She always asked him the same question.
"Won't you come in and see him?"
He always told her the same answer.
"No."
He hated saying that word. He hated seeing those full, red lips frowning at him. He hated looking into those bright green eyes and seeing the hurt there, the sadness. He hated that he was such a coward that he couldn't even remove his sunglasses and look her straight in the face, so that she might see the hurt and sadness reflected in his own eyes. But as much as he hated seeing that pained expression on her pretty face, he knew he would hate seeing what was on the other side of that door more than anything.
He waited for her to sigh and turn away from him, to cross the threshold of the room he so desperately feared. But this time he watched as she lowered her head and closed her eyes. A pregnant silence hung in the air between them, and for one horrifying second he thought she was going to cry. But then he saw her dark brows furrow over her eyelids and her lower lip quiver with suppressed anger. She raised her head to look up at him again, opening her eyes, and this time the emotion in them was so sharp that he actually shifted uncomfortably under her gaze.
"He needs you. I know he needs you." Her voice was low, surprisingly calm for all the anger that it held.
"You don't know that." His own voice sounded weak in comparison.
"Don't give me that crap, Six."
"Dr. Holiday—"
"Exactly," she interjected, "Doctor Holiday. If either of us knows anything about what's going on in that room it's me, and I think I know what I'm talking about when I say he needs you. I don't want to hear any more excuses, Six."
He could feel the anger radiating from her body, it was such a palatable thing. It made him want to shy away from her like he tended to do, and at the same time, oddly enough, step a little closer, so that he might feel the welcome heat of her anger against his skin. He always experienced conflicting emotions when he was around Dr. Holiday.
When all he did was stare at her through his shades, Holiday said, "Good. Now get in there."
Six approached the door with obvious hesitance. He carefully punched in the code that would unlock the security pad and admit him into the room. Upon hearing the click, Six couldn't help but stiffen a little. He dreaded what was waiting for him on the other side of this door, but with Holiday waiting behind him it seemed that he no longer had a say in the matter.
The door slid open, and Six was greeted by the sound of a steady beating heart monitor, accompanied by the usual stinging brightness as the white light flooded out of the room. After regaining his vision, he saw a white bed set against the far wall. Six took a step back, but ran into Holiday, who patted his back with her signature gentle touch. He looked over his shoulder at her, seeking reassurance, and though he saw that she no longer appeared to be angry, he still couldn't rid himself of the sinking feeling in his stomach.
He froze for a moment, not wanting to move, but Holiday nudged him.
"Go on, Six. He's been waiting for you." Somehow, Six couldn't help but feel that that sounded more ominous than comforting.
When the doctor nudged him again, he was forced to take another step forward, and then another and another, until he was standing at the foot of the bed. It wasn't the bed, but the person lying in the bed that had him filled with such fear. His responsibility, his charge.
Rex didn't look as bad as when Six had last seen him, but remembering how the fifteen-year-old had gotten in this bed in the first place made Six feel like he was going to be sick. His chest tightened and his stomach rolled with, not nausea, but guilt, and he was about to turn and leave when Holiday grabbed his arm. The urgency in her grip caused him to look up and glare at her.
It was his turn to get angry.
"Let go of me, Dr. Holiday." His voice was as monotone and stoic as always, but Holiday knew him well enough to recognize when he was pissed.
"Please, Six. Stay. It's been a week since he went into the coma and you haven't set a foot in this room until now. I know you miss him, even if you'll never admit it to yourself."
Six tried to pry her fingers from his arm, but she held onto him like a vise. Couldn't she see how awful being in this room made him feel? How much it hurt him to see the kid lying there on the bed as a result of his negligence?
"Just stay for a little while. Sit beside him. Talk to him."
Six arched an eyebrow. "Talk to him? Dr. Holiday, he's asleep."
Holiday rolled her eyes.
"So? That doesn't mean you can't talk to him." She paused, and then added softly, "When he wakes up, I want to be able to tell him that you were there for him."
Ouch.
"Holiday, we don't even know if he'll remember who we are when he wakes up, or even if he'll wake up at all." It was blunt, he knew, but she was really pushing him. Did she think that he already didn't feel guilty enough?
Holiday's eyes widened, and Six felt his heart give a little shudder as the pain flashed across her face again, quickly replaced by an icy stare.
"Don't talk like that, Six…"
"It's the truth, doctor. Deal with it."
She frowned with disgust and released his arm as if touching him was suddenly repulsive to her.
"Fine," she growled, "If that's how you feel then maybe you should just leave. Maybe I was wrong in thinking that you actually cared about him."
She'd just crossed a line.
"You don't know what the hell you're talking about," Six spat. He then turned swiftly on his heel to leave, not noticing that the heart monitor was beating more rapidly.
"Stop it..."
Both Agent Six and Dr. Holiday froze for a second, and then in unison whipped around to look at the sleeping Rex. They watched as the teenager's brows twitched and his mouth moved slightly, forming some incoherent mumbles, silence following shortly after.
Six felt his heart pumping with bizarre force, pounding inside his chest so quickly that it hurt.
Holiday gasped, and Six saw something in her eyes that made him forget his anger towards her entirely. It was the look of a mother.
He watched silently as Holiday rushed over to the monitors sitting on the left side of Rex's bed. After a moment, she turned around to look at Six with wide, shocked eyes.
"He... he's responded," she said, "I can't believe it. He hasn't so much as twitched a finger since..." she trailed off, looking down at Rex's face. He appeared more relaxed now, and slowly the monitor's beating returned to a normal sleeping heart rate.
Six saw that maternal look on Holiday's face again as she smiled down at the unconscious boy with warm affection. She reached out her slender hand and stroked his hair once, twice, and then continued to run her fingers through it. Seeing the way she looked at him, as if he were the most important and precious thing in the whole world, made Six feel. Strange.
"I'm sorry about what I said," Holiday suddenly spoke, "I know you care about him, and I know that seeing him like this bothers you. But it really does mean the world to me that you're here with him. And I—"
"Could you... not?"
"What?" Holiday's hand froze in Rex's hair, and she looked up at the agent with a puzzled expression.
"Could you just not touch him like that?"
Holiday blinked twice, trying to find her voice, and then asked, a little suspiciously, "Why?"
Six grunted and fidgeted, uncomfortable with the situation he had put himself in. He didn't like having to explain himself.
"It's just... bugging me," he said evasively.
But then Holiday smirked. Uh-oh.
She removed her hand from Rex's hair and said, rather smugly, "You can do it if you want to."
Six arched a brow, noticing the complacent smile on her face.
"Don't get too cocky, Dr. Holiday," he said, trying to stay cool.
There was a lengthy pause before Holiday spoke, her voice gentle and swelling with emotion, "Come here, Six."
A defeated Six shuffled over to Holiday. As the agent came closer to Rex, he couldn't stop his eyes from roving over the boy's sleeping form—he looked peaceful, much less broken than when Six had carried him in, bruised and bleeding and slipping into a deep unconsciousness that Six had not yet known would be a coma. The last thing the kid had said to him was, "Nnn-y-you… your… fau-lt…"
"You do it like this," Holiday burst through his reverie, taking his hand in hers. He felt a spark where her skin met with his, but it was dulled by his overwhelming emotions of hurt and guilt.
She led the agent's hand over to Rex and placed it on the boy's head. The kid's face twitched at the touch, and he mumbled something Six couldn't decipher. Six wondered how it must've felt, going from the feel of Holiday's smooth and gentle fingers to Six's hard and calloused ones resting awkwardly in the same place. He suddenly felt very out of his element. Vulnerable.
Nonetheless, he watched Rex closely, who was propped up in a semi-sitting position against two large pillows. The boy's head lay turned a little to the side, one of his arms rested across his stomach and the other (in a cast) by his side, the palm facing up. He looked so... helpless, much less like the world's only hope and more like the teenage boy that he was.
Six felt his insides twist. He'd always expected so much from the kid, always thought he could handle whatever he dished out to him, but he'd never once done anything to show Rex how much he cared. And now it was too late.
"…It's my fault you're in here, in this condition," Six spoke, not even sure if the kid could hear him. "I should've been looking out for you, should've been paying closer attention. You're my responsibility—I'm supposed to protect you. That EVO—" Six stopped, an image passing through his mind of Rex being thrown into the air, colliding headfirst into a brick pillar, and then the EVO repeatedly smashing him into the ground. Six had been close enough to hear the bones snap… The agent winced, trying not to remember that particular part. After he'd lured the EVO away from Rex, he'd finished it off in such a way that everyone onboard the Keep steered clear of him for days, even Dr. Holiday.
Holiday frowned, watching Six's face. It was still stoic and frozen in its usual scowl, but she could sense the guilt festering inside of him.
"Don't burden yourself with that, Six. Never think that way. It wasn't your fault."
"The last thing he said to me was that it was my fault, Dr. Holiday."
"That doesn't sound like Rex…" Holiday mused, her eyes narrowing skeptically before she continued, "No one could've known—"
"He's a fifteen-year-old boy. A child. 'No one could've known' my ass," Six muttered.
Holiday recoiled at Six's blunt words, averting her eyes to the monitors but not really looking at them. Six was right, of course. She'd always said that White and Six shouldn't rely so much on Rex, that he was only a kid and that a teenage boy was only capable of so much—
The beeping heart monitor caught Holiday's attention then, and she realized there'd been a change in his pulse. She looked up, carefully assessing the other monitor screens, and her eyes bulged at what she saw.
Six nearly jumped upon hearing Holiday gasp.
"He's waking up!" she nearly screamed, unable to contain her excitement. "Six, he's—!"
"I heard you," Six said, reluctantly removing his hand from Rex's hair and stuffing it in his jacket pocket. He didn't know whether to be happy or panicked, and settled for both. He became very still, watching Rex's eyelids flutter and his fingers twitch. Then he decided to ask the doctor what he'd been dreading all along, his voice quiet and so unlike himself.
"What if he doesn't remember us? Remember me?" Six wondered how he'd feel if he looked into Rex's eyes and was met with nothing but a blank stare, and decided that he'd literally rather die than experience that.
Holiday stiffened, and Six knew that she knew it was likely Rex would suffer another blackout.
"…We'll worry about that when he's fully conscious," she said quietly. She then began to gently shake Rex's shoulder, trying to coax him out of his coma by saying his name.
Slowly, Rex's eyes opened, but upon being met with the startlingly white light of the room he snapped them shut again and grimaced. He blinked rapidly several times, adjusting to the light, and then he rubbed his eyes with his unbroken hand.
"Rex?" Holiday said the boy's name gently, warmly, and Six felt comforted by the sweet sound of her voice. "Rex? Do you know where you are? Do… do you know who I am?" She glanced meaningfully at Six before adding, "Who we are?"
Rex turned his head to look up at them, one of his brows arched and the other furrowed in a confused expression.
Please. Please remember me, kid. Six repeated the silent wish to himself, watching Rex watching them, the boy's eyes shifting between the doctor and the agent.
Then Rex smiled his crooked, charming smile at them and said, "How could I forget you, Dr. Holiday?"
Six saw Holiday's shoulders relax, her expression soften as the relief settled over her. Then, like the mother she felt she was to Rex, Holiday brushed some hair out of his eyes, a smile lighting up her pretty face.
Rex tried to sit up, gasping and gritting his teeth when he felt the broken ribs that had not yet healed. Holiday helped him slowly sit up in the bed, and when he finally managed to stay upright, Rex turned to Six.
"Can't forget my aggro ninja-nanny either, now can I?" he said, punching Six's shoulder playfully, but cringing as a shock of pain shot up his arm. He hissed, but smiled as if it was nothing, "Heh... ouch."
Six felt his own body slump as the tension left him. Rex remembered him. Rex knew who he was. Right then, nothing could've been better to hear.
Rex's smile faltered, and then he frowned and looked down at his hands.
"Um, Six?" He looked up at his handler questioningly, as if he expected the agent to scold him. "I... I just want you to know that... before... I was trying to say, 'Not your fault.'"
Six felt his whole body tense up again, but not from guilt and anxiety. He was trying to put up his walls against the barrage of emotions that were threatening to undo him, while at the same time letting the last remains of guilt and self-loathing leave him for good.
Holiday turned to give Six that 'I told you so' smile, and Six met her eyes through his sunglasses. In that one locked stare, all was forgiven between them, all the apologies were said, all the hurt and guilt was over. It was finished.
Rex smiled up at Agent Six, and, failing to keep his fondness from getting the better of him, Six reached out and ruffled the boy's hair, a small smile cracking on his lips.
Darned kid.
