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Jemma stretches out on the floor beside her bed, out of breath and sweaty from her attempt at running on the treadmill. She sinks further into the carpet. Had it always been this lush? Or was she still not accustomed to soft surfaces, soft feelings?
People had stared as she walked to the gym and when she hobbled back. It’s strange, how some of her colleagues think she’s fragile. She’s not the fragile one, not really. She worries most of all for Fitz. She closes her eyes, remembering how she had kissed him so tenderly, as gently as she knew how, and yet she’d still managed to break him. Her fingers reach out of their own accord and grasp nothing but air.
When she dresses, she holds his hoodie for a second too long. She wants the comfort it provides but she can’t stand to see the shadow of pain in his eyes before he can push it away. Fitz is the strongest person she knows, but he’s unbearably delicate. She was never properly trained to handle something so precious. Her fingers quiver--they want to mend him; they itch to soothe him.
In the lab, she does not touch him. She doesn't feel she has the right.
“Fitz.” She whispers his name, the most sacred word in her vocabulary. Or maybe she hasn’t even spoken. Maybe he just senses the only prayer she can offer. When he looks at her, his grief shatters her heart.
“Can you stop by my room tonight? I have a few things to run by you.” She feels guilty for the lie but she can’t allow him to say no, not when she’s poured all of herself into this plan.
“Of course,” he says. Of course he will do what she asks. That’s never been the problem.
But when he opens her door that evening and steps inside, she remembers his fragility and knows she should have warned him. His eyes take in all her painstaking work too quickly--the fairy lights she’s strung, the takeaway containers, the bottle of wine. He’s going to bolt; she recognizes his fear.
“Please,” she implores. It’s a cheap shot because he won’t refuse her if she begs and she knows it.
“What is all this?” Fitz won’t leave now but he’s stepped back. He is trying to protect himself from her but she can’t let him go. She doesn’t know how to make him believe that she’s always wanted to keep his heart safe.
“I don’t believe we’re cursed,” she says. Her fingers twitch at her sides, desperate to once again feel his stubble, rough and enticing underneath her hands.
“Jemma,” he warns, but she cuts him off.
“Fitz, please. I can’t believe that, okay? I can’t believe that after everything we’ve been through, this is just it for us.” Her eyes fill with tears but her voice is strong. She’s not weak, she’s not.
“You saw my videos. I fought so hard, Fitz. I really did. I thought I was going to die almost every day. Sometimes your picture and the thought of our date kept me alive when nothing else could. You can’t make me believe that I tried so hard to get back to you just to give up now.”
“Jemma, I’m not…” he scrubs at his face wearily. “I’m not trying to hurt you, please believe that. But you can’t--” he gestures to the dinner she’s so carefully laid out. “We haven’t even gotten Will back yet. And you love him.”
Jemma swallows down her nausea. She still finds it excruciating talking through these emotions but she has the most intense fear that if she doesn’t now, she’ll lose her chance forever. And really, she confessed so much to Fitz while on Maveth. How can she stop now, when he’s in front of her, when he won’t fizzle out like a mirage if she gets too close?
“Will saved my life,” she says. “And I do love him, in a way. It’s… it’s all very confusing. But I’m not confused about you. I could never imagine my life without you, Fitz, and then I had to live it and it wasn’t… you know, when I was at Hydra, that was the longest we’d been apart since we met?”
He nods but won’t meet her eyes, and Jemma suddenly remembers the orchid her favorite teacher had bought for her when her grandmother died and how she had loved and tended it for years. She can be careful; she will be so careful.
“And now this happened,” she pushes on, “and I just, I don’t ever want to be apart from you again, Fitz. I missed you so much. I miss you now. I miss you when we work together in the lab. I miss you all the time.” She lowers her head to her hands and tears leak through her cracks. She’s gasping for breath because the absurdity of her life is that Fitz is her oxygen but with him she’s always drowning.
Fitz sits next to her gently, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “I’m here, Jemma.”
“No,” she cries. “You’re not. There’s this distance between us, and I would do anything--” She takes a deep breath.
“I’m going to do everything I can to rescue Will. And when we get him back, I’m going to do everything I can for him. If he wants to find his family or if he needs to stay here until he recovers physically, I’ll be there for him. But we’re not… I’m going to be his friend, that’s it.”
Fitz tenses and she shuts her eyes against the pounding of her head. “It’s okay if you… if you can’t accept that right now. I don’t expect anything from you. But I wanted you to know.”
She sniffles, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. “I was really looking forward to our date, and then I ruined it.”
Fitz shakes his head. “You didn’t ruin anything.”
Somehow she laughs. “That’s very generous.” Jemma allows herself one more moment of weakness, of melting into his embrace because his arms have always been her home. “I just wanted to do something nice for you. It doesn’t have to be a date if you don’t want it to be. It could just be two best friends relaxing after work. We can gossip about our coworkers or talk about TV shows or go over some of those new projects you were telling me about.”
Fitz bites his lip and when he looks at her she realizes she’s never seen anyone so beautiful in her entire life. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry for everything.”
“Please don’t apologize.”
“I miss you too,” he sighs. “I miss you so much.”
Jemma presses herself into his arms, holding the pieces of him together. She hugs him until their heartbeats sync up, until she can feel everything hard and tight within her draining away.
“Dinner sounds nice,” he says finally and she grins against his shoulder. She doesn’t kiss him this time but she will, when he’s strong enough to survive and kiss her back.
She pours their wine and she wants to make a toast, but she doesn’t want to draw Fitz back into memories of their previous date. Not yet, at least. Instead, she smiles at him as warmly as she knows how and she thinks: to us, to Perthshire, to never being without you ever again.