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Jemma takes a deep breath as she opens the box. She's collected a lot of things over the course of the war—a clipping of clean gauze, the letters from when he was in hospital ("Simmons," they all say, "why don't you write?"), and the letter telling her he was coming back. She has all the designs they worked on, too, each folded piece of paper representing hours of work by candlelight. Underneath those, she finds the picture from when he first enlisted, and he's too young and too skinny, and far too handsome. It's the picture that brings the tears that are long overdue.
She wonders, for a second, what he would think if he knew that she held on to such things, but of course, Fitz would never wonder anything ever again.
She remembers the first time he'd sneaked her into the engineering tent, with a finger over his lips and a smile in his eyes.
"They want us to make a helmet to protect against poison gas," he'd said. "I've hit a wall. Will you help me?"
"I'm just a nurse," she'd said, more out of shock than truth. She'd always been the one to insist that she could and should do more, but the lateness of the hour and a fear of breaking the rules had made all her courage vanish into thin air.
Fitz, however, had simply cocked his head to one side and said, "I'm fairly certain that you've never been 'just a nurse' for a single moment of your entire exceptional life."
She should have known, right then, that it would end like this.
How naïve she'd been for thinking it would end any other way! She'd been so shocked when he'd confessed his feelings for her—why? It seemed so natural now, the growing together and the falling apart. He was smart enough for the army to look the other way when he'd enlisted at seventeen, and so valuable to the Royal Corps of Engineers that they'd taken him back before he'd fully recovered from his injuries. So, he was of course smart enough to find her again, angry as he was. And it may have taken her too long to see it, but it was inevitable for them to grow back together, inch by painful inch. He needed her mind, and she needs a heart that saw her as an equal and treated her as such. She needs him.
And what she needs right now is to have him back.
But she's a coward, for waiting too long to realize how she feels, for taking even longer to tell him. She remembers the look on his face when she'd finally found words, looking down at the hand that held his with eyes she'd never seen. But they were out of time then, so starved of seconds that he was pulled away from her before anything could fall from his lips. He said it all with his eyes, but she knows what he meant. She can never forget.
Those eyes are not the ones in his picture. These are young and afraid, and she knows the feeling. She grew numb when he was taken from her the first time, and now she feels the pins and needles of a heart that is only starting to thaw. What the future will hold for her now, she does not know. She simply can't imagine her life without him.
She is so engrossed in the crinkle of skin around his eyes that she jumps when she hears the scuffle of boots behind her.
She's about to scold the wearer of the boots when she turns around to see . . . him!
Fitz!
How could it possibly be Fitz?
There really is no scientific explanation for the way her heart stops. She is out of her chair before she knows what's happening, wrapping her arms around him with no intention of ever letting him go.
"They told us you were dead," she whispers into the crook of his neck, and she feels an ache when his arms don't embrace her in return. "The tunnel collapsed, and you were—"
"It did," he croaks, and she pulls back to see his eyes. His face is dirty and spattered with blood, and stubble has grown on his jaw. Somehow, he is more handsome than when he left. "I might be the only one who made it out. I was lucky." He watches his Adam's apple bob up and down as he swallows, and her arms slide off of him when he takes a step back stares at the ground.
"I, um, I haven't reported back yet. I'm probably going to get court martialed for being here, but you said we . . ." He takes a breath. "You said we have something to talk about, and I couldn't . . . I've got something for you."
He reaches into the jacket of his uniform and produces a small bundle of rumpled, yellow flowers.
"Spring cinquefoil," she breathes, and looks up to see the wonder in his eyes. Why he would be in awe, she does not know, but she can imagine him scrounging for flowers in the French wilderness, and it is too much for her heart to take. She surges forward, looping her arms around his neck as she kisses him fervently, tenderly, tasting the dust on his chapped lips, and not caring at all.
He stiffens before he melts into her, pulling her close with fingers splayed across the small of her back. He kisses her like a man who might frighten his only source of water, like a soldier who is home from the war. She can't help the tears that leak from her cheeks to his; she thought she'd never have this, and here it is in her hands. The fingers that clutch the flowers travel down to his jaw, caressing his stubble with her knuckles, and this is something worth fighting for, this is something worth keeping.
He breaks the kiss softly, reverently, and she doesn't care if she's breaking every rule there is, she'd fight another war just to kiss him again. He stops her from trying with a wince.
"Fitz?"
He takes a deep breath and tells her it's nothing, but she knows better. She takes inventory of his face and notices a cut that was obscured by his hairline. He sucks in a breath when she touches it.
"Come on," she says, laying the flowers carefully on her cot, "Dr. Dakin should take a look at you."
His hand catches hers, and when his blue eyes search her, she is powerless to stop him.
"You'll, uh, you'll stay with me?"
She nods at him, unable to stop the smile that dawns on her lips. She entwines her fingers with his.
"Why would I ever leave you?" she asks.
He looks at their hands and returns her nod, but she can see his tears.
"I hardly know," he answers, his voice unsteady. "Lead the way."
She does as he says, though she wraps her arm around his waist to support him. If her kiss didn't convince him, she will have to try words, and if that doesn't work, well . . .
She'll simply have to keep kissing him. When she is left alone to tend to him, when they steal away to work on their designs, and at every moment she can. She'll kiss him between battles and in the midst of them, until the war is over and on their way home from it. She'll kiss him in England, in Scotland, and in the new place they will make their own.
They will have a place of their own; she's sure of it. She will fight to make it as inevitable as they are.
And he, she knows, will fight right along side her.