oh no i've said too much, i haven't said enough

[shieldmonkey]

It's strange that he hasn't seen Simmons in a while.

The Simmons he's been speaking with since after the real one left back at S.H.I.E.L.D., of course, not Jemma... who the Director told him arrived in Darrow several days ago. Fitz has been aware of her arrival since almost immediately after she turned up, and since then...

Well... Fitz went by to see she was alright early on, to be certain that nothing about the dimension they're all in now would alter whether or not she made it through decompression okay. Logic said she'd make it through, of course, but he'd never been on this side of it before. He'd still been in a coma when all that happened, when she'd decided to leave.

He's still not certain why she did.

And he still couldn't bring himself to stick around the hospital very long.

He hears about when she's released, but manages to keep himself scarce. There's work with the equipment he's engineering for Agent Barton, and a few other things he wants to begin work on, so it's not as if he has to put too much effort into avoiding her.

Besides, she avoided him first.

Fitz can't get his hand to work properly tonight-- there's some intricate wiring on an arrowhead that he isn't quite steady enough for just now-- so he decides to take a bit of a break, gathering up laundry that's accumulated in his flat over the past week and a half and heading down to the building's shared laundry room.

If nothing else, it'll be a chance to clear his head.

Comments

[shieldmonkey]

"No, just... nearly. A coma for over a week and now I can't..." he trails off, realizing that he's not normally this bad, that these days, words come to him more easily. But there's something about her, about talking to her now and remembering their conversation on the ocean floor that manages to wipe his words away in an instant.

"Sometimes I can't find the words. Aphasia."

He doesn't mention his hand; bringing up the bit with his head is difficult enough. Even though Fitz knows that this Jemma, a Jemma who never saw him after the coma never left, it's hard for him to separate the two. Even though he's heard her say that things are fine in the way that she just has and knows that it means exactly the opposite of that.

[whenindoubt]

"Oh, no, Fitz." She breathes the words, her brows furrowed together. Her own worries have just vanished. They've vanished, and it didn't matter what'd happened with her, the decompression or anything else. "I'm so sorry I wasn't... God. Are you-" She moved closer to him. "How long has it been, for you?" That's the soft question, because she blames herself. She blames herself - a self that's not even her - for not being better. For letting him down.

But she just has to know. She has to know how long it's been, because then she'll know about his recovery, and if it's permanent and who he is now, because there's no way anyone who has gone through that wouldn't be affected. She knows she's going to have residual emotional affects from what happened, as well as the physical affects.

[shieldmonkey]

She moves closer to him, and instinctively, he takes half a step back, holding onto his bad hand with his good one, as though he thinks she might reach out and touch it, even not knowing the extent of things. It's a reaction he hasn't anticipated, and he resents himself for it as soon as he's made the motion.

"Nine months, give or take," he says, and is glad that he manages to get the words out without tripping over them. It's more than a bit of a relief, given what he needs to say next, "Closer to a year since you... the other one, I suppose, left."

[whenindoubt]

The moment that he backs up, her face falls, and she looks away. Down at her feet, before she takes a deep breath and forces a smile even though... He doesn't want to be near her. He doesn't even want her to touch him, that much is clear. It makes her feel sick, and it makes her want to cry because it's Fitz. It's Fitz, and he doesn't want her to even come close to him, and she almost died less than a week ago.

It's all a bit too much, really. "I... I'm sorry," she says first, and her hand actually shakes as she presses it to her lips as she pauses, her brows furrowing together. Nine months says that the affects, if they haven't improved from the worst, they likely won't - but if he's seen some improvement, then there's the possibility of recovery.

But right now? Right now she doesn't even know what to say. She left. She left him, apparently. A year ago, she'd left him, for some reason. "Why would I leave?" It's almost a rhetorical question. "... Fitz." She's trying to figure out where to start. "Is there improvement?" The question's clinical, but it's because she doesn't know what else to say.

[shieldmonkey]

He doesn't feel like himself. He hasn't felt like himself in ages now, since before he turned up in Darrow, and for Simmons to reach out to him like she does... he's not certain how to react to it. He notices the expression on her face shift and wishes he hadn't taken that step.

"It's... it's difficult to say," Fitz says, because sometimes he thinks there is, and other times... like now, for instance, he still can't manage to string the right words together in the right order. Not that he wants to admit that, that this is who he is now.

He's not the person Jemma last spoke to on the bottom of the ocean, and he resents himself for it.

[whenindoubt]

"Alright," she says after a long moment. A long pause, where she sorts through her options, and just goes with the one that's the least likely to make this worse. That smile's still there, fake as anything. "Well, if you would like me to look at your assessments, you know I would-" Her voice cracks, and she feels like she could have kicked herself because of it. "I would be happy to. Anything I can do." Clearing her throat, she looks back towards the door.

"I really should be going." There's no hesitation, and she looks back at him over her shoulder. "I'm really happy that you're here, Fitz. Genuinely." She does mean that, even if she's making up the excuse to leave.

[shieldmonkey]

"You... you too," Fitz says, and he means it as well, even if he's not entirely certain how to manage this. Because she's been beside him the whole damn time, except... well, except for when she wasn't, and it's not something so easily forgotten, even if he doesn't know how easily it's forgiven.

Alternate dimensions complicate things much more than he'd like.

And as much as there's a part of him that wants to call her back, he resists the urge to do it, realizing that Simmons has definitely made up an excuse to go.

"I'll see you around, I suppose."