𝐓𝐇𝐘 𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐀𝐋, leo fitz

xxvi. Fitz, Roy and Simmons

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✧·ﾟ:CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX*:·ﾟ✧

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✧·ﾟ: *✧·ﾟ:* ye who enter here *:·ﾟ✧*:·ﾟ✧
date: March 29th, 2015
location: The Playground, Classified

    ━━There was a saying: 'Hate not your enemies; love thy rivals, for this, is the only way to convert them into your friends and your partners'. Clara Roy used to believe that this described her friendship with Leopold James Fitz. Bitter rivals when they first met, he couldn't even stand the sight of her━never could he look at her, or talk to her. For months, Clara had fought him to be top of the class, but he was always one step ahead of her. Until they were paired together in chem-lab. Leo Fitz was forced to talk to Clara Roy, and after that, well, one would say it was history. They became inseparable. Never leaving one's side, working together on every problem, building things and figuring out everything they tried. They were smarter together; engineering and medicine. After Clara met Jemma Simmons, their duo became a trio, and they became unstoppable. Fitz-Roy-Simmons; engineering, medicine and biochem. They are the best of friends.

    (Or, at least, they were...).

   Now, it felt like a game of tit or tat. Fitz would ask Mack to tell Roy this, Roy would ask Simmons to tell him that ... she would say that it was like they had taken a step back in time to when they first met, but no, it was worse than that. They weren't rivals, or friends, or partners. They just were. A mixture of longing gazes filled with guilt, regret and dread. The tension of conversations not yet finished or very much needed to be held. Pent up anger that was neither really thrown at the other, but instead at themselves for things that were out of their control, or fully in their control, but they were too scared to take a hold of the reins.

   Clara felt like she was playing a losing game, one that she'll never win. Watching Fitz return with the others from their field op looking quite confident in himself for the first time in ages, she was filled up with a sombre pride. It was a punch to the gut of something she had known all along: he didn't need her. In fact, he was better off without her. He was focusing on himself. When he passed the lab, not going inside, she felt her chest ache. He might not need her, but she wished he did. She wished because she wanted him back. But no matter how many apologies she said, Fitz was a stubborn breed. If he was angry at her, he was angry at her. And besides, did Clara ever mean the apologies? Because 'sorry's don't fix anything. They don't fix the guilt she felt over Ward (especially after the call he sent her, telling her he was doing things for her ...), and she wouldn't say sorry for leaving for her father in the first place, but when she says sorry for going away for so long, not contacting him ... what was her excuse other than that she was scared and didn't want him to drown in her wake of guilt and sadness?