Fitzsimmons

Closure

Quick Note: Last part of Stars! I might add a fight scene if enough people wanted one, but I didn't think it was needed.

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The monolith had swallowed them up as soon as Fitz placed his palms to the prints still engraved in the stone, and they'd appeared on a flat, windy planet, not two feet from an open trap door. After the team had stormed through several empty hallways, they found a locked door, which Skye was able to quake down. Inside they'd found Jemma's pale, limp body lying just behind the doorway, and Fitz had had a bit of a breakdown while the team faced the three Kree residents of the base. Apparently the Kree and the Inhumans had been enemies for centuries, and both were responsible for massive amounts of casualties, so the team felt much better about the deaths of the aliens. Skye found and hacked into the Kree control room while Fitz performed a blood transfusion between him and Jemma, and they all made it back with almost no harm done, though Coulson still gave out punishments to everyone. Then Fitz had to experience the worst week of his life while Jemma was operated on, then fell into indefinite comatose. He remembered the nine days she'd watched over him, and knew they must've been torture. Jemma had been through too much already, and Fitz had to make it better.

Jemma felt the emotion welling inside her, prodding at the fragile walls she'd spent so much time building up.  She desperately wanted to be left alone, so that she could stare at the speckled white quarantine ceiling and weep for hours, then scream her rage at the lights and channel her inner Skye, shattering all the glass in this stupid containment room.  But she couldn't.  She was stuck, weary and shaking under her lightweight sheets, holding her hands over the cracks in her dam and hoping she wouldn't flood while Fitz was in the room.

He'd stayed away for the first few days after she woke up, probably letting her have her space and time.  Letting her heal enough to save himself from seeing her heartbreaking fragility.  Jemma was usually a mountain, a rock, stability.  She couldn't stand to feel like dust, and she knew Fitz wouldn't be able to even look at her in this state.

He'd surprised her with a vase of plastic tulips on her fourth day back, and when she sat up from a coma-like nap, she'd found him sitting inside the glass barrier, carrying a tray of warm tea and the National Geographic issues she'd missed while gone.  They hadn't really talked that day.  Just read and sipped and breathed in time.  It was unsurprisingly comfortable; the silence between them seemed to be charged with care and concern.  Jemma nearly asked him to get in bed with her, but she fell asleep before she got the chance.  Early the next morning she awoke from visions of disorienting stars and blue veins spewing blood to see Fitz, slumped over in a rolling chair, nearly laying across the counter.  He was still wearing jeans and his jumper, and she almost felt guilty about her cotton hospital gown.

Fitz had stayed silent and still when Jemma got up to use the restroom, but when she returned, he was awake, watching the door cautiously, drooping eyes full of worry.  She had to swallow hard at that face, already having grown upset from her nightmares.  Her eyes glazed over with tears despite her efforts, and she tucked herself back in bed before she couldn't choke back a sob.  Going back to sleep then had been difficult, but she was able to quell her sadness with a mental recitation of the periodic table.  Fitz's apprehensive gaze felt warm on her back, and she vaguely remembered having to pause at Arsenic in order to recompose herself.

When she woke up late afternoon, Fitz was reading a magazine, his sweater wrinkled and hair sticking up in all directions. His chin had grown stubble which hadn't been there originally, but Jemma's eyes fell upon his tie. When had he started wearing a tie? When had his hands steadied and his mind quieted enough to coordinate such an action? She was once again struck with her three-month long absence. A lot must've changed since then. Her chest clenched and she forced a sip of water from her bedside table.

What if he didn't feel the same anymore? After going months without her, his affection could've lessened, or even ceased. Jemma cursed herself for considering such things, because now she couldn't stop thinking. What if, whilst thinking she was dead, Fitz had moved on? What if, after all their pain and sorrow, after all their courage, any hope for a relationship had been ruined? She became angry again, and she glared at the light fixture above her, hoping she had contracted heat vision or some sort of destructive power she could use to take out her rage. She wanted debris to rain, and shards of glass to scatter the cracked concrete floor. She wanted a storm, but instead she got choked back cries and eyes swimming in saltwater.

Then Fitz turned to her with a gentle expression, and smiled genuinely. While she took rattling breaths to calm herself, he grabbed from the counter and presented a bed table topped with candles and spaghetti bolognese, and a single red rose to match the petals thrown across her bed. Jemma held her breath now, trying to keep the dam from breaking.

"Dinner," Fitz explained with a soft grin, and Jemma let everything pour out of her.

His face dropped just as quickly as the first sob came shuddering out of her, and Fitz set the tray to the side and approached her instinctively quickly. Jemma brought her small hands to her face, trying to push everything back in before she made a fool of herself in front of Fitz, but his fingers wrapped around her wrists and pulled them down, making space for him to hug her tightly to him. His head fit on her shoulder, so that his lips rested near her ear, so he kissed her there and stroked his fingers down her back.

"Everything's okay, Jemma," he whispered, but she sobbed still, so he kissed the shell of her ear again before continuing. "You're back home, and you're here with me, and I'm never gonna let you get hurt again." Jemma quieted herself enough to hear his words, and the twinge of pain in his last promise made her erupt again. She knew he was crying, too, now, and the last thing she wanted was for him to cry. Nevertheless, hot tears fell upon her shoulder, and Fitz's face nuzzled into her neck.

She stopped sobbing, but her eyes still leaked shimmering trails down her cheeks. She ignored them and wrapped her arms around his waist, anchoring him to her as Fitz realized it was his turn to shake. Jemma was the one who'd been through the pain, but Fitz was the one who'd not been able to do anything about it.  And that had as much of a toll on him as it did on her.  They drained themselves of sorrow, both trying to be stronger for each other.  But the outpouring just made them weaker, and they were left simply sitting, their arms resting limply wherever they had fallen.  When there were no more tears left and only the bittersweet warmth of their embrace remained, Jemma breathed in, beginning to pick up the pieces of herself.

"Do you... still?" she whispered, eyes closed.  Her breath fanned across his ear, and Fitz shivered slightly, so she pressed her lips to the skin right below his curls.

"Yeah," he breathed against her neck after a moment.  Then he pressed his forehead firmly against her shoulder, knowing he didn't have the strength to pull away.  "I missed you so much."

"Good, because-" Jemma gave a stuttering sigh, still vulnerable and frail.  "So do I."

Fitz's arms retightened around her back in response, and Jemma was so relieved that she laughed feebly, right into his ear.  He stayed with her all night, but didn't say a word.  Sometimes they were better like this.  Quietly clinging to each other, not letting words and insecurities ruin anything.

Their dinner lay forgotten not two feet away, and the candles flickered out around midnight.  In the morning the rose scent would be faded, the petals wrinkled like his three-day old clothes.  But he would be there, and she would be with him, and they would be safe here on earth.  And as Jemma thought of how earthly Fitz felt curled into her side, how normal, she noticed the lights gleaming greenish yellow on the ceiling.  At least a hundred glow-in-the-dark star stickers shined, aligned in beautiful Milky Way constellations, and they were so, so familiar to her.