gently, restraining her flailing hands. “It's me, I'm here.”
She shook her head as if she was trying to recall where she was, and he could see her eyes snap into focus. “I'm sorry, Fitz,” she said, looking down at their hands entwined in her lap. “I thought you were leaving, I... I really don't want to be alone here.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed beside her, his thumbs gently stroking the outside of her hands. “I'm not going anywhere, Jemma. You'll be lucky if I ever go anywhere ever again.” He said it with a lopsided grin, but the true meaning behind it was all too real.
She swallowed hard and asked the question she had been too afraid to ask before. “How long was I gone?”
Fitz didn't hesitate. “Six of the longest months of my life.”
Her lower lip started to tremble, pools of tears forming in her eyes. “Oh my God, Fitz. I didn't know. There was no way to register time there. Nothing. Do Mum and Dad think I'm...?” She couldn't finish.
He shook his head, blinking back his own tears. “No, they just think you've been really busy. I don't know if you want to tell them. I wouldn't let Coulson tell them anything. I didn't want them to think the worst when I wasn't going to give up on finding you.”
“You looked for me all that time?” She already knew the answer, but some part of her wanted to hear him say it.
“Every day, Jemma. Some – a lot of people told me to stop, to move on, but I couldn't. I had to get you back, I had to know you were alive. I had to...” he choked back a sob that he was horrified to have let out, because this was not about him. It had never been about him, but about her, having to survive, having to be on this planet. With or without him, the choice was hers, but he had to know that she was safe.
“Oh, Fitz,” she said, cupping the back of his neck and pulling him against her. She hugged him so tightly he couldn't breathe and he didn't care. If he died right now, he had fulfilled his purpose. Jemma Simmons was alive.
She sobbed into his neck, all the fear, uncertainty, and loneliness of the past months, and it only opened his floodgates likewise. They clung to each other, sobbing and murmuring incoherent nothings that seemed like everything. All of the pain that each had endured at the loss of the other, and the struggle to get back to each other came pouring out. Neither knew how much time had passed when they finally pulled back, their faces tear-stained, eyes swollen, but they were smiling.
“What a couple of ninnies we are, eh?” Fitz tried to joke, but Jemma just shook her head.
“No, Fitz, I don't think so. I think we're pretty strong, actually.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she said with a determined nod of her head.
“You're going to be all right?” he said, knowing it couldn't be that easy.
“I think I will be. We'll get through this together, just like everything else. Or,” she said, diverting her eyes, “most things.”
He wiped her cheek with his thumb. “Hey, don't do that. We can talk about that later – much later. What matters now is that you're okay. It's all that matters.”
“All that matters is we're okay.”
He nodded.
She scooted over in the bed, leaving room for him, but Fitz, ever the gentleman, didn't get the hint immediately. “Lie down, Fitz.”
“I, uh...”
She swore she could see the blush rising in his face, even in the vague light. “Don't be silly, Fitz. We're both exhausted, and I need you here to be able to sleep.”
He nodded again, and slid in beside her. When she slipped into his arms, her head on his chest, and when he heard her breathing fall into the rhythm of sleep, he wondered how he had ever lived without her. He was determined he never would again.
Finis