[The day the war with the Inhumans ended]

Maybe Italian, Fitz mused, looking at the nicer restaurants in the area. Jemma would like that, wouldn't she?

Of course I would, her voice said. I love Italian.

He could order a nice bottle of wine.

You should order a nice wine, she said laughingly. We're celebrating something, aren't we?

He smiled, picturing her reaction to his internal musings. Italian it is, he decided, and picked up the phone.

Once the reservation was set he looked at his watch, wondering where Jemma was. It had been at least ten minutes since he'd left her. She should be done cleaning up by now. You can't rush a process that works, she told him, as she had back in their Academy days. Just like they had B is for blue is for biological, everything in the lab had a process for being cleaned and/or sorted. He knew that well, and supposed he was just being impatient. I was close to finishing when you left, but you know if I don't do it properly it'll be on my mind the rest of the night. And there are other things I'd like to think about tonight, she said promisingly.

So he waited.

He told himself he waited too long, though after watching the tape he knew she was taken by the monolith before he'd even chosen a restaurant.

After finding the room empty, and Jemma's things still on the table, Fitz went straight to Coulson's office to watch the security footage. That was where he, Coulson, and Daisy watched the recording of the monolith swallowing Jemma, and where they had to forcibly restrain Fitz from running to it himself. He'd completely lost control, kicking and shoving to get past them and back to that room.

It was only after he'd been shoved against the wall by Coulson and taken a breath that he started to regain his senses. He forced himself to breathe evenly.

That's it. You need oxygen to the brain to be able to process things.

Of course hearing this thought in her voice almost broke him again, having only known she was lost for a few minutes. Still, he listened to her words and regulated his breathing.

Once the initial wave of devastation receded, Fitz dove into trying to rescue her. He got as close to the monolith as Coulson would let him, scanning it with every tool he had. He scoured the records for any information on it and stockpiled books that seemed even remotely relevant, searching for a way to open it or understand what it was.

Fitz made it a week before his behaviors negatively impacted his health. When Hunter found him passed out in the lab from absolute exhaustion and not eating enough, the entire team became like babysitters, making sure he had at least two meals a day and forcing him to rest in his room. After the second day of this babysitting he grew irritated with the team for treating him like a child.

What do you expect, running yourself ragged like that? They're worried about you. You're not taking very good care of yourself.

He heard the thought in Jemma's voice and almost smiled and cried at the same time, because it was something she would say. I'm worried about you, he thought, once again trying to imagine what she was going through. But he knew that she really would admonish him for his reckless behavior, and dialed it back.

He convinced the team that he didn't need to be babysat, and continued searching, Jemma's voice making sure he didn't lose himself for too long as he looked.

[Months later]

Fitz moved through the hallway on bare feet, their muffled padding sound the only noise as he walked in the silent base. He had expected it to be silent, this far past midnight. The lights were off as the occupants all slept.

He made it past all the security measures without drawing attention to himself, almost feeling happy at his forethought in building himself a backdoor into the base, back when they'd first come here. Almost, but only one thing would make him happy, and that certainly wasn't it. Still, the system wouldn't have a record of him returning so late, which meant no one could prove he had been gone so long. They wouldn't know.

Maybe they should know.

He stopped just outside his door, his breath catching as he heard her voice in his head. It happened every day, but still it caught him off guard in moments like this. Moments when he was coming back from yet another possible lead that turned out to be a complete dead end.

Moments that were becoming all too frequent.

Don't lose hope.

The thought came in an instant, again in her voice, and Fitz sighed and opened his door, stepping inside and dropping the dirty boots to the floor. He peeled off his sweat-stained shirt and filthy trousers, tossing them into the bin on his way to the bathroom and raking a hand through his greasy hair. It had been thirty-six hours since he'd last slept, longer since he'd showered, simply because he'd had to do so much travelling to disprove his latest theory. He was too impatient to wait for the water to get hot, stepping into the shower seconds after he'd turned it on. It was amazing how simple, running water could make him feel clean again. And after actually using shampoo and body wash and conditioner, he felt human again.

He stepped out of the shower ten minutes later, refreshed and looking forward to a few hours of sleep. He was dead on his feet, even he had to admit, and he fell onto the bed immediately after changing into clean, dry clothes.

He would revisit older theories in the morning, after a few hours of sleep. He felt guilty even waiting that long, but he knew it made the most sense.

Of course you have to sleep. Look at it again with fresh eyes in the morning, and you'll find the solution even faster.

This time her voice undid him. Alone in his room, on the edge of sleep after yet another day without finding any trace of her, his grief caught up with him. Fitz choked out her name in a sob. He squeezed his eyes shut tight as his breathing became ragged, his fist bunching together the blanket underneath him.

It had been three months since she'd been taken in by the monolith. He hadn't actually heard her voice since that night, when she'd agreed to go to dinner, but a day hadn't gone by where he hadn't heard her. Hers was the voice inside his head.

He knew if the others heard him say this, they would think he was delusional. They would worry that the stress of losing her was getting to him, or that he was slipping back into the behavioral patterns from just after his brain injury. But he knew it made perfect sense, because he knew it wasn't really Jemma speaking to him. Unlike after his injury, he wasn't imagining her being there. The thoughts he heard were all his own. He simply heard them in her voice, as if she were speaking them. Sometimes in the way she would speak to him. She'd been the one to voice his thoughts for half his life, so he knew what she would say well enough.

He loosened and then tightened his grip on the blanket as he struggled to stop the surge of grief. Get a hold of yourself, he told himself. This isn't helping Jemma come home.

Get some sleep, Jemma's voice said.

He took a shaking breath and nodded against his pillow. "Goodnight Jemma." He mumbled in a thick voice.

[After rescuing Jemma]

He looked at her as she lay on the stretcher in the S.H.I.E.L.D. containment module, passed out. Her skin was paler than normal underneath all the dirt, her hair longer. It took every effort to not hold on to her, as he had when they'd first been pulled back through the portal. He was contenting himself with holding onto one of her hands, unable to look away from her sleeping form for fear she would disappear if he did. She'd passed out after saying his name, held tight in his arms. She'd stirred feebly in the time since, mostly when they'd moved her to the plane and then lowered the containment module into the base, but she hadn't fully woken yet. He kept hearing her say his name in his head, lost in the beauty of her voice. Her true voice, spoken from her lips. Just that word threatened to break him, and he held her hand warmly, letting himself take comfort in the fact that he would hear her from now on.

"Fitz, can you come here for a second?"

Fitz looked at Coulson, standing in the doorway. "Can it wait?" he asked in a low voice.

"It'll just take a second," Coulson insisted.

Fitz sighed and took his hand away from Jemma's, standing.

"Fitz."

Jemma's voice, weak but full of conviction. Fitz walked to follow Coulson, that echo of Jemma's voice in his head.

"Fitz, don't leave."

He turned, looking at her with his mouth open. That wasn't her voice repeating in his mind, as he'd originally thought. She was actually speaking. He looked back and saw her trying to catch sight of him, too weak to move, and a lump formed in his throat.

"I'll come back later," Coulson said.

Fitz went to Jemma's side, grabbing her hand and smiling in relief that she was here. She was looking at him with half-lidded eyes, barely awake, and partially smiled once his hand found hers again, relaxing again.

"I'm right here," he said softly. "I'm not leaving."

She closed her eyes again, exhausted but still partially smiling.

"Fitz," he heard again.