Author's notes: This takes place during the movie, before Fred meets his father at the end. Slight AU-ish. I don't ship Tomafred, but my junior does, and it is an interesting take on GoGo and Fred's relationship. This junior has given me amazing support, and she's a great fangirl too. Hope readers enjoy, do leave a review, and Happy New Year! Dedicated to centerfudge~
GoGo pops her gum one last time and spits it out into the trash can. Hiro's busy giving their suits upgrades, and after spending close to six hours speeding around in her suit for Hiro to take notes, she thinks she really needs a breath of fresh air. So she makes her way outside the building (They'd made the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology their temporary headquarters after one of Wasabi's lasers managed to destroy a considerable number of rooms in the mansion). Heathcliff's eye twitched just the slightest when he informed the six of them that repairs would take roughly three days, and that was the biggest reaction GoGo's ever seen coming out of him.
GoGo expects she'd be alone, since Hiro and the rest of the group were in the Nerd Lab, making new armor. She doesn't expect to see Fred seated on the grass, his feet sprawled out, staring at a photo he cradled in his hands. For a while, GoGo debates turning and heading back to the lab, but as much as she doesn't seem to care, she does feel a bit bad for causing so much trouble in Fred's mansion, as much as the latter didn't mind. So GoGo mentally braces herself to withstand whatever annoying quirks and fanboying Fred would send her way, and seats herself down on the grassy patch beside him.
"Woah, GoGo!" Fred flinches in surprise, almost falling down when he backed away from her instinctively. GoGo rolls her eyes and grunts back a 'hi'. Fred offers her a tentative smile and goes back to staring at the photograph. GoGo rolls her eyes again and closes them for a while, trying to enjoy the cool breeze blowing against her finally armor-less skin (She loved that yellow armor, sure, but she was sweating buckets after spending so many hours in it).
"Hey, GoGo?" Fred pauses, almost as if he was awaiting the punch to his shoulder that usually came after he spoke to her. "Do you," He continues after GoGo makes no move to hit him, "Do you ever feel… lonely?"
GoGo's eyes open so fast that Fred flinches. She swivels her head towards him, a questioning light in her eyes. "Yea. Sometimes. What's it to you?"
"I… My parents were never around much, ever since I was little," Fred begins. He raises the photograph in his hands slightly, and GoGo edges closer to take a look at it, assuming that was what Fred wanted her to do. It's dark, it being night and all, but she can vaguely make out that it's a family photo. Fred's family photo, to be exact. There's a tall man that takes up most of the picture, with salt and pepper hair and kind eyes behind his shades. There's a woman with teased hair, a slight amber tinge to it. Beside her is a young Fred, and GoGo can't help but think that he has his mother's hair and eyes, but his father's large, somewhat squashed nose.
"Ta- Hiro didn't have parents, but he has- had Tadashi. And now he has Baymax," He falters at the mention of Tadashi, and GoGo almost flinches at it too, because while they've all moved on from the tragedy, it still didn't mean that they don't miss their best friend anymore.
"Honey Lemon's always so bubbly and happy, like the rest of the family." GoGo inwardly nods. Visiting Honey's relatives for Christmas had been a disaster.
"Wasabi's parents are eccentric, but they care for him a lot." GoGo thinks about Wasabi's cautious mother and his somewhat boisterous and messy father, and has to withhold a chuckle.
"Then where does that leave me? I know I act cheerful and plain goofy most of the time, but sometimes," Fred swallows visibly, "I just feel so lonely."
GoGo stares at Fred, because of all people, Wasabi, even, she'd never expect Fred to be the one to be lonely. A part of her feels guilty about that. And that's when GoGo Tomago thinks maybe Fred knows a thing or two about loneliness as well.
"When we first met, and I realised how defensive and cold you were, I thought- I thought maybe you'd understand too. The feeling of being lonely," The tips of Fred's ears redden. "After, after we lost Tadashi, I was scared. Scared that one by one, all of you would leave me. That our friendship would fall apart." Fred's eyebrows furrow a little, and he struggles to voice his feelings into words. "Cos, cos-"
"Cos I never had friends like you guys. Or a family before."
GoGo does the first thing she can think of. She punches his shoulder.
"Don't be stupid," She gripes, as Fred rubs the sore spot on his arm. "Of course I know how suffocating it is to be alone. How painful it is being in an empty house. Not really having a place you can call home. Not having parents there to welcome you back." For a while, GoGo's eyes grow a little distant- She's always been the outcast, until meeting Fred, Tadashi, Honey Lemon, Wasabi and now, Hiro and Baymax, but she's never expected Fred to feel the same way too.
"And of course you have a family. That family's us." GoGo jabs her thumb to her chest authoritatively, but her eyes soften as she stares right into Fred's blue ones, so that her point rides across. Fred's speechless for a moment, before he breaks into a smile too. He slips the photo back into his pocket and withdraws another one- GoGo can see that it's the recent one the six of them have taken. There's Honey Lemon, giving a peace sign and a cheery smile. There's Wasabi, with a polite smile and his head raised 90 degrees so that he's facing the camera exactly straight. There's Hiro and Fred, grinning and waving at the camera. And beside Fred there's GoGo, looking rather unamused, but with a small, contented smile all the same. Both of them stare at the photo together a while, and GoGo thinks that for once, the silence between them is rather calming.
"… Are we actually having a moment?"
"Don't ruin it."
(But even GoGo has to smile a little at that.)