Begin Again

Day thirty-seven

Her room at the Playground was completely bare now. She didn't know whether packing her possessions four days before she and Fitz left sounded a little over the top, especially as she didn't even own that much, but seeing her bag by the door always gave her that hope that things were getting better now.

There was just one photograph, however, that still remained on her dresser. It was the one that they'd taken many years ago when they'd both reached level one clearance, back in a world where S.H.I.E.L.D. still existed and her life hadn't fallen to pieces. They looked so happy with their arms around each other and their badges in full display, and it was a smile that she never saw anymore - the new Fitz was slightly different, but she welcomed the change.

She'd packed for Fitz too, and called his mother again. This time Fitz had had a lengthy  phone conversation, sometimes finding it difficult to find the word on the tip of his tongue, but he was happy and that was all that mattered.

It would be strange, living in a normal house like a normal couple doing normal things. They would no longer be solving mysteries and piecing together unsolvable puzzles. She supposed that it would be nice to sit on the couch with Fitz's arm around her, falling asleep the way she used to when the world hadn't fallen apart yet.

~*~

Simmons found him sitting up on his bed with headphones in, tapping away on his leg with his eyes closed.

"What're you listening to?"

He opened his eyes and pulled the headphone out of his left ear, leaving the right one in. "Pardon?"

She repeated the question and he smiled. "This is actually your phone, you left it here. I don't actually know what the song is, but it was the last one you'd been listening to and I just pressed play."

Simmons put the left headphone in. "It's Home by Gabrielle Aplin."

"She has a nice voice," Fitz stated.

"But the lyrics are just so relevant," she added. "It helped me a lot, you know, when you were in a coma."

"Yeah, I can see why," he said. "What else have you been listening to?"

"Hmm... Saturn, Sleeping at Last?"

He unlocked her phone and selected it, listening intently. "It's just instrumental."

"No, the lyrics come eventually. Do you ever get that feeling when you listen to a song once and it's okay, but then you put it on repeat and suddenly it's so much more than a song? It's like, the lyrics become a part of you, and completely change the way you feel about something or someone. And you can hear the music in the wind, and the trees - just like you said that night, and I dunno, it just feels really impossibly beautiful," Simmons mused, picking at her fingernails.

He fell silent for a moment, thinking. "There was a song that I heard once in your dorm, and it just made me think that maybe we could be something more."

"Do you have any idea how it went?"

"I'm pretty sure that it was the same singer that sang Home," he said and she scrolled through her playlist.

"Gabrielle Aplin. Was it More than Friends?"

"I think so."

Simmons laughed. "That's funny, because I always think of you whenever I hear it. Great minds think alike, huh?"

He heard singing in his ear and didn't reply, listening to the words. They seemed to speak to him in a way that he hadn't experienced before and instantly he remembered.

"The pod. You, staring out the window. We talked about death, and then you explained that all of our energy becomes a part of something else: a moon, a stormcloud, a mammoth. A monkey. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard."

Tears shone in Jemma's eyes and she flung her arms around him, burying her head in his chest. Her headphone was yanked out but she didn't care and she sobbed.

"You're more than that, Jemma," he said, returning the embrace. "You've always been more than that."

"You're more than that too," she replied thickly and in that moment his heart soared.

Author's note

I'm gonna try get this finished soon. In the next couple of days, maybe.

Gabrielle Aplin and Sleeping at Last are my musical idols. Their writing actually means so much to me and has changed the way I think about life, love and myself and I will be forever grateful for that. Please please please check them out.

She finally said it! I need her to say it in the show, it will probably break my heart but who cares.

I've been considering writing a Huntingbird story based on Ships in the Night by Matt Kearney, opinions?

isabella_maeve