Fitzsimmons

Falling

"Ward! Ward!" the agents yelled, panicked. They saw his shaking hand press down, but they kept shouting in vain. They saw his lips move, but heard nothing but their own screams as the room slid out of the plane.

The descent started. They were pressed up against the wall as their inertia held them up. The two were too shocked to scream, so instead their hands grasped about in search of something to steady themselves. Their hands found each others, and they clung tightly. Fitz found himself thinking he was in his final moments. Jemma would never know his feelings for her. Their lives were ending suddenly, loose ends fraying all around.

"I'm in love with you, Jemma!" Fitz shouted in a burst of presumedly last words. Jemma clung tighter to him as they stared to free fall backwards, nearing the ocean below them. Simmons tangled her hands in Fitz's shirt and pressed her head against his chest, listening to his thumping heart and trying to still herself so she could die peacefully.

The impact jerked the two to the other wall, against each other. They crashed into the waves, and darkness engulfed the room as they began to sink. They thought it was truly death. They had died at the hands of a friend. Someone they trusted. They were goners. Suddenly, they thumped against something else.

"Fitz?" Jemma questioned to the dark. She felt her pulse.

"Jemma?" he replied, right under her. She rolled off of him and onto the floor.

"We aren't dead." she stated, staring up at the ceiling waiting for her eyes to adjust.

"Yeah." he said back. He started thinking back to what he had loudly admitted to a few moments ago, anxiety clenching his stomach.

"Are you okay?" Jemma asked, clearly concerned. She sat up abruptly, searching for Fitz with the hand that wasn't already clasped in his.

"Yeah, I'm fi- Ow!" Fitz had tried sitting up to face Jemma and realized the sharp pain in his upper arm.

"Fitz!" Jemma shouted, concerned.

"My arm. Right, upper arm." he whispered in pain.

"Dull or sharp?" Jemma asked, lying him down and feeling for his arm.

"Sharp!" he burst out when Jemma gently pulled on his arm. She murmured an apology as she started to work, removing her cardigan to set his arm in a makeshift sling. He tried to hold back winces as she fixed him up.

"Finished." she concluded after a few minutes. "You okay?"

"Are you okay, Jemma?" Fitz asked in a surprisingly caring and gentle tone. Not surprising that Fitz had said it, surprising that he had said it under such extreme pain.

"Yeah, now relax. Lay back down." Fitz slumped to the ground. Jemma started thinking about their situation. How were they alive? How long would they stay alive before oxygen ran out? How would they get out in time? Fitz stared carefully at Jemma, sensing what was going through her mind, because that was the power of Fitzsimmons.

"I have a tracking device on me." he said cooly. "It's only a matter of time before the others find us."

"Excellent thinking, Fitz." Jemma said admiringly. She paused a moment and pondered what to say next. Then she scooted beside him and leaned into him.

"What did you yell as we were falling, Fitz?" she asked him.

He gulped. Was he ready to ruin their friendship to risk it for something more? It was already falling apart. He could see it. It used to be just them, but now it was them and Skye and Coulson and May and Triplet and the H.Y.D.R.A. situation. They couldn't be focused on each other and their friendship anymore. But now they could, and he wasn't sure if he was comfortable with their friendship.

"I don't like you, Jemma." he fumbled through his words. "I mean, I do like you, just not how you want or think I like you."

"Continue." Jemma said politely, yet still confused.

"Jemma, I, uh..." he couldn't say it, could he? Even all alone after almost dying together he couldn't say it. No. He wouldn't accept that. He was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and if that meant anything anymore, it meant he was brave.

"Jemma, I said I'm in love with you." he spilt out in a flux of courage. He didn't wait for her to reply, just reached for her face and pulled her to him. Their lips met in a sloppy first kiss. He pulled away, looking into her shining eyes, full of shock. She didn't seem confused, just shocked. A silence passed over them, as it was Jemma's turn to figure out what to say.

"I think I might love you, Fitz." she replied soon enough. Fitz smiled.

"Yeah?" he said.

"Yeah." she replied contently.

So the agents sat in the dark room, pressed against each other, more than friends but not quite lovers yet.