Chapter Text
Jemma glanced down at her group text with her brothers for the fifteenth time that morning. Sure enough, the address they’d given her matched the building across the street: 5 Victoria Terrace, Crieff, Perth and Kinross PH7. And while it looked like the upper stories of the imposing gray structure were reserved for flats, the bottom floor was some kind of shop. A cheery sign above the door spelled out “Fitz Craft Garden and Tea Rooms.”
She sighed as the bus that had just deposited her pulled away. She had no choice now but to give it a try. Besides, she vaguely remembered that name, “Fitz,” from something her brother Arthur had mentioned. Crossing the street, Jemma hesitated one more second outside the shop windows before pushing her way through the door.
A bell jingled as the door shut behind her, lending its cheery voice to the cozy atmosphere inside the shop. Patterned tablecloths covered the cluster of tables in the front, and beyond, Jemma spotted a wall of loose-leaf tea and its various accessories for sale. The shop was warm, unlike the nasty December weather outside, and as Jemma unwound the scarf from her neck, she felt some of her stress unwind, too. That didn’t happen often, lately.
Behind the counter at the back of the shop, a middle-aged woman with freckles and curly gray-brown hair greeted Jemma with a smile. “Hello, dear,” she said, her Scottish accent somehow as comforting as the rest of the shop. “How can I help you?”
“Oh, well, I’m actually looking for Catriona. My brother told me she would be here. I’m Jemma Simmons.” She made her way back to the counter as she spoke, eying the wall of tea in her peripheral vision as she went. Even if this was the wrong place, she was tempted to make a few purchases before leaving.
“Simmons—oh yes! Here about the cottage, are you?” The woman’s smile widened, and Jemma couldn’t help but give her a cautious smile in return. “I’m Catriona Fitz. Pleasure to meet you, dear.”
Jemma shook the woman’s proffered hand. “Nice to meet you as well, Mrs. Fitz.”
“Please, call me Catriona.” The woman gave Jemma’s hand a final squeeze before dropping it and opening a drawer behind the counter. “Now, you’re checking in for a two-week visit, isn’t that right? And what brings you to Perthshire, Miss Simmons?”
“Please, call me Jemma,” she echoed. Catriona gave Jemma a brief, acknowledging smile as she continued to dig through the drawer. “My brother’s getting married here, actually,” Jemma continued. “My parents rented the cottage for the family before the wedding.” And a few family friends, Jemma thought, but she didn’t want to bore this woman with her complete family history. The Simmons-and-friends could be an eclectic bunch.
“Oh, a winter wedding! How lovely.” Catriona was such a cheerful woman, she made it impossible not to feel a bit uplifted. Jemma continued to relax as Catriona bustled about behind the counter. After a minute longer, the older woman pulled out a leather-bound notebook and a large, ancient-looking cluster of brass keys. “Now, don’t be intimidated,” Catriona said when she caught Jemma staring at the keys. “I know they look old, but we’ve made a few renovations to the cottage since the locks were put in. Everything’s in working order.”
“I’m sure,” said Jemma politely, but as Catriona pointed out the gate key, the front door key, the back door key, and the key to the separate garage, each one looked older than the last. By the time house rules had been explained and identification cards had been checked, Jemma felt a bit of her previous anxiety creeping up again.
“And if anything should go wrong, anything at all, don’t hesitate to call me,” said Catriona, catching Jemma’s serious expression. She scribbled down a number on the packet of papers about the cottage. “Here’s the flat number—I live just above the shop—and if I don’t answer, you can always call my son on his mobile.” Catriona scribbled a second number after the first. Handing over the papers, she told Jemma rather sheepishly, “I never could get the hang of the whole mobile thing.”
Jemma managed a weak smile, but she was internally cursing her family for making her come up on her own and check them all in. Just because she was closest—and the three-hour trek from St Andrews involving a train and two buses had not exactly felt “close”—they’d made her the one whose name would be on all the papers. At least her parents had paid up front. Her credit card couldn’t exactly handle the rental fees at the moment.
“Sign here, dear,” said Catriona, turning the leather-bound book towards her and pointing at a line. “And initial at the bottom.”
Jemma followed her instructions, put the cottage papers in her handbag, and thanked Catriona before turning to leave. She hesitated halfway to the door and turned back. “Um—sorry—Catriona? Could you perhaps tell me when the next bus is stopping outside?”
“The Number 15, dear? Are you planning to take it to the cottage?” Catriona, for the first time since Jemma had walked in, was no longer smiling. She was frowning through the shop windows at the bitter, gray sky. “It’s a bit of a trek once the bus drops you off at Fowlis Wester, you know. Would you like a lift? My son could take you. He’s just upstairs—”
“Oh, no thank you,” said Jemma hastily. As kind as Catriona clearly was, Jemma didn’t much fancy a trip out to a secluded cottage with a complete stranger.
“Are you sure? I reckon it’s going to rain this evening—”
“Oh, it’s all right, I’ll be fine on my own.” Jemma smiled to take the edge off her words, then hesitated and turned toward the street again.
“If you’re sure,” said Catriona doubtfully from behind her. “Call if you need anything, mind.”
“Thank you,” Jemma replied, waving once more before she left the shop.
“I’ll be fine on my own,” Jemma repeated to herself. No matter how often she said it, circumstances continued to disprove her, for she was currently wandering down a muddy, unlit road in the pouring rain, with no mobile service. And she was starting to admit, albeit grudgingly, that she was not fine. “Bloody Scotland,” she muttered, just to change things up.
The sky had gotten dark while she waited for the Number 15 bus to Fowlis Wester, which meant that by the time it dropped her off twenty minutes later at the village, she still had thirty minutes of walking in the dark before she reached Catriona’s cottage. Five minutes into that and the rain had begun. Working on her fellowship at St Andrews had taught Jemma to always carry a waterproof coat in Scotland, but this particular downpour was unhindered by such useful inventions, and in no time at all, she was soaked to the skin, cold, and a little bit worried, for no cottage drive had appeared.
And now, she realized when she squinted through the rain to check her watch, she’d been walking for well over an hour. She cursed again, tried to kick a stone across the road, slipped in the mud, and fell flat on her back, handbag, suitcase, and all.
Some time later, she managed to right herself and stumble to the protection of the trees at the side of the road. The rain lessened enough for her to pull out her phone. “Please please please please please,” she muttered, clicking through the lock screen, and then, “Oh, thank God!”
She had one bar of service.
Jemma rifled through her mud-spattered handbag, pulling out the papers from Catriona (which were soaked in about a minute). Fortunately, the phone numbers remained intact. Jemma frantically dialed the first one and, though the tone was a bit fuzzy, she heard it ring and let out a sigh of relief—
--which just as quickly became a groan of disappointment when the ringing continued until it switched to a machine. Catriona’s cheery voice said, “You’ve reached Catriona Fitz. I’m away from the phone at the minute, but leave a message—”
Jemma hung up and, throwing caution to the winds, dialed the second number. It rang again—a bit fuzzily, like before—but this time, after a few rings, someone picked up.
“Hello?” he said, his tone confused and almost drowsy, as if he’d been asleep.
Jemma checked her watch again. It was half past five! Hoping she wasn’t about to regret her decision, she said, “Hello, is this—” she squinted at Catriona’s handwriting next to the numbers—“Leo Fitz?”
“Just Fitz, actually,” he said, and he definitely sounded irritated now. “Who’s this?”
“Jemma Simmons. Your mum gave me your number, in case of emergency.”
“Oh, yeah.” She heard dull sounds in the background—rustling papers and a few thumps. “Mum’s downstairs closing up the shop. What’s the emergency?”
“Well . . .” Jemma sighed. There was nothing for it—she’d already called him, after all. “It’s just that—I seem to have gotten a bit lost.”
There was a long silence, punctuated by static due to their bad connection. It lasted so long that Jemma thought she might’ve lost the call, but she checked the phone and it was still going. “Hello?” she said after a while.
“Yeah, sorry, I’m here. Did you say—lost?”
“Yes.” It was Jemma’s turn to sound irritated, though it was mostly at herself. So much for not regretting this. “I was planning to walk to the cottage from the bus stop, but I seem to have missed the drive, because I’ve been walking for an hour now, and—”
“Oh, yeah, you’ve passed it, then,” he said, and she heard more sounds in the background. Was he even listening to her?
“I know I’ve passed it,” she said through gritted teeth. “That’s why I called. I was wondering if I could speak to your mum. Maybe she could give me some directions?”
“No need,” he said. “I’ll come give you a lift.”
“That’s not—”
“Look, my mum’s still got a customer and it’ll be a while. What do you look like?”
“I’m sorry?” What kind of mad person was on the other end of this phone? Jemma thought about hanging up, but just at that moment, the rain seemed to get worse—if that were possible.
“What do you look like?” he asked again, more loudly, as if worried that she actually hadn’t heard him. Jemma held the phone away from her ear. “So I can find you on the road,” he continued, enunciating every word.
“It’s not exactly packed with people,” she muttered, staring out at the dark, desolate wilderness, but before he could speak, she said, “I’ve got on a black coat and red scarf, and I’m carrying a brown handbag and suitcase,” she said, staring down at herself at she spoke.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”
“Thank y—” Jemma started, but she was interrupted by a dial tone. He hung up! Shoving her phone into her purse, Jemma attempted to brush some of the mud off herself from her fall, rather more violently than necessary. How could a woman like Catriona have a son like that? It was hard to tell from his voice, but he sounded like an adult—at least out of his teenage years, Jemma thought, though his behavior had been no indication of maturity. Her clothes as salvageable as possible under the circumstances, Jemma collected her belongings and began walking back in the direction she had come, hoping the rain would wash off the rest of the mud—and cool her temper.
She had more success with the former by the time headlights appeared on the muddy road. Feeling like a drowned cat—both in appearance and temperament—Jemma waved down the driver, who pulled up beside her, barely managing to avoid splashing mud all over her again. Jemma sucked in a breath to let him know exactly what she thought of that, but when he opened the door and jumped out to help her, her words froze on her tongue.
Fitz was not at all what she expected him to be. He looked to be in his early twenties—close to her own age, she figured—and though he was small and wiry, barely taller than her, his face was open and engaging. Pasty, but handsome. And his eyes—even in the darkness, and the pouring rain, they caught her attention and held it. So much so that she forgot to listen to what he was saying.
“—Get in,” he shouted over the now-pounding rainfall, prying the suitcase from her cold fingers so he could shove it in the boot. He had a hood up over his light brown curls. When he slammed the boot shut and hurried back to the driver’s side, Jemma jumped to life and scrambled around to the passenger seat.
The rain was even louder once they were both in the car and the doors were shut. Some kind of music was playing—indie rock, it sounded like to Jemma, and the singer had a heavy Scottish accent, but Fitz shut it off in a hurry before she could make out the words. He pulled on his seatbelt and glanced over at her, raising his eyebrows, waiting.
“Oh!” she said, and pulled on her seatbelt as well. She was normally very safety-conscious, but some part of her brain had stopped working as soon as he jumped out of that car. As her seatbelt clicked into place over her soaking wet clothes, she remembered how to form basic words, and she said, “Thank you.”
“No problem,” he responded in a mumble, barely audible over the sound of the rain. He turned the car around through the mud and began driving back towards Fowlis Wester. Jemma thought he still sounded a bit grumpy, and she reminded herself that even though he was quite handsome, he had been rather rude on the phone. Or at least odd. She stared determinedly out her passenger window, watching the rain slide across the glass. All she had to do was make it to the cottage and into a hot shower, and then this miserable evening would be over.
It couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes before Fitz was turning the car off the road onto a gravel drive, but to Jemma, it felt like hours. Sitting in awkward silence, with nothing but the rain and a serious, silent Fitz for company, she thought she might go mad. She checked her phone once, but the light was bright in the dark car, and besides, what little service she’d had before seemed to be gone by then.
Jemma did make a small sound when the cottage came into view at last. It was lovely, built of the same gray brick as the village and sprawling out behind its quaint stone wall. A pair of wrought-iron gates blocked the drive, and as Fitz slowed the car, Jemma dug in her handbag for the right key.
Fitz glanced over to her. “Here, I can do it.”
“No, it’s all right,” she said quickly. Their voices sounded loud after so much silence—or perhaps the rain had died down. “No use both of us getting drenched.” He didn’t have time to protest, for her fingers closed around the keys. “Ah ha!” she said, pulling them out of her bag. “Could you just remind me which is for the gate?” She held them out to him on her palm.
He bent over her hand and reached out to sift through the large keys. His fingertip trailed across the sensitive skin of her palm, and Jemma couldn’t suppress a shiver.
Fortunately, a second later he pulled his finger back and said, “Bloody hell, your hands are cold!” When she shrugged, feeling awkward, he pointed at a long, narrow key and said, “It’s that one.”
“Right. Well, thanks for the lift. I really appreciate it.”
“Are you mad? I’ll drive you up to the front door, at least,” he said. Not exactly what Jemma had expected as a response to her gratitude, but her wariness from before had all gone. Intuition told her she could trust this Fitz, despite his . . . grumpiness.
“Okay,” she said. “Be right back.” Leaving her scarf and handbag where they’d fallen on the floor of the car, she hopped out and raced to the gate lock. Even knowing the right key, it took her a few seconds to get the lock open, and then she had to walk each side of the gate out until the car could fit through. She left the gate open and hurried back to the car, any part of her that had dried from before freshly soaked through. Ah, well. Her fingers and toes had gone a bit numb, so she couldn’t really feel the cold, anyway.
When they reached the top of the drive, Fitz jumped out before Jemma could and retrieved her suitcase for her. He walked her up to the door and helped her choose the right key again. The lock opened much more smoothly this time.
Jemma turned to him, the door partly open. He stood a step behind with her suitcase in hand, watching her, his eyes cast in shadow. “Well . . .” she said, waiting for him to hand over the suitcase and leave.
“I’d better come in and make sure the electricity’s working,” he said, surprising her. “It hasn’t been turned on until yesterday. Same with the heat.”
“Oh. Well . . . I mean, if you’re sure . . . I don’t want to waste any more of your time.”
“No worries. Trust me, I wasn’t doing anything productive.” He indicated with the suitcase that she should go first, so she pushed through the door and into the cottage, where the pitter-patter of rain grew mercifully quiet as she shut the door behind them. She heard him fumbling in the dark for a light switch right before the hall light came on.
The cottage entryway reminded Jemma forcefully of Catriona’s tea shop: a row of pegs lined the hall for coats, right above a wooden umbrella stand; at the end of the hall, carpeted wooden stairs twisted up from the ground floor. The walls were pale blue, except for the end of the hall, where a hand-painted branch of cherry blossoms in pink and gold reached toward a high, round window. “This place is lovely,” said Jemma, staring at the art.
“Yeah, thanks,” said Fitz. “And the electricity’s working, which is good.” He set Jemma’s suitcase down on a wooden chest across from the umbrella stand. “I’d better check the heat, though. This place is freezing.” He turned back to face her and gestured down the hall, toward the mural. “Do you mind if I—? The heat controls are back there.”
Jemma took a second or two to mumble “Yeah, of course, fine,” because she’d finally caught his eyes in the light, and they were rather stunning. The same color of blue as the walls, and very . . . earnest. As he walked down to the end of the hall, she turned away, just in case she was blushing, and busied herself with removing her coat and muddied boots. Once the coat had been hung and the boots deposited on a matt by the door, she realized how cold it really was in the hallway—blush or not—and she shivered again. Judging by the way her clothes were dripping on the carpet, she needed to get a better waterproof coat.
“Can I make you a cup of tea?” Fitz had come back, so silently that Jemma jumped when he spoke. “I happen to know where everything is in the kitchen, and you look as though you could use it.”
“Really, that’s very nice of you, but I shouldn’t keep you any longer,” she said, wringing out her shoulder-length hair so that she wouldn’t have to meet his eyes. The strange part was how badly she suddenly wanted him to stay.
“No, trust me, it won’t be a minute. And you should get into some dry clothes. You can catch cold up here, you know, when you stand in the rain for a couple of hours.”
“Actually, it’s generally believed that the association between winter and illness is more behavioral than biological, although recent evidence—” She glanced over at him without really meaning to and caught his surprised expression. He’d only been teasing her, she realized a moment too late. Of course. Mentally berating herself, and now quite positive of the existence of some level of blush, she said, “Nevermind. Tea . . . would be great.”
“The bedrooms are on the next floor,” he said, pointing up the stairs, now watching her with an unreadable expression. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”
Jemma thanked him and retrieved her suitcase, hurrying upstairs and choosing the first bedroom that she came across. It didn’t take her long to towel off, though she hesitated over what dry clothes to put on. Why did everything she packed suddenly look so . . . so . . . nerdy and boring? Realizing she was being ridiculous—after all, she’d probably never see this bloke after tonight—she pulled on a fresh bra and knickers, black sweatpants (albeit her “stylish” ones), and her favorite Doctor Who sweater. In doing so, she began to feel warm at last, and she sighed in contentment before she hurried downstairs.
--and immediately regretted her decision, coming to a stuttering halt outside the kitchen door. Doctor Who sweater? Loungewear? She could practically hear her friend Daisy admonishing her for her lack of “seductive powers” (why was it always in Daisy’s voice?). Not that there would be any seduction going on. Just a cup of tea.
Jemma steeled herself and pushed through the doors, catching Fitz in the act of pouring the steaming kettle into two mismatched mugs. “I’m ashamed to say I could only find PG Tips. Don’t tell my—,” he was saying, and then he looked up and froze mid-sentence.
Jemma had not blushed so much since the graduation ceremony for her second PhD, and even then, it was only because she had tripped up the stairs to the stage. “Yeah, I know, Doctor Who fan here—”
But Fitz set down the kettle, shaking his head and smiling that strange half-smile he’d given her in the hallway. “No, no, it’s not that. You’ll never believe this.” And he started to unzip his own jacket, pulling it open and shedding water droplets everywhere to reveal—the same exact TARDIS sweater.
Jemma’s jaw dropped. “What! No way. I bought this online! It’s a limited edition—”
“Mine too,” Fitz said, letting the jacket fall closed, but the TARDIS still peeped through. “After the fiftieth anniversary episode, yeah?”
“Well, yeah, but—” Jemma matched his smile, crossing the kitchen to retrieve her mug of tea. “What are the odds?”
“Since we were born in the same generation, just in time for the New Who renaissance, and—let’s see—it’s December, so we’re a certain percentage more likely to wear sweaters—”
Jemma frowned, assuming she was being teased for her outburst in the hallway, but to her surprise, Fitz was frowning, too—in concentration. “I meant that rhetorically, you know,” she said when he lapsed into silence.
“Oh, I know,” he said, his eyes re-focusing on her. She was caught off guard by the transformation that came over his face when he smiled. They were not too far apart now, just a couple of feet, the steam from their tea rising between them into the cold room. “But I can never resist a good problem.”
Jemma picked up her mug of tea and blew on it. “Really? Are you a scientist?” She heard the studied nonchalance in her voice and hoped that her affected casualness was not as obvious to him when she asked the question.
“Yes, actually. An engineer, primarily. Why—are you?” In his voice, she heard a challenge, as if perhaps he already suspected.
She blinked and met his direct, intelligent gaze. “Yes,” she said. “Biochem. I work at St Andrews. Post-doctoral fellowship.”
His gaze faltered, his brow wrinkling as he puzzled out this new information. “But you look about twenty.”
“I am.” She felt the blush creeping back and took a hasty sip of tea to hide it, with the unfortunate result of burning her tongue. But the tea tasted amazing—PG Tips or not—as it spread through her and banished the last of the chill from the rain. Or maybe that was the blush. Dammit.
“Now that’s just—weird,” he said suddenly, and Jemma glanced up in surprise. She’d heard that before, sure, but she hadn’t expected it somehow from Fitz, even if they’d only just met. It hadn’t exactly been easy, going through school at an advanced level—everyone around her was far older, which meant she never could make friends in her classes, and everyone of her own age wanted nothing to do with her. While she thought she’d be well hardened against all that by this stage of her academic career, hearing Fitz say those words hurt more than she anticipated. It was always when she let her guard down that people hurt her the most.
Jemma sipped her tea again, hoping that if she drank quickly, he would leave sooner. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before,” she said, her happiness gone.
“No, no, I mean—I mean because I’m a doctoral fellow, too. Er, was. Last year. And I’m twenty as well.”
Jemma nearly dropped her mug in surprise. She half expected that he was still teasing her, but when she met his gaze—so earnest and open, just like it had been when he first jumped out of that car in the rain—she knew he wasn’t lying. “What? Where? I mean, where were you working?”
“MIT,” he said. He played with his tea bag, poking it about where it floated atop his tea, and she thought she detected a determination to avoid her eyes. He shrugged. “I graduated young, and they offered me a great chance, it’s just—well—I started to miss home, I guess. So here I am.”
“Incredible,” Jemma said.
He laughed, one of the first times she’d heard him laugh, only it was bitter and self-deprecating and Jemma disliked it instantly. “Not really. Pathetic, more like.”
“No, I mean, it’s incredible to meet someone who’s—well—” A genius, she wanted to say, but it sounded a bit . . . gushing. Instead, she said, “Like me,” and then instantly felt a bit arrogant for equating the two. But at least he wouldn’t know it, not without reading her thoughts on top of everything else. Though, by their similarities, she was starting to think he could.
“Yeah,” he said, wrapping both hands around his mug and holding it to his chest. It made him look somehow boyish, Jemma thought, but she liked it. “I suppose it is.”
Though Jemma tried to make her tea last as long as possible, and she did manage to save a few swallows for when it had gone completely cold, their conversation still passed far too quickly for her liking. She told Fitz about her brothers, Henry and Arthur, and how their parents had booked the cottage for Henry’s winter Scottish wedding. He told her about working in his mother’s teashop and how she—Catriona—made most of the crafts for the “craft garden.” They discussed their favorite Doctors—Fitz was partial to Eleven, a blow which hit Jemma, a diehard Ten fan, very hard—and then their favorite episodes, and then, somehow, their current scientific projects. It was a rambling, meandering conversation, but somehow no discussion had passed more smoothly in Jemma’s memory, and before she wanted it to be, their tea was gone, and Fitz was checking his watch.
“Bloody hell,” he said, practically jumping to standing from his barstool by the counter. “It’s half past nine!”
“No—really?” Jemma checked her own watch and saw that it had stopped, probably due to inundation from her jaunt in the rain. Fantastic.
“My mum will think I drowned or something,” he said half-apologetically as he shrugged on his jacket. He downed the last drops of tea from his mug. “Are you—are you going to be okay here by yourself? I mean, do you need anything?”
Jemma was touched that he would ask. She couldn’t believe that a few hours earlier she’d been cursing him as the most ridiculous, irritating, grumpy young man she’d ever spoken to. “I’ll be fine,” she told him. “But—thank you.”
He stopped part way through zipping up his jacket and smiled. Again, Jemma could not help but admire how it lit up his eyes, transforming his face. “Thank you,” he said. “That was the best cup of tea I’ve had in a while—and my mum owns a teashop.”
Jemma laughed, and as if a spell had been broken, the frozen stillness passed and Fitz was headed toward the front door. She followed him, teasing, “Well, seeing as how you made it—”
“Okay, okay, I’ll take the credit, if you insist,” he said, talking back at her over his shoulder until he reached the door. He stopped with his hand on the knob and half-turned, so that he was clearly addressing her but didn’t have to meet her eyes. “Look,” he said, his voice closer to a mumble than it had been since the beginning of the evening, “if you—if you ever want to talk science again, or even Doctor Who, you know where to find me.”
Jemma sucked in a deep breath, wishing he would look at her and wishing he wouldn’t because then he would surely see the traitorous flush that had decided to return. “Okay. Yeah. And you know where to find me.”
She thought she caught a half-smile, a curl of one side of his lips, and then he said, “Goodnight, Jemma.”
He was gone before she could finish saying, “Goodnight, Fitz.”
As soon as Fitz got back in the car, he sighed, leaving his keys dangling unused in the ignition. As much as he knew his mum would be a bit worried, he was in no hurry to leave the cottage, despite what he’d told Jemma, because he’d just spent with her his most enjoyable evening in a really, really long time.
Going through school with girls who were several years older hadn’t exactly made Fitz a ladies’ man, and by the time he was working at MIT, he’d had so little experience compared to his peers that he was plain worried about how a date would go. A couple of students had asked him out once or twice, but they’d never done more than share drinks before Fitz was making excuses to end the evening early. Dating undergraduates as a post-doc? Even if they were the same age, it was just—weird.
When he’d been woken up from a mid-afternoon nap (that had, he was forced to admit, gone on rather longer than planned) by his mobile ringing, it’s possible that he hadn’t presented, well, the best side of himself upon answering. He’d only been sleeping because he was up the night before working on a possible breakthrough for his “Golden Retriever” project. When his idea hadn’t panned out, and he found himself sleep deprived, he’d become what his mother used to call a “grumpypuss.” (She hadn’t called him that since he turned twelve, but there were times when, secretly, he felt it was warranted. Though he’d never tell her that.)
As he reflected back over the evening from his car in the cottage drive, Fitz realized how lucky he was that Jemma had given him the time of day. His irritation had completely evaporated when she climbed in the passenger seat: her clothes dripping, her hair plastered to her pale forehead, her eyes wide with an expression that was impossible to interpret. They were lovely, her eyes, he thought to himself, not for the first time in the past several hours. In fact, that thought had been running through his mind so loudly that he’d had trouble thinking of anything else to say, out of fear that he might blurt out something about her eyes instead. So he’d been awkwardly silent on the whole drive, of course, but she still hadn’t held it against him. And when she came downstairs in her sweatpants and her Doctor Who sweater, her hair all fluffy and damp from its hasty drying—well, he was fortunate that the sweater made a good excuse for the way he froze up. Because it wasn’t the only thing that had taken his breath away.
And after that, it had been easy, oh, so easy to talk to her. Better than easy—it had been like drinking water for the first time, or hearing music, or watching the sunrise. It had been the discovery of something wonderful and the realization that his life had been—and would be—lacking, somehow, without it.
Fitz shook his head and leaned forward to start the car. He was being ridiculous. It was one conversation. Maybe this is just what it feels like, he thought, to go on a really good date. And it wasn’t even a date.
He sighed as he twisted the keys and the engine roared to life. At least it seemed like she wanted to see him again. If anything, they could be friends, maybe even lab partners, since she’d been interested in his work.
As he began to ease the car back down the drive, Fitz happened to glance over at the passenger side, perhaps missing the person who had been sitting there a few hours earlier. His eyes caught a splash of red, and he realized that Jemma had left her scarf. He stopped the car, hesitating, thinking he could run it up to her, but maybe she was already in the shower or—or asleep? And it would be much worse to interrupt her like a bumbling idiot. So, after some internal debate, he continued on down the drive, only stopping to shut and lock the gate behind his car as he left.
And if some part of him was thinking that it made a good excuse to see her again, well, he supposed he could live with that.