Archive of Our Own

"Her core temperature is hovering around forty-four degrees Fahrenheit."

Bang, bang, bang!

"If we don't bring her up to temp in the next few hours . . ."

Which ones were for her?

". . . she could sustain permanent brain damage."

Which ones were for Skye?

At least Jemma is . . .

Bang!

"We need to get her to a medical facility and fast."

He reaches out for Jemma's hand like he's looking for a lifeline. Skye is lying there, soaked in her own blood and barely breathing, and Fitz doesn't understand how he could have let her—

Bang, bang, bang!

At least Jemma is—

"Until then, I'll do everything I can to keep her alive. Excuse me."

Jemma is gone.

Fitz blinks once, then twice, taking in a heaving breath and realizing the Jemma's voice was mechanical, distant, and he knows her better than anyone. She's hurting, too.

Except it isn't her fault that Quinn shot Skye, and he can't let her even start to think that it is.

She shouldn't be alone, he knows it, but he also knows that he needs her, that he's been needing her, more and more every day since the Chitauri virus got her and then him.

And the only thing that keeps the guns from going off in his head is the idea of wrapping her up in his arms and forgetting about everything that went wrong.

He's spent months listing off a thousand reasons why he shouldn't want this. But today he has a new one: Skye is in critical condition because he failed. He can't protect Skye, can't protect anyone, and Jemma shouldn't want anything to do with someone so weak.

And he is weak, because he follows her into the storage closet, because he senses her grief even as she hides it from the world, because he puts his hand on her shoulder and tells himself that it's what she needs, but it's really what he wants, and she curls up into him and cries into his shoulder, and for a minute, he almost thinks that he's strong.

Bang!

She sobs into his shoulder and doesn't notice when he flinches.

Bang!

These shots are softer, slower, muffled as they go through his gut and shake him to the core. He shouldn't be doing this, but he can't stop. He needs her. Skye is dying, the world is falling apart, and he needs his best friend the hero, who is covered in blood and crying enough for them both.

He holds her until she has no tears left, until she pulls back, wipes her eyes and just looks at him with such despair that his heart breaks again. 

This isn't the time for words, so he tries to tell her everything with his eyes.

She walks away, nodding more to herself than to him, and he's not sure if she understood him.

He watches as Simmons sighs and buries her face in her hands.

"I can't believe what I said to her."

They're sitting in a waiting room, just him and her, and Skye is in another room somewhere in the care of better hands than theirs.

He turns to her. "Hmm?"

She pinches the bridge of her nose and shakes her head, utterly bereft. "I was so mad at her, Fitz."

He takes a breath and scoots closer to her on the couch, puzzled. "Why would you be mad at her?"

She turns to him with a rueful smile and scoffs. "You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

She narrows her eyes at him, and he sits up straighter. She's trying to decide if he's worthy of something, and he's sure that he isn't, but he wants to be.

"It's silly," she admits, ducking her head. "We were talking about going undercover on the train and she made a joke, and I . . . she was trying to embarrass me. I didn't take it well."

Fitz frowns at her. Simmons, embarrassed? He's not sure that's possible, unless . . .

"Was she making fun of you?" he asks with caution. "Was she teasing you about your cover? Because there's nothing wrong with it, just because you like to be more . . . more prepared doesn't mean that she has the right to—"

"Fitz," she says, and he looks down at the hand that flew out towards him and almost—almost—landed on his chest. She shakes her head at him. "It wasn't like that. She wasn't—she didn't mean it like that. I promise."

"Oh," he says, feeling the surge of righteousness dissipate. That made more sense, really. Skye wasn't a bully. But what would she tease Jemma about? She wasn't even with Jemma on the train; Jemma was with Coulson. He couldn't think of anything about going undercover with Coulson that would embarrass Jemma.

"What was it, then?"

Jemma's eyes dart to her wringing hands, and he has the feeling that she's trying to figure out the right way to phrase her answer. But why? Surely, she knows that of all people, he won't laugh at her. Out of all people, he's the one who should best understand being embarrassed by anybody.

"Fitz," she sighs. "There was more to it than that. She was . . . we were having a disagreement. She said she could prove she was right, and I—I said something that was very unkind. I shouldn't have. And now—"

Now Skye is in this hospital with two bullets in her stomach, and there's nothing they can do but hope the doctors can save her.

It makes more sense, now. After all, Jemma was known to get a little defensive about her tendency to over-prepare, and Skye hardly prepared at all. She and Fitz didn't even talk about their covers until they were on the train! He could see how, under stress, they could quarrel about something like that. Skye doesn't know how to read Jemma like he does. 

"Well," he says, and he scoots just a little closer to her, just because he can really see that she's in pain, and he can't stand being this far away from her when it's like this. Just so she can put her head on his shoulder if she wants to.

She does.

"Well, I'm sure Skye's already forgotten about it. She didn't say anything on the train, at least. We were too busy trying to figure out our covers. She tried to do a Scottish accent, and it was dreadful." He chuckles in spite of himself. "So of course, we pretended to be American. And we were dating, apparently. She even kissed me."

He pauses, just to decide if he should tell Jemma that Skye had teased him, too, but he feels Jemma tense against him. He thought this story would lift her spirits, but he must have done something wrong.

"Jemma?"

She buries her head into his neck, and her hand finds his.

"I know that Skye is important to you, Fitz."

His forehead furrows. "Of course she is; she's my friend." Our friend, he thinks, but for some reason, he doesn't say it. He waits for her to break the silence, but she only squeezes his hand.

"Just like," she finally says, "just like I'm your friend?"

Now, if he was confused before, he's completely at sea now. Why on Earth would Jemma Simmons ask if she was his friend? If she's not his friend, then he doesn't have any at all.

He has no idea what to say, so he lifts his head up to look at her, finding that she follows suit. She's searching his eyes for something, and she must still think this is all her fault.

"You're the best friend anyone could ever have," he tells her, feeling the truth of it wash over him. He looks at their joined hands, ashamed to face her as he is once again reminded that the fault was his. "Skye knows that, too. Jemma, you saved her."

She straightens, drawing away from him, her hand flying from his.

"I don't think I did, Fitz. I don't think anyone can."

"Hey," he says, unable to bear the space between them. "You got her this far. No one else would have thought to put her in a hyperbaric chamber. And if I'd stopped her—"

"Fitz, no one could stop her."

"But if I had—"

"Fitz," she says, with such force that he looks at her with wide eyes, "this isn't your fault!"

He stares at her, mouth hanging open because there is a kind of rightness in her words, but he doesn't understand it. He doesn't understand how she can be so right and so beautiful at the same time. And how can she be right if the plain fact is that Skye is on her deathbed because of him?

Maybe it's just that she's so good that she can make kindness sound like truth.

"Well," he says, still a bit dumbfounded, "well, it isn't your fault, either."

Her lips quirk into what is almost a smile, and her hand finds its rightful place once more. They sit there for a while, both looking at their entwined hands until she says, "At least we have each other."

And he can't help it if she smells better than the sterile hospital. He certainly can't stop her from leaning against him and putting her head on his shoulder again. And if he looks down at her, just to make sure that she's real, still here in the midst of all this tragedy, and she looks right up at him? Can he help it if he needs her, needs her so much that he is powerless to resist the pull of her lips, crashing into a kiss that soothes him more than any balm could? He can taste the salt of her tears, but that only gives him the courage to liberate tears of his own, and they sit on the couch, kissing and crying, with her hand on his cheek and his on her waist, and it should be enough, but it's not, and it never will be. With every slide of her lips, every caress of his face, she is absolving him, pardoning his crimes, and he needs that more than food, more than air, more than anything. But it's not real; it's desperation and pity, and he breaks away from her with a mumbled apology just before Coulson walks in.

Bang!

He doesn't dare look at her. Wasn't it only a minute ago that she told him she wanted to be friends?

Bang!

How could he kiss anybody at a time like this?

Bang, bang, bang!

He wants to cover his ears, but he has no defense against imaginary noises. All he has is the feeling of Jemma next to him, by his side even now, and the taste of her on his lips. Had she wanted to kiss him as much as he'd wanted to kiss her? Was this just a thing they did when someone was in mortal peril?

But when Ward enters the room, he feels a distance widen. There's no way they can talk about it now, and they really shouldn't, no matter how much they need to. All the focus should be on Skye, who actually has bullets in her. He shouldn't be thinking of how he's been shot through the heart.

Because, in the end, no matter what they are, he knows that Jemma is still here with him.

What he doesn't know is if Skye will be.