Oceans Away || Leo Fitz Book Three

Chapter TwentyEight

In the end, it was May who tricked her own ex-husband into the containment module. It was a difficult thing to watch, even more difficult to witness the aftermath. May had always been the strongest of them all, the one able to withstand all sorrow, the one able to bring them out of the darkness with simply her sheer will to survive and take care of her team. So seeing her look empty in the eyes, no determination, now power, just sorrow, made Asia feel like she had been hit with a heavy gut punch.

Days like these made being an agent the hardest. Asia loved what she did, don't ever challenge her otherwise, but sometimes things were just so weighted, like she accidentally swallowed a bar bell. It made her feel more exhausted then a full day of working out. It was a difficult thing to shake off. She wasn't tired, but she was exhausted. Her body wouldn't rest.

Dropping off her bag in her locker, she wrapped a soft, yoga sweater around her body, cocooning herself into a soft, grey cashmere. It was a gentle reminder she was home when she slipped her feet into comfy slippers and out of her work boots. She then left the locker room, padding down to a window at the end of the hall.

The window looked out over the city, the lights of the sky scrappers twinkling, the soft moonlight dancing on the tree leaves below. It was comforting to look out, a reminder of how small she was in this vast universe. Her small problems really could not be too consequential in comparison to everything else going on out there.

She heard a small shift of a footstep behind her and she glanced over her shoulder, Leo appearing from the darkness, sleeves of his white button up rolled just slightly, a worried look on his face.

"Can't ever sneak up on ya, can I?" He asked sheepishly, shrugging his shoulders and giving her a small smile. "I should know better by now."

She smiled back at him, before turning to look back out at the stars outside, settling into the comfortability of him standing beside her in nothing but the light of the moon.

"Is everything alright?" He asked her quietly, his elbow brushing gently against hers. She seemed off, and he had stayed up tracking their mission status and knew she was back at base. She hadn't come to bed, and his gut was bubbling with a little bit of anxiety.

"Yea," she sighed, pressing her finger tips on the cool glass. "I just couldn't sleep after that mission. It was a lot..." She trailed off, staring up at the sky again. "I figured I was up already, I wanted to watch the sunrise. End things on a better note." It was a nice idea, to end things better than they were supposed to. A reminder that things could end okay, even if things were rocky in the beginning.

"It was, uh, it was that bad?" Leo asked, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the brick wall, so he could turn over and look towards her, silhouette outlined by the soft moon. "Do you want to talk about it? It might feel better to get things off of your chest, yea? I mean, um, maybe it won't. But I'd like to help if I can."

"May shot Andrew," she said with a shrug. "She didn't even know if the shots would kill him or not, but she did it to protect everyone. She had to...make that choice, that sacrifice. And the aftermath that was left behind, May didn't even look like herself anymore." She paused, touching three of her fingers to her lower lip, unsure if she was able to keep speaking. She felt Leo reach over and gently rest his hand on her shoulder for a moment before taking it away, a gentle reminder that she could say whatever she needed to around him.

"Sometimes this job, it asks you to sacrifice so much. And it scares me," she turned to look at him, blinking to keep the tears back. "Because what if some day, they ask me to choose between you and the team." Her chin was wobbling and Leo could tell this was an event that had pushed her near to her breaking point. It was rare for him to see her like this.

He blinked, trying to sort his thoughts and give her an appropriate response. "I would never ask you to choose me," He said after a moment. "Not over the safety of everyone else."

"I know you wouldn't," she smiled sadly at him, before turning to look back at the sunrise, just softly beginning to peak over the edge of the horizon. "But that isn't the problem. The problem is I...I don't know. I think I would choose you anyway." Her words hung in the air between them and she was scared of how he might respond.

Leo wasn't surprised by those words, he felt a similar way. He could never not choose her, no matter the price. "You know," he said after a moment of silence. "They gave me, um, the videos Ward made you record, back in his...prison thing." He shuffled for a moment, watching her tense slightly and turn to look at him.

"So you watched all of those, then?" She whispered back to him, looking at them, then back outside. She vaguely remembered making them, though when she tried to remember back at them, the moments came back to her in a blur, like she had been underwater the entire time. But she was pretty sure she was far more open than she ever traditionally was. A hint of heat started to trickle into her cheeks.

"Erm, yea, I did. I didn't know if I would ever see you again, so..." he trailed off, scratching at the back of his head, then turning to look out the window with her. "I didn't know, um, didn't know you thought about settling down. In Perthshire." He chuckled, looking over at her at the same instant she looked at him. Both smiled at the other, realizing there was nothing scary here, rather something they were both realizing they wanted. "That's in Scotland," he tagged on, stating the obvious.

"Leo, I know where Perthshire is," she looked at him, smiling. "I said it, didn't I?"

"You did, you did," he confirmed, looking back out the window. "So, uh, all those things you said...you were pretty hurt at that time, not thinking everything all the way - "

Asia cut him off with a sharp shake of her head. "I may have been out of it, but everything I've ever said about you has always been true. Every word. Everything I said, about you, about us. I meant it then and I mean it now." She looked more serious than he had ever really seen her before.

"So," she said, turning back to the window, uncrossing her arms and staring outside again, the sun now egging over the horizon even more. "What do you think we should...do about it? About everything I said?"

"For now," he said, standing up straighter and reaching over, linking his hand through hers, their fingers intertwining. "We can just watch the sunrise."

Asia couldn't help but smile as his hand squeezed hers, and she squeezed back gently. He was here, with her, like he had always promised. And neither of them were going anywhere.