Begin Again

Day thirty-one

"Good news," Simmons said, sitting herself down on the edge of the bed. "You'll be leaving the Playground in nine days! The doctors said that you'd recovered enough."

Fitz cheered, but his face fell for a second. "Are you coming with me?"

She squeezed his hand gently. "Of course I am. I would follow you anywhere."

"So where are we going?"

"To a S.H.I.E.L.D. safe house. There you'll rest and fully recover and then we'll work together to - well, it's classified at the moment, someone might hear." She looked around, but didn't see anyone. It pained her to not be able to tell Fitz, but there may have been hidden cameras, and the mission was between her and Coulson only at the moment.

"Oh," was his short reply.

She swung her legs up onto the bed so that they crossed over his, then lay back on the pillow. A lock of his curly hair was twisted around her index finger.

"You really need a haircut," she stated.

"Mmm."

"Shame we're vigilantes. We can't exactly just walk into a barbers shop."

Fitz's brow furrowed in confusion. "We're what?"

Simmons' hand flew to her mouth. "Oh my god, I did not mean to say that!"

"What do you mean, we're vigilantes? Why are we vigilantes?" he asked, and looked her in the eye, his blue forming an invisible connection with her warm brown ones. "What happened that I don't remember?"

"It's a long story," Simmons sighed, mentally kicking herself. She didn't mean for him to know, just not yet, but the cat was out of the bag now.

"I'm not going anywhere." His hand moved up to stroke her cheek, and she shivered at his cool touch. "And neither are you."

She gave in. "This may hurt a little."

"I don't think anything could hurt me more than seeing the expression on your face when I asked you who you were," he said nonchalantly, but his casual words sent a knife straight through her gut.

So she told him everything, starting from the time Coulson offered them the place on the BUS, and let her tears mingle with his on the white cotton pillowcase.

~*~

When she got to the part when Ward sent the medipod into the ocean, she faltered.

"Please just tell me the truth, Jemma. I want to know what I said, and this might even make it easier for us to both accept this."

"Alright then.

"I had fallen from the BUS before, as you now know, but this time was different. The last time was because of my own fault, and to safe the team from my mistakes, but this time I was falling because I man I had considered a friend, who had in part saved me last time, had pushed me out. You had said, 'I know you care about us, Ward,' and as he turned away, he whispered something before sending us spiralling. It was hard for you. You refused to admit that he was evil, and there he was, disposing of you like you were someone who didn't matter at all.

"I don't remember hitting the water, the harsh impact against the surface. I must have fallen unconscious before then. And when I awoke, you were sitting beside me with your arm in a sling -"

She gestured toward the pale blue cast that adorned his arm -

"And cuts on your beautiful face. You told me that we were under the sea, and that you didn't know how to escape."

"But we're still here."

"And then we talked, about life and death and then we arrived at the conclusion that we could escape if we could blow up some of the medical supplies."

"Why did I end up in a coma then?"

Simmons bit her lip. "There was only enough oxygen for one breath."

"And I gave it to you."

She nodded. "And before you did -"

"Yes?"

"I asked you why you would make me do it and that you were my best friend in the world."

"You're more than that."

He was crying now, the hurt from hearing all this showing clearly in his tensened face and red-rimmed eyes. And she had her fingers tightly twisted around his, and his thumb was tracing gentle patterns on hers.

"That's what you said to me. That I was more than that, and you never had the courage to tell me."

"And I did?"

"No. You showed me."

~*~

I'm back! I'm not dead! Hallelujah!

Sorry about the long absense. Science Fair and school and a flute exam coming up in a week don't give me a lot of time for writing.

On a more cheerful note, 3K reads! I love you guys as much as Fitz loves Simmons!

Okay, that's impossible, but I really do love you.

Mars by Sleeping at Last is in the sidebar. I know I included it on day nine, I think it was, but I love it so much that I had to put it here. It is just the story of Fitzsimmons, about how they were so full of life and energy until they were thrust into the middle of a war and lost it all.

isabella_maeve 💎