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It wasn’t like Simmons not to answer her phone. Fitz had now sent six text messages, called four times and found himself walking up the hill to her dormitory. He’d turned up the collar of his coat to help fight against the bitter late autumn wind, hands stuffed into his pockets. The sun had set an hour ago when Fitz had last texted her from the lab and cold was seeping through every corner of the campus, forcing the hunched backs of fellow students scurrying past seeking warmth.
Fitz got lucky when a young Operations cadet caught the door for him as he rushed the last few meters, grateful for the burst of warm air that greeted him once inside. Simmons was on the third floor so he headed for the stairs, taking them two at a time. The co-ed dormitory was a maze of hallways, crowded with people, and smelled of day old popcorn. Simmon’s room was the last one before the row of windows, her name neatly stenciled on the door next to a fractal.
She answered after the third knock, wrapped in a fluffy blue robe, eyes and nose all a matching shade of red.
“Fitz?” she asked, surprised. “What are you doing here?”
“Um, you weren’t answering your phone.” He ducked his head shyly, reaching his hand up to scratch the back of his neck. Her face looked alarmed for a moment as she ushered him inside.
“Is everything alright?” her voice was anxious and she was looking him over carefully.
Fitz chuckled at her concern, it was so like Simmons to worry about everyone else’s welfare but her own.
“Calm down, Simmons,” he chastised playfully. “I was coming to check on you.”
She turned away nervously and Fitz noticed the small details - tissues piled on the bed, an uncharacteristic mound of laundry in the corner. He’d only been there few times before to exchange notes but the small room definitely bore Simmons’ watermark - lots of books, neatly organized, walls sporting a mix of fine art prints and anatomy posters, all softened by the glow of a string of Christmas lights lining the walls.
“Oh.” Simmons responded quietly, self consciously trying to neaten the hair around her face and discretely wipe her cheeks. “I hope you didn’t have to cover for me too much. I should have texted you. I’m sorry.”
Fitz was still standing awkwardly just inside the door. “No, don’t worry about it - just thought I’d pop by and see how you were.” And then after a pause -”Is, um, everything ok?”
She looked up at him and her face crumbled. “No. Not really. My grandmother just died.” It came out as a whisper.
Simmons had walked over to the bed stiffly and sat down, fingers wrapped around the edge and tangling in the floral duvet. Fitz lowered himself cautiously to join her, angled slightly so he could see her face and he reached for the tissues when she sniffled.
“That’s terrible. Did you, um, want to talk about it?”
Simmons was silent for a while, his words hanging in the air with the sound of her thick breathing. She looked so fragile suddenly, dwarfed by her big fleece robe, clutching the box of tissues to her chest. He wasn’t used to her silence. She was a verbal processor, that he’d noticed straight away, every thought that came into her head seeming to simultaneously leak out of her mouth. He'd figured it was the reason they often found their voices overlapping, until strangely she would start thinking for him, heading him off before he could finish his own sentences.
Simmons sighed. “She’d been sick for a while, slowly deteriorating.” The words came out strained and she let out a strangled gasp, “and it’s just been so hard on my parents, caring for her . . . and there’s nothing I can do. I’m not even there to help.”
Fitz found his arm had come up unconsciously to rub circles on her back, her body responding by ever so gently leaning into his touch. Slowly he felt her unravel, her shoulders relaxing as the tears started to fall and she folded herself into his arms. She told him stories of childhood baking at her grandmother’s house, of tea parties and holiday cookies. She talked about the cancer that had robbed a strong matriarch of her strength and independence. She told him of her father’s courage and devotion as he watched his mother slowly decline.
Eventually they’d sunk back against the wall, Simmons having melted into his chest. Fitz found the warm press of her strangely familiar, as if they’d been doing this forever. He’d never been one for physical contact, or friends either, for that matter. But Simmons, with her bright smile and determined enthusiasm, this was something new.
It had been almost two months since he’d finally got himself together and found something clever to say to her. He couldn’t believe his luck when Prof. Vaughn had paired them as lab partners for the semester and somehow they had slid into this easy friendship. Her smile had woken something in him, like a seed being warmed by the sun for the first time. From the first moment, he couldn’t help but return it, practice forcing their matching smiles to only grow bolder and more confident.
Fitz moved slightly to adjust and Simmons quickly shot up from the bed, leaving a burst of cold air behind her. Her cheeks were red and she was smoothing her hair down, flustered - or embarrassed?
“Well, thank-you, Fitz. I’m doing much better now. You don’t have to stay. I’ll be back to normal tomorrow.”
Fitz sat up awkwardly and for a moment they both pretended to look anywhere but at one another. He couldn’t leave, not with Simmons in pieces, standing there as if alone in the world with her eyes pinched closed and her arms wrapped around her shoulders.
“Simmons,” He closed his hand over hers. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
She turned to look at him, honey-brown eyes soft. A smile had found it’s way onto her lips, full and beautiful and, like always, contagious.
Tea was made and soon Dr. Who was playing on the laptop, the two friends stacked on the bed, side by side.
***
Jemma [7:55am]: Where are you?
Fitz [7:57am]: I’m sick.
Jemma [7:58am]: You are not.
Jemma [7:59am]: and I’m not lying to Prof. Vaughn for you.
Fitz [8:00am]: Some friend you are.
Fitz [8:01am]: Also-I’m going to need your notes.
Jemma [8:05am]: I’m coming to check on you.
Fitz [8:05am]: Don’t come here.
Fitz [8:06am]: I want to be alone.
Jemma [8:07am]: You hate being alone.
Fitz [8:08am]: I’m growing as a person.
Jemma’s hand collided with Fitz’s door. Nothing.
“Leopold Fitz, you had better come to the door this instant, or I swear - “
Fitz manifested himself before her, rumpled, his shadowed eyes wanting for sleep. But certainly not sick.
He slid his hand grumpily to the back of his neck and he opened the door wider to let her in. “Simmons-” he started but lost his commitment as soon she brushed past him. His voice was rough, as though it hadn’t yet been used.
FItz wasn’t slovenly, the floor of his small room was clear of laundry and other debris, but that hadn’t prevented the overpopulation of every surface with notes, wires, circuit boards, or whatever else he’d happened to be tinkering with.
“I don’t know how you find anything in here,” Jemma remarked, hardly able to prevent herself from adopting the mother-hen tone that stole into her voice when she was secretly amused by him. Somehow even his mess was charming and Jemma felt herself warming with affection when she saw a copy of the selfie they’d taken just before Christmas pinned to the corkboard over his desk.
Before meeting Fitz, Jemma had grown accustomed to being different. She’d always stood just outside of social circles, looking in. It hadn’t bothered her, per say, she’d made a lot of discoveries by looking at things from a different perspective, but with Fitz, their differences only made them stronger. Except for maybe the bickering. But maybe she liked that he was a worthy adversary.
Fitz had drawn his eyebrows together in animated defensiveness as he brought a hand to the bridge of his nose and spouted, “Excuse me, but I know precisely where to find everything I need. You see, Simmons, I have a system-”
But his words faded into the background as Jemma’s eyes scanned the room and settled on something unusual. It was a drone, or used to be, now reduced to sad fragments and tangles of copper on his desk.
“Fitz . . .” Jemma interrupted, softly, stepping forward toward the mess. Fitz stiffened and moved to make the block but Jemma had always been faster than him. “Is that Mango?”
Fitz retreated, shoulders slumping. Mango was the first drone he had ever shown her and by far his favorite. It wasn’t unusual for her to meet it on her ascent up the stairs, fetching the mail for her lazy friend, or for Fitz to summon it’s whirring likeness to retrieve snacks for the pair as they extended themselves across his bed on movie nights.
Shattered was the best way to describe it, Jemma thought, as she turned Mango’s mangled pieces over in her hand. “What happened?”
Fitz’s face was white and he folded himself inward against the wall, crossing his arms and staring at the floor. “It was a supposed to be a prank, I think? I sent him down to get crisps from the machine and when he didn’t come back I got worried. I think it was the meat heads over in Operations. I suspect they took a baseball bat to him. Americans and their rubbish sports.”
Jemma gasped, her hand involuntarily clapping to her mouth. Fitz didn’t move, but he did tilt his head in her direction, meeting her eyes with sad, lifted eyebrows.
“Fitz, I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah.”
It was a while before either of them spoke again - the need for words simply not present. Jemma had lowered herself to lean on the edge of his neatly made bed, legs stretched out in front of her. A nostalgic smile played on her lips. “Why’d you call him Mango?” she asked.
Fitz cleared his throat. “Erm. Mango - it was my dad’s favorite flavor of ice cream. He, um, well we really, built it together. Before he died.” His voice softened slowly as he spoke, ending in a whisper and Jemma finally made sense of his disheveled appearance and red ringed eyes. “I added on, obviously,” he recovered, “I mean, he is actually quite a bit modified since then, well, was modified . . .”
“You were up all night trying to fix him, weren’t you?” she asked gently and Fitz nodded in reply. “Fitz, this is horrible. What can I do?”
He turned to her then, a weak smile forming as his expression warmed. “Well, you’re here, aren’t you?”