#eclecticfic

After Heartbreak

Author: @eclecticmuses​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Rating: Explicit Chapters: 15 Relationships/Characters: Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons, Leo Fitz's Mother, Jemma's Parents, Milton, Other Original Characters Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Romance and Angst, Childhood Sweethearts, Second Chances, Class Differences, Angst With A Happy Ending, Explicit Sexual Content Summary: February, 1945. Jemma Simmons is working as a nurse at a Red Cross convalescent hospital in the south of England caring for wounded soldiers when she runs into a ghost from her past: Leo Fitz, her childhood sweetheart, who was cruelly ripped away from her by her disapproving parents several years prior. Can they rekindle their friendship and find something new? Or will Jemma's responsibilities and family ruin their chance at love once and for all?

Excerpt from Chapter 1:

Jemma Simmons’ eyes opened to darkness.

Her long-established routine immediately kicked in: silence the shrill alarm rattling away on the bedside table, switch on the lamp, then lie back in bed and blink up at the ceiling as her eyesight adjusted to the dim light that bathed her attic bedroom. She allowed herself one moment to be still and enjoy the comforts of her small bed before she stretched and got up, heading downstairs to the bathroom to begin the rest of her morning ritual. Time to face another day.

It was February, 1945. The Allies had long since pushed onto the Continent and were beating the Germans back, but they were suffering heavy losses along the way. As a nurse, Jemma had seen the worst of the casualties coming back to British soil from the front and even some that resulted from attacks at home—all of the blood and guts and gristle that were a part of wartime. Thankfully, she no longer dealt with death. Now she worked in recovery.

Author: @eclecticmuses​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Rating: Explicit Chapters: 3 Relationships/Characters: Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons, Daisy Johnson, Lance Hunter, Bobbi Morse Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Romantic Fluff, Humor, Christmas Fluff, Explicit Sexual Content Summary: When the latest of Jemma Simmons' relationships crashes and burns, she thinks her chances of finding the right man meant for her are over. But Fitz has an idea—he thinks he can make her fall in love with him in just five dates. It's meant to be a fun bet, but when Jemma starts to actually catch feelings, things turn more serious than she expected. Do she and Fitz actually have something? Or is it just all fun and games?

Excerpt from Chapter 1:

Jemma Simmons closed the door to her flat with a satisfying, loud click, then leaned against it and closed her eyes, letting out a sigh. All she wanted to do was scrub her face free of makeup, put on her pajamas, and crawl into bed so she could put the last couple of hours behind her, but one thing stood in her way. The lights were on, and her roommate was still up. 

“Jemma?” Leo Fitz had twisted in his seat on the sofa to look over the back of it at her; his brows were drawn together in mild concern, or perhaps it was just confusion. “You’re home early,” he said. “I didn’t expect you back so soon. Or, uh… at all.”

Jemma kicked off her heels before bending to retrieve them and trudged to the sofa, flopping down next to him with another heavy sigh. “Not an awful assumption,” she told him. “I’d planned on going home with him. But then dinner happened, and I’d just had… enough.”

A faint look of alarm came over Fitz’s expression as he turned the volume on the television down and shifted in his seat to face her. “‘Enough’?”

Author: @eclecticmuses ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Rating: Teen

Chapters: 3/3

Relationships/Characters: Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons, Daisy Johnson, Lance Hunter, Bobbi Morse

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Romantic Fluff, Humor, Christmas Fluff

Summary: When the latest of Jemma Simmons’ relationships crashes and burns, she thinks her chances of finding the right man meant for her are over. But Fitz has an idea—he thinks he can make her fall in love with him in just five dates. It’s meant to be a fun bet, but when Jemma starts to actually catch feelings, things turn more serious than she expected. Do she and Fitz actually have something? Or is it just all fun and games?

Excerpt from Chapter 3:

Fitz had had grand plans for their third date—a magical night at the Christmas market downtown browsing shop stalls, drinking hot cocoa, and ice skating—but heavy snowfall that began that afternoon doused them, so they’d wound up at a bar within walking distance of their flat, having drinks with Hunter and Bobbi.

Jemma didn’t mind a low-stakes date for once. It was easy, comfortable, and made her feel like she and Fitz were really a couple. And letting Bobbi and Hunter take charge of the conversation gave her time to sit back and think over Fitz’s behavior the past week.

Ever since their date at the club, he’d been more open with her, more affectionate, with little touches here and there that made her heart race, but he’d also been… shuttered away somehow at the same time, guarded emotionally. Like he was keeping something from her.

But she couldn’t think of what, because he was the same old Fitz in every way but more with his new affection towards her. It was a strange dichotomy she couldn't figure out.

After Heartbreak

Author: @eclecticmuses​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Rating: Explicit Chapters: 15 Relationships/Characters: Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons, Leo Fitz’s Mother, Jemma’s Parents, Milton, Other Original Characters Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Romance and Angst, Childhood Sweethearts, Second Chances, Class Differences, Angst With A Happy Ending, Explicit Sexual Content Summary: February, 1945. Jemma Simmons is working as a nurse at a Red Cross convalescent hospital in the south of England caring for wounded soldiers when she runs into a ghost from her past: Leo Fitz, her childhood sweetheart, who was cruelly ripped away from her by her disapproving parents several years prior. Can they rekindle their friendship and find something new? Or will Jemma’s responsibilities and family ruin their chance at love once and for all?

Excerpt from Chapter 2:

Jemma woke up the next morning with a pit of dread already formed in her stomach. Maybe it was the dreams she’d had, formless like fog and already slipping away from her mind, or perhaps it was because she knew she would inevitably see Fitz when she arrived at the hospital for work.

She sighed into the dim light of her room. Perhaps it was both.

But there was nothing else for it. She had to get up and get on with it, because that’s what everyone did in wartime. There could be no shirking of duty because she was afraid or uncomfortable. People depended on her to do her part.

Jemma pushed aside her blankets and got out of bed, wiggling her toes against the floorboards as she stretched. Time to start her morning routine again.

After Heartbreak

Author: @eclecticmuses​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Rating: Explicit Chapters: 15 Relationships/Characters: Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons, Leo Fitz’s Mother, Jemma’s Parents, Milton, Other Original Characters Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Romance and Angst, Childhood Sweethearts, Second Chances, Class Differences, Angst With A Happy Ending, Explicit Sexual Content Summary: February, 1945. Jemma Simmons is working as a nurse at a Red Cross convalescent hospital in the south of England caring for wounded soldiers when she runs into a ghost from her past: Leo Fitz, her childhood sweetheart, who was cruelly ripped away from her by her disapproving parents several years prior. Can they rekindle their friendship and find something new? Or will Jemma’s responsibilities and family ruin their chance at love once and for all?

Excerpt from Chapter 14:

Jemma was about to lose her wits.

Her mum had strong-armed her into allowing a visit, and now that she was here, she was critical of everything. Her furniture was too shabby, her window curtains too cheap, the flat was too small and in a wrong section of the city for her, not close to her preferred haunts, and it was intolerably difficult to get to since the local Tube station still hadn’t been rebuilt. It wasn’t befitting a future Baroness—nay, a future Countess, since Jemma was marrying Milton. Her mother hadn’t let up in the hour she’d been there, and it was giving Jemma a headache.

Her only respite was to let her mother ramble but tune her out. She never really sought a response when she went on one of her rants, anyway; all she wanted to do was denigrate Jemma and make her feel small. So Jemma ducked her head and kept a contrite expression fixed to her face, which was required to survive these diatribes, and let her mind wander.

After Heartbreak

Author: @eclecticmuses​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Rating: Explicit Chapters: 15 Relationships/Characters: Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons, Leo Fitz’s Mother, Jemma’s Parents, Milton, Other Original Characters Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Romance and Angst, Childhood Sweethearts, Second Chances, Class Differences, Angst With A Happy Ending, Explicit Sexual Content Summary: February, 1945. Jemma Simmons is working as a nurse at a Red Cross convalescent hospital in the south of England caring for wounded soldiers when she runs into a ghost from her past: Leo Fitz, her childhood sweetheart, who was cruelly ripped away from her by her disapproving parents several years prior. Can they rekindle their friendship and find something new? Or will Jemma’s responsibilities and family ruin their chance at love once and for all?

Excerpt from Chapter 7:

“My mother has gone absolutely raving mad about all this,” Jemma said, pacing back and forth across the grass beneath the willow tree. “I can barely breathe or even think without her appearing at my shoulder to criticize me over something having to do with this damn ball!”

Fitz, who was sitting on the grass, leaning against the tree trunk with his legs crossed while he watched her pace, frowned. “What has she got to criticize?” he asked.

Jemma sighed dramatically, then tugged at a lock of her long hair. “This,” she said. “I haven’t been allowed to cut it since I went off to Switzerland last year, all so it can be put up into some fancy updo, and she’s still not happy with it. And she’s paid for a brand-new dress to be made so I’ll ‘stand out’, as she put it, and new shoes, and she complained about how I look in it—my posture is off, the cut of the dress doesn’t flatter me, that sort of thing. She even said the year I spent at bloody finishing school was wasted.” Her shoulders sagged. “My mother wants me to be the best of the best and I’m afraid I’m just really not.”

After Heartbreak

Author:@eclecticmuses​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Rating: Explicit Chapters: 15 Relationships/Characters: Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons, Leo Fitz’s Mother, Jemma’s Parents, Milton, Other Original Characters Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Romance and Angst, Childhood Sweethearts, Second Chances, Class Differences, Angst With A Happy Ending, Explicit Sexual Content Summary: February, 1945. Jemma Simmons is working as a nurse at a Red Cross convalescent hospital in the south of England caring for wounded soldiers when she runs into a ghost from her past: Leo Fitz, her childhood sweetheart, who was cruelly ripped away from her by her disapproving parents several years prior. Can they rekindle their friendship and find something new? Or will Jemma’s responsibilities and family ruin their chance at love once and for all?

Excerpt from Chapter 13:

After a restless night with little sleep, Jemma sat on the edge of her bed, ready for work yet hesitant to leave. She knew that if she stood and went downstairs to begin her walk to the hospital, she could no longer put off a choice that had been looming for some time now. She’d just been determined not to see it.

It was time to be open and honest with herself. She’d fallen back in love with Fitz—she’d never stopped loving him, really—while betrothed to another man. She’d lusted after him. That was the hardest part to admit, for it went against every bit of her strict English upbringing, but it was true. She’d fooled herself into thinking she could keep her days with Fitz at the hospital separate from the rest of her life and got swept up in the fantasy of having him as a friend again while still remaining faithful to Milton. 

After Heartbreak

Author: @eclecticmuses​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Rating: Explicit Chapters: 15 Relationships/Characters: Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons, Leo Fitz’s Mother, Jemma’s Parents, Milton, Other Original Characters Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Romance and Angst, Childhood Sweethearts, Second Chances, Class Differences, Angst With A Happy Ending, Explicit Sexual Content Summary: February, 1945. Jemma Simmons is working as a nurse at a Red Cross convalescent hospital in the south of England caring for wounded soldiers when she runs into a ghost from her past: Leo Fitz, her childhood sweetheart, who was cruelly ripped away from her by her disapproving parents several years prior. Can they rekindle their friendship and find something new? Or will Jemma’s responsibilities and family ruin their chance at love once and for all?

Excerpt from Chapter 12:

Nancy was clearly agitated when Jemma walked into the kitchen that morning, ready to start preparing her cart for her breakfast rounds.

“Jemma!” she hissed, reaching out to grab her arm as soon as she was within reach, pulling her to the side of the stove. Her expression was grim. “Betty reassigned Francine to another hospital this morning for being too friendly with one of her patients.”

Jemma’s eyes went wide. “What?” she whispered in horror. “Who?”

Nancy shook her head. “I’m not sure. Francine was friendly to everyone, wasn’t she?” Jemma nodded. “I just can’t believe it. Her men loved her. Anyway—” She blinked and looked at Jemma anew. “I wanted to tell you because I know you’re awfully close to Fitz.”