Fitzsimmons

Coping

Quick Note: So I don't think anything will happen with Fitzsimmons until they finish grieving. Nothing good comes out of a relationship based on mutual grief over a friend's death, so I hope they don't kiss or anything until they heal emotionally and mentally. The poor team.

I'm also assuming Skye left to see her father with little to no explanation. She has powers now, obviously. Earthquake powers.

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"Trip," she stuttered a bit. "He can't... he couldn't have died." Simmons was in firm denial. Aloud, at least. Inside her mind she had understood it already. She just thought that if she could convince someone else, she could convince herself. It wasn't working.

Fitz stared at the floor, biting his lip to hold down sobs, although tears were flowing down his face. He knew it had been true. He was one step ahead of Simmons in thinking. He was already blaming himself.

Everyone was blaming his or herself. Guilt seemed infused with grief in S.H.I.E.L.D. Lives were always on the line. What could you have done to save them? Why didn't you do it?

Coulson looked especially guilt ridden. The poor director had not only one, but a whole team of lives to protect. Each agent was like a less villainous horocrux. When they died, Coulson felt part of him disappear.

May spoke up, more emotional than the team had ever seen her. "We have to move past this. Trip wouldn't have wanted us to mourn him. He died heroically, and he would do it again. He would've wanted us to use this as extra force in everything we do. He would've wanted us to avenge him."

"And avenge him we will," Mack chimed, cracking his knuckles, a look of fury set in. A moment of unsure silence.

"I can't do this," Coulson said, then limped up the stairs to his office. Simmons' instinct was to follow him and bandage him up, but she was stopped by May.

"He needs time," she explained, then looked around at the team. Lance had his arm around Bobbi as she scrunched up her face. Mack stared at up the stairs to where Coulson had disappeared. Fitz stood back, holding his arms and brushing frantically at his wet face. Simmons still stood with her mouth open and eyes filled. "We all do."

And with that, May, the Calvary who was so tough, made her way to the cockpit and let a few drops escape her piercing eyes before channeling her pain into determination.

Bobbi crossed her arms and walked up the stairs to the Bus's common area, Lance following with a comforting hand on her lower back.

Fitz, Simmons, and Mack stayed downstairs in the garage, in silence.

"Mack," Simmons spoke calmly, her voice quivering slightly. She desperately wanted to move on and not think about Trip ever again. "Do you mind if I perform an examination now? You did suffer a hundred foot drop." Mack nodded, and Simmons approached him, Fitz bringing the med kit.

"He saved me," Mack kind of murmured as Simmons began bandaging the scratches he had received from being thrown to the floor several times.

"He saved all of us at one point or another," Simmons replied, and Fitz nodded.

"I wish I had held back Trip. Maybe he would still be alive."

"You know how good of an agent Trip was. He could've beaten you quickly and still managed to get inside the chamber with the obelisk," Simmons' hands paused at their swift setting of his fractured arm. "I'm the one that should've stopped him," she whispered.

"Jemma," Fitz interjected sharply, causing a whole other flood of painful memories. "It's not your fault. Either one of us could've stopped him."

"No," Mack quieted them. They looked up at Mack, guilty tears in their eyes. "Stop there. Trip wanted to be the hero. There's no way you could've changed his mind."

No one believed it completely, but they came together in a hug. Trip's death was sad in itself, but the team was now realizing how easy it would be to lose someone they cared about, and that was almost worse.

"Look at me, I'm crying like a baby," Mack said with a barely existent laugh, trying to mop up his face. Fitz offered him a tissue from the med kit, and he took it with a sad smile. "I'm gonna go play XBox now. Turbo?"

"I'll stay down here," Fitz turned down his offer, and he didn't need to mention Simmons for Mack to know what was happening. Mack gave him a small smirk before turning to the spiral stairs that led up to the common area.

Simmons sighed then pulled over a chest to sit on, leaning sloppily against a wall and sprawling her legs out. Fitz sat down next to her, their shoulders touching a moment before he scooted away.

"Why are you staying down here?" Simmons asked gently, but he knew what she was really saying.

"We always decompressed best when we were around each other. Want to talk?"

"Not really."

"Me neither."

So they sat, just feeling the warmth from the other, realizing how incredibly close their hands were.

"Trip liked me a lot," Simmons whispered to the space in front of her, not caring that she was contradicting what she had said earlier.

"Who wouldn't?" Fitz answered without a second thought.

"Fitz, can we just take a break from our... thing right now?" Simmons pleaded. "I don't think I can deal with losing a friend again, especially when we were working so well together."

Fitz went through what he was going to say carefully in his head, not letting himself mess something so important up.

"Jemma. I've come to the realization that I could die anytime. Right now, Hydra could be waiting outside of the plan, ready to kill us all," Simmons winced. "So I'm not going to hold my thoughts in. I refuse to die with regret. I won't wait until my impending death is more evident to me to tell you how I feel."

Simmons was crying now, but not at his words. It was herself. He had been suppressing so much about himself, just like she had. Maybe they should be simply frank with each other.

"Okay," she agreed, voice surprisingly unwavering. "But I will do the same. Fitz, I've always seen you as my best friend. If Hydra is waiting just outside the plane, you should know that I have thought about us. More and more each day. I've been so happy since we started talking again, and now I just need time and space to think about everything." Fitz grabbed her hand suddenly, stopping her increasing rambling. She hadn't even noticed the racing of her heart from telling him everything.

"Okay," Fitz said, stilling her. He understood completely. When he first started falling for her, he had wanted to avoid her until his feelings went away. "I'll be in the garage with Mack. You'll make an excellent head scientist."

"We can have lunch," Simmons blurt before he could stand up. "We can have lunch together. And maybe some movie nights, if I can fit them into my schedule."

Fitz smiled fondly, Trip almost slipping his mind. "Sounds brilliant." He turned to leave, and Simmons stood suddenly.

"Fitz," she said, voice quaking. "Can you," she swallowed, her throat feeling thick. "Can..." It wasn't working.

Her feet seemed to carry her on her own accord, and then she had her arms wrapped around him and he was hugging her back, no explanation needed. Breathing into his sweater, breathing in his scent, calmed her down. She could hear his heart thumping away in his chest and wait-

That was her heart doing the thumping. Alongside his.