#3 They put the spark in me. And now all it does is burn.

There were no days and nights, just blurry moments or almost clarity. Sometimes Fitz woke up and was sure he was still dreaming because nothing felt real, let alone right. The colours were too bright and hurting his eyes, or simply too dim to catch his attention. The sounds made no sense and all of his attempts to find anything resembling harmony were in vain. His arms were made of glass, not listening to him at all, and stubbornly laying still. In those moments he was just closing his eyes, denying everything around him until he fell asleep again, finding refuge in darkness and silence.

Other times he was sure he was sleeping because everything was dark and there was this pleasant haze around his mind, and yet he could still hear voices. For once they made sense, but when he tried to focus on them and answer, he dropped further into night.

With time it was getting better. The colours turned into shapes and shapes into figures and sometimes he was even able to give them names. There were moments when he woke up and stared at something, unable to recall names and purposes of things surrounding him, but more and more often he woke up and after the initial disorientation he was able to recognise something. Sometimes he noticed a book on his desk, sometimes he saw a person sitting in a chair next to him, asleep or smiling at him as if he had done something that made her happy. Sometimes he had no idea where he was, but other times he saw her and wanted to hold her hand, to wipe the worried look from her face. It was easier for him to distinguish between things, between day and night, between being awake and sleeping.

After some time he could stay awake longer, and so he noticed and remembered more and more.

He noticed that there were people around him, and remembered that they were different, changing each time.

There was this young women with brown hair and eyes, the one that was always sitting close and sometimes holding his hand. She was always talking to him in a voice that sounded like a song to his ears, telling him strange things or reading to him. It put him at ease at first, giving him some strange comfort and illusion of safety. Then he started to worry, because he couldn't quite catch what she was telling him. He knew she was asking him questions, sometimes easy ones, like "do you recognise me?" to which he was working hard to nod and show her that he was there and he remembered. Sometimes they were way too complicated for him to even understand the words, let alone how they worked together in a sentence. With each day the pattern was getting more and more stabile: easy question, nod, a wave of words which made him lost and her looking at him with sadness that she tried to hide in her eyes but failed, him trying to do something, anything to stop feeling like he'd disappointed her. And then there was the night and day and it started all over again.

There was this other woman, even younger, with long hair, that was always smiling, always cheerful, always lying and trying to trick him into believing in this false happiness. Making him wonder why she was insisting so much on pretending everything was fine when it was obvious in her every move that nothing was.

There was a man, much older and always elegant, that sat and looked at him, clearly not knowing what to say and yet stubbornly staying near.

There was a woman, black hair, strict face. She was silent, always made sure he had his blanket close and brought him flowers, rearranging them in the vase so he could see their colours and feel their smell. He liked it when she came to visit, since in those moments of confusion, she was the only one that brought only calm.

There was a man, tall, muscled, dark skin, bright smile, the one that at first made him uncomfortable for some reason, but with time his cheer seemed to radiate around the room and filled even Fitz with a strange hope that there was a light at the end of every tunnel.

But time was not still and everything was changing. Especially the way his brain was processing things around him.

Soon, he opened his eyes and saw Simmons sitting next to him, heard her talking about her latest projects and wished he could join, but his mind was still stumbling on longer words and his arms were still too heavy to move them and catch her hand.

He noticed bags under Skye's eyes and how tired she was, sitting next to him in her training clothes, bruises on her arms and sometimes on her face. He saw how she tried to cheer him up, when she herself was heartbroken.

It became more and more obvious that Coulson was worried, more than he'd ever seen him, not only about Fitz, but about many other things clouding the Director's mind.

He saw that May was doing her best to stay strong and calm, even though there were problems storming everywhere around her, forcing her to be cautious and ready at every second.

Even Trip was becoming more and more tired of gloominess surrounding him, tired of following blindly and sticking to the place life threw him into. All he could do was smile in hope that this way he would at least make a difference in this chaos.

Finally Fitz noticed what he was trying to deny this whole time: he couldn't speak, he couldn't move more than a tiny bit, but worst of all, he couldn't focus and reach any meaningful conclusion, his brain being stubborn and not as sharp as it used to.

A/N:

The title of this chapter is a quote from Buffy the Vampire Slayer s07e02 "Beneath You" it's from the same Spike speech as the fic's title.

Thanks to TheLateNightStoryTeller and amandajbruce for beta reading.