Author's note: The story will not be affected by the episodes "Six minus Six" and "Lions and Lambs." All events up to "Family Holiday" do, however, and the story takes place roughly three days to a week right after it. FYI, this chapter has a flashback.
:::
Chapter 3: Pointless Nostalgic
"While we consider when to begin, it becomes too late."
There was a tremor in her voice, a slight shudder that only he would notice after years of knowing her, and it unsettled him because not much ever phased her. The situation that awaited him in Sgambelluri's lab was bound to be bleak, and it seemed with every passing minute, the mission was spiraling out of control.
Shoving himself away from the balcony railing, Six cleared his throat, hoping to pacify her.
"Don't enter the lab until I'm down there. I'll-"
"I'm already inside," she answered, and he had to stifle a groan of disbelief so it wouldn't travel over the comm.
Her location blipped on his tracking scanner, showing now, the lab's coordinates that the smaller beacon on Sgambelluri couldn't.
His lips thinned. "I said wait for me." Only Cesar, who stood waiting by the door for him, could see his irritable expression, and he tossed the scanner at the doctor, nodding for him to start their way to Holiday. "I'm forty seconds from your position."
Cesar was already halfway down the hotel's decorated hall when Six reached the double doors of the suite, black duffle bag in tow.
He heard Holiday sigh and snap off her gloves angrily.
"Well, if you weren't so stubborn, you'd already be here," she complained under her breath.
As much as he was glad her anger distracted her from the dilemma in the lab, he really didn't want to have this conversation with six other listeners.
To prove his point, a hushed voice fed into his ear over the radio, unintended, he was sure, to be heard by him. "I'd hate to be the one who pissed her off."
He recognized the accent; Samurai-two. Valenza. Besides Holiday and Cesar, Valenza was his other headache this evening, but now was not the time for chiding or questioning his decision to bring the man along on the op.
For now, both their comments remained unaddressed.
"Don't forget the flux transponder," she reminded, and he tapped his pocket to make certain the device was there.
"And Samurai," she added, as if she knew he had already reached the ignored stairwell at the end of the hall, and he could hear the irritation lacing her voice. "Get me out of this damn dress."
Valenza spoke again, louder this time, at her final transmission. "Forget what I just said."
"Keep the channel clear," Callan barked, and the radio fell to silence.
His shoes clipped the stairs as he flew down them, a flight at a time. The ending of unnecessary chatter should have been something he approved of, but without Holiday and the other agent's small talk to distract him, his mind could only drift back to the playing card in his pocket and the events of the other night.
:::
Never should he have had to set foot again on this island, but here he was, summoned by the rules of the man whose death had brought life to the barren land it used to be. A month had turned the craggy stone into fecund bramble that swallowed his shoes until he was trudging knee-deep up the foliage from the beach. Still, he could make the trip without even thinking, and now was no different, with the exception being that his teacher no longer waited patiently at the end of it.
Before all this, One's unification with the planet, he walked this path up the peak in silent introspection, relying on the stillness of the rugged terrain to alert him of any danger, but the tangle of the grass masked any approaching threat. Leaves rustled, twigs snapped, and branches swayed, moving with the wind as any attacker could.
As any one of the Numbers could. Perhaps, already, they anticipated his reaction to the future meeting.
From highest to lowest, they were all here, in one way or another, to discuss something they really didn't need to. Six flipped the playing card he held and frowned at the illustration; the King of Spades, sword in hand, declaring boldly a new reign. They had never used this card before. Its code symbolized a truth he was still coming to terms with.
A change in leadership.
For five years, even before the hope he found in Rex, he never believed One would succumb to this new plague. And death? If not by time and old age, then by one of their own hands. As it should have been. Not by unseen machines. It was an end unfitting for the world's deadliest man, and Six's gut wrenched at the shame and truth of it because One was his master, his teacher, his father.
The others never truly saw One in that light, which made it all the more painful when he was the only one who would speak for him.
And he would do the same tonight.
His family needed to remember why he battled for One on these very beaches. Two legs or four, red scales or tanned skin, One was still their teacher, still the deadliest man on the planet, and if they were still playing by the rules of the game, then this presumptuous liaison should end before it even started.
Six paused as he neared the end of the beach trail. The ground leveled out as a small reprieve from the uphill trek from the water, and the new trees seemed to sense it too, for they stopped their sporadic growth to form a clearing and only grass grew to meet the mountainside, shorter here because the heat from the lava funneled out the cave mouth to hinder it. Standing with perfected Castilian posture, Dos waited in the center of the clearing, cave entrance behind him, bathing him in the lava's sinister glow.
"Good. Now we can begin," he clipped and he remained statuesque as the figures of the other Numbers revealed themselves from the brush.
From behind him came a rustling of leaves, and Six tensed when Five grazed her shoulder against his, a dangerous smirk displacing her lips, asserting her position as the best tracker of them all. She made no sound making her way to a place on Dos's left, fully instilling in his mind her semblance of a jaguar, meticulous and lethal, stalking prey with icy devotion.
Following her, he stepped into the clearing, not bothering to mask his steps in the grass like she did, grateful that it was no longer scratching at his ankles. IV and Trey didn't either as they moved to flank him, and he didn't acknowledge Dos's intimidation tactic because it no longer worked on him.
By intentionally withholding information to make him late, the Spaniard thought he was clever reminding him of his rank. The tardiness used to throw him off in the early days because he was the lowest, but he soon realized it was not an indication of his skill or intelligence.
He stopped directly in front of Dos and held up the King of Spades between his index and middle fingers. "We already agreed that One stays leader."
They had all agreed on this same spot last month.
Nodding, Dos held his gaze. "The title and position will always remain his." Unspoken between them was the Rule; that any position in the Numbers had to be won. Natural death was no exception. If anyone passed, the order did not shuffle.
It was sloppy of him, but Dos, with his arrogant scrutiny, noticed the imperceptible slackening of his shoulders and seemed to enjoy delivering the second half of his words.
"But, we of course need an active leader. Someone to return us back to the sway we held over the world."
For the anger he felt, Six wanted to laugh dryly at the statement. Has he been blind these five years? The Golden Age he wanted to return to waned when the Event happened and all but disappeared when One fell ill.
"The world has changed, Dos."
"Into a sandbox. The perfect one for us."
Perfect? He arched an eyebrow for a definition.
Only the angle of his cane was any indication, but Dos tilted his body forward a hairsbreadth, eager to elucidate.
"Power is shifting between hands faster than sand sifts out of it. Our line of work is magnified sevenfold. For every job we did a week, there are now twenty."
Six thought even sevenfold couldn't describe the amount of jobs that stood waiting for them even as they spoke. He still tracked the channels and shadow networks and knew of the overflowing traffic that even spilled into Providence's lap. Dos' information was solid.
"The world is much more dangerous, Six," he finished. "We need to show it how much."
The soles of his hand-cobbled shoes sank back into the fertile earth and the older gentlemen tilted his chin up the slightest, but the pressing urgency of his declaration was revealed by the moonlight, lighting the ridges of his bony knuckles paling over his cane in his impatient grip.
"Then go."
Did they need his permission to continue? It didn't seem so important when One was struggling to stay human. Six clenched his jaw and didn't speak further.
At his sharp answer, half of Dos's face slipped into darkness. "Are you with us? Or are you still playing hero with Providence?"
His fingers skirted the edge of his cuffs, prepared to spring aside for his blades. He never expected the man to understand his departure, and still, the comment riled him as if he had said it the first time all those years ago. "Does it matter?"
The Spaniard's features jutted outward into the moonlight again, scrunched in cold fury. "It should if your name holds any value to you."
Six was ready to pounce. He was tired of Dos' bullshit. It was always the same thing with him. Weight shifting to rush forward, his foot dug into the sand, but the slight depression rooted him to the spot as a memory shot through his mind's eye.
Throw the sand against the wind and the wind throws it back again.
It was a lesson from early in his life. A lesson from One. His were never confined to physical training. Above all else, he valued mental conditioning. A honed mind could win battles far better than the body could.
And now, as Six stood on the edge of a fight, a fight that could shift their order, One was still guiding him from beyond the grave, warning him that battling his brothers now would be futile. He thought he could hear the man's rumbling chuckle in the breeze pushing through the tree branches.
He breathed in the zephyr and exhaled it slowly, empowered by One's presence as he confronted the Numbers.
"Does One mean anything to you?" His gaze burned into Dos's but the question was directed at all of them.
The breeze that blew between them died when the words left his mouth, and everything on the island fell still.
Metal didn't jangle on his arms, but Trey never objected to anything as long as he could continue shattering spines. Under his frock, IV's bandages ceased their writhing. Five's eyes were hidden beneath her pink fringe as she perched on a boulder, looking the most out of place, and yet the least concerned.
He wanted someone, anyone to speak, but as the silence grew, he wondered if he wanted to hear anything at all. His gut twisted when it was the cruelest of them who finally spoke, cane twisting grooves into the sand as he did.
"I'm asking you to fight with us again," Dos murmured. "If not for us, then, for One."
The words stumbled off his lips as if he had just learned the language, and in the strange, halting staccato, Six heard the straining confusion of the second most dangerous man's voice attempting to sound sincere.
It made him reevaluate everything and understand the situation more clearly, understand why this meeting was called, why no one else has spoken until this point, not Trey, not Five, not IV.
They were a sick and twisted family.
The label was...loose at best, but it was the closest word to interpret the depraved dynamic they had. Like other families, they were thrown by the death of their father, the one person who held them together, the one connection they had. Like other families, they were coping by becoming closer, by making a pact to continue his legacy. To do that, they needed him. They needed him because he was closer than any of them to One. They needed him because he not only knew their secrets, but because he knew One's.
Six was his legacy. This meeting was held for him.
He snorted at his revelation. Did One plan this all along? For the least dangerous and most compassionate to carry on the game? He'd made it clear to his teacher the path he had chosen with Providence. With Rex and Holiday.
As the least in rank, his choice shouldn't matter, but now it did, because it channeled the decision of their leader, a decision they all needed to continue with their lives.
He met every eye; Dos's locked gaze, the Cajun's awaiting stare, IV's glaring trepidation, Five's laden regard-and with her, he had to glance away, because he couldn't stare into her eyes without falling into the dangerous mischief that had once captivated him. With one look she could've changed his mind, made him reconsider the glory of his old life before Providence, before Holiday, but all his thoughts of returning dissipated the moment they fell back to her.
His decision remained the same, and he kicked at the earth to spite the Old Man for his foresight as he gave the Numbers his answer.
"Never knew you as the sentimental type, Dos."
Dos' grip tightened over his cane again as his mouth thinned and disappeared underneath his graying moustache.
"Then go."
Six paused, unsure of everything that occurred for a brief, paralyzing half-second; his steadfast decision, Dos's immediate acceptance, and One's edifying presence on the island, before turning around to take the brambled path down to the beach. In his first step and every one after, a perception, deeper and more acute than he ever experienced, possessed him.
The breeze returned again, gusting the tree leaves to applause his exit. He witnessed the blades of grass bowing for the wind, caught the wafting fragrance of gel from the unmoving prominence of Dos' pompadour. With abrasive clarity, he heard Trey's pulse increase the clinking of plates on his gauntlets, and over IV's skin, movement resumed as his bindings recoiled with an irritated rattle, and he could hear, above the cacophony, the dismayed exhale Five released from her perch on the boulder.
His new awareness made the journey back to the beach different than all the past he'd taken. The turbulent emotions that stirred within him during One's meetings weren't present- worry for his master's condition, contrition at the broadening lengths between his visits, reproach of the new direction he was willingly making.
The development was affecting, in a way he was struggling and striving to comprehend. His life, everything in it, was refined and honed, the result of methodical precision and routine. Tonight lacked the structure of any of it.
Tonight was disorienting.
He increased his lumbering trudge over the sand to the hulking assurance of the jumpjet waiting near the water.
"Six." Her voice travelling from the furthering tree line halted him. "Don't do this, love. You know he won't take no for an answer."
She stayed there, unwilling, or unable to leave the cover of the jungle.
He straightened his shoulders. "Neither will I." Dos was not One. He could make a good game of it, but he was not playing.
Across the distance, he could hear her hair sway when shook her head, but it could have been the leaves blown by the wind.
"There's absolutely nothing I can say to change your mind is there?" she murmured, mirroring the end of a conversation they once had. And more.
Six kept his gaze on the jumpjet ahead of him. "Not anymore."
"Then take this," she said, her tone biting. "I don't need to tell you what it means."
He was already spinning to face her before the tanto sliced the air towards him, and he let it stick into the sand near his feet in his desperate attempt to catch a fleeting glimpse of pink in the trees, but Five was gone.
At his feet, the moonlight glinted off half the blade not speared through the playing card attached to it- the six of diamonds.
One's island, humid and sweltering, did not produce the cold sweat that chilled his body.
An open spot in the Numbers.
His spot.
:::
He should have caught up to Cesar by now.
Six rounded the corner at the bottom of the stairwell and ran along the length of wall of the hotel's outdoor corridor.
His lips twisted downwards in contempt. It was foolish to let himself get distracted in his own reverie, foolish to let Cesar out of his sight.
He hoped the scientist had enough sense to remember to activate his suit, else he was wearing five thousand dollars' worth of stealth technology for the same reason Holiday was wearing her dress. There was a reason everyone was wearing these suits, himself included. The backlash Providence would suffer if they were identified would be sev-
An unseen force slammed him hard against the wall, abruptly cutting his thoughts short, but even though he couldn't identify his attacker, his katana was out and pressing hard against something his reflexes knew was at the height an average man's neck lay. The weapon's pressure interfered with the cloaking, and beneath the rippling distortion, Six could register Cesar's features, annoyed and glaring.
Lowering the blade, he made to move ahead of him, but the scientist, possessing a fierceness that he had never seen, continued to hold him back.
Cesar pulled the mask down briefly to break the concealment and inclined his head at the open archway inches ahead of them. Six finally heard the foreboding echo of approaching footsteps. A second past, and the opening of the archway grew dark as a shadow passed and broke the moonlight flowing through it.
In the dangerous moment, Six loathed himself. He needed to get his damn mind clear of everything that wasn't of this mission, because he'd nearly blown it. He'd let Cesar out of his sight, and, he clenched his jaw to fight back the swelling anger in his chest, it had been the scientist to correct his second mistake.
Disgusted, he broke free of Cesar's grip and slipped out the archway to confront the threat walking on the pier, a guard he was quite sure was one of Sgambelluri's. Without a sound, he shadowed the man, mirroring his steps behind him to get close enough and deliver a powerful strike to the back of his head.
Upon impact, the guard crumpled like a masterless marionette, and Six gripped his arms before he fell to the ground, dragging him back to the corridor. He set him down in a sitting position against the wall.
Cesar regarded the action with impatience and peered through the archway to check the surrounding buildings.
"Wait," Six warned before the scientist might do anything, and he knew he would because the refracted area of half-darkness in which he stood shuddered with the man's distinctive frenzy.
Grudgingly grateful as he was for moments earlier, one circumstance did not make a lifetime of experience. The machinations of the mission were approaching quickly. One error of Cesar's or his could be devastating. His teeth ground in his closed mouth; there have been many errors tonight. He had to regain control. Now that his feet were on the ground, off that restrictive balcony, he could rectify the mission before the rest of the night spiraled into chaos.
"She moved," Cesar stated. He didn't offer the scanner back.
Six tapped his earpiece. "Where are you?" he asked Holiday. His headache was returning again.
"Bakery. Eighth shop from the south end."
Even as she spoke, he darted his head out the archway as well, looking out onto the pier and the expanse of water and floating architecture beyond it. Three buildings, the hotel included, were over five stories, blocking the moonlight and looming over the farther half of the pier that connected with the promenade lined with shops. Excellent for cover. It lowered the risk of them appearing in the moonlight for a few vulnerable seconds when it interfered with the cloaking of their suits.
"Okay. Twenty seconds. Cowboy Actual," he broadcasted, "Converge on my approaching location. Samurai units take defensive point around it. Remaining units stay in position." He nodded to Cesar as he slipped onto the open pier. "Let's go."
The wood of the pier, swollen with Adriatic water, absorbed the impact of their footsteps and dulled them to soft thumps not unlike the boats rocking against it. Six made the run in three strides to reach the cover of darkness-Cesar took four.
He was actually impressed he kept up with him so well. In the five seconds more it took to finally cross over to the shop promenade, he started to consider that perhaps he'd been hasty in his assessment of the man who tonight-beyond his normal quirks-possessed concentration and composure that rivaled the other agents.
The lighting was dim in the promenade, low enough that it wouldn't disrupt their suits, still, they approached it cautiously and walked through the enclosure. At the eighth shop, even though it was dark inside, he knew that it was the bakery Holiday was holed in. The opaque veil behind the door moved slightly with a draft that blew into the shop through a broken opening in the glass.
Six and Cesar were nearly at the door. "It's me," he warned her, and the door pulled open to allow them in.
Callan nodded at their entrance, and Six immediately assessed the dark shop. His first observation was its size, maybe four or five square meters, barely fitting the four of them together with the glass display case, at which lay his second observation-a crumpled figure in a tuxedo, bound at the wrists by his belt and blinded with his jacket shrouded over his face.
Six raised in eyebrow at Callan in question of the unconscious form. The captain shook his head once. This was Holiday's work.
He finally looked at her as she leaned on the counter. She gave him no biting retort or comment for his actions tonight, and only met his gaze, regarding him with heavy eyes. The range of her emotions was something he knew well and he recognized the subtle curl of her brows and thinned lips; she was distraught. He knew the ashen pallor of her face was not only from the muted lighting outside.
Handing her the duffle bag, Six took a step closer than necessary if only for his presence to calm her. "What happened in the lab?"
Holiday took the bag silently at first, moving behind the counter and glass display case to change, although they offered little in the way of modesty. Six kept his eyes on hers, and he was grateful Cesar and Callan averted their gazes to the window.
"Cowboys, how's your position?" Callan asked over the radio, but Six knew it was only for him to speak over the sound of zippers and cloth sliding over skin in the silent bakery. The radio cackled with their responses, and he put them in the back of his mind.
"A slaughter," she murmured, slipping off her heels.
In his peripheral, he saw both men incline their heads at her words, and he, too, listened attentively to her unexpected information, waiting for her to return her eyes back to his.
She frowned deeply and she paused undressing to face him. "It was Amadeo."
Six leaned forward a hairsbreadth. "Are you sure?"
Amadeo Goretti was the man who raised Simon Sgambelluri from childhood, his uncle he never went without, publically or privately. His death meant that they'd either grossly underestimated Sgambelluri or-there were external forces at work.
His gut wrenched. Dos.
Either possibility meant that he had placed Holiday in their dangerous sight, and the paralyzing realization that he'd done so turned his stomach again. He was not leaving her side for the rest of the mission.
"Very." She was solemn and insistent and he regretted that she had been in the lab alone.
A second passed and she finally looked away to start on the zipper of her dress. "It's possible that-" she paused. "It's possible that the code might-" Her voice died in an exasperated sigh and she moved around the counter again, her back to him, holding her hair up with one hand. "Unzip me."
The bakery fell silent again and there was a shift in tension in the room. Even though it was less than a week since the incident at Moses's lab, both the Providence captain and scientist knew of their relationship in some form or another, but that didn't mean they had to be reminded of it, nor did he want to.
So he tried to do it quickly, before either had a chance to see him perform the action, but the zipper snagged, and he had to grip her waist for leverage to pull it down. Six clenched his jaw and did his best to ignore the overwhelming amount of skin as well as Callan's amused smirk.
"Thanks," she murmured and continued dressing. "It's possible that the code might not even be in there now," she repeated.
He pursed his lips. "Let's hope it is."
The captain inclined his head again, listening to the comm chatter. "Polizia is snooping around. We got about an hour before they realize what we're really up to."
Six nodded. Their check-in with Italian officials was approaching. All of them, barring the two scientists, had to be present for it, otherwise, Carabinieri would quickly deduce that six people were too much protection for two scientists attending a gala.
Now fully dressed in a stealth suit like theirs, Holiday moved to join them in the front of the bakery, and Six was actually surprised that it took her only two minutes to change out of her dress than the two hours it took for her to put it on.
"Then we'd better hurry. I have work to do," she huffed as she pulled whatever loose strands of her hair that weren't tacked by bobby pins into a high ponytail. "Real work."
Callan looked from her, to Cesar, then back to him, awaiting his command.
Six did a sweep as well, studying all of them, each of their faces an expression of anticipation, and he hoped wasn't pulling them into something much more deadly than stealing a code strand from a lab.
He pulled the mask back over his face to activate his suit as the others did the same. "Let's go."
A/N: As always, thanks so much for reading and I'd love it if you reviewed! Sorry for the delay, school kicks my butt and I wanted to make sure this was as best as I could make it for you guys :)
Pondering time for next chapter and beyond:
1. Six has a big problems if the Numbers are involved in the mess at the lab. Do you think they'd strike so soon?
2. How do you think this will affect Six and Holiday's very new level of their relationship?
3. And where's Rex in all this? The adults are all on vacation in Italy. :P