A/N: Okay, final chapter time...

Here we are back in the very first Universe, the one in chapter one.

"I have this weird theory that some people are drawn to each other because their atoms were near each other when the universe was created and the same atoms just keep coming back together..."

8 – Every Damn Time, You Were Right There Beside Me

Waking slowly, it took Jemma longer than she would have liked for the fog to clear her head. Blinking slowly, fighting away the last remnants of sleep, Jemma tried to work out what had woken her, Fitz was still as motionless as ever and none of his monitors had registered any change in activity while she slept, curled up by his side.

Slowly, the sounds of Skye's voice started to filter through the haze of her sleep addled brain, her words whispered and not meant for her to hear.

"I'm telling you, Fitz, she looks like a monkey, all arms and legs wrapped around you. You're like the world's smallest tree!" the 0-8-4 joked, talking to Fitz's comatose form as if he could hear her, as if he would respond any moment now.

It was a habit that at first had angered Jemma, Fitz wasn't there to reply, not really, but Skye continued with her one-sided conversations regardless, driving the biochemist mad. When she eventually snapped at Skye, yelling that Fitz wasn't going to answer, that he might never answer her, Skye had explained it to her.

"I can't not to talk to him, Jemma. I can't pretend that he's not here because he is here. You're both here and Fitz is going to get better and when he wakes up he's going to want to know what's been happening."

"He might not wake up, Skye," Jemma had whispered, looking down.

"He will, he has to. He's Fitz and you're Simmons. You guys are Fitzsimmons and you're the closest thing I've ever had to a family and I need you guys. Everything's going to hell right now, we're fighting a war here and we're losing people at every turn and I know that things look bad but they're going to get better. They have to get better so I'm going to keep talking to him because he's still here, we haven't lost him yet, he's just sleeping, right?" Skye finished, refusing to let the tears that had gathered during her speech fall.

"Skye, I can't promise that-"

"He's going to wake up, he has to," the ex-hacktivist interrupted, turning back to the bed and beginning her one-way conversation with a comatose Fitz as Jemma ran from the room, hiding as tears began falling, one by one.

Shifting her position in the hard chair, Skye propped up her feet on the metal frame of Fitz's bed, "How about I make you a deal? You wake up and we'll get you a monkey. A proper one, not just Simmons wrapped around you, what do you say?" Skye attempted to bargain with the engineer, pausing as if awaiting a response. "Or you could just have Simmons wrapped around you, doubt you'd fight that one much. It did her some good anyway, first time I've seen her actually sleep in weeks."

"I've not been that bad," Jemma mumbled, refusing to lift her head.

"Hey, you're awake," Skye jumped, moving her feet and leaning forward, "You okay?"

Pausing, closing her eyes Jemma took a second to just be, feeling Fitz's chest rise and fall without the assistance of a ventilator, the way the cuffs of her cardigan were slightly too long, hanging around her wrists and smelling like the detergent that Fitz used, the way the scruff covering her partners cheeks scratched at her hair. The way that for the first time since the rise of Hydra she felt safe curled into her best friend.

"No," Jemma whispered, for once, answering with something other than the standard 'I'm fine'.

"You want me to leave?"

"Not really. It's too quiet around here," the biochemist sighed, missing the usual bustle and chatter of the lab when it was just her and Fitz, taking on the world, one mystery at a time.

"Tell me about it," Skye laughed, trying to coax a sile out of Jemma, sensing her darkened mood.

Not knowing how to respond, Jemma instead chose to busy herself with studying her partner and best friends face. His features had been committed to memory long ago but recently she'd been noticing him in a different light, the way his brows furrowed almost constantly, even in his coma or how the beard growing in across his jaw made him look older.

"At least it isn't patchy this time," Jemma whispered more to herself than to anyone else but Skye heard her.

"What?"

"His beard. Last time he tried to grow one we were back in the academy and he was sick of everyone treating us like kids. He thought a beard would make him look older but he just looked ridiculous. It grew in odd patches and it almost broke his heart when I forced him to shave it off. I haven't seen him with so much as stubble since," Jemma recalled, smiling at the memory of an 18 year old Leopold Fitz shouting at her with a face full of shaving foam, crying out about how unfair she was for not giving his beard a chance.

"I would pay good money to see pictures of that."

"I probably have one somewhere, Fitz hated me taking pictures of him. I had to fight tooth and nail to get him to stay still long enough for me to get a good picture of us," the biochemist smiled, nuzzling her head into Fitz's chest, fingers paying with the soft fabric of his hospital gown.

"Fitz isn't exactly the selfie type," Skye joked, earning a small laugh from Jemma.

"No, he's not one for the spotlight," Jemma sighed, letting the air fill with silence as she remembered all the nights out together, Jemma pulling out her phone and Fitz hiding as she pulled up her camera app or their graduation where the only decent photo she had of the two of them was a candid shot taken by his mother. Black gowns covering his suit and her dress, his arm wrapped around her waist, holding her up as she struggled to balance on her heels; the picture had captured the exact moment that Jemma had fallen into her partner, diploma gripped tightly in one hand as the other grasped at his shoulder and her face so close to his as he smiled brightly for the whole world to see.

"Simmons?"

"Mm-hmm?"

"What happened? I mean, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to but what happened to you two down there? You came back and you're all different," Skye trailed off at the end, not knowing how to explain the changes she'd seen in her friend. Going into hiding and fighting Hydra had changed them all, they'd become harder and colder but Simmons was different. It wasn't anger or rage but rather a sense of guilt that radiated from the young biochemist.

"He-he saved me," Jemma sighed, knowing that if nothing else, that that one statement rang true.

"So you say but I don't get it, how did he-"

"He blew up the window," Jemma interrupted, hands clenching into fists as she fought back tears, the memories flooding back to her. "Didn't even give me a chance to stop him, just gave me the oxygen and blew it up. He didn't care, Skye. He didn't care that he was going to die. He knew what would happen to him and he didn't care, I didn't even get to say goodbye…"

Taking a deep breath, Skye tried to process Jemma's words, "Jemma, Fitz knew what he was doing, he's stubborn, once he's made his mind up about something there's no way you're gonna change it."

"But he didn't care about me, Skye. I wanted to stop him and he wouldn't listen to me. I-"

"Jemma Simmons, you're one of the smartest people I know but you're dumb, you know that? I don't know a lot but what I do know is that Fitz does care about you, he cares a lot."

"You don't get it, Skye-"

"Then explain it to me!"

"Fitz told me… He told me that I was more than that. More than just a best friend. He told me that I was more than just his best friend and I couldn't say goodbye or tell him how I feel or stop him before he hit the button," Jemma cried out, sitting up and moving away from Fitz, pacing the small hospital room, hands rising to rest by her throat.

"He told you that he likes you? As more than just a friend?" Skye asked, piecing together her friends rambling.

"Yes."

"And you're upset because you didn't tell him you like him as something more?"

"Yes! What, no. I just- I don't know," Jemma sighed, raking her hands through her hair before letting them fall back down to cover her throat. "I don't know how I feel about him and he tell me he likes me like that and nearly dies for me and what if I don't love him back?"

"But you do love him."

"Of course I love him, I just don't know how I love him," Jemma tried to reason.

"Jemma, you don't have to be in love with him, you can just love him," Skye sighed, standing up and walking over to the manic woman. "You guys have been best friend for, like, forever. Nothing will change that. You can't force yourself to love someone and it doesn't have to be romantic."

"I know that but-"

"If you know that then why are you stressing out?"

"I- I don't know."

"Look, you and Fitz are tight, you're tighter than tight. You both love each other and that's all that matters. Whatever else happens, happens. For now, just be thankful that you're both still here and calm down. When he wakes up, you guys can talk but until then, how about we go get some tea and laugh at Trip's sideburns again?" Skye smiled, shaking Jemma's shoulders slightly.

"Maybe another time, I think I'd rather stay here tonight," Jemma sighed, looking over to Fitz.

"That's cool, I get it. Another time then?"

"Another time," Jemma agreed, moving over to sit on the edge of Fitz's hospital bed, the urge to reach out and brush her fingers through his hair almost overwhelming.

Walking to the door, Skye stopped and turned, watching Simmons hovering over Fitz, her hand halfway stretched out to take his.

"Simmons?"

"Yes?"

"You're going to be okay," Skye smiled, leaving quickly.

Smiling at the younger woman's words, Jemma pulled herself up onto the bed to lay beside Fitz once more, moving his arms to fall across her shoulders and against her waist.

Looking up at the man who was her best friend, her first friend, her confidant, her partner and her touchstone, Jemma couldn't imagine her life without Leopold Fitz. He made her a better person, made her want to be a better person.

"Do you ever wonder what we'd be like if we hadn't met?" Jemma wondered aloud, not expecting Fitz to answer her. "I don't think I can imagine a world without you Fitz. You're like my left arm; you're a part of me. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have you."

Smiling to herself, Jemma began drawing nonsensical patterns across Fitz's chest, slowly recognising her drawings taking shape.

A teacup.

A monkey.

A train.

A stick family, a man, a woman and a small child.

Several molecules, lining up the bonds on the serotonin and the acetylcholine just so.

Picture after picture, random shapes and patterns appearing and disappearing, one after the other.

"Maybe we did meet before," Jemma smiled, thinking about her rant against soulmates only hours earlier. "Maybe we didn't, maybe we could meet again. You're my best friend in the whole world Fitz, I'd find you."

Trying hard to stifle a yawn, Jemma's fingers began to still, her drawings slowly getting smaller and smaller until they stopped, the only movement that of Fitz's chest moving up and down with each breath and the beat of his heart beneath her palm.

"If I had to pick a soul mate, I'd pick you," Jemma whispered, sleep pulling at the edges of her consciousness, "I like you. I like your energy, I'd find you. Every damn time, I'd find you."

Closing her eyes, Jemma allowed her mind to wander, thinking about thermodynamics and energy that could only transform, how it never really died or went away, it just changed into something else. Someone else, perhaps.

And maybe, sometimes if you were lucky, you'd find that person again. Maybe certain energies would come back to each other and maybe they wouldn't, maybe they'd miss each other but maybe, just maybe, if you were really lucky, you'd find someone who's soul and energy completed your own and even when everything else was against you, when science and reason and logic said no, something else said yes.

What if, instead of going quietly into the night ready to start the cycle again, they fought against it? Fought tooth and nail to stay where they were, to stay right beside you?

With all these 'what if's' and 'maybe's' floating around in her head, Jemma felt herself drifting away, falling asleep, unaware of the fingers twitching by her waist, unconsciously searching for hers.

A/N2: Wow, okay, I did it. Please let me know what you thought of this, honestly, I can't write for Skye to save my life and I'm not too sure about the ending so I'd like to know what you guys thought of it.

I've really enjoyed writing for this fandom again and I hope to be back again soon with a lower character death count.

Until next time...