you can coax the cold right out of me,
drape me in your warmth
the rapture in the dark puts me at ease,
the blind eye of the storm
- BITE, Troye Sivan

"Fitz."

One word. One word is all it takes and he's by her side, stroking her hair or murmuring 'it's okay, you're fine, you're here' over and over until she calms down, his breath tickling warm on her ears, his familiar scent of freshly-cleaned sheets and copper and Fitz. He stays by her side as she cries herself to sleep, dripping tears onto his clothes until she wakes up in the morning with the taste of salt on her lips and the gentle hum of Fitz snoring beside her.

This is how it always goes, and she wonders what she did to deserve him, wonders why he still sticks around even though Jemma Simmons is clearly gone, even though he's now lumped with caring for a broken husk of a girl he once loved.

She whispers this to him one fitful night, when the corners are too dark and the Playground is too quiet and the nightmares are too fresh for her to sleep, she asks him why he bothers with her.

He stiffens and suddenly she's staring into the sharp blue of his eyes; not cold and distant like the planet engraved in her nightmares, but a warm shade of home that she's committed to memory, that she plans to remember to the grave.

"Because.. you're Jemma," he says, voice thick, but he's struggling to find the words.

"But you're Fitz," she murmurs back. Her fingers trace over his leg idly, nails still cracked and jagged gliding the fabric of his pants. She's tucked up under his neck, curled up like a little girl, and she's suddenly struck with a melancholy so strong she feels physically sick.

"Why wouldn't I bother?" he asks quietly, like it's the most obvious thing in the whole entire universe, like she is more important than the air he breathes, than the ground he walks, than the water he drinks, and once upon a time she might have believed him, but not now. Not anymore.

"Because I'm selfish," she admits, and she feels a hollow sort of surprise at how easy it is to continue once she starts. "Because I'm cold. Because I dislike change, because I care only for myself, because you've risked your life too many times and not once has it been worth it."

Fitz's fingers start to dig into her shoulder, and she flinches. He recoils instantly, but the damage is done, the contact is broken. She takes a deep breath, in, out just like Andrew Garner instructed, and she extracts herself carefully from him, closing her eyes to banish Fitz's regretful look, his anger at himself, because she can't take. it. anymore.

So instead she moves back on the bed so she's facing him, knees drawn up to her chest, fingers clutching at the bedspread but never letting it settle over her, because that feels too much like she's being suffocated.

"The virus, the pod, the monolith," she manages finally in an exhale of breath. Her eyes open to see his staring intently back at her, filled with concern and worry when he shouldn't be, when he should be mourning for the Jemma Simmons he lost, for the girl that was buried when she got sucked up onto another planet. "Risking all of those things. Risking them for me, when you know I'll never return the favour. Why me?"

"You jumped out of a plane," he counters, but he's clinging to straws, trying to keep her grounded even though she's already floating miles away. "You were prepared to die. Why that? Why me?"

She squeezes her eyes shut again because the look on his face is too painful, and she wants to feel numb, wants to feel nothing ever again and be done with it all. "It wasn't for you," she says, the lie bulky and unsteady in her mouth. "I was going to die anyway. I was being smart." She smiles faintly. "I was doing the math. One life versus six. The choice was obvious."

"I was doing the same," Fitz says insistently, "your life or mine. The choice was obvious."

"Stop! Stop, stop, stop!" Her eyes fly open and she tugs urgently at the lapels of his shirt, trying to make him understand, trying to make him see. "Stop. Please. I'm, I'm - I can't - "

"It's okay," he tells her, massaging her fingers free gently. "You're tired. You're okay, go to sleep."

There he goes again, caring for her, and her mouth opens. The words 'i love you, i love you, i love you' ring a dozen bells in her head, but she can't make herself say it, so instead she seeks his contact for comfort and says, "I need you."

He doesn't say anything, but his hands brushes her hair away and she knows that he's heard, that he's understood, and for now that's enough.

/

The days go something like this.

She wakes up screaming, wakes up fighting for a weapon, wakes up tear-stained and fitful, and it takes her a few minutes to readjust, to remind herself where she is and who she's with and how she got here.

After that, it's her visitors, Skye and Bobbi with a cup of tea and her breakfast, and Fitz leaves to shower and rest and get something to eat, but not without complaint from both sides. She cries for Fitz at first, refuses to let go like a stubborn child, shakes until the tea is spilling out of her cup, but eventually the girls make her feel more comfortable.

Skye hands her a magazine on the first day, and when Jemma says, 'thank you, Skye', she falters and corrects her to Daisy. Jemma cries that first day, because that's when she realises things won't ever be the same, but now she's better, she thinks.

Skye remains Skye in Jemma's head because she's not sure she can handle it if she doesn't but every morning she says, "thank you, Daisy," when Skye hands her those science magazines she used to like back in the good old days.

They share breakfast there in her room, working up until she can pluck up the courage to start eating with all the others instead. She picks a chair tucked up against the wall because she's scared of what might creep up behind her. On the third day, she grips her knife so tightly that streaks of crimson start to bleed through. Breakfast is ended abruptly that day.

"Did you sleep okay?" Skye will ask, and Jemma will smile and lie every morning for the sake of the others; yes, yes i'm getting better.

Mack keeps her up to date with everything going on, Coulson makes sure she's comfortable with fatherly affection, Skye is full of positive energy, but Jemma finds herself missing May and Hunter, because he would know how to lighten the mood, and she would know exactly what Jemma's going through.

But surprisingly it's Bobbi who helps the most. She walks Jemma to the bathroom because she's scared of being alone, helps her get into the shower, keeps a lookout for her at the door.

When it comes to washing her hair, Jemma keeps her eyes wide open and lets all the soap suds sting at her eyes because she's afraid, but Bobbi offers her a smile that would be pitying on anyone else (except, perhaps, Fitz).

"Nothing will get to you while I'm here, Jemma," she says smoothly. "Remember HYDRA? We had it under control then, we've got it under control now too."

And then when she's finally finished she'll find Fitz waiting for her outside, freshly washed and looking healthier. He tells her he would have helped her but was stopped by Coulson, but she tells him it's okay, because she doesn't want him to see the evidence left on her skin.

And eventually, she does get better. The nightmares don't (won't) go away, but when she wakes up she's stopped reaching for a weapon and started reaching for Fitz instead, gripping his arm so hard she's left welts in his skin, to which she'll apologise and burst into tears later for instead.

"It's fine," he tells her over and over again, but she shakes her head at him and falls asleep to more nightmares.

/

"Do you think I'll ever get better?" she asks Skye.

"You don't need to better," is the response, Skye's eyes blazing fiercely. And then she softens, and smiles, the strain from her work melting away to reveal not Daisy, but the Skye Jemma remembers. "A really clever guy once told me that. He said that I wasn't broken, I was just different. And there's nothing wrong with that, Simmons."

Jemma thinks for a long, long time. "Who said that?"

Skye merely returns to her magazine, and that alone is answer enough.

"Fitz doesn't like change," Jemma says quietly.

"Nobody likes change," Skye corrects. "But sometimes.. sometimes it's for the better."

Jemma mirrors Skye's smile, albeit weaker, and suddenly she feels more like Jemma Simmons than she has been in a long, long time. "Tell me about Lincoln," she requests, and this is how she paves the road to recovery.

/

"I don't want to worry him."

Bobbi looks up at Jemma's sudden revelation, but she doesn't seem all that surprised. "Who, Fitz?"

She nods.

Bobbi hops off the treadmill, skin glistening with sweat. Jemma finds something comforting about the steadiness of the treadmill noise, and Bobbi likes to run out her problems, so this is how they spend free evenings together.

"I don't think you could do anything to prevent him from worrying about you," Bobbi smiles. "Even if you hadn't been off on another planet for months on end."

Jemma likes that Bobbi speaks of the planet with ease, not like her other teammates. Even Fitz hesitates to mention it. She picks at her shirt, unravelling a piece of thread that's come loose.

"He shouldn't worry about me. I don't want him to be worried."

Bobbi sits down on the wooden bench next to her, a towel hanging loose on her neck. "It's second nature to worry about someone you love, especially in our line of work. The more you love someone, the harder it gets. Fitz loves you." She places a reassuring hand on Jemma's shoulder at her stricken expression. "It's not up to me to decide in what way. But he does love you."

Jemma contemplates this as Bobbi gets back up and onto the treadmill, fiddling with the settings.

"I love him too."

Bobbi gives her a smile and a tender look. "You should tell him that. And if you do… be sure to let me know if it's worth it."

/

So she says it to him, one night as she's watching him build Coulson's new hand (again), his tongue poking in between his teeth in concentration.

"I love you."

He jerks and the arm fizzes and dies, making Jemma flinch. Fitz doesn't seem to notice, instead staring at her wide-eyed, mouth slightly open just like that day she'd told him 'maybe there is'.

And then, unexpectedly, he swallows and shakes his head. "Jemma, I can't - I don't want you to say anything that you don't mean, I can't - "

"No! Not like that!" she says too quickly, and then she takes a breath to calm herself, hand reaching up to brush a strand of hair away. "Not like that," she repeats, "not now. Not yet. But I do…" she smiles, "love you."

"Yeah. Okay good. Me too. Because if you were, I mean - "

He's stuttering now, but she can't help but smile a little wider, at this ridiculous man with his eyes and his awkwardness and his love, and somehow he's chosen her just like she'd chosen him all those years ago at the Academy, and she can't ever fathom why she thought he'd hated her.

She's getting better, she is.

The nightmares are less that night.

/

And later, to Bobbi, who she finds staring off in the distance;

"It is worth it, you know. The ride is worth it."