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Fitz can feel the sweat trickle down his face, but he focuses on controlling his breathing. If he can hold it together until he can break through his restraints—there!
He manages to loosen the cords around his wrists without drawing attention, and luckily for him, they didn't think to tie his arms or feet. He eyes the large water pipe in the corner and takes a steadying breath. He's got one chance, and he has to make it count. If she screams one more time, it'll kill him.
It's an eternity before the guards are called away, and he has to wait even longer until the moment is right. He eyes the security camera trained on him and counts to one hundred. Then, he strikes.
Fitz jumps out of the chair and lunges for the pipe, and praying that he'll have enough time. He grabs a hammer on the floor and taps the pipe as hard as he can, in long intervals and short ones, because he has a world of things to say, and only one word to do it in.
--. G
.-.. L
--- O
..- U
-.-. C
. E
... S
- T
. E
.-. R
... S
.... H
.. I
.-. R
. E
He finishes the last letter as they rush in the room and grab him, wrenching the hammer out of his grip and throwing him back in the chair. Every man who's coming after him is a man who isn't hurting her, and that's enough.
This is it, he thinks, and it doesn't matter that this moment was supposed to come in the pod, or on his search for Maveth. It's coming now.
And as the hammer comes swinging towards his head, he hopes she understands what he was trying to say.
If she does, she'll know he's already said it all.
The first strike doesn't knock him out, nor the second, but as he waits for death to come, he hears a loud banging that seems to come from everywhere at once.
.--. P
. E
.-. R
- T
.... H
And then it all goes black.
"I can take care of it, if you need a break."
Jemma wipes away a tear and tries to speak, but she can do nothing but clutch his hand and watch his chest rise and fall. How many times is she going to lose him? And why does he think—
"I'll just," says Bobbi behind her, "I'll let you be with him. But I'll come check on you in a little while, okay?"
Jemma finds the courage to nod, and once she's alone, she collapses on him, soaking his shirt with tears.
He's stable, he's stable, they got there in time. She has to keep reminding herself, or she'll go back to the planet, back to Hydra, back to the pod.
After a long moment, she takes a deep breath and puts herself to work, monitoring his vitals and checking his wounds. She's so lucky that the team found them, so lucky that he survived the brutality unleashed on him, so lucky just to have him at all.
She places a quivering kiss on his lips and sits down again, lacing her fingers with his as she traces patterns onto his forearm.
She's so, so lucky.
It takes him a while to wake up, but when he does, she is right there smiling down on him. She tries to be patient, but the painkillers take far too long to wear off, and she can't help but take his face in her hands and kiss him on the forehead, the cheeks, the mouth. He kisses her back, but it's sloppy, and he gives her a confused smile when she pulls away. She takes a breath and tells herself to wait just a little more. When he falls asleep, she does, too.
"Jemma?"
She bolts upright, finding herself still in the chair by his hospital bed. He looks up at her, worried.
"Fitz! Oh, Fitz. Are you alright?"
He blinks at her, then takes in everything around him.
"Better than I expected, I guess."
The anger comes out of nowhere, and she barely contains it. She forces herself to breathe, breathe, breathe.
"You can't do that anymore, Fitz. You can't get yourself hurt for my sake. I can't take it."
"Jemma," he soothes, taking her hand, "you know why I did it."
And oh, does she know. She knew by the fourth letter that came ringing through that pipe. Gloucestershire. How could she ever forget finding him? And how could she forget losing him, or the words he said in that castle, when she begged him to let her die? They've been branded into her heart, and it still burns.
"And you think that I can live in a world without you?"
She hears him take a shaky breath, and it's a punch to the gut. He doesn't believe her.
Of course he doesn't believe her.
"Fitz," she starts, and it's a privilege to still have a Fitz to speak to, but it doesn't make the words easier. They're like shards of glass in her stomach, her lungs, her throat. She can't pull them all out, and they cut her a little deeper with every movement, every breath.
"Fitz I—" She gulps the shards down and coughs them back up. "Fitz, that wasn't living. That was . . ."
And she watches the light go out of his eyes again, and she wishes she'd known giving up on herself would send ripples through the cosmos to drown him.
His thumb moves back and forth across her skin.
"Jemma, you don't have to—"
"I would have done it for you." The words come out like knives meant to pin him in place. "I would have kept looking, I would have scoured the Earth, I would have done all of it. I wish I could do all of it! Just to show you!"
"Jemma—"
"No, Fitz." Her tears are cold against her warm cheeks. "You don't know what it's like to lose you. And I've done it so many times; you can't put me through it again. Please."
He stares at her for a second, gaping, before he starts explaining that he was trying to draw their attention, trying to give her time. But all she can think is that any time without him will be too much, and she lays her head on his chest and taps a message into his sternum.
-.-. C
--- O
-- M
. E
-... B
.- A
-.-. C
-.- K
- T
--- O
-- M
. E
The world goes silent for a second, and she's afraid she's lost him for good when his hand finds hers, and an answer is tapped into her palm.
.. I
.----. '
.-.. L
.-.. L
.- A
.-.. L
.-- W
.- A
-.-- Y
... S
-... B
. E
.-- W
.. I
- T
.... H
-.-- Y
--- O
..- U
.--- J
. E
-- M
-- M
.- A
"Do you mean it?" she whispers.
She can hear his answer buzzing in her head already. Do you want me to mean it? The uncertainty that will sound in his voice hurts more than all the silence she's had from him.
But instead, his arm wraps around her and hold her close.
"I've always meant it," he says, and the warmth in his voice tells her she's found him once again.
And Jemma smiles.