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storyknitter · 6 years

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Kissing Scars

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The first night that Theron spent in the Commander's quarters after escaping medbay, Vassanna had slept on the couch.

She'd claimed it was nothing new and she hadn’t wanted to accidentally hurt him in her sleep. The thought of her curled up alone on the sofa every night for months, the bed pristinely made and completely ignored, broke his heart anew; he wondered again how he could have screwed things up so badly.

It had been a week now since he’d returned to their rooms. Five whole days. Things were mostly fine between them during the day, but nights... nights were the hardest. They both fell back into old patterns, wrapping the habits of the past year around themselves like a security blanket.

Theron wanted to let Sanna take the time that she needed to be comfortable around him again. There were a handful of occasions when she’d startled quicker than a wild daubird at the slightest touch from him, on her elbow or her back, and he’d felt like a monster. He didn't want to push her, but he was concerned – no, he admitted to himself, he was terrified – that they wouldn't be able to change this lonely routine of theirs. He needed to make things right, to put things back together the way that they used to be. Well, as close as he could.

And so, as Sanna finished her nightly ablutions, Theron waited patiently outside the ‘fresher, where he was definitely not pacing.

Okay, he was pacing.

Thoughts ran rampant and no amount of meditative tricks could contain them or put them in any sort of order. Doubts swirled through him, obscuring the bright hope sparked by their brutally honest conversation when they’d first returned to Odessen. For kriff’s sake, he could talk his way into infiltrating the enemy, cozying up to them with no problem, yet he couldn't talk to the person he loved without screwing things up? Pathetic.

He sighed in irritation laced with embarrassment and swore under his breath, remembering the mess he’d made trying to ask Sanna to marry him. There was no doubt in his mind that he wanted her, wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. Hells, he’d known years ago that he wanted to be with her forever. He just hadn't expected her to bring it up first, and definitely not at that point in time. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he sighed again.

How in all the hells was he going to fix this?

(He should probably bring up his fears and guilt in his next re-acclimation therapy session: the mandatory meetings with his counselor were standard procedure when an Alliance member came back from a harrowing mission – and nearly dying after most of a year in deep cover was definitely classified as “harrowing.”

Regardless, the sessions seemed to be going fairly well. Theron was doing a lot of talking to a Jedi Empath, though he wasn't sure that simple chatter would truly help his nightmares go away. The paranoia was fading, thankfully.

At least, he thought it was.)

Theron nearly jumped out of his boots when Vassanna opened the ‘fresher door, so entrenched was he in his thoughts. She looked as surprised as he felt to find herself face to face with an anxious, pacing wreck who was muttering to himself.

“Are you all right?” she asked hesitantly.

“Uh, yeah. I'm fine. All fine here now, thanks,” Theron stammered, and she didn’t appear convinced. “Everything's perfectly all right.”

“If you’re sure,” she said, excusing herself. She slipped past him to the bed and took her pillow with a small smile, but he grabbed her hand before she could make her way to the sofa, squeezing it.

“Wait,” Theron said, hushed. “Stay with me tonight. Please, Sanna.”

A look of uncertainty flickered across her features before she met his gaze, that damned Jedi mask firmly in place. “Okay.”

“Oh,” he said, unable to keep the shock out of his voice. “Okay, great.” Relief flooded his chest and it was exponentially easier to breathe; he couldn't believe that she'd agreed so quickly. “Great,” he said again, carefully making his way to the side of the bed, but her puzzled voice stopped him in his tracks as he reached for the covers.

“So... are you planning on sleeping in your coat and boots?”

Glancing down, Theron realized that he was, in fact, still fully clothed from the day. He sighed and ran his hand over the back of his neck, feeling heat creeping along his jaw toward his ears. Be honest with her and to hells with your embarrassment, he thought. Just spit it out.

“I’m really nervous,” he rushed out, turning to face Sanna. “I don’t wanna fuck this up any more than I already have, but I have no idea how to make it better.” Meeting her eyes, he saw the worry and confusion he felt reflected in her features.

“I don’t, either,” she whispered with a shrug, still hugging the pillow to her chest. “But, um, why don’t you start by getting ready for bed?” A small chuckle from both of them broke the tension in the air.

“Sounds like a plan.” With that, Theron eased his boots off with his feet, wincing only slightly as he stepped out of the left boot and kicked it toward the armoire. Shrugging painlessly out of the long, grey duster proved more difficult, but Sanna took pity on him after the briefest of moments. Crossing to his side of the bed, she reached up, whisking the jacket off his shoulders and hanging it up with practiced efficiency.

Turning back to him but avoiding his gaze, she pulled his pajama shorts over with the Force, setting them within arm’s reach at the foot of the bed. She stretched out her arms to help remove his trousers. Her limbs froze centimeters from the fabric, as though just realizing what she was about to do.

“Sorry, I–” she muttered, pulling her hands back to her chest.

“No, it’s okay. I, uh... I got it,” Theron answered, wondering just how awkward things could get between them. Stars, he missed the easy camaraderie they'd had. Sanna turned aside as he undid the closure at his waist and leaned over to slip off his pants. His healing wound protested the movement and he crumpled into himself, gasping at the heat that shot through him, arms clutched tight to his chest.

“Theron.” He turned his head in her direction, trying to meditate around the fiery spasms. A cool hand on his cheek helped him focus, but her worry buzzed in the back of his mind. “When are you due for your next dose of pain medication?”

“What time is it?” he asked through clenched teeth, and carefully dropped to sit on the edge of the bed, still curled up tight, his trousers around his knees.

“Just past 2300 hours.”

“‘bout an hour and a half ago, then.”

With a frustrated sigh, Vassanna retrieved the pill bottle and waited, arms crossed and lips pursed, as he swallowed the light blue tablets. “Stop it,” she bit out. “Just stop trying to be a big damn indestructible hero and take your meds when you’re supposed to.”

“I lost track of time,” Theron answered, his tone pacifying.

“Every day? Because this happens pretty often. Too often, in fact. Shouldn’t you have an alarm on your implants or something?” Concern and fear lay beneath the anger and frustration in her voice. His earlier admonishment echoed in his mind: Be honest with her and to hells with your embarrassment.

“I don’t like to depend on them,” he admitted sheepishly. “I don’t want to need them. And they make me fuzzy for a couple hours, or just knock me out completely. I hate it. I have zero control over what happens to me.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize– That’s understandable, I didn’t think about....” Her mouth pressed into a worried line and she knelt to remove his pants, folding and tossing them haphazardly on the reading chair.

“You don’t have to do this, sweetheart.” He couldn’t keep the endearment from slipping off his tongue – he'd missed saying it so badly while he was gone.

“I know,” Sanna said softly, looking away. “It hurts,” she admitted in a whisper, her hands balling into tight fists. “Seeing you in pain, it hurts.” Her subdued confession knocked the wind out of him and rendered him speechless.

“I’ll do better,” Theron promised when he found his voice. “I’ll make sure I take ‘em on time. I didn’t mean –”

“No, it’s okay, I’m just –”

“Sanna.” Theron reached out to comfort her, but she rose smoothly, quickly pulling herself together before gesturing for him to lift up his arms. Instead, he grasped her hand, turning it over to kiss the palm; she stood stock-still, eyes wide, and yanked her hand back to her chest as though his touch had burned.

“I’m sorry,” Vassanna said, blinking. “I’m sorry, this is–” She took a gasping breath and continued. “Theron, this is harder than I thought. I can’t seem to let this go but I’m trying, I swear. At least I think I’m trying. I don’t even know anymore.”

“Nah, you’re doing great.” He offered a lopsided grin that he couldn’t quite make reach his eyes. “If it helps, I can take the sofa or go to a new room, just for a little while, and–”

“No,” she interrupted, shaking her head. “No, you said you wouldn’t leave.”

“I said I’d do what would make things better for you, what you wanted. Do you want me to stay?”

Sanna nodded and stepped toward him, standing between his knees, her breath hitching. Gently, so very gently, she took his cheeks in her trembling hands and pressed a tender kiss to his brow.

“I want to make this work, Theron. I do,” she said, resting her forehead on his and drawing a shaking breath. “Oh stars, I almost lost you.” Her whisper was harsh and anguished. “How did you stand it, after Asylum?”

His palms came to rest on her hips and he nuzzled her nose. “Honestly? I have no idea.” Sliding his arms around her waist, Theron pulled her close, resting his head on her chest. Sanna's heartbeat thundered in his ear and the weight of her chin on the top of his head comforted him. Long moments passed and a peace settled over them.

“Let's finish getting you changed, shall we?” she asked and the tranquil spell was broken.

As Vassanna carefully lifted the shirt over his head, her eyes avoiding the bandages on his torso, Theron glanced down at the scar on her right thigh. It was hard to miss: as wide as his thumb and just off-center, toward the outside of her leg. It began about five or six centimeters above her knee and ran upward, disappearing under her pajama shorts. It wasn't there last year and, as much as he didn't want to know about its origins, he had to ask.

His hand came to rest gingerly on the side of her knee, his thumb brushing the bottom of the jagged scar, and he looked up at her. “Sanna, what’s this from?” She ignored his question, balling up his shirt and tossing it into the hamper with an intense focus.

“What happened?” Theron asked softly. The roughly-healed wound was too old for Nathema. Maybe Copero? He dismissed the thought, knowing that most of the combat she'd faced there had been against blasters and knives – and one lightsaber. None of those weapons left quite so ragged a mark.

“It’s nothing, Theron,” she said, giving him a small, sad smile.

With a frown of determination, he tugged on the back of her leg. She yelped as she fell forward, her hands finding his shoulders in an attempt to keep her balance. Drawing her knee to him, he pressed his lips tenderly to the bottom of the scar. Theron trailed kisses interspersed with apologies and declarations of love along the blemished skin until he reached the bottom hem of her pajamas.

“May I?” he asked, looking up at her, waiting patiently. Sanna closed her eyes and bit her lip, nodding. He gently, carefully pushed the shorts up to her hip, aghast at what he found: the rough, puckered scar ran nearly the entire length of her thigh, ending near her hip, an agonizing twenty-five centimeters from the start.

Oh Force, what had he done?

He shifted back on the bed until his calves hit the edge, and looked up at the woman before him. “C’mere,” he whispered, gently pulling her to straddle his lap as his hands rested on her hips. He tried again to meet her eyes, but she was focused on her nails. “Tell me what happened. Please, San?”

“Why do you need to know? It’s not important.” The sharp edge of her words sliced through his heart and he saw that he’d pushed too far – the one thing he hadn’t wanted to do.

“I don't,” he said softly. “I'm sorry for pressing, I shouldn’t have.”

She met his gaze, surprised that he wasn't going to insist on an answer, and rested her forehead on his. He was getting fuzzy-headed; the pain was practically gone, but so was his focus. Thankfully, he had an anchor in Vassanna as the room wobbled around him.

“Lana and I....” Her hesitant utterance brought him back to the present and helped him concentrate. “We jumped, but I don’t know if the train rocked while I was in the air or if I just misjudged the distance from the start; it's all still a bit of a blur.” Theron's winced as the hangnail she'd absently picked began to bleed. “Broken transparisteel is a lot sharper than I’d thought.”

Oh no. He thought he'd given them enough time to jump from the train safely. Damn it all, another miscalculation, another failure. His catalog of mistakes had damaged her shoulder and her leg, to say nothing of her heart and mind. Hissing out an expletive, he cradled Sanna's face in his palms and opened his mouth to apologize, to say something, but couldn't figure out where to start. The lines of her features softened, blurring, and he tried to blink her back into focus. Unable to do so, he simply rested his forehead on hers, his eyes screwed shut, breathing ragged as a sob threatened to escape.

“Hells, I’m sorry. I never meant to... I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I–”

“No. No more apologies, I forgive you.” He shook his head with a sniffle.

“I don’t deserve–”

“Stop,” she insisted, her thumb pressed to his mouth. Leaning in, Vassanna kissed him softly, her lips brushing his like a whisper. “Quit apologizing and kiss me instead.”

“But I–” She cut off his protest once more with a kiss, though more forceful this time, her hands curling around the back of his neck.

“I forgive you. I will say it as many times as you need to hear, but I would like to stop eventually.” Sanna trailed her fingertips up along his neck and jaw, curling a finger under his chin, and tilted his face toward hers. Summoning up the courage to meet her eyes, Theron glanced up and offered a sad smile. The pads of her thumbs brushed away the tears he hadn't realized were trickling down his cheeks and she kissed his forehead. Gentle fingertips traced his implants before she hugged him close, cradling his head to her chest.

Her tenderness broke down the last remaining walls that Theron had constructed to hold back all the guilt, the shame, the horror and regrets of the last year. Overwhelmed as the dam shattered, the emotions he'd buried for so long spilled over and he wrapped his arms around his Jedi – his Jedi, how in all the hells was she his again? – holding her tight. Memories threatened to drown him and Sanna was the only thing keeping his head above water. When had he last cried? He couldn’t even remember. He dug strong fingers into her back, twisting the fabric of her tank top, and buried his face in her neck.

Between the harsh sobs that wracked his body, Theron mumbled apologies and how much he loved her and missed her, so damned much, and how leaving her there, hurting her like that killed him. All that he had wanted was to keep her safe, he had to keep her safe because he couldn't bear to lose her again, not again, please not again. He wanted so badly to make things right, but if she didn't want this, didn't want him anymore, he understood.

Sanna murmured, calm and soothing, as Theron's shoulders shook and his chest heaved, gently rubbing his back, her other fingers curled around the back of his neck. He told her how much he hated what he'd done, working for the Order; hated himself for the things he'd done at their request, in their name. Was he any better than they were? They did it to destroy, but he'd done it to protect. He didn't think the distinction made that much of a difference, though.

“Shh, it's all right, Theron. You're all right; I'm here, it's okay,” she hummed, echoing the soft comfort he'd always offered to settle her after a nightmare. The memory brought a bittersweet smile to his lips and he kissed her collarbone, declaring his love for her once again. “Shh, it’s okay, you’re okay. No, I forgive you, we’ll be okay. We’ll make this work, sweet.” Sanna's words provided a healing balm that he tried to ignore: he didn't deserve her forgiveness, but she offered it so freely, so lovingly.

His tears had run their course, and Theron nuzzled her neck with his nose. “Stars above, I love you.” She gave a contented hum, squeezing him close.

Before his return home to Odessen, her hesitancy to respond in kind would have torn him to pieces, but he understood now. She still cared for him, loved him; her actions spoke louder than those three little words that had taken them both far too long to say. She could take as much time as she needed to say them again. It didn’t matter, so long as she wanted him by her side.

“I forgive you, a thousand times over,” she whispered in his ear, her arms still twined around his neck, resting on his shoulders. “Tell you what: I'll keep working on letting go of the hurt and the anger like a good little Jedi, and you can work on forgiving yourself.” Before Theron could protest, Sanna continued, her head resting on his. “I can feel it, you know: all the guilt that tries to smother you every time you think about... about your time with the Order. Our link isn’t the same as it was before, not yet, but I can feel it. And it breaks my heart.” She sniffled and tightened her embrace. “I need you to look at me and... and I need you to see me, Vassanna, not just some priceless family heirloom that you accidentally knocked over and broke into a million pieces. Because that's what it feels like and, oh stars, I can't...”

He nodded, his breath even once more. “I'll try, sweetheart. I–” Theron's next sentence disappeared with a groan as the room swam before his eyes. Sanna's arms tightened around him, his anchor at sea.

He blinked, opening his eyes to find himself on his back, her features – that beautiful face he'd missed so much – floating above him. Confusion furrowed his brows. Wait, was he actually home? Or was he dreaming again? Either way, he begged her not to leave him, not to sleep on the couch. He needed her to stay, please stay, he needed...

“Shh, it's okay, Theron.” Sanna twined her fingers with his, bringing the back of his hand to her lips, and the world pivoted sharply on the wrong axis.

Ah, fuck me, he thought as he tried to steady his vision, blinking to bring the room back to rights. A delicate snort came from his Jedi.

“No, my sweet,” she said, amusement dancing in her voice. “You're in no condition for fucking.”

“What?” he asked, dazed. Why had she brought up... shit, had he said that out loud?

“Yes, you did say that out loud. And I thought it was a rather clever response, too. But it’s all right. Just relax, Theron. Rest.”

“But you... no, don’t go.” Her hand was cool on his forehead and stars above, he’d missed her. He tightened his grip on her other hand, desperation clawing at his heart, and stared into her eyes, memorizing every fleck of amethyst. “Stay with me. Please, Sanna. I missed you so much. I hated joining them, they were terrible, and I hurt you. It killed me to hurt you.” Theron was rambling by this point, his words slurring, jumbled together as they raced from his lips. “Hells, your face. Seeing your face, it broke me. Then that damned droid sent a vid of you after our call and you cried. You cried and it was because of me, because I hurt you. I hurt you and I have to fix it but I don't know how. Stars help me, I don't know how. And I'm terrified that I'm gonna lose you because I don't know how to fix it. I have to...”

“Hush, Theron, it'll be all right.” She bestowed a kiss on his forehead, the light scent of her shampoo wafting past his nose. “I'm not going anywhere. Sleep now. Rest, and I'll be right here when you wake up. I promise.”

His vision faded to black, eyes fluttering closed, but Theron's fears and worries disappeared as a beautiful, golden warmth filled his heart. She'd promised, and Sanna had never let him down before.

#swtor fanfiction #Jedi Knight/Theron Shan #Theron Shan #hey look!#it's getting better for Sanna and Theron!#it's still angsty but there's hope!#XD #knitter writes #oc: Vassanna #Vassanna/Theron #Kintsukuroi

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aenigmaticdays · 6 years

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Coda: Chapter 4

A/N: What was originally meant to be a drabble grew into this unrecognisable monster all because I needed to write out my own headcanon before I went quite insane over a fictional couple. Here’s the second (and last) part of it, which was more fun and more difficult to write just as the angst gets left behind bit by bit.

There have been parallels that I’ve tried to draw, dialogues given new spins and all in the name of (fan) fiction, some outrageous liberties taken with behind-the-scenes-moments and medical science. The ending is deliberately left open-ended so it’s up to your imagination how it goes on from there—the story’s focus is the Fitzsimmons relationship, which, as I found as I wrote on, to be independent of context. They’ll always be there for each other (that much is immutable), though it’s nice to indulge in a happy ending, as always.

Thank you for your comments and support.

Also on AO3 and FF.net

The shadows and the days lengthen as the relentless summer slowly mellows into the first week of autumn, creeping up to London like a thief in the night.

The sudden gust of wind that rattles the window shocks Fitz enough to put down the soldering iron and throw his safety glasses aside. In retrospect, picking another miniature drone prototype as a personal project to work on might not have been the brightest idea, the constant alterations and modifications of the base design too gratingly reminiscent of Fitzsimmons’s early crowning glory—more so as he considers his newly-acquired lab partner.

With the parts of the new prototype scattered around him, he ponders the fragility of trust, the immutability and breakability of relationships. The hard discipline of engineering is metaphor-rich for the more intangible things in life as he’d found out long ago, found especially in the way things are taken apart and put back together again, for the efforts that are made in strengthening a component while weakening another so the device runs at optimal levels.

Predictably, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Most of the time, it gets him infuriated enough that he’ll hurl those bits against the wall and start the process all over again in a worse mood than when he began. That right there, the similarities to real life rear their ugly head.

Fitz sneaks a glance at Simmons, who’s currently bent over a pipette and meticulously recording the results of the experiment. For the relatively content and peaceful life that he thought he’d built since leaving S.H.I.E.L.D., this curveball she’d thrown him since her arrival two months ago has left even that in disarray.

Had her presence alone undone all the progress he’d made on his own without her?

Even the answer for that has his mind chasing circles around itself, and in the process, he wears himself vexingly threadbare. Never had he imagined that this new stage of his life would be interrupted by the very person he is trying to move away from—it simply hadn’t been a factor that he’d considered as he marked time away from Jemma Simmons.

Yet outrage and resentment had gradually faded into bewilderment as Simmons determinedly set up space in his lab after announcing her intention of staying—he supposes it is now their lab once again—and gets down to work on upgrading Citadel’s biometric scanners in between patching up the injuries of the teams that now cycle regularly through the lab to ask for her tender ministrations.

She obliges quite nicely of course, with a practiced, professional smile for everyone who comes through. For the past thirty days, the lab has quite literally, doubled up as a second med bay with the increased flow of people who come through.

Apart from the random visits (and the salacious winks thrown his way each time the team members come in to hound Simmons about minor scrapes and bruises) annoying the hell out of him—the small lab isn’t his private, quiet space anymore so that makes him grumpy—, Fitz can’t really figure out what she’s up to.

He doesn’t quite permit himself to think too much about the fervent declarations she made during the huge argument any more than he has to. Their fight on the day of her arrival had after all, been loud enough to draw the attention of the nosy buggers, who’d been sneaky enough to eavesdrop, then drop bits and pieces of that in casual conversation just to see him cringe as they try to reconstruct the story based on their own outlandish assumptions about what he and Simmons used to be.

(They’re wrong in every way, which Fitz doesn’t bother to correct.)

Because hope, as Fitz knows, is just that: a bloody witch that could just turn on him as it did with Simmons on more than a single occasion, so it’s infinitely more beneficial if he keeps his mind stayed on work, gadgetry and missions.

Yet against all odds, here she is, so intent on weaving back together the severed threads of their prior relationship, reconnecting them with the slightest of touches on his hands, his arms, his shoulder, with words that are friendly but professional. Resurrecting all she can of Fitzsimmons, it seems, using the safe anchor of colleagues-first, then friends, though he knows that it still takes two to clap to mend this rift, leaving only the stiff reluctance on his side downing her stalwart efforts.

The times when they eat meals together are unpredictable as a result of this back-and-forth dance between two people who don’t know how to live with each other anymore. There are mostly periods of awkward silence that neither he nor Simmons can quite bridge, punctuated only with short discussions on their own projects when the silence becomes too stifling to ignore.

It would be so easy to fall back into their old routines and conversations where they finish each other’s sentences. Too easy, in fact, that Fitz consciously holds himself back from doing just that, reducing his time in the lab with more sessions with the punching bag and locking himself in his bunk early in the evenings with his tablet to do his work in peace.

He’ll show up the next day as though nothing’s out of the ordinary.

To her credit, Simmons doesn’t say a word about it.

But today, the coiled tension Fitz has been feeling all morning finds itself suppressed in his clenched fists. Grabbing his mug from the foldable side table he’d built into a far cabinet (he’ll make his own rules in his lab), he strides into the pantry intent on another cup of tea and possibly, a dozen of those peanut bars that he’ll remember to stash in the bottom drawer of the—

A fresh steaming mug of chai inches into his peripheral vision, coming to rest next to him on the table top. Glancing up, Fitz is surprised to see the very person his thoughts had been consumed with of late nodding at the newly-made drink in front of him.

“You look tired, Fitz. Thought a shot of caffeine might help perk you up.” With that, Simmons seats herself at the table, a cheerful quirk forming on her lips as she pats the empty seat next to her in invitation. “Sit with me for a while?”

The darkening sky is startling proof that he’d worked throughout the day without any sense of time passing, yet cloistered here, in this quiet, intimate space with its dimmed lights…alone with Simmons…this makes him waver. Everything here defies his natural conditioning to stay away, first, painfully self-constructed in the days where he wouldn’t allow himself to think of her as anything more than his best friend, then later, reinforced by seeing her devotion to Will Daniels and the time spent trying to forget about her.

The memory of it is cause enough to decline the invitation.

His indecision shows for longer than what would constitute a polite response, until he finally throws caution to the wind and averts his eyes before he does as she asks.

Her brightening smile feels frustratingly like a reward for a good deed he hasn’t done.

oOo

Uncertainty still grounds their relationship, mixing with the nervous anticipation Jemma feels every time they have a lab session together.

Fitz stays less in the lab than she does, called from time to time to short assignments both in and out of the country or to training with the rest of the guys. He isn’t exactly avoiding her now, but he doesn’t seek her out actively as he used to do, choosing instead to mutter his own hypotheses and findings into the thin air. She still remembers the bitter sting when he’d taken every opportunity to leave the space as much as he could in the early days, but what had she been expecting, really? A song-and -dance routine with his arms open wide in welcome?

If leaving for Hydra so long ago when he’d needed her was devastatingly difficult, developing the mettle to stay for him when he doesn’t seem to need her now, is infinitely harder to do.

It isn’t the first time that such contrasting scenarios of their stilted one-step-forward-two-steps-back dance swirl in and out her head, but they come especially during one of those quieter moments when she’s in the lab and Fitz is out with his team.

To her relieved surprise however, tea time gradually becomes a more regular break that is inserted into long days when their schedules coincide. Silence reigns more than the unfiltered, easy conversations they used to have, but well, she’ll take all she can, though it prompts her frequently to question and second-guess her own actions.

They aren’t Fitzsimmons by any stretch but the imbalance isn’t something she’s complaining about however; knowing every part of his mission brief, occupying the same spaces as he is with the uneasy truce between them are all she needs right now.

The mends in the frayed cords of their rocky partnership…are they just woven from illusion, or are they as real as she thinks?

Simply put, is Fitz warming to her, or is he itching to be rid of her? She thinks the uncomfortable truth lies somewhere in between.

Seeing how well-loved and how well-adjusted he is here, within this team, is nonetheless, sometimes a bit of a kick in the face. Having once always assumed that his place was beside her the whole damn time in S.H.I.E.L.D., it now takes mental recalibration and repeated reminders to herself of her decision to go out on a limb, to offer that olive branch, to throw everything on the line for him as he’d once done for her, too many times to count.

Staying the course becomes a mantra she repeats often to herself, even if he’s the one standing problem she’s never been able to solve.

For Fitz, it’s worth it. Isn’t it?

“They’re lucky to have you,” she blurts out one afternoon as she pushes aside the stack of medical reports she’s going through and looks at him sitting across from her.

Fading ribbons of sunlight cast a blondish tint on his shorn hair (the curls barely show now), framing him so perfectly that Jemma can’t help feel the sharp regret once again for the man whom she’d lost and found—or rather, is trying to find—again.

Fitz shakes his head slowly and takes his time to answer. His gaze turns inwards and she knows, momentarily, that she has lost him to his memories of a period of time that he’s carved without her.

“It’s more the other way around, I think,” he muses absently, “I’m lucky to have them. So bloody lucky.”

The subtext is so heavy in those words that it nearly causes her to retreat, both physically and metaphorically. His team, this new direction he’d taken, the fit he’d found here against all odds…they’d all played a part in reconfiguring, or rather, reconstructing this Fitz who’s standing in front of her right now.

Not for the first time, she’s thankful for Hunter. He’d taken care of Fitz in more ways than one when she’d thoughtlessly bailed on her best friend in ways that he didn’t deserve.

“Who’s Amélie?”

Jemma cringes as soon as the words cut through the relative peace between them, not wanting to sound like she has any right to ask him anything personal anymore—she plainly doesn’t. But she’s put her own foot in her mouth and it’s too late to take it back in her quest to satisfy her own morbid curiosity about Fitz’s dating life.

That question that’s been on the tip of her tongue for weeks is never meant to be asked aloud, but it falls out anyway, a consequence of having it playing in the forefront of her mind for longer than she cares to admit.

And now she’s done it. Turned a rather pleasant afternoon into an awkward one.

“I mean, I overheard Hatch mention her the other day in passing and it’s not the first time that…god, this is…I was eavesdropping when I really shouldn’t have. It’s too soon to—no, no Fitz, don’t answer that. I’m just—this is clearly none of my concern and you really don’t have to answer that. Forget I said anything.”

It’s the most fumbling she has ever been with a retraction and the sharp, startled look that Fitz throws her morphs into thin-lipped inscrutability as their eyes inadvertently lock in a hold that he breaks first.

“The former team medic.” He toys with the handle of his mug and taps an erratic cadence on the porcelain. “She’s also someone I was seeing.”

The uncomfortable knot grows in her stomach as does the searing loneliness that drills hard into her chest. Jemma doesn’t quite dare to ask more, without feeling as though she’ll be overstepping her bounds again.

Quietly sliding out of his seat, Fitz pads out of the pantry without looking back at her.

She sags in her chair for the next minute in silence, torn between allowing herself some leeway for that weakness and berating herself for even starting down that path.

After all, Fitz’s use of the past tense, the team’s gaping absence of a medic before she’d slotted herself into Citadel courtesy of Hunter, the way the team still speaks about Amélie from time to time…there’s a riddle right there that she isn’t a part of, which she knows she can’t be a part of.

And if this is a memory that Fitz needs to have apart from her, he’s more than entitled to it without her pathetic attempts at putting a story together if there’s none to tell.

oOo

Apart from that her silly hiccup in the pantry, Jemma comes to measure the passing of time in cups of tea spent with Fitz, the periods of solitary lab sessions she has and the hours that he’s gone when deployed with the team.

But apparently, her persistence pays off. Or rather, their weakness for tea paves the way.

Their conversations, past that awful, embarrassing moment, rumble to life a little more smoothly, oiled by time and well, Fitz’s incredibly giving and loyal nature that he doesn’t seem to realise he has even for those who don’t deserve it. His short, terse answers gradually grow longer, and though they don’t always match her over-eager babble; conversely, it makes her hang onto every word that he says and doesn’t say.

She can’t help but grow to be possessive of the little moments they have during tea time; it’s an allotted time that feels like a privilege these days when it’d once used to be effortless and unthinking.

Yet it’s also easier to understand now, why Fitz fits in so well.

The lads treat her the same way, essentially, carving out a space for her when there hasn’t been one and the short-lived boys club mentality she’d been expecting lasts only as long as after she’d stitched up the first casualty after a hairy mission in Russia. She attends every pre-mission briefing with them and even when she’s not physically at every mission, they come by often enough now to tell her stupid little stories that make her laugh and get themselves some medical supplies when it’s plainly unnecessary for them to do so.

It’s a quiet afternoon in the lab a few weeks after that foot-in-mouth-blunder when Fitz trudges through the doorway, with slightly heavier scruff—four days he’s been gone—and a bad gash in his arm, the fabric torn right through in odd places.

Jemma takes one look at him and drags the fully-stocked first aid kit from its now permanent place under the lab bench. When there’s a constant stream of people needing medical attention, it doesn’t hurt to have everything ready.

He shakes his head slightly, walks past her and takes his own kit out before heading to the sink to scrub his hands.

“I’ve got it, Simmons.”

She protests immediately, needing something—anything—to do when it’s him who needs medical attention. “Fitz, let me have a look at least.”

The ease of his practiced movements tells the stark truth. “It isn’t the first time I’ve done this. I’m fine. Nothing to worry about.”

What she absolutely doesn’t anticipate however, him pulling off the vest and his shirt right there and then to scrub the grime and blood off his torso and the gash on his arm.

To see him bare to the waist, with pants hanging off his hips…it’s a sight that causes her breath to catch.

First, because of the smaller, faded scars over his back that Fitz had somehow acquired in the past year and at another one that’s still angry and red—all the field experience that’s been worn into his skin. For the teenager who’d once proclaimed the lab work and inventing were what he was born to do, the amount of time he now spends in the field makes a mockery out of that innocent statement.

And simply that in all the years she’d known him, he’d never done anything remotely close to this accidental version of a striptease (what he’s doing now is so far from an attempt at seduction that it’s laughable to even use that word in association with Fitz) yet the casual, unthinking way he does it probably indicates he’s become accustomed to this habit of taking care of himself somewhere along the way.

Mesmerised, she draws closer and without thinking at all about the ramifications of what she’s about to do, reaches out to gently touch the few marks on his upper back before moving her fingers down the unmarred skin, down the length of his spine. She feels the even rhythm of his breaths turn erratic, every nerve in her hand tingling in response and that makes her itch to move past what he’s taken off and—

The tap runs forgotten as Fitz’s fluid movements stutter stiffly to a halt, the sheer feral intensity of his stare when he turns questioning eyes on her nearly making her step away. “Simmons?”

Heat spears through her at the realisation of what she’d just done.

“I—these—these marks…where did these come from, Fitz? I didn’t know you had so many…”

Flustered, Jemma squeezes her eyes shut and cuts herself off mid-sentence, embarrassment and an entirely new feeling she doesn’t quite dare name speeding headily through her veins. Since when did searching for something sensible to say take a disconcerting amount of effort?

Foot…in mouth…once more.

Fitz swipes a small towel from the bottom drawer of the cabinet built under the sink and dries off more quickly than she can offer to help, clumsily shrugging on the torn shirt as he hurriedly takes a step back from her.

“From previous assignments.”

“Oh.” She gestures vaguely in the direction of the pantry and inches towards the door of the lab, grabbing a random clipboard with haphazardly scribbled notes on it from her side of the lab to press to her chest. “I, well, I’m going for a cup of tea. I—I forgot, it’s tea break.”

A wince pulls her face taut as she practically sprints to the pantry which is thankfully, always quiet at this time of the day.

Only then does she drop the clipboard carelessly onto the table and stares at her shaking hands and sweaty palms. Feels the rapid clip of her heartrate that has yet to decelerate and the burning flush in her cheeks that refuses to subside.

Something stronger than a cup of tea would be perfect right now.

oOo

If dream-Fitz walked in that liminal space between her waking and sleeping hours prior joining Citadel as a reminder of the penance Jemma thinks she has to pay, this same fantasy springs back to life too vividly to ignore, now reshaped along with her altered circumstances.

It’s this dream-Fitz with heat in his impossibly blue eyes, who leads her down an empty, darkened hallway as the sexy groove of music pulses around them. She follows willingly, not wanting any space between them even with their clasped hands pulling each other along. He’s in a smart suit and looks the most handsome she’d ever seen him, she’s in a tiny sparkly dress that matches his eyes, hair piled high, giggling, maybe even tipsy and more than a little debauched.

She’s happy. So, so happy. Swaying to the beat while he tries to still her hips with wandering hands, a flirtation that notches her arousal, up and up, until she gets what she wants.

All patience gone, he turns wickedly on her with his body hard and grinding against hers as he shifts their entwined hands high on the wall above her, their lips meeting over and over.

Then she’s busy undoing his belt, pulling the opening of his pants apart just as he’s ripping the delicate buttons on the front of her dress with the same lack of finesse, unheeding of who sees them in this state of undress.

She tells him that she misses him, to hurry, that she is a firestorm ready to combust and he breaks their sultry embrace to kneel before her, yanking both dress and knickers past her hips with a breathless chuckle before standing again and hiking her bare legs around his waist, urgency colouring every bit of their movements as he—.

This is where she wakes up.

With nails digging tightly into her mattress and legs tangled around a flattened pillow that’s no substitute for Fitz. Feeling hot and bothered, panting and frustratingly unfulfilled because of a dream that crumbled too quickly into dust.

Objectively, Jemma knows it’s a part of her brain catching up with the idea of Fitz as a romantic partner—it’s how her mental faculties getting on par with what her heart has long decided. Ironically, the hints that have crept up to her over the years hadn’t been sufficient in helping her envision this side of him that she’d never been privy to when they were best friends, even during the times when he’d gone out with other people. Quite absurdly, all it’d literally taken were a few inflamed touches and heated dreams to do the trick.

It’s enough to get her up at 4 a.m. and instead of returning to bed, she scours for online psychology journals about the scientific interpretation of her nightly meanderings, wish-fulfilment and external stimuli and—unless it’s just desperation to justify her feelings and find scientific backing for answers to what she already knows?

The shrill cry of her alarm three hours later closes that frenzied period of research that leaves her unable to meet Fitz’s eyes for a day or two.

oOo

“The next assignment,” Edwin says without preamble in the pre-mission briefing, “is going to be quite different from what we normally do, headed by a joint taskforce comprising a group of law enforcement agencies and private security companies banding together. Citadel’s been called in for back up. The information was given out this morning and the missions brief’s just been uploaded to the central server.”

That alone makes Fitz sit up in his chair. Haven’t they had a bit too much of a different mission of late?

But what Edwin seems to be coming up these days with keeps life interesting at the very least. (Or if he were to be quite honest, it keeps his mind off the conundrum that’s Simmons.)

Whittled down to the basics, the rather public discovery of an ancient artefact renders its transportation to a classified location problematic, particularly with the ever-hungry press on their heels, potential hostile interceptions in the air and treasure hunters with billions at their disposal following its progress.

Immediately, Fitz swipes right on his tablet and a detailed map of the object’s long and convoluted journey from Venezuela to North America flicks on. Next to him, Simmons does the same, her brow furrowed in concentration. She’s been called on this assignment as well—that much of a risk it poses to the team when too many cooks are itching to spoil the broth—on Edwin’s orders.

Fitz wonders if Hunter once again, has had a part to play in this, blurring the lines within which S.H.I.E.L.D. operate and the parts where Citadel actually does. As soon as that thought comes, he shakes it off with a small smirk. To give credit where it’s due, Hunter has clout, but not that much clout.

In the meantime, Langston takes over from Edwin.

“The first leg will be done by air, the second by ship. Operatives have inserted themselves specifically into specialised logistics positions to oversee its progress from south to north.”

“Citadel will not play middlemen to be pushed around,” Edwin puts in firmly. “Neither are we babysitters for agents who don’t play nice.” He’s quick to reassure everyone, seeing as they’re justbackup security for the transportation of some highly volatile cargo from one place to another. “But the general consensus is, toes will be stepped on, guns will be drawn, and hopefully no one gets terribly hurt. That’s just how it works no matter how much we play nice.”

Fitz grimaces and watches as Simmons sneaks a similar look at him. That much they agree on without even the need for words: someone always gets hurt.

Smithy’s the only one who finds it hilarious, but his infectious laughter lightens the edgy atmosphere and even coaxes a reluctant chuckle from Langston.

Edwin wraps up the briefing with a warning. “Know where your boundaries are, and we’ll be fine. Wheels up, one hour.”

Before Fitz knows it, he’s all packed up and decked out in heavy gear with Simmons at his side, the Gulf of Mexico stretching as far as his eye can see from his vantage point on the powered vessel anchored to another bigger one, tensely watching the complicated proceedings of transferring the bands take place in international waters.

Two minutes, in and out. Clean, uncomplicated and as quickly as possible.

Hatch starts the stopwatch.

The changeover is the riskiest part of the operation, multiplied over by the number of times that it’ll have to be done in that long, long journey as the artefact makes its way to its permanent home.

The sudden appearance of few blips on the radar and a warning chirp are all Fitz gets before a series of gunshots pepper the air, as the carefully planned operation falls apart in seconds when a couple of military interceptors splice the waves and break the careful formation of boats.

Ducking automatically, he reaches for his own weapon as more shots ping the side of the vessel. From the corner of his eye, he sees Langston and Smithy inch towards the bow, their assault rifles spitting out shots as black-booted feet storm the deck.

In a volley of gunfire, he realises Simmons has disappeared from view.

Where the fuck is she?

The whiz of a bullet slicing past his ear makes him duck again and roll into a corner where he finally sees Simmons, prone and struggling with a balaclava-clad figure who’s wrestled her to the floor.

He raises his own rifle without hesitation, flipping the switch from stun to kill without thinking and takes aim. In a spray of red mist, the assailant drops in a heap as Simmons wrests herself free of the dead man and clambers to her feet.

With a quick sweep of the situation around them, he tries to get on his two feet on a surface continually rocking with the continued bombardment of gunshots—just in time to see several rocket launchers emerge from the interceptors.

It takes him a second to realise what’s really going to happen next.

Shite.

“Simmons, move!”

In the second after he shoves her towards the stern and away from the trajectory of the projectile, it hits. The bow splinters into pieces, causing the boat to lurch wildly to a side and toss Langston and Smithy into the choppy waters.

No, no….!

Fitz finds himself sliding across the blood-drenched floor, scrabbling for purchase before the second one follows. The entire boat bucks upwards before slamming back down, hurling him in a wide arc into the turquoise water.

The world overturns at a dizzying speed.

Down, then up, then down again as the waves crash in and slap his face and head. Salt water rushes up his nose and into his throat, the agonising burn sending a fresh round of panic with it.

Fitz! Fitz!

He thinks he hears his name. High-pitched, terrified. Where’s Simmons?

Pain and panic flare, as he struggles to the surface and gulps a lungful of air, but already, the weight of his equipment and clothes is dragging him down, past that first lucky attempt to stay afloat.

His legs scissor upwards, in a furtive but futile push for oxygen—

Past and present coalesce as the edges of his vision fuzz grey.

Ward! Ward!

He’s sinking, fear freezing every limb stiff.

It’s blue, all around. Just like the last time.

Air…he needs air.

The unforgiving water closes around his head as the weight of his tac-vest and weapons tug him down, a recurring nightmare in automatic rewind.

He’s talking, the implications of their position on the ocean floor injecting a calmness that he never knew he was capable of feeling in this dire moment. (Maybe that’s because she’s still by his side…they’re in this together, even to the very end and there’s comfort to take in that.)

These pods are built to be compatible with all S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft, submarines, spacecraft…we slowly sank as it increased the density of the outer walls.

His arm is in a sling, blood has crusted on his face, but he’s been working frantically to get any distress signal transmitted and that somehow had overridden the pain.

There’s blood on her head too. An absurd thought crosses his mind to kiss it better.

The pulse beats hard and fast in her neck. His probably mirrors hers, but not for the same reason. He needs to say something that he thought he’d keep a secret to his grave.

Fitz forces his eyes open, trying to ignore the sting of the brine. It’s still blue, all around, with the glint of dappled sunlight barely penetrating the surface of the water.

There’s a little air left in his lungs. Oddly, the terror slowly abates as rational thought forces its way in again.

I thought we were dead, for sure.

He’s obviously not dead. Yet. And he’s still functioning, until his air runs out in seconds. His hands move automatically to disengage the vest. His boots are too tightly-tied to bother with.

Meanwhile, he sinks into deeper blue.

We’ll find a way out of here, right? Are you scared? What do you think it’s like? Death?

This is where all life began anyway…

The vest finally breaks free, tumbling slowly into the deep, past where the water runs from clear to murky. He barely spares it a glance as the cold, cold current drifts upwards, marking his descent past the thermocline.

He begins a morbid countdown. Ten seconds—an eternity to wait.

Nine. Eight. Seven.

Everything is too cold.

Wrestling with the weapons strapped to his thigh next, he suddenly thinks of Simmons.

I couldn’t find the courage to tell you, so please—

His lungs expel the last vestiges of air.

This is it. No, no…nonono—

Two dark shapes materialise abruptly beside him and he’s suddenly enclosed in a warm grip before as they tug him upwards, their hold steady and unwavering as they reverse his downward course. Immediately, a determined hand forcibly inserts a regulator to his mouth as he bites down and frantically gulps in huge pockets of air.

The gleam of sunlight now pierces his half-closed eyes, the sting of the brine gradually lessening. But fire and ice prick his joints, and blinding pain pounds beneath his eyelids and nose, getting worse with each second—

They break the surface with a thunderous splash and it’s Simmons whom he finally sees, whose arms are braced firmly around his shoulder and neck, eyes wide in relief, her hand still stubbornly pressing her second-stage regulator hard against his mouth.

Hatch’s his other flotation of support on the other side, yelling at something in the distance.

Simmons is also shouting amidst the bedlam, paddling hard for the both of them to stay afloat in the midst of the carnage, a scuba tank hastily affixed to her side.

Stay with me! Please, please…breathe, Fitz, breathe!

Broken pieces of boats float around them, some already charred black beyond recognition.

A stealth helicopter circles overhead, so low that its rotor blades whip the sea foam into his eyes until a rescue net lowers from its side. He’s hoisted onto it, the pain in his head causing him to black out momentarily, rousing groggily only when his back roughly hits solid ground.

Just like that they’re in the air; the sudden upward and forward glide of the helicopter makes him want to throw up but a pair of firm hands hold him resolutely horizontal.

Emergency oxygen is placed over his nose this time, clean and sweet.

The dull hum in his ears increases, amplifying everything that he feels tangibly: the sharp, rapid rise and fall of his chest, the weight of his heavy clothing that he can’t seem to shed, the water trickling over him—he raises a hand weakly to swipe it off, only to realises it’s Simmons smiling and dripping tears and salt water over him, holding his head steady and kissing his face over and over.

Her words slip in and out of range of his hearing, but he thinks he sees love and lost and don’t leave me please cross her lips again and again. His eyelids droop heavily just as the realisation dawns on him that her babbling admission had just shifted what he’d for so long, deemed conjecture, to hopeful belief.

Fitz wakes again to bright, white light and uncomfortably loud noise as the screeching of wheels and rapid-fire talking bring the A&E department into sharp focus. Simmons is running next the gurney they’ve put him on, his hand tightly held in hers, a connection that’s only reluctantly broken when they slot him into the hyperbaric chamber.

I love you, she mouths, ashen-faced as she presses her hands on the glass, devastation etched deep in the lines around her eyes. Always.

His eyes burn hot and wet, like hers.

Always.

oOo

The appearance of sophisticated pirates linked with a terrorist group, along with the multiple casualties that the team comes out of the botched operation with are enough for Edwin to put his foot down and stick to tame risk assessment projects while everyone recovers from the ordeal.

Walking past his private office in the first week after Fitz gets back from hospital, Jemma finally hears him lose his cool as he gets on phone call after phone call to sort out the mess that happened in the Gulf of Mexico.

Edwin isn’t the only one shaken.

The entire team is in fact, out of commission for a while, their injuries ranging from mild to rather severe, though it’s Fitz getting lost in the deep (again) that makes her stop and struggle for composure each time she thinks about it.

It’s akin to having a nightmare coming back to life just as you thought it’s long dead and buried for good. This near-replication of their time on the ocean floor, merely reminds her that she’d nearly lost him for good (again) and as what?

As senseless collateral damage in the chaos of battle. Apparently that one catastrophe after Ward’s betrayal hadn’t been enough of a break.

The relief, so excruciating in its entirety, had torn through her with jagged teeth despite his quiet reassurances after he woke up in the hospital bed that he was alright (his speech isn’t slurred and his bad hand shakes no worse than before) and that nothing bad had happened to that big brain of his.

The absurdity of the past year gnaws on Jemma as she sits at the lab bench and stares blankly at the stack of reports yet unwritten. Touch—the solid feel of him—is what she craves, the physical reassurance that tells her he’s here, he’s alive.

Instead, she thumbs the edges of the papers and ponders the heart-breaking game of she-left, he-left that they’d subjected each other to, the macabre parallel of the way Fitz nearly gets swallowed by water twice, the people who’d come between them and the grief it’d all caused.

But the reality is that he’s healthy and kicking and thankfully unscathed. And blissfully tinkering with a spare part or two in his little corner of the lab, oblivious to the churning turmoil that she cycles through repeatedly.

Incredibly, Fitz manages brush it off as if he hadn’t been put through the wringer when it technically should have triggered another round of PTSD. At any rate, it’s the uncharacteristic calm, unbothered front that she sees despite carefully watching for ripples in the pond.

Frustration knotting into a skein, Jemma stands abruptly, accidentally sending her chair so violently into the side of the bench that it topples the bottle of phenol from the shelf above.

She yelps in horror, stepping instinctively away from the shattered glass and the spill—

“What the bloody hell—?!”

Before she knows that’s happening, Fitz is running her straight into the safety shower Edwin had specifically commissioned for them when she’d joined Citadel.

“Clothes off, Simmons!”

Her blouse and bra are already off, her pants halfway undone even as he barks the order at her. Lab safety protocol is practically engraved in the palm of her hand and he knows it.

“Fitz, I’ve got this—” Her protests die a weak death as he flicks every knob upward and shoves her inside.

“Where’s the spill?” He interrupts harshly above the sound of the roaring water, shoving himself inside with her, panic written on his face, unheeding of the streams hitting his clothes.

“What are you…?” Too numb to process what he’s doing, she can only gape as he takes over.

She shivers involuntarily at the first touch of his hands on her body as the water sluices over them.

Intent on scrubbing away the minutest remnants of phenol that could have inadvertently touched her skin, he goes down on one knee, strokes roughly over her thighs before moving up her lower back, to her waist, chest, neck and down again, rubbing the skin hard while she recovers sufficiently to do the same from the opposite direction.

Memories of her own fevered dreams insert themselves bright and vividly without warning. Of what they were about to do before she awoke. Of his devouring hands and mouth that she’d so badly wanted on her.

There is nothing even vaguely erotic in what he’s doing here, yet the look on his face as he works his hands over her skin—

Jemma slams the knobs of the shower down, the sudden silence deafening as she slowly turns to face him, as stark naked as the day she was born, and him, with his sodden clothes still stuck water tight to him.

Barely an inch separates them.

He’s frozen wide-eyed like her, mouth agape, breathing hard and flushed with the exertion of hauling her into the shower and literally giving her a vigorous bath without second thought.

The redness that’s creeping over his ears and cheekbones however, probably has more to do with the dawning realisation of what they’d—no, what he’d just done.

“Shit,” he mutters and turns away. “I—I didn’t really mean to…”

It’s probably more gentlemanly instinct and socially-conditioned embarrassment than anything else, considering all that he’s already seen and touched, albeit incidentally.

Her whisper comes unbidden as she reaches for his hands on a whim. “Don’t, please… don’t apologise.”

A pause. “I’m not.”

She watches, entranced, as he shakes a hand loose of her grip. Reaches up to trace the path of a rivulet of water streaking down the side of her face, from temple to cheek, the unmistakable shift from nervousness to a connection so electric that it has her shuddering in anticipation as his thumb brushes the side of her lips—

The loud buzz of her mobile dispels the sensual haze, and just like that, the awkward skittishness returns.

“Damn it!” He snatches his hand away like he’s just been burned.

“Fitz, um…I need a towel.” She’s pretty sure she feels the same kind of mortification, but for a different reason—because this is precisely the guilty pleasure she can’t bring herself to regret. But not before briefly entertaining the thought of running out, sans clothing, to hurl the damn thing against the wall. “Also, a new set of clothes—”

“Uh, right.” He’s already ducking out and grabbing the nearest thing he finds that’s closest to a towel, handing it to her with only a hand stuck in the shower cubicle. “I’m goin’…I’ll get something for you.”

It’s only after hearing the wet squeaks of his shoes on concrete as he hurries off that she slumps against the wall, towel still clutched in a limp hand and panting like she’s just completed a sprint up the whole length of the Thames and back again.

oOo

The path of avoidance that Fitz is taking most likely screams cowardice, but there’s no way he’ll be able to return to the lab and look Simmons in the eye for the time being.

Instead, he’d taken the long way back to his room, taken a cold shower (a deliberate one this time) and emerged from it no less aggravated than when he’d run out of the lab like a rabbit with a fox on its tail.

Fitz paces the small free space in his room, running hands over his face then putting them behind his neck as he relives the whole bloody fiasco with a groan.

What the fuck did he just do?

Having fallen into that nebulous, muddled state of wanting Simmons again, he knows that it’d be so, so easy to give in. That initial resolve, to stay clear of her, now miserably failing when she’d drawn lines of clarity about her feelings, leaving no room for doubt what she meant. To allow hope to move them past this tentative friendship that they’d re-formed.

That the indecision and the apprehension he felt which had coloured the first few months of her return had in fact, transformed into something new when he wasn’t really looking. That it now leaves possibilities to explore—which is a staggering thought in itself—, if he would allow himself to think about them together not as a forbidden entity any longer.

A knock on his bedroom door interrupts his pacing and he hesitates before pulling the door open, already knowing who it’ll be.

She sweeps in dressed in his old shirt and sweats, pushing the door shut behind her with an emphatic click, then locking it.

His adrenaline spikes for an entirely different reason.

“I waited. You didn’t go back.”

What?

“To the lab,” Simmons clarifies when the confusion shows briefly on his face, and walks further into the room to stand in front of him.

It isn’t lost on him that their positions are an exact mirror of the way they’d stood in the shower not an hour earlier.

He looks at her, the determination on her face as heart-breaking as it is thrilling. “Wanted some time to think.

“About us?”

Little by little, she’s pushing the boundaries, testing his barriers. His slight resistance is automatic, helping to stay the torrent of emotion that would otherwise overwhelm. But that charged, magnetic pull, altogether new, flares to life again.

“Does it matter?”

“It matters, Fitz.” Her sigh echoes loud in the small space. He hears the hitch in her voice, part-exasperated, part-tense. “It always matters when it comes to you. To us.”

He watches as she lifts a hand towards him and at the last moment, he grips her wrist before she closes the distance between them. Instead, she curls her other hand around his neck, the pads of her fingers already searing hot on his skin, shifting their balance until her back’s against his door with him pressing into her, so close that their breaths mingle.

There’s no mistaking the small gasp that escapes her lips, or the fluttering of her pulse in her neck or the slight turn of her hips that curls distractingly into his. But he needs to know beyond any shadow of doubt, that this, this compromising position they find themselves in, first, out of accident, now, deliberately engineered—and what happens beyond—is really what she’s after.

That it’s him she’s looking at and not anyone else. Not as her second option, not her consolation prize.

“No going back from this, Jemma.” His warning is stark, all the little things left unsaid coded in that issued challenge. But he’s also depending on the only unchangeable fact that he knows right now: that Simmons will not back down. “So you’d bloody be sure—”

Fitz has time to blink only once before she presses her lips onto his, her hand already in his hair, threading and pulling.

The tinder of buried attraction neither had been able to give voice to sparks into flames, the culmination of not-so-innocent touches and circumstantial foils.

He lifts her leg around his hip, deepening a kiss ignited by weeks of carnal frustration, their duelling tongues breaking their frenzied dance only when they finally stumble with hot purpose, limbs still tightly entwined, onto his bed.

Hurry, Fitz, she whispers, as lost as he is in the ebb and flow of sensation.

With a dark chuckle, he complies.

oOo

It’s only later, finally washed up the shore of consciousness, tucked under his sheets and skin still slicked with sweat when Jemma tells him, quite earnestly that she could never think of life without him, there aren’t any spaces in her that aren’t already filled by him. If this isn’t love, then she doesn’t know what love is.

It takes him a while to reply, though that affectionate openness in his eyes, the loving smile that curves his lips—the emotions that she’d been craving to see that he doesn’t need to say aloud—are answers enough.

“I feel the same way.”

Home.

This is home, she thinks, with the frayed rope of their one-broken relationship in her hands, and this entirely new and precious thing that’s them now.

- Fin

#Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D #AOS #Marvel #Marvel: AOS #Fitzsimmons #Fitz x Simmons #Leo Fitz #Jemma Simmons #Fanfic #fanfic au #My writing

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phooll123 · 6 years

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How to set up an iPad for web development

A few months ago, I detailed my process for setting up a Pixelbook to code on. It wasn’t easy or simple or straightforward, but it worked in the end: I had all the power and flexibility of Linux, access to my favorite code editor (VS Code), and, of course, the slick web browsing experience that Chromebooks are known for.

Around that same time, I attempted to set up an iPad for coding. I failed miserably. I love using the iPad for writing and other creative work. It’s super portable, has great battery life, an excellent screen, and the limited multitasking keeps me focused. Unfortunately, it’s very bad for complex tasks and intentionally crippled for software development.

But I’m older and wiser now, and after an entire Saturday spent bashing my head against a wall, I’m happy to report that I can use a $799 tablet computer to write software. Will I ever actually use it for this purpose? Maybe! But we’ll get to that.

Feel free to follow in my footsteps if you, too, wish to code on the iPad. I can’t promise you it’s a worthwhile destination, but I learned a lot on my way there.

Chapter 1: The journey begins by lowering my expectations

As everyone knows, Apple is scared to death that anyone might ever run arbitrary code on one of its pristine iOS devices. It makes a little bit of sense: the strictures of iOS and the App Store are why a years-old iPad is vastly more responsive and cruft-free than a similarly aged MacBook Pro.

But it makes developing software nearly impossible. It’s ironic because the iPad is excellent for creators in so many ways like drawing, design, and music. Under the hood is the same Unix kernel that makes macOS excellent for programmers.

Anyway, you know all this.

Unlike on the Pixelbook, where I wanted a full-on Rust development environment basically comparable to my Mac setup, I decided to just do some JavaScript-based web development on my iPad.

I knew just the place to go: CodeSandbox. It’s a website, and everything runs in the browser. Therefore, the iPad won’t be able to stop me from my dreams of creating my “Calculator 2: The Sequel to Calculators” web app in JavaScript.

CodeSandbox allows you to use arbitrary NPM packages, and it has a code editor based on VS Code’s own editor. So as long as you stick to the world of JavaScript, it’s almost as powerful as a traditional desktop-based web development setup. CodeSandbox also sands off some of the rough edges of configuration files and has a lot of premade projects built with various technologies (React, Vue, Redux, and even exotic frameworks like Hyperapp), which makes it easy to get started with the uber-complicated build chain that modern web development seems to require.

And I was extra excited to see that CodeSandbox has a Vim mode. Vim keybindings are my preferred way to navigate around text, and it’s especially important on the iPad where you don’t have a mouse for assistance. Moving the cursor, highlighting text, deleting words or lines, moving lines, and jumping large distances in a file all require just a couple keystrokes in Vim. Contrast that to the iPad alternative: seconds spent poking at the screen with your clumsy finger, hoping iOS will discern your intent.

Basically, everything was going great. CodeSandbox was all I needed, and my iPad was suddenly an ultra useful webdev box — at least for building the sort of small experiments I gravitate toward.

Except there was one problem: the iPad doesn’t have an Escape key.

Chapter 2: What despair feels like

See, in Vim, there are different “modes.” There’s the default mode where you use the keyboard to navigate around your document. There’s the selection mode, where you use those same navigations keys to select text. And, importantly, there’s an insert mode, where you use your keyboard to type. Since you need to get out of insert mode to move your cursor again, you need some sort of command to exit insert mode. By default, that command is wired to the Escape key.

Many Vim users (like myself, for instance) map a fancy key combo like “jj” to make exiting insert mode easier, but CodeSandbox isn’t actually Vim. It just emulates some of Vim’s default keybindings. So I need an Escape key. And the iPad doesn’t even know what that means.

I’m serious! At first, I thought this was just a problem with Apple’s own Smart Keyboard Cover, which has no function row and no Escape key. So I pulled out a regular Bluetooth keyboard and hooked it up to the iPad. I jammed on the Escape key and... nothing. In the world of iOS, there is no escape.

I browsed around StackExchange and various GitHub issues in a state of despair. Yes, there are ways to emulate an Escape keypress with “Ctrl + [,” but that gets me nothing in this case. I’m stuck in insert mode for the rest of my life.

CodeSandbox, you brought me so close!

In fact, based on CodeSandbox’s rapid iteration, I wouldn’t be surprised if they solved this issue in the near future.

But in the meantime: what’s a boy to do?

Chapter 3: Okay, let’s try the cloud again

The first time I tried to set up an iPad for coding, I naturally went straight to the cloud. But the cloud isn’t a magical place where all your dreams come true. Setting up a devbox on Digital Ocean or Google Cloud requires some knowledge of Linux and SSH, and there’s no GUI Linux interface to fall back on when your command line skills fail you.

Why was this so hard before?

Weirdly, the debris of scattered knowledge from my last attempt at a cloud devbox setup was all I needed to quickly get everything working. I paid for the basic $5 box on Digital Ocean, put a clean install of Ubuntu on it, and provided it an SSH key I generated in Panic’s Prompt app, an SSH terminal emulator for iOS. Why was this so hard before?

After SSHing into my Digital Ocean box, I started adding the tools I need. I installed Neovim (a modern Vim alternative) and found someone’s .config file for Neovim on GitHub and copied it. Then I installed nodejs, yarn, npm, parcel, rust, gcc... all the good stuff I crave. Because the “language server” aspect of VS Code is open source, I can get many of the hints and errors I rely on so heavily when coding into Neovim, even though it lacks all the GUI bells and whistles of VS Code.

It’s hard for me to describe how I did all these things, other than a liberal application of sudo apt-get install, copying and pasting shell scripts, and careful reading of error messages. Mostly, it’s just years of trial and error in the command line. I guess DM me if you get stuck on something, and I’ll do my best to help. Have you tried modifying your $PATH?

So, anyway, now I can write a web app in JavaScript, serve it from my Digital Ocean box, and preview my work in Safari (with live reload, thanks to some magic performed by Parcel). I can even split-screen the terminal and Safari and reallyget to work.

But soon, I got frustrated: a very small fraction of my work “coding” is actually typing code. I spend most of my time reading documentation and other people’s code to try and figure out how the hell anything ever works. After a couple of minutes browsing StackOverflow, I get a notification from Prompt, warning me that my SSH session is about to disconnect because of inactivity.

The whole reason iOS is so nice and responsive is because it has almost zero multitasking unless you’re working with multiple audio apps at once. Prompt does its best to stay alive, but iOS always kills it in the end.

Chapter 4: UDP saves the day

So, I Googled for a solution and discovered Mosh. Basically, Mosh is a UDP protocol for using a terminal from an intermittent connection. You connect over SSH like usual, but then that connection is handed off to Mosh to keep it “alive” during downtime. Prompt doesn’t support Mosh, so I paid another $20 for another terminal emulator app, called Blink, and set up Mosh. It took some trial and error to get the Mosh server running on my Ubuntu box and correctly enter my login details into Blink, but once I got it working, it works great.

I can leave the terminal for days, and as soon as I open Blink I have all the sessions open from the last time. For command line warriors, this is no huge feat. They know all about “reattaching” to sessions or whatever they do. But for me, it’s a huge achievement.

In fact, in some ways, I prefer my iPad / Blink / Digital Ocean setup to coding on my Mac. I can’t do everything my Mac does — anything involving windowing or graphics, for instance, outside of a web browser, isn’t really possible — but I have the joy of knowing I’m not mucking up my Mac with all the various weird command line software I install from the internet. If my setup ever breaks beyond repair, it’s just a couple clicks to wipe my Ubuntu box and start fresh.

Also, while my Digital Ocean box is a lot slower than my MacBook Pro, it has a blazing-fast internet connection. Anything I want to git clone or npm install feels way snappier on this cloud box, thanks to its minimal latency and huge internet pipe.

Only one problem: I’m terrible at JavaScript

Oh, and in case you were wondering: Blink supports the “Ctrl + [“ command to emulate escape. You can also map your Caps Lock key to escape if you want to be really crazy (I traditionally map Caps Lock to Ctrl, which is also supported by Blink). But, thankfully, my Neovim config maps “jj” to escape when in insert mode, so I’m golden on that front.

There’s really only one problem with my current setup: I’m terrible at JavaScript, and therefore nothing I write works the first time, and I can’t see any console error messages in Mobile Safari because it’s a crippled browser for babies.

CodeSandbox.io includes its own console interface.

I guess my first job on this new coding setup will be to write a pull request for CodeSandbox to support the “jj” escape method.

If only I was better at JavaScript!

It’s a real pickle I’ve found myself in.

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touristguidebuzz · 7 years

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Holiday gift ideas for the traveling family (or you!)

17 Holiday Gift Ideas for 2017

If you’ve been struggling to find that perfect gift for your travel companion or significant other, hopefully one of these holiday gift ideas will do the trick.

Our boys are now 6 and 4 years old, so our packing list has evolved over the past few years. We’ve created this list with the traveling family in mind, but most of these are perfect for any traveler (including you!).

Read this post for recommended baby travel items.

HP Sprocket Mobile Printer

The HP Sprocket is the newest device to join our little tribe. We just got ours last week and are excited to test it out during the holiday season, especially with Christmas cards. This device allows you to print 2×3 inch stickable snapshots from virtually anywhere.

You can also connect your social media accounts to the HP Sprocket App and turn your online photos into color prints. The app has filters, borders, emojis and drawings so you can get creative with your prints. It’s about the same size as your smart phone, so it’s lightweight and easy to transport.

This model retails for $129.99 on Amazon. Learn more here.

Grab-and-Go Car Booster Seat

This compact booster seat is more than 10x smaller than a regular booster seats and it’s just as safe. You can use this innovative booster seat for every day use, but it’s really meant for travel or for those moments when you need a spare booster seat (like visiting the grandparents for the holidays!).

Instead of bringing a clunky booster seat with you on the plane, you can pack this in your checked luggage or even your carry-on. It’s designed for kids aged 4 and up, 40 to 100 lbs, and 40 to 57 inches tall.

This booster seat retails for $39.99 on Amazon. Learn more here

TSA Approved Luggage Locks

You can never have too many of these luggage locks! For some reason, EVERY time I travel to the USA my luggage is searched by US Customs.

These locks are TSA approved so border agents can easily access our luggage without breaking the lock. Before we purchased these TSA approved locks, we had several cheaper locks broken by agents (not cool!). It’s worth spending the extra couple dollars to get the durable option.

You can get a 4 pack of these locks for $18.95 on Amazon.

Rosetta Stone Language Course

Have you always wanted to learn a new language? Are you traveling to a foreign destination for the first time and you want to nail down the basics, like where is the bathroom or how much for this sandwich?

Why not share the gift of language this season? You can download Rosetta Stone and learn to speak French on your terms. There are different programs and options available, including individual courses, live online tutoring sessions with natives and online learning games.

Learn more about this product and get your online subscription here.

Kids Travel Tray

This is the perfect item for long family road trips. The kids travel tray creates a sturdy and flat surface for eating, playing games, reading and watching shows on a tablet (this is the tablet we use).

This item has removable and accessible side pockets for toys, crayons, books, games and snacks. The dimensions are 15 x 12 inches. These trays can be used by children of all ages, starting around 2 years old.

You can get a kids travel tray for $24.97 on Amazon.

Luggage Packing Organizers

If you aren’t using packing organizers for your luggage or backpack, you should. These organizers are great for all types of travel, but especially for family travel.

We often pack our boys clothes in the same luggage, so things can get quite disorganized. Our boys wear different sizes so it’s not fun when their clothes are grouped together. These packing cubes make things super easy and efficient.

You can get these packing organizers for $20 on Amazon.

Bose Headphones

Last year I upgraded my ear buds to these full sized headphones. It was a great move. These particular headphones are not noise-canceling, but they do block out most sounds while on the plane.

My ear buds are noise-cancelling (read our product review here), but I prefer to use these Bose headphones because they’re so much more comfortable, especially when using them for long periods of time.

You can get these Bose headphones for $99 on Amazon.

GoPro Hero 6

Okay, so this camera is actually on my holiday wish list. We’re still using the GoPro Hero 4, which is pretty good, but I’m not a fan of its image stabilization for video. The new GoPro Hero 6 is one of the hottest cameras on the market right now, so this would be a homerun gift for that special someone.

If you’re in the market for a lightweight, compact camera, this is the one. Even if you don’t plan to use it for snorkeling or snowboarding, it’s a high performance camera that is great for family travel.

The GoPro Hero 6 is currently retailing for $499 USD on Amazon.

GoPro Dome / Underwater

Sticking with the GoPro theme, this is one of the coolest accessories for the GoPro camera.

Have you seen those photos where half the image is above water and the other is below water? Like this one. Have you asked yourself, ‘”how the heck did they get that shot?!” Well, the answer is a GoPro Dome.

You can get a GoPro dome for $49.99 on Amazon.

Flex Safe AquaVault

We won this Flex Safe AquaVault early this year (thanks Hopscotch the Globe!) but have not had the chance to put it to use, yet. We spend a lot of time at the beach so this will come in handy on future trips.

Basically, it’s a secure bag that you can attach to anything. You put your phone and special items in it when you go for a swim or walk on the beach. We could have used this a few years ago when our stuff was stolen while swimming in Costa Rica.

You can purchase this bag for $59.95 on Amazon.

Lonely Planet Books

Lonely Planet travel guides make a great gift, especially if you know the destination that your gift recipient will be visiting. If you don’t have a specific destination in mind, there are several compilation books that will surely spark wanderlust. This one is always a big hit.

We have The Travel Book: A journey through every country in the world, which is a kids book that takes covers over 200 countries. Our boys love it. It opens their eyes to the world and gives them an opportunity to help with the travel planning process.

Portable Charger

If the traveler in your life also works while on the road, this is a practical gift idea that he/she will appreciate. It’s one of those travel items you wish you had, but might not buy for yourself – which makes it a great gift.

The model you see pictured above is an AC Outlet Portable Charger. It has a 3-prong AC output with a power supply on/off switch indicator for any device up to 70W. You can power up to 3 devices at the same time. It recharges itself fully in 5.2 hours and can charge your phone 5-7 times with one charge, depending on the phone/device.

You can get this product for $145 on Amazon.

LeapPad for kids

This durable learning tablet for kids is an affordable alternative to the ipad or other expensive tablets. It has a shatter-safe touch screen and it’s thoroughly drop tested, so you don’t have to worry about it getting damaged. Our boys have put it to the test and it’s still in the same condition as when we first bought it.

The LeapFrog learning library has 1,000+ educational games, eBooks, videos and more. Games automatically adapt to your child’s learning level and draw from 2,600 skills across reading, math, and writing. We like that it has strong parent controls that limit the type of internet access they have. It also has a built-in camera, so our boys have fun taking selfies and photos from their travels.

You can get the LeapPad on Amazon for $127.00.

Portable travel games

We always bring a few portable games when we travel. Our boys are hooked on their LeapPad and tablets, so we try to include some time playing board games like Connect 4 (or 4 in a row), Snakes and Ladders, Checkers, Battleship and Trouble.

We bring the compact, lightweight models and stick them in our boy’s carry-on bag when we fly. We highly recommend these small travel games.

You can purchase portable travel games on Amazon for less than $10.

Extending Selfie Stick (Monopod w/Remote)

Before you selfie haters roll your eyes, this inexpensive monopod is much more than a selfie stick. We use it primarily for our Go Pro Hero 4 camera because the camera is so small that we need something to attach it to. BUT, it also makes selfies super easy, which is important when taking photos with kids.

This particular item comes with additional accessories for Bluetooth capabilities and it has a mount that works with most mobile phone devices (we use it for our LG G4 and iPhone 7).

You can get a selfie stick for as low as $12.99 on Amazon.

Waterproof Smart Phone/Camera Pouch

This protective waterproof pouch fits virtually all smart phones and pocket digital cameras. It’s perfect for the beach or water activities like kayaking or snorkeling.

It also holds personal items like credit cards and cash, so you don’t need to bring a big dry sack with you. It came in handy on our bioluminescent kayak tour in Puerto Rico earlier this year.

You can get this travel pouch for $10 on Amazon.

Also – the Life Proof waterproof hard case is another great gift idea.

Gift cards for iTunes, Amazon or AirBnB

For the creatively challenged gift giver, you can’t go wrong with gift cards. We purchase music and apps from iTunes all the time, mostly kids songs, games and shows. Gift cards are easy and cheap to mail (or email) to friends and family in far away places. It may not seem like the most thoughtful holiday gift idea, but everyone appreciates a gift card.

Did you know you can buy gift cards for AirBnb? I thought that was an interesting option.

You can purchase gift cards directly on Amazon.

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What did we miss? Do you have a gift idea you’d recommend?

Share your picks in the comments section below, links to specific gifts are welcome!

Holiday gift ideas for the traveling family (or you!) is a post from: Traveling Canucks

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