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A mug of tea sat—cooling and forgotten—next to the terminal in Fitz's quarters. He'd been working for the past three afternoons on his most important end of term paper and he could finally see the beginnings of light at the end of the tunnel. He was fifteen pages in and had a solid beginning—enough, he hoped, to convince their instructor his proposed area of study for the next term was promising enough to pursue.
As he scanned over his work, he tapped on several sections to add notes, points he wanted to run past Simmons to get a different perspective. His eyes flicked upward, finding the alert her last message had left on his screen. She had, of course, already completed her paper and sent it to him for his notes and suggestions. His quick read of her paper had resulted in two competing feelings: a renewal of his admiration for her knowledge and insight, and complete and utter panic at the idea of trying to put together something himself that was even close to the same caliber as her work.
That was how he found himself at the keyboard in his quarters instead of tinkering with the latest device he'd been building. He'd just gotten his hands on a new power supply he planned to scrap, using the parts to design his own that could meet his more exacting specifications. Yet, his tools sat on his desk, tantalizingly untouched, while he toiled yet again at the coursework he secretly regarded as an annoying formality.
Fitz leaned back in his chair after adding a few sentences here and there, fleshing out a few ideas he'd discussed with Simmons earlier that week. She had understood him right away, asking insightful questions and offering her own perspective on ways to expand his research. The light that had shone in Simmons's eyes as she'd gotten more excited about his project had reminded him of how close they'd become, that he truly had found a way to impress her enough to collaborate with him. It wasn't that long ago that he'd been trying to pluck up the courage to just speak to her, and now he could honestly say that they had become best friends.
The sudden buzzing of his mobile interrupted his thoughts and he picked it up, frowning at the display when it showed a number he didn't recognize. Figuring it was a wrong number, he decided to just answer it, wanting to get the interruption out of the way quickly so he could go back to work.
"Hello?" he said, just after stabbing at the talk button. It came out more brusque than he'd really intended, as he was already anticipating this disruption putting a serious dent in his already tenuous ability to concentrate on a paper he didn't even really want to be working on.
"Mister...um…" came a woman's voice, and he could hear papers shuffling around as she stammered into the phone. He tried to avoid making an audible sigh, instead putting his efforts into thinking of the quickest way to end the call. "Mr. Fitz?"
"Yeah, this is Fitz. If you could just get to—"
"I'm sorry to trouble you, but you're listed as an emergency contact, Mr. Fitz. You're the only local contact, so we wanted to speak with you first."
Fitz stood up, pacing as he tried to make sense of what he was hearing. He couldn't fathom who would put him down as an emergency contact other than his mum, but she was hardly local. His thoughts turned slightly paranoid, recalling some of their lessons from their field operations seminar. This was a textbook example of an enemy operative attempting to trick him into revealing something he shouldn't. Emergency calls that created a sense of urgency were a common technique used on some targets. He felt it was unlikely he could have attracted an enemy agent's attention as a cadet, but this could also be a spot assessment being conducted by their instructors.
He thought back to the tactics suggested by their instructor from the seminar, recalling that the most effective strategy they'd suggested was to take control of the conversation. He needed to stop answering questions and start asking them.
"Who is this, please?" he said, trying to give his voice an air of authority.
"Mr. Fitz, I'm calling you from All-Float. A friend of yours had an appointment here today and she put you down as her emergency contact."
"I've never heard of...what did you say the name was?" Fitz replied, maintaining his cautious approach to the situation, but he was beginning to get a terrible feeling that this call was legitimate and someone he knew might really need his help.
"All-Float, we specialize in sensory deprivation experiences. Miss Simmons supplied us with your contact information when she filled out her orientation paperwork. There's been a small incident—"
Fitz gripped the corner of his desk for stability. "Jemma? What's wrong? Has she been injured? Why couldn't she call me herself?"
"I have answers for you, Mr. Fitz," the woman said, her voice maddeningly calm when Fitz suddenly felt anything but. "There's been no injury, but she does need assistance. She spent an hour in one of our sensory deprivation pods. Unfortunately, she hasn't reacted well to the experience. She's asked us to call her a cab to get her home, but we feel it would be a bad decision to send her back alone. Could you come to our facility to escort her back?"
"Can I talk to her?" Fitz asked, ignoring the woman's question in favor of his own.
"It took quite a bit of convincing to get her to allow us to call you, Mr. Fitz, but she really wasn't able to make the call herself. If she was calm enough to do that, we would have felt more comfortable honoring her original request to call her a cab."
"Where are you?" he asked, then scratched the address for All-Float down on a spare scrap of paper and disconnected the call. He used his terminal to find the closest cab company, putting in an urgent reservation for their closest driver when he found their website. Once he had the information he needed and everything was arranged, he looked around his room, his mind blank, trying to decide what he should bring with him.
He grabbed his wallet and stuffed it in his back pocket, then ran to his bathroom and threw various bottles of pain medication into his messenger bag in case the woman on the phone had been lying and Jemma had sustained some sort of minor injury. Fitz frowned at his terminal and archived his work, then brought up Jemma's calendar. They'd shared their schedules with each other to better coordinate lab time for their joint projects, so he should be able to see if she really did have an appointment that afternoon. When he located her agenda for the day, she did have a three hour window blocked out. It had ended less than an hour before, simply labeled, "FA Prep - SD".
He checked the time and grabbed his bag, leaving his quarters on a dead run to head for the outer courtyard where his cab was meant to be waiting for him.
The trip seemed to take forever and Fitz was barely able to stop himself from barking orders at the driver to go faster, but they eventually pulled up outside a non-descript white building with an "All-Float" sign at the entrance. Ripping open his wallet, Fitz shoved a handful of bills at the cabbie, getting out to the sounds of the man yelling after him that he'd overpaid. Not bothering to look back, he tore open the door leading to the lobby and rushed over to the reception desk.
"Good afternoon, sir. How can I… Oh, are you Mr. Fitz?"
He nodded helplessly, still not quite sure what was going on or what he should say.
"Please wait here, I'll page Mrs. Brackin."
Fitz began to pace, looking around the lobby to find something to tell him what this place was and why Simmons would have come here. There wasn't a lot to see other than a room full of overstuffed blue chairs and prints of ocean scenes covering the walls.
He flinched when he felt a hand gently land on his shoulder. His eyes followed the hand back to its owner, a middle-aged woman draped in an array of flowing, knitted fabrics and chunky necklaces.
"Mr. Fitz, I'll take you back to our recuperation area now, if you'd like. Miss Simmons is there, but I think she'd benefit from some support before she takes the next steps of her post-float experience."
"Could you…" he said, trying to figure out where to start, "perhaps you could just tell me what she's doing here to start with?"
"I take it she didn't tell you she had this appointment?" When Fitz shook his head, Mrs. Brackin seemed mildly frustrated at the answer. "That's not what we recommend to our clients, Mr. Fitz, I'd like you to know that. We encourage everyone who comes here to bring a support individual with them, or at least to inform their emergency contact of their plans before they come here to float."
Fitz stopped walking, forcing Mrs. Brackin to stop as well. "What does that mean? Float?"
"We provide sensory deprivation services. Miss Simmons spent an hour in one of our isolation tanks earlier this afternoon, but when she emerged, she was in a significant amount of distress. She's recovered from her panic attack, but she's still rather anxious and withdrawn. We've been trying to talk her into a calming shower, but I'm afraid we haven't had much luck."
Mrs. Brackin gestured down the hallway and began walking again, Fitz following her through the maze-like hallways.
"You locked her in a tank for an hour, and in the hour since she's been out, she's had a panic attack and can't even get herself into the shower? What did you people do to her?"
"I understand you're upset," Mrs. Brackin began, and Fitz got the feeling this wasn't the first time she'd been on the receiving end of accusations like those he'd just hurled at her. "I assure you that Miss Simmons knew how to operate the exit hatch and distress button before we began her float. It's our policy not to interrupt a client unless they signal for assistance. I personally counseled Miss Simmons to consider a break if she felt the least bit uncomfortable, and honestly, I wish she'd taken one."
"Where is—"
"We're here," Mrs. Brackin said, gesturing to a door to their left. When Fitz moved to turn the knob and go in, she stopped him with a hand on his chest.
"A little advice? While she's still recovering, speak quietly. Ask one question at a time. Focus on what she needs. If she needs direction from you, give her simple instructions and speak slowly. If you need anything from us, there's an intercom panel to the right of this door inside the room. Now, would you mind if I went in first to ask her if she's ready to see you?"
Fitz nodded, feeling uncertain what condition Jemma was in if all of these careful instructions were necessary. Mrs. Brackin knocked gently on the door and then went inside, shutting him out just for a moment before she opened the door again to let him in.
"Jemma?" he called, remembering to keep his voice down, and then he gasped when his eyes found her.
She was curled in on herself, perched on the edge of a bench at the far end of the room. There was another door next to her, ajar enough for Fitz to see it was some sort of bathroom. She looked so small, her drying hair hanging limp around her face and her skin terribly pale. She was wrapped in a robe and several towels, but the shiver running through her body was clearly visible even from across the room. The Jemma he knew, all optimism and bright-eyed courage, was nowhere to be found right now. Seeing her like this felt like a physical blow, making it hard for him to breathe.
"Fitz?" she asked, her voice tiny as she called out for him.
"Yeah," he answered. "They called me when you....after you seemed a bit..." he stammered, struggling with what he should say.
"Yes, they asked me about it." She seemed oddly distracted, as though she was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she hadn't really registered that he was here.
"Tell me how I can help, Jem. Or we can just get you out of here. They can call us a cab and I can take you back to the Academy."
She shook her head. "I can't go back yet." Her hands fisted in the towel she held on her lap and she finally made eye contact with him. "Oh Fitz, I'm so angry with myself. I've made such a mess of this."
"I'm sure it's not as bad as you think," he offered. "Would you like to talk through it?" They could approach this the same way they handled setbacks in their experiments, thinking aloud to each other until they found the solution.
"Just look at you, getting dragged all the way down here. I thought I could handle this, Fitz, I really did. I never thought they'd have to bother you when I put your name on that form. I'm really sorry that—"
"Simmons, no. It's fine. I'm glad they called me. I don't mind doing this, so don't worry about me, all right?"
"I know," she said, but the tone of her voice said that she really didn't believe what she was saying, and she'd still feel guilty for whatever inconvenience she thought she caused him.
"Why did you come here? Do you think you could start there?"
Her hands continued to worry at the towel as she pursed her lips, looking as though she was trying to figure out where to start. "Our instructors, the ones from Operations running our field work seminar...they said we should prepare to face our worst fears if we decided to volunteer for field missions." She risked a look at him and he tried to keep his expression encouraging. "Do you remember? They told us we shouldn't wait for an enemy interrogator to figure out what we feared so he could use it against us in a way we weren't prepared to endure."
"Yeah, I remember," he confirmed.
"I'm...I'm afraid of the dark, Fitz. I know it's ridiculous."
"I don't think it's ridiculous at all. Loads of people are scared of the dark."
"Yes, Fitz, but most of them are under the age of 10," she argued, rolling her eyes at herself.
"Rubbish. We'll look into it. I'm sure there's a study someone's done on incidence of this sort of fear in adults." He looked at her, realizing she remained entirely unconvinced. He decided to take another approach, find a way for her to quantify and label what she was feeling so it would seem less insurmountable. "Why don't you tell me about it. What do you find scary about it?"
"The dark?" she asked, shrugging a little. "I'm not sure. I mean, it's the unknown, isn't it? Sight is perhaps our strongest sense, certainly one that informs our experience of the world in a quite profound way."
Fitz nodded encouragingly, his mood buoyed up as her voice grew more sure and even.
"I suppose…" she continued, "I'm afraid of being trapped somewhere, alone, in the dark, and not being able to see what's coming. You can't plan or prepare for something you can't see. I wanted to find a way to simulate conditions like that, to see what my reaction would be." She looked down at herself. "Look at how I'm cowering here. I could barely even talk until you got here. They should fail me on my field assessment and be done with it, Fitz. I'm just not cut out for it."
"Again, rubbish," he said, wincing when he realized that he didn't sound calming or quiet or any of the other things Mrs. Brackin had counseled him to be. "Simmons, I don't know anyone else who would be brave enough to dive head first into the most extreme version of her worst fear just because she thought it was the thing standing between her and what she wants."
"I was terrible at it, Fitz. A complete failure. I started to panic the moment the lid closed. I even had...hallucinations. I heard people who weren't there. I knew it wasn't real, but I couldn't help it."
"Why didn't you open the hatch, or use the panic button?"
She looked at him as though he clearly hadn't been following. "If I'm being interrogated, they're not going to give me a panic button, are they? There won't be an out."
Fitz felt sick, picturing for a moment the scenario Simmons was describing. It was easy to forget with their focus on pure research and experimentation that a life with S.H.I.E.L.D. brought with it a lot of potential danger. He tried and failed to fathom it, the idea that someone could take her, get their hands on her brilliant mind and every miraculous thing he knew she was destined to accomplish, and use that as a justification to break her down until she couldn't resist them any longer. It made him want to do idiotic things, find some way to keep her from even the idea of that kind of darkness. He'd thought about this before and almost proposed the idea of the two of them leaving S.H.I.E.L.D. a hundred times. They could find work together in the private sector and live a quieter, saner life than the one they were working toward.
He was thinking too far ahead, though, and he knew that. He couldn't bombard her with his worries and fears right now, as she was in over her head with her own already. He pulled himself back to the present, to her shivering next to him on this bench, and tried to find a way to make her see that she hadn't failed at all.
"This was your first attempt, Simmons. Surely you considered you might require multiple exposures to this particular stimuli to build up a tolerance." Fitz was intentionally making his language more clinical, knowing she was much more at ease with discussing tricky subjects like this a little less emotionally.
"Once I was in the dark, I didn't want to have to go through this again. I thought if I could just work out everything I find frightening about it today, perhaps I...this isn't making a lot of sense, is it? If I knew I would fear being in the dark again, I hardly would have conquered my fear, would I?"
"Fear isn't rational, Simmons. It's instinct. Chemicals. Adrenaline. Fight or flight. Autonomic response. But you know that. You could explain this better, you're the biologist."
That earned him a smile, a real one this time that bloomed over her entire face. He'd never felt more useful to humanity than he did in that moment, when an extraordinary person like Simmons was at her lowest and he was somehow able to help her, even a little.
"D'you know what? I think you're going to be just fine." He could tell she was feeling more like herself, so he allowed himself to get a little theatrical. "No, in fact, I think you're going to be brilliant. Whatever assignment you get after we leave the Academy, they'll be lucky to have you."
She took a deep breath and seemed to brace herself, looking him directly in the eye. "Fitz, there's something I've been meaning to speak with you about. It's not exactly how I pictured us having this conversation, of course," she said, followed by a little self-deprecating laugh.
His heart was pounding and he didn't quite know why. Something about the hesitant-but-determined look on her face made his gut twist uncomfortably, making it difficult for him to put together some sort of verbal response. Finally, after a moment that seemed like a week, he gritted out a "Hmmm?" and put on what he hoped was a look of casual interest.
"Several of our instructors have taken me aside to ask what my post-Academy plans are, and they've given me an impression that I may be afforded the opportunity to write my own ticket, as it were."
Fitz nodded, finding his voice again. "I've had those discussions with a few of them as well."
"I assumed you were receiving similar advice, especially given how many projects we've been working on together. I couldn't imagine they would speak with me without doing the same for you, not when we're essentially handing in the same work."
Fitz smiled to himself, feeling a rush of...whatever this feeling was he'd been having when he reflected on this extraordinary friendship he and Simmons had forged together. He'd never known anyone like her before, someone who understood him and challenged him, a person he wanted to seek out as soon as his eyes opened in the morning and spend the better part of every day with.
"It got me thinking," she continued, breaking him out of his thoughts. "We've been working so well together. Our divergent fields of study and individual strengths each complement the other quite naturally, it seems. And our rapport...well, I've found it to be quite a positive experience."
Fitz nodded, knowing he was grinning at her like an idiot, but he didn't care.
"If we can 'write our own tickets', I was wondering if perhaps...you might consider…" she said, seemingly struggling with the words. "We could try to find an assignment together?" She looked adorably vulnerable, as though she somehow believed he wouldn't jump at the chance to keep collaborating with her.
Looking into her uncertain eyes, he realized he'd never imagined working without her from the moment he'd screwed up enough courage to string two sentences together and talk to her. He'd just assumed Simmons would figure out which branch of S.H.I.E.L.D. would benefit most from their work and she'd announce where they'd go when their time at the Academy was done.
She didn't have to know that, though. Now that he thought about it, his assumptions seemed a just a bit pathetic.
"I think I'd like that," he said, cautious to temper his enthusiasm but allowed some of it to show through. He did want to convince Simmons he really wanted to do this, after all, not that it was a plan he'd accept merely because he couldn't think of something better. "We'll start looking into it right away, talk over all the options." He pictured Simmons making her endless lists, the two of them spending hours dreaming about the work they could do together at each of the assignments they might pursue.
"Well, that's it then," she said, grinning back at him. "Anyway, I should probably…" she stopped, gesturing down at the towels and robe she was wrapped in. "This is quite uncomfortable. The water in the tank was quite salty, very caustic to the skin."
Simmons blinked at him and Fitz realized he should have been encouraging her to shower and change instead of sitting on the bench with her, wrapping her up in conversations they could have at another time.
"Ah, Simmons. I'm a prat sitting here talking to you when I should have let you—"
"I wasn't ready to go yet," she said, and the uncertain expression returned to her face. She looked nervously at the bathroom and then at him, and he assumed she was trying to think of a polite way to ask him to go.
"I'll wait outside, shall I?" he said, getting up and closing half the distance between the bench and the door before she could speak.
"Fitz, I...I don't think I'm ready to be alone yet." He turned and saw her looking uncertainly after him, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment at her admission. "Could you come with me, just while I turn the water on?"
He agreed automatically, though he had an odd moment of clarity as he followed her into the room. Most platonic, opposite-gender friends would find this situation a little uncomfortable, or at least a little awkward. Other than appreciating his support, though, she seemed unaffected to have him around no matter how intimate these circumstances might look to someone else. He should probably be relieved about this, as their friendship was fantastic and he didn't like to think about anything ruining it. He should be relieved, but oddly, just a little piece of him wasn't.
He broke out of his thoughts to watch her, finding her hesitating at the controls for the shower. Her hand was on the hot water tap but she hadn't turned it yet. Her other hand was clutching the robe close to her neck and she was staring toward the wall, seemingly at nothing.
"All right, Simmons?" he asked, watching her carefully to gauge her reaction.
"I don't...it's more water. In the tank, I was floating in water in the dark and it was awful. I don't know if I can—"
Fitz crossed the room to her before he thought better of it, hesitating for a moment before he put his hand over hers on the tap and helped her turn it. "You don't have to go in until you're ready," he leaned over to whisper into her ear. "I'll stay here with you until you know you can do it."
She trembled against him and he cursed at himself again for nattering on to her for so long earlier.
"I'm so sorry, Simmons," he told her, reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ear.
"For what, Fitz? You haven't done anything wrong. You've been lovely, in fact." Her voice was soft and breathy, barely audible over the pelting sound of the water behind them. "I'm the one who dragged you down here. I should apologize to you for disrupting your day."
"For the third time today, Simmons, rubbish. I wish you'd told me about it before you came, that's all. I would have come with you, not that it probably would have made a difference."
"I think it could have made all the difference in the world," she whispered, turning to look at him. Their faces were so close together now that he could see the flecks of gold mixed with the deep brown of her irises as she blinked to focus on him. Her tongue came out to wet her lips and he watched as though it was the only thing in the world that mattered, wanting so badly in that moment to close the inch or two remaining between them. He let the crazy urge remain, basking in the impossibility of it. He could ruin everything with one impulsive mistake, taking advantage of her while her defenses were down and she wasn't thinking clearly. Though he knew it was utterly wrong and they'd both regret it if he did, he allowed himself to want it for three...four...five heartbeats before he pulled away.
He turned and tested the water with his hand, finding it far too hot and he reached down to adjust it so she wouldn't burn herself. That allowed him the time to compose himself, remember what an amazing friendship they had, and keep himself from destroying it all by following one selfish, indulgent impulse.
"Stay," she said, gasping as though she'd surprised even herself with the request. "You can turn around while I get in the shower and while I change, can't you? I'm sorry to ask, but I just don't think I can be alone yet."
"Yeah, 'course," he told her as he turned his back to the shower, taking a deep breath and trying to push everything he'd considered a moment ago even further away.
"What were you up to, when they called?" she asked, raising her voice to be heard over the sound of the water.
Fitz closed his eyes and silently thanked her as she unwittingly created an out for him to return to something resembling normal conversation.
"You'd have been proud of me, Simmons. I was in the middle of my third afternoon in a row sacrificed to homework. I've made some real progress on that paper we were discussing a few days ago at breakfast. You were right, of course. The point you made about—"
"Ugh," she wailed, interrupting him. "You were actually working on a term paper early and I managed to interrupt you?"
"I'm having none of that, it's not a problem. There's still plenty of time and I've got a good start on it already," he assured her, not wanting her to feel guilty about what had happened that afternoon.
"Perhaps when we get back to the Academy I could read what you have so far?" she suggested.
"Yeah, that's fine," he agreed. "We'll pick up something in the dining hall on the way, then we can stay in for the night. I've got some contraband files from the BBC I managed to nick off one of their servers, too."
"Oh, Fitz. You'll get caught someday, I keep telling you."
"When you see what I've got, you're going to change your mind about scolding me," he said, relishing this moment when he could feel her natural inclination to follow the rules fighting against her curiosity about what he'd managed to find for them.
"Oh, all right then," she relented. "I suppose it's already done."
He smirked, picturing the pleasant evening that now stretched out ahead of him. Simmons seemed to be doing much better, which was quite a relief. He would get the benefit of her insights to make his paper better after she'd had a look at it, and they could have a relaxing, quiet evening enjoying each other's company.
One quick cab ride brought them back to the Academy, and then they were chatting animatedly to each other as they made their way through the dining hall. They discussed the work he'd done on his paper so far as they piled food onto trays, going over dozens of possible applications of his research.
When they reached his quarters, he flopped onto his bunk with his tray, gesturing vaguely toward his terminal to Simmons. She interpreted him correctly and accepted that as permission to look at his paper, putting her food to the side as she found the correct file and opened it. He tucked into his pasta as she made thoughtful noises, annotating the odd section here and there as she poked her fork distractedly at her perfectly balanced, terribly bland (by Fitz's estimation) dinner.
"This is amazing, Fitz," she gushed, finishing her quick skim of what he'd written just as he was finding the bottom of his dish. "Honestly, I'm quite sorry to have interrupted this work now I've had the chance to look at it. It's coming along quite well and there's a lot of new material here that you hadn't put together yet the last time we spoke. I'm looking forward to reading this in detail when it's done."
Her face was alight with curiosity and he grinned at her, unaccountably grateful to have this version of Simmons back. He momentarily considered having a talk with her about rethinking the field work option, but he pushed that idea to the side. Now wasn't the time, clearly. She'd just begun to get over her bad experience of a few hours ago and the wound was too fresh. She'd be more receptive to the discussion at a later time, once she'd had a chance to reflect on all the options they had open to them.
He got up to set his tray on his desk and then leaned over Simmons's shoulder, saving and then closing his paper. With a few more taps at the keyboard, he brought up the protected memory area he'd created on his terminal, somewhat violating Academy protocol, and opened the folder with the files he'd snagged.
"Choose your poison, Simmons. I haven't watched any of it yet, so whatever you'd like will suit me just fine." He sat back on his bunk, making sure to leave plenty of room for Simmons to arrange herself and get comfortable.
She deliberated for a moment, then made her selection and started it playing. "Mind if I leave the light on?" she asked, and the slight rise in the pitch of her voice was the only clue that she was still a little sensitive about finding herself in the dark again.
"It's fine." He kept his voice light and pretended he hadn't figured out why she would ask. "Now come on, you're missing it," he said, patting the mattress to his left.
She sat down and kicked off her shoes, then pulled up her legs and crossed them in front of her. Her knee was just barely brushing the side of his leg, something Fitz suddenly couldn't stop thinking about. She probably didn't even notice the contact, but Fitz's world contracted down to that square inch of skin and made it impossible for him to take in anything else. He'd never noticed before how much tiny movements like breathing affected the rest of your body, how even in relative stillness the two of them still seemed to shift and nudge at each other.
Just as he was trying to think of an excuse to get up so he could reposition himself a little further away, she yawned widely. When he turned to look at her, he could see the fatigue in her eyes and how the muscles in her face had begun to go slack. Her blinks were long, her eyelashes fluttering each time she struggled to open her eyes again.
"Simmons, why don't you have a quick rest," he suggested, gesturing to his pillow.
"No," she protested, but it was weak at best. "You'll need to sleep soon and I'll be in the way."
"Ah, I won't be tired for ages yet. Besides, you just need a quick nap. You'll be up and right as rain long before I have to turn in. I'll just go back to working on my paper." She looked uncertain, but he thought he could sense she was still reluctant to be on her own. "Come on, I'll be able to work if I know you're likely to wake up and admonish me when I start to slack off."
She laughed a tired little laugh at that, and something other than fatigue danced through her eyes for a moment before it was gone. He was still trying to figure out what it meant when she acquiesced, gently shifting to the side until her head hit his pillow. She was so close to sleep, resting comfortably enough that Fitz didn't want to disturb her by trying to maneuver the blanket from beneath her to cover her against the slight chill in the room.
He looked around uselessly, knowing he had no spare bedding. Instead, he saw the long, brown coat his mum had insisted he bring with him to the Academy and it was just hanging, forgotten, in his closet. He tested its weight once he lifted it off the hanger, deciding it shouldn't be too thick or uncomfortable to pass as a makeshift blanket. He gently laid it over Simmons as she slept on his bunk, desperate to avoid waking her from the sleep she clearly needed.
When she snuggled into it, her hand snaking out to pull it next to her face, he felt a painful, nameless pang in the center of his chest. He wasn't sure what it meant that he wanted her to be safe and happy more than he wanted those things for himself, but he thought it might be better for both of them if he didn't examine those feelings too closely.
He finally tore his eyes from her and turned back to his terminal, shutting down the video file that still droned on in the background. He half-heartedly brought up his paper again, reading the first of her annotations and marveling at how well her observations complemented his own. The point she put forward was one he hadn't considered, but it made as much sense to him as anything he could have thought of himself. He read one more and then, strangely, found himself missing a person who was still in the same room with him.
When he glanced over his shoulder at her, she was smiling lightly in her sleep. Her face was relaxed, still partially hidden in the shadow of his coat. He decided to forget about the paper and slid his chair next to his bunk, grabbing a book he could read while he watched over her.
It wasn't too long before the book lay forgotten on his bedside table, his eyes drooping with weariness. Waking or moving her was unthinkable, as was lying next to her, so he settled for staying in the chair but leaning forward to rest his head next to hers. Drifting off to sleep, his last action for the day was to brush her hair back from her face.