#auapril

For their fifth date, he invited her to his dorm to watch a movie. Fitz spent the whole time twisting a Rubik’s Cube in his hands, eyes glued to the screen. Jemma couldn’t help but feel confused, and a little hurt. “Fitz?” she asked after movie was over. 

“Yeah?” Fitz glanced back at her before returning to focus on putting the DVD into the case.

“Why haven’t you kissed me?” she blurted out. He looked up at her as he snapped the DVD case closed, his expression going blank. “I mean, I’ll respect your boundaries, of course, if you don’t want to,” Jemma continued, “but if you don’t like me like that, you could at least tell me instead of continuing to take me on dates.”

“I do like you,” Fitz told her, fingers tapping against the DVD case, his eyes moving to look out the window. “What makes you think that I don’t?”

“Well, you invited me over to your room, and then you ignored me the whole time!”

Fitz looked back at her, confusion written all over his face. “I invited you over to watch a movie,” he said, holding up the DVD case as proof. “We watched the movie.”

“Yes,” Jemma said, “that’s true. But I was expecting something a bit more, Fitz. At the very least cuddling while watching the movie! We haven’t even touched since you asked to hold my hand at the zoo!”

Fitz bit his lip and looked down. “I’m sorry.”

Jemma waited, but he didn’t say anything else. “That’s it?”

Fitz sighed and shifted on his feet. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” he told her.

Jemma sighed. “Something more than just ‘I’m sorry!’” she snapped, standing up and gathering her purse and sweater. “If you think of something, you know how to reach me,” she told him, before leaving his dorm.

Jemma retreated to the library, the one place on campus where she felt comfortable. The library was quiet, peaceful, and no one bothered her, expect for Daisy, and that was only on Tuesdays and Thursdays when they met to study. She found an old edition of her chemistry textbook and took it to her favorite spot on the third floor. She opened it and began to read, pressing her hands against her neck and jaw while she did so.

Jemma was partway through the third chapter of the textbook when her phone lit up with an email notification. She was about to ignore it, but saw that it was from Fitz, so she swiped her finger across the screen and began to read.

Jemma,

I’m so so sorry for misleading you. I talked about what happened with Daisy and she explained that when a guy invites a woman to his room, it’s usually implied that something more is gonna happen, but I didn’t know that so I’m sorry. I’m autistic, so sometimes I don’t always understand what’s expected, especially when it comes to dating. I really really like you, Jemma. I really want to keep seeing you, but it’s okay if you don’t feel the same way.

Fitz 

Jemma put her phone down. Autistic. Jemma rubbed at her fingers with her thumb as she thought about it. She’d heard of autism, of course, but only in the context of children, and really only in the context of the children who couldn’t communicate. But Fitz was not a child, and he was able to communicate just fine. She picked her phone back up and hit reply.

Fitz,

I really really like you too, and I really want to keep seeing you. Thank you for telling me about your autism. I’ve heard of it, of course, but I’m afraid I don’t know much about it. Could you send me some good resources so I can learn? Or maybe we could go out tonight and you could tell me more?

From,

Jemma

She pressed send and tried to concentrate on the chemistry textbook while she waited for a response. Twenty minutes later, her phone lit up with another email notification and she immediately swiped to open it.

Jemma, 

Here are some links for you.

Autistic Self Advocacy Network

What Is Autism?

Inclusive Autistic Traits

If you want, you can come see me tomorrow. I don’t think I’d be able to have a good conversation tonight.

Fitz

Jemma clicked on the first link and began to read. Different sensory experiences, non-standard ways of learning, passionate interests, atypical movement, need for consistency, routine, and order, difficulties in understanding and expressing language, difficulties in understanding and expressing social interaction. Well, that last one explained the confusion over their earlier date.

She clicked on the next link and it took her to an explanation of the autistic brain:

“Autistic people process and use our senses differently from most people…”

“Stimming helps an autistic person sooth and calm ourselves, regulate our senses, process our environment, and think clearly…”

“Most autistic people … have a hard time understanding what another person is saying to us. Many autistics use or understand language … literally.”

“We may not be comfortable with ambiguity, change, or lack of structure. We may seem particularly ritualistic, compulsive, or detail-oriented.”

Jemma bit her lip as she read. Some of the descriptions sounded familiar to her. She clicked on the final link and it took her to a more detailed breakdown of different autistic traits:

“Different use of eye contact…” Jemma put her phone down and pulled a small notebook and pencil out of her purse. She opened the notebook to a fresh page and wrote that down, adding: Too much eye contact? next to it. As a child, her mother had often scolded her for staring, but no one had ever explained exactly when looking turned into staring. Was that something other people instinctively understood? 

“Different use of literal and metaphorical communication…” Jemma wrote that down too. She’d always had a tendency to take everything literally, or not understand idioms that others seemed to find obvious, which often led to people giving her weird looks whenever she corrected their metaphors.

“Different desire for relationships…” Jemma had never really had a real friend until she met Daisy, and even then their relationship began because Daisy had needed a tutor. She’d dated before, but she’d never really connected with any previous partners, not like she’d connected with Fitz. 

“May find presenting to crowds easier than reciprocal interactions…” Well that was definitely true of her. She was very comfortable giving a lecture, but struggled in smaller group interactions when the others weren’t discussing anything she was interested in.

“May prefer practical and pragmatic interactions or have difficulty with unfocused interactions…” Yes, Jemma definitely preferred when she knew what needed to happen in a social interaction.

“Pressure stimming…” Jemma added pressing neck/jaw to her notebook.

“Tactile stimming…” Jemma added rubbing fingers to her notebook.

“Intense focus and interests…”

“Preference for routine and sameness…”

“Differences in experiencing and processing emotions…”

“Different approach to patterns and systems…”

“Different ways of processing and making decisions…”

Jemma reread her list and then closed the notebook and put it and the pencil back in her purse. She put her phone in her pocket, put the textbook on the ‘re-shelve’ cart, and made her way back to her dorm room. She needed a cup of tea and her laptop in order to do some more intensive research. 

~*~*~*~

Jemma stayed up until four in the morning searching the internet, reading blogs, taking tests. Autism Spectrum Disorder, autism in females, atypical autism, the Autism-Spectrum Quotient, the Aspie Quiz, the Ritvo Autism Asperger Diagnostic Scale-Revised, the diagnosis process, getting diagnosed as an adult, getting a diagnosis as a woman. Everything she read and every quiz she took seemed to point toward the conclusion that she was autistic.

She finally made it over to Fitz’s dorm later that afternoon, entering the building when some shirtless boys exited with a football. She made her way to Fitz’s room and knocked on the door, running her thumb across her fingers on her other hand.

Fitz opened the door and let her in. “Jemma,” he started to say, but she interrupted him.

“I spent all last night doing research,” Jemma told him. “I read those links you sent me, and—well, I thought they described me, so I spent last night reading everything I could, and taking the online tests, and I even went through the diagnostic criteria and wrote down examples from my life that fit. I filled up ten pages, single-spaced. I think—I think I’m autistic too.”

She bit her lip and watched as Fitz scratched at his cheek, taking time to process everything she’d just blurted out. “Welcome to the club,” he told her. “Do you have any questions?”

“About a million,” Jemma admitted, “but I think right now I need time to think it through in my head before I actually talk about it out loud.”

Fitz nodded. “Want to watch a movie?” he offered. “Take your mind off it? We could cuddle under my weighted blanket.”

The thing with bringing someone back from the dead is that there's really nowhere else to go from there. For even the best and brightest minds, reanimation is probably a fair pinnacle for any career. Jemma Simmons isn't entirely sure that she's comfortable with the idea of peaking at the age of 25, even if she does theoretically have the ability to reverse the natural order of death.

"Natural order of death?" Daisy repeats with a smirk on her lips. "That's really dramatic. Are you auditioning for the Twilight Zone or writing a paper?"

Jemma frowns, narrowing her eyes. "Apparently I'm doing neither thanks to people insisting on continually bothering me."

She'd just been talking out loud, bouncing ideas off of Daisy while attempting to formulate a letter to Anne Weaver, Dean of the Biochemistry department, suggesting the ways that the human body might be brought back to life if caught within a certain window. She feels like she has to be careful in what she says, dipping her toes so to speak in the possibility rather than admitting that she's done such a thing.

Daisy rolls over, laying on her back on Jemma's perfectly made bed. Well, it was perfectly made before Daisy had decided to flop all over it and wrinkle the sheets. "So you're really doing this, huh?"

"Huh?" Jemma's focus is already back on her laptop and the hypothesis she's trying to formulate for Dr. Weaver. Daisy has become such a continual presence over the past year that she feels like she's only vaguely aware of her. She's comfortable, a constant.

Daisy props herself up on her elbows, resting her chin in the palm of her hand. "You're really doing it," she repeats with an exaggerated eye-roll. "You're going to tell the world what you can do."

Jemma frowns, her brow furrowing at the idea. "Well, I don't want to get carried away. It's not like I have many test subjects or data to pull from and-"

"Hello?" Daisy gestures at herself. "What more proof do you need?"

"Don't take it personally, Daisy," Jemma says gently. "All good theories need to be tested time and time again for scientific soundness."

Daisy gives her a look. "Should I be jealous? Am I going to be replaced by someone less…lively?"

Jemma tosses a pen in her direction. "Oh stop it," she chides. "I'm simply saying that there's no concrete evidence that…what happened with you can be repeated again and again. At least, not without additional experiments and data."

"You should go on Oprah," Daisy says, making herself comfortable on Jemma's bed again. "I'm sure she doesn't care about experiments and data."

Jemma shakes her head. "Well, I do."

Not that she really knows where to go from here. Daisy has a point: it would be odd to find another recently dead body and reanimate them and then have them hanging around. With Daisy things are…complicated at best. She'd originally insisted on keeping her around for constant observation to monitor her vitals and the lasting effects of what she'd done. But now…now it's less about the science and more about…Daisy. It's been over a year since the evening that life had sparked back into the unfortunate, young car-crash victim and Jemma feels like she can almost, nearly safely say that Daisy is, for all intents and purposes, alive. For good. But Daisy is a friend and she makes her smile and keeps her company and yes more often than not she makes Jemma's cheeks turn pink and her heart beat a little faster than normal and all too often Jemma has found herself longing to press a kiss to her lips. Now it's almost like Daisy is just one of the group, like she's always been there.

The fact that Fitz and the others seem to have accepted her as one of their own only further muddles things. Or maybe it only makes them easier? Having her friends accept what she'd done and the fact that she well and truly had brought Daisy back from the dead makes it easier for Jemma to remind herself that she hadn't just dreamt up the whole bizarre thing. Having her friends accept Daisy as a member of their group and even someone they share a roof with…well that only makes things a little more complicated in the wanting-to-kiss-her department.

Jemma doesn't mind that Daisy lingers in her bedroom, sprawled out silently on her bed while she continues working on her theory for Dr. Weaver. It's nice having her there; it's always nice having her around, just listening to the quiet sound of her breathing and feeling relaxed by her presence. It's odd that Daisy has that effect on her. It's even more odd to think about how they never would have crossed paths at all if circumstances had been even the slightest bit different. Not that Jemma wastes too much time thinking about that; no, she has a proposal to write.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Okay, I think I have an idea."

This is the first thing Daisy says when Jemma returns home from the lab the following afternoon. She's sitting at the kitchen table while Daisy is putting a kettle on the stove and Bobbi is sitting across from her, chewing on the cap of her pen while she studies the textbook spread open in front of her.

"An idea about what?" Jemma questions, closing her eyes slightly. It's nice to sit down after a full day of classes and working as a TA and then running a lab for underclassmen. She's grateful that Daisy is already working on getting the water boiling.

"Your letter to Dr. Weaver," Daisy replies, "your science experiments."

Daisy works from the house, doing remote tech support for people who honestly give new life to the "did you try turning it off?" memes. Despite the year of success, Jemma is still nervous about repercussions or side effects that they haven't yet thought of, plus the whole legally dead issue, all of which just made it easier for Daisy to get hired to freelance from home. Because of this, she's in a unique position to watch the neighborhood comings and goings, studying the people they share the street with out the window and from the porch. She knows most of them by name and a few of them she's even on speaking terms with.

Including their next-door neighbor, Mike, and his eight-year-old son. The other member of their family is a gangly Pitbull, recently out of puppy-hood but still a little too uncoordinated for his big paws and floppy ears. The dog, Locke, makes a habit of slipping out of the fence and appearing in their backyard or on their porch, probably because Hunter makes a habit of slipping him scraps of whatever food is handy.

"So, Mike was outside working in the yard while Ace was at school," Daisy is relaying as she takes the kettle off the stove, pouring the water into Jemma's favorite mug and bringing it over to the table. "And Locke gets out of the fence like usual. And he goes running into the street. And-"

Jemma sits up straighter in her chair, gasping and pressing a hand to her mouth. "Daisy, no," she says softly, her eyes growing wide with horror. "No. He didn't-"

Daisy purses her lips, nodding. Even Bobbi is paying attention now, face twisted in an expression of second-hand sympathy. "Yeah. It was awful." She closes her eyes briefly, shaking her head against the memory. "And then watching Ace get off the bus and Mike was waiting for him to tell him…yeah definitely not my favorite day ever."

Jemma's hand is still covering her mouth and she can only shake her head again. "That poor little boy."

"But there's a light at the end of this tunnel!" Daisy points out brightly and both Jemma and Bobbi look at her curiously. "You did say that you were looking for more test subjects…"

It takes Jemma only a second longer to realize what Daisy is getting at. "Have you lost your mind?" Her eyebrows arch upward, her eyes widening. "How on earth would we explain that? 'Ah, I just dug up your dead dog and brought him back to life to see if it would work and it did so here!' I'm not sure that's actually helpful."

Daisy nods understandingly. "I see your point. But I think it's worth thinking about."

Unfortunately Jemma does think about it.

She thinks about it so much that several hours later she's knocking on Fitz's bedroom door with Daisy hovering over her shoulder. "Come on. I have something I need your help with." She turns to go only to pause, reconsidering. "We need shovels."

Jemma is pretty sure the only reason Fitz and Trip follow her and Daisy outside is sheer curiosity.

Not that Trip looks particularly invested in their late-night excursion when it leads them to the Petersons' backyard and the pile of fresh earth by the flower garden. "Oh hell no." Trip shakes his head, looking plaintively at the other three. "Look, I'm here for Daisy being an undead American and all that but I'm not sure I feel comfortable digging up a little boy's dog and trying to bring it back to life."

"Think of it as a science experiment," Jemma says cheerfully as she digs the tip of the shovel into fresh earth. "You're helping humanity."

Trip settles for helping humanity by keeping watch on the sleeping house behind them.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Jemma's experiment blows the power out in the entire block.

She's inclined to say that it's all worth it when the lump underneath the blanket spread out on an old card table in their garage starts moving. It's difficult, at first, to see in the light of her cell phone and Daisy's but there's no mistaking the sound of the confused whimpering that fills the garage seconds later.

The sheet falls away as Locke moves unsteadily to his feet, whining when he falls back onto his side. At least he seems to recognize Jemma and Daisy, thumping his tail hopefully when he spots them.

"You did it!" Daisy's arms are around Jemma before she's even really registered that yeah, she did do it. She actually managed to replicate her experiment and produce the same results. Namely she managed to bring another dead entity back to laugh.

But Jemma's mind stops celebrating its scientific discovery when it registers that Daisy is holding onto her tightly. Jemma moves to hold her without a second thought, wrapping her arms tightly around her. Even still Daisy is cool to the touch and her fingers and toes are like ice. Jemma knows this from firsthand experience thanks to their movie nights and Daisy's refusal to see how pressing her feet into Jemma's calves to get her to squirm is anything less than hilarious. But holding onto her isn't chilling in the least; Jemma feels like she's never been warmer.

It quickly becomes clear that they're no longer holding onto each other to celebrate the success of bringing Ace's dog back to life. Honestly, Jemma can't remember anything in the moment aside from Daisy's arms around her.

The dog quickly snaps her back to the present, letting out a loud yip and tumbling off the table, sending all the wires and machinery crashing to the ground.

Jemma and Daisy pull away from each other quickly and Jemma is pretty sure that the color in her cheeks matches the heat that she feels at the tips of her ears. "Oh, um, let me…" She trails off, moving toward the dog tangling itself up in expensive scientific equipment.

"Well you did it," Daisy says again, clearing her throat. "Dr. Frankensimmons strikes again."

Jemma can only roll her eyes. "I can't believe Fitz mentioned that to you," she grumbles. "That really is an awful nickname."

"Or," Daisy muses, "is it a strangely perfect one?"

Daisy joins her in helping free Locke from all the wires and monitors and by the time they finish it doesn't seem like there's anything wrong with the dog at all. Jemma figures it would be even impossible for her to believe that he'd been dead fifteen minutes ago if she hadn't seen it with her own eyes. There are a few indicators: his fur has gone strangely grey, a side effect that didn't happen with Daisy, and his back, right leg doesn't seem to be in working order anymore. But, all in all, she considers it a success.

A terrifying, exhilarating, success.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

There's a knock on her door, surprising Jemma. It's nearly three in the morning but she's too wired to sleep, trying desperately to record everything about the night for her records. Her handwriting is crammed into every available space, spilling out to the margins and she knows that a lot of it is rambling and lacking scientific merit but it still seems important to record everything. It might help her make sense of the strange heaviness that she suddenly feels in her chest, the implications of what she's done that are starting to take root. With Daisy she could have passed it off as a fluke, a moment where science and fate had lined up perfectly to create the impossible. But she's done it again and…honestly Jemma isn't sure what to think.

It's surprising when the knock startles her from her reverie but not entirely unwelcome. Though she knows it's late, Jemma's eyes still glance toward the clock by her bed. "Come in?"

The door creaks open and she's not surprised to see Daisy step into the room. "Hey," she says quietly so as not to wake the rest of the house. She closes the door softly behind her. "I just did another check on Locke: still alive and kicking. Literally. I think he's chewed up a pair of Hunter's shoes."

Jemma smiles, tucking her pen into the pages of her journal and setting the book aside. "A necessary sacrifice made in the name of science," she declares, though she's not sure that Hunter will feel the same way.

Daisy sits down on the bed beside her and Jemma can't help but notice the distance between them. It seems larger than usual, as though Daisy is very aware of their proximity. She's not sure what to make of this; is Daisy keeping her distance because the moment in the garage made her uncomfortable or because she hasn't been able to stop thinking about it either?

Jemma feels a pang in her chest to think that it might be the former and an exhilarating rush at the thought of it being the latter.

"I…" Daisy doesn't rush to finish up the thought that she'd started so uncertainly. She lets her eyes travel around Jemma's neat and tidy room, the desk the only source of disaster in the place. Finally her eyes settle on Jemma again. "I really didn't come in here to talk about Locke."

Jemma wonders if her nonchalance looks as forced as it feels. "Oh?" She shifts, uncertain. "What did you want to talk about?"

Even as she asks the question, Jemma thinks she knows the answer. She thinks she can see it in Daisy's eyes. Her heart lurches, making her feel off balance and almost painfully full of anticipation.

"It would be weird, right?" Daisy asks quietly. "For us to…?" She seems unsure and uncertain for the first time since Jemma has known her. "For me to feel the way I do about you…if we…"

Jemma reaches out a hand, gently pressing her palm against Daisy's chest. Beneath her hand she can feel the slow and steady heartbeat there. The reminder that Daisy is alive. That they both are.

"No," Jemma says quietly, unable to focus on anything but that steadily beating heart and the coolness of Daisy's skin beneath her hand.

They move together easily and kissing Daisy is different than kissing anyone else before her. Not because her lips are cold or because the kiss is slow, tentative and unsure. But because it's Daisy that she's kissing and it's all she's wanted to do for so long.

Daisy rests her forehead against Jemma's, a faint smile on her face. "I'm really glad we finally did that."

"Me too," Jemma assures her, moving her hand away from Daisy's chest to curl around her neck, moving her close for another kiss. It makes no sense to stop when they've finally just gotten started.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Jemma has no idea how Daisy does it but by the time she arrives home from campus the following day, Locke is back at the Peterson household and running around with Ace in the yard. Mike sees her heading up the walk and waves, a smile on his face; curiosity compels Jemma to walk over.

"I'm sorry about what happened yesterday," Jemma says tentatively, figuring that the statement could be applied to a multitude of things depending on the story that Daisy told him. Her eyes linger on Ace and the dog, uncertainty making her skin prickle. She'd wanted to keep Locke around for further observation but clearly fate had had other plans.

Mike only nods. "Yeah it was hard on Ace," he says with a sigh. "I wasn't sure about getting another dog but Daisy found this one and…he's a little bit like Locke, don't you think?"

There's a bit of doubt in Mike's eyes and Jemma knows the expression of someone trying to talk themselves out of their own skepticism. She nods, watching boy and dog roll around in the yard. "Yes, I can see that."

Jemma finds Daisy in the kitchen, listening to Leon Bridges as she scrolls through something on her phone. It seems insanely easy for Jemma to walk right over and press a kiss to her lips when Daisy lifts her head expectantly. "I see the Petersons got a new dog."

"A new old dog," Daisy confirms. "I think it's a win-win."

Jemma slips her arm around Daisy's shoulders, making a skeptical noise. Daisy only grins at her. "Maybe you've found your true calling: fixing childhood broken hearts one pet at a time."

"Well let's not get carried away," Jemma cautions. "More research might be necessary but I'm not about to start advertising this as a service."

The next day Bobbi comes home with a shoebox and a hopeful expression on her face. Jemma doesn't even have to open the lid to know what's going to be waiting inside.