I should be studying. Like seriously pouring over books after three years of not doing so; hell, I even asked to work part time this month to do that.

But..no. I've been writing endlessly. FitzSimmons has taken over my mind ever since I decided to give this show a shot back in October, downloading an episode since it's not even broadcast here in Italy.

So here's my little compromise with myself. I write this story now, giving it all of my dedication and then allow myself to write only a couple of hours a few nights a week, slowing down the stream of stories I've done.

Ok.. sorry for the rant..

I watched episode 1x12 yesterday morning and..God.. the feelings. Skye, FitzSimmons and Coulson got my emotions in a jumble. Ward got me all smiley with his behaviour and May actually had me laughing (and that's just..I cannot define it). And let's not talk about the new promo.. It's going to be a whole waiting-for-Fzzt panic again.

The part that struck me the most was at the end. Simmons in the background, Fitz speaking with Donnie. It pained the hell out of me to see Fitz so..guilty. Distraught.

So, that why I'm writing this. Let's see how it comes out.

I'm putting this in the collection of stories that I've been writing expanding certain FitzSimmons' moments from the series. If anyone cares, it's set after Touch.

Otherwise, this can be pretty much a standalone.

Hope you guys like.. :)

P.S: This story has been re-edited. Thanks to StarryDreamer01 who has become my wonderful Beta. :)

DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN AGENTS OF SHIELD.

First Step

She knows he's hurting as soon as Donnie gets inside the car.

From her position outside the lab, right on top of the ramp, she sees how Fitz's shoulders slump down. She sees him bow his head.

She sees him turn and walk up towards her. He doesn't look up until they're both side by side and that fleeting glance, lost and guilty, breaks her heart before he just walks past her and into the lab.

She follows him immediately.

It's just the two of them inside, just the two of them on this floor. May and Agent Coulson were upstairs, discussing this mission, she presumed.

Ward and Skye had gone somewhere she didn't know but she had noticed the brunette's sombre expression as she was leaving.

Had it been another moment, she would have worried over the hacker who had become her friend but right now, she couldn't think of anyone but Fitz.

He was sitting in his chair, elbows on the workbench, hands knit together with his chin resting on them. His eyes were fixed on a spot, somewhere between his set of screwdrivers and her microscope but she knew that he wasn't looking at anything in particular.

She knew him too well.

She approached him quietly and leaned on the workbench next to him. They stayed in silence for a few minutes before she slowly moves her hand to his shoulder and gives it a soft squeeze.

"I should have stopped him," He whispered.

"Fitz.."

"I was there in his room. I saw the battery and knew that it was too powerful but I gave him advice on how to overcome the cooling issue. I gave him the answer to finishing the device!" He looks up at her and she can see anger slowly seeping in his eyes.

"You didn't know that he was luring you to do that." She said, trying to calm him down. "You couldn't have known-"

"I should have known," He retorted, running a shaky hand through his hair. "He had blueprints of all his creations on the wall, prototypes strewn around his room.." He stood up abruptly, startling her and her hand slipped away from him. He took a few measured steps and then turned to look at her.

His eyes held a mixture of emotions that made her chest clench.

"Doesn't that ring a bell to you, Jemma?"

-:-

He knew that she would understand right away. He knew her too well.

So when her eyes widened slightly, he just smiled mirthlessly.

"He was shy, a bit of a loner.." he remarked, "Cooped up in his room to work on brilliant and creative ideas that his overactive brain gave him." He sighed and looked at his partner. "I was just like him."

"Fitz.."

"He admitted it to me while we were talking. Told me that no one in his hometown talked to him. His father didn't acknowledge him, didn't even believe that he was gifted. Dear God..the only thing I kept repeating was to talk about his devices to his instructors or Agent Weaver. I didn't even bother to understand him better. He was like me! He kept things to himself."

How could he have been so blind?! It was like seeing himself in Donnie: his eighteen year old self that tried to walk through his loneliness and lack of human contact by creating machines and devices in the desperate hope -he later realized- that this would make people notice him, talk to him, see him.

But no one had, at the time. No one ever glanced at him. Not until...

"Fitz." He didn't realize that Simmons had approached him until he felt her hand on his shoulder again. He looked at her and found concern in her usually clear amber eyes.

Jemma had been the first to see him.

"Don't do this to yourself," She said softly. "You have been putting this on yourself but it was not your fault. He had a friend that was manipulating him and they were both toyed by Ian Quinn." Jemma's eyes hardened uncharacteristically. "He's the one to blame."

His mind told him that she was right, that her words had a logic that he really couldn't go against but it didn't diminish the weight on his chest.

"He told me that his only friend was dead because of him," He whispered. "And I can't stop thinking that if I hadn't suggested to use oxygen to cool that lithium ion battery, Seth would be alive."

-:-

She felt something crack inside her at his broken voice. She suddenly felt the distinct need to hug him, make him know that she was there for him and that she understood him.

But that sort of physical contact had never been their thing. Especially now that they were threading through some unknown emotional territory ever since her skydiving episode.

She squeezed his shoulder again, tighter, conveying all her feelings in that little touch.

"Seth would be alive if I had managed to save him," She murmured softly, voicing her own guilt. The heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach coiled: she had failed to save the life of a young boy.

Fitz looked up abruptly, eyes widening.

"Jemma..." He said. "You couldn't have done anything for him. He was probably dead before we got there. He was in a cardiac arrest: you said so."

She smiled sadly.

"It doesn't make me feel less guilty though..." He stared at her and nodded slightly. She removed her hand from his shoulder and took a step back.

"You did all that you could, Fitz. You went back to stop Donnie and got hurt in the attempt."

She didn't want to think about that.

The moment when Ward had revealed the whole plan Donnie and Seth had made, involving an unaware Fitz, had flared a series of emotions in her.

Panic as she phoned him, telling him to leave the room. Relief when he told that he had left and that she was over-reacting; relief that quickly turned into panic again when he closed the call mumbling about a power source.

But most of all, instant dread and fear that had enveloped her the moment she saw him unmoving on the floor of Donnie's room. She had never been happier to hear him curse when he regained consciousness.

"I can't stop thinking that something like that could have happened to me back when I was in the Academy."

Fitz's words tore her out her thoughts.

"What?" She asked. He looked at her.

"Donnie was exactly as I was at eighteen: shy, introverted, keeping things to myself and yearning to have a friend. I don't know if Seth was truly his friend or was just exploiting him but Donnie didn't care. He had a friend: someone to talk to. And that got him into all of this mess." He glanced at her. "I could have stray that way too.."

She swallowed dryly at his admission.

"No..." she replied. "You were different from him. Maybe you are similar in character but you would have never done anything of that sort-"

"I didn't because I met you."

Jemma froze and just stared at him. Any thought or retort was cancelled from her head as he looked at her, scratching the back of his head.

"We became friends. We started studying, working and doing everything together. We even started designing and inventing concepts that complemented each other unknowingly. Look at how your crystalline nucleation process and my delivery mechanism worked together! And when we graduated, we were both seen as brilliant scientists together and individually." He smiled slightly.

"I know that if I hadn't met you, I would have started to withdraw more in myself and that at some point, in my desperation to find someone, anyone, I would have ended up like Donnie, befriending someone that would have ended up exploiting me."

She kept staring, unable to come up with a adequate remark as her heart ticked in her throat.

-:-

Her stare made him feel uneasy.

What was she thinking? He didn't say anything that could have annoyed or hurt her, did he?

He just wanted to be honest with his feelings for once; he didn't want this to go and mingle with all the unsaid feelings and words between them.

As much as they knew each other as the back of their hands, their hearts were transparent and shielded all together.

He wanted her to know how much he appreciated her, hearing it from his own voice. How her presence around him had changed him and made him better.

The Chitauri incident came back to his mind and the sheer terror of losing her shook him to the core again. He suddenly felt in sync with Donnie again: seeing your best friend die (almost die, fortunately, in his case) could break you.

And when said best friend was also more...Well, that could easily shatter you to pieces.

"I didn't have anyone before meeting you."

His head shot up as she spoke. Had he heard correctly?

Jemma looked at him, eyes oddly bright.

"I was lonely too." She said. "I might have been more talkative than you but I didn't have friends. I just threw myself in my studies: did my homework and read textbook over textbook on every subject. I didn't have anyone to talk to." She smiled softly. "I didn't have anyone to trust."

He felt an odd twitch in his heart and smiled slightly.

-:-

His small smile made her heart beat slow down.

They had never been so open about their thoughts. Not these sort of thoughts.

They could talk for hours, ramble about anything from an academic point of view, but their feelings and emotions were little boxes hidden inside their hearts, visible but not accessible.

She thought about that conversation, the one that had been delayed for so long.

A conversation about a change between them ever since her illness with the Chitauri virus and his mission in Ossetia.

She knows her feelings.

He knows his. She knows that he knows them.

They just had to confront each other. Sooner or later.

But now wasn't the moment.

They were both exhausted, burdened with a guilt that wasn't even theirs. Admitting that knowing each other had somehow helped them both, saved them both, was just the first step.

An open admission of something that they had always known but never voiced out loudly.

She looked at him and recalled his attitude in the past weeks: the nervousness, the anger and the somewhat un-Fitz attitude.

"Fitz, you would tell me if something was wrong, wouldn't you?" She asked, her gaze unwavering. He stared at her. "You know that you can trust me."

She didn't want him to keep things to himself.

She didn't want him to carry his burdens on his own: she wanted him to share them.

With her.

-:-

Jemma was talking about the past weeks, he knew it.

He had been struggling with the events. Coulson gone, Mike Peterson dead and Victoria Hand and SHIELD bustling on the Bus.

It had been all too real to him. Too different from the detached vision of missions that he had in Sci-Ops: this was all real.

He was adjusting and coming to terms with it.

He was trying to be strong and reliable.

For her.

He had noticed her worried looks and talking about his withdrawn attitude at the Academy must have concerned her again. He wouldn't allow himself to be withdrawn with her.

"Of course I would." He replied, smiling slightly. "I will come to talk to you immediately if I had problems. As always."

She smiled.

Jemma walked to her workspace and started to put her things in order, Leo did the same and they glanced at each other.

It would pass. This moment of confusion would pass.

The first step forward had been taken.

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