Requested fic for a deary friend on Tumblr. So I sincerely hope that you enjoy it as much as we do.
What day it was, she couldn't even tell anymore, but these four or more walls she was forced to live in, had become the only safe space she recognized. Looking at her wristwatch, it was almost time for her regular visit. If it wasn't for her already growling stomach, she wouldn't even mind at all. What difference would it make it anyways?
"Knock knock." Six's voice could be heard outside of the secret passage in which she was reclused. It had all she needed to properly function, but she couldn't deny that she missed the possibility of breathing the fresh air outside of Providence or even simply stepping outside of the underground level she was in.
"Good morning," she told him, stepping aside so he could enter. His hands were full with dishes and beverages, and she wondered how he could balance them all while walking.
She never told him anything too specific, but he seemed to be prone to bring her sweets and other things he thought she might enjoy while spending her time on the research that ended up becoming as dangerous as none of them had expected. The company behind the life-threatening messages she received, seemed to be some kind of group of gangsters that needed the information she was researching, or her specifically, to finally discover a mystery around the EVOs that she had been cracking a few months prior.
He had no idea how they had even discovered that she was on the case as well, but perhaps they had someone leaking the information and White had to discover who it was before it was too late.
To say that Six was worried for Holiday's wellbeing was an understatement.
His eyes fixated on the fact that she was still wearing her pajamas, but this time they were much shorter than he remembered. His eyes, perfectly concealed behind his sunglasses, looked at her pajama shorts and her bare feet as she brushed her hair.
"Anything new to report?" She asked after leaving her hairbrush on her new bathroom, arching an eyebrow at his silence and then realizing that it was the first time she had ever received him while still in her pajamas since she had been hiding there.
"So far, we haven't found who leaked the information about your research. Rex has been working hard to find our target. He thinks that you will end up going crazy if you keep spending your days here." Pushing his glasses up, Six arranged the dishes on the table to eat with her as usual. "So, White asked me to ask you about your mental health and give him a full report of my findings."
"You, analyzing my mental health?" She asked, sitting in front of the man who was already sitting in his usual place and opening a can of what looked like iced coffee or something like that. "I thought I was the doctor of Providence."
"Well, then, you tell me how you feel from your own experience."
She looked at the menu while pondering his words. Holiday didn't know that Six could cook as well as he did, but he seemed to enjoy being the one up for the task and she couldn't even tell him no, as much as she wanted to. She was practically useless in terms of cooking since she was usually busy with her job; so Beverly was the one who used to cook for her and leave cute notes to cheer her up while working.
But since she needed to be hidden from everyone for her own safety, Holiday had been forced to cut any ties with her sister to avoid also targeting her and putting her life in danger as well.
"Eggs and bacon," she said, apparently not just to herself, as Six nodded, lifting his head up from his meal.
"An American tradition."
"How's Beverly doing? I guess she's safe."
"Rex visits her from time to time to tell her, as secretly as possible, about your current situation. There are troops watching the house at every hour. I haven't talked with her at all since she isn't allowed to put a foot inside Providence to not raise any suspicion, and it would be extremely weird if I went to the house myself. If they're following each one of our movements to finally find you, of course."
"Well, you can tell White that so far I'm as sane as I can be. No imaginary friends, so I suppose he doesn't have anything to worry about. Tell Rex the same."
"He will come to visit you today, I think. He even made a list of scientific topics you might be interested in talking about." That made her smile, and Six noticed a glint of something like motherly love in her green eyes.
"As if I need a scientific topic to just talk with someone," she laughed, opening her canned drink that seemed to be melon juice. She really appreciated that Six had brought enough options since she wasn't up for coffee that morning.
The rest of their breakfast went quiet as Six read what she had found out so far, wondering how she could still think of cracking the case after having been confined because of it. Her commitment was something he half admired and half didn't understand too much.
"Must be boring up there without me," she joked for a moment, but Six thought that she was expecting him to say that it indeed was; that she was deeply missed even if she was still on Providence, but not doing what she usually did in the place she should be doing it.
"Terribly boring. You don't even have any idea of how annoying it is to take care of Rex and Bobo by myself. As much as I don't admit it quite often, we really need your feminine touch to change our awkward dynamic."
"If you want my advice, you should always double-check what these two say, especially Rex. One minute he's promising you that he will be in his bedroom, and the next moment you know he has already escaped and is in trouble for some reason."
Six took one of the boxes he had brought with him that she hadn't even noticed, which contained chocolates with different flavors. Holiday thought she read "strawberry" on the back of the package.
She knew that he did it as a good gesture, but couldn't stop thinking that in another context it almost counted as if they were dating and he was bringing her a Valentine's gift.
"Chocolates." She remarked the obvious as the man nodded, opening the box for her and leaving it on the table so she could be the first one to pick. "Thank you..."
"I should have asked first, but then I thought you would like this brand."
"Did Rex tell you something that Beverly must have told him about my preferences in sweets?"
"To be honest, Rex doesn't talk too much about his conversations with Beverly. But I strongly believe he doesn't just visit her to win her heart and make out with her behind your back."
That almost made her laugh, if it wasn't for Six's serious expression. Beverly wasn't that reckless, even if she was literally just back to her normal life. And she knew that Rex had another girl in mind. She picked one of the chocolates shaped like bonbons with a jelly-like texture inside, and shook her head after the first bite.
"Black licorice," she told him. Six smirked, crossing both of his arms and reclining on the back of his chair.
"Sorry?" he told her, but she finished it anyway and shrugged. The intention was what counted more than whatever flavors the box had.
Holiday supposed that the box was all for herself since she knew that Six wasn't too fond of sweets, so she took another and then stood up to look for something she had been working on for their next visit, making Six having to stare at the floor to avoid looking at her, bending in front of him, in those pajama shorts that she seemed to have forgotten she was wearing.
"I almost forgot that I had to give you this," she said, finally turning around and arching an eyebrow at the way he was staring at his shoes as if they were the most amazing thing he had ever seen. "I remember you telling me that White wanted me to write an entire journal of my daily activities, so I suppose this counts as a report that I'm as sane as I can be, having to be confined here for my own protection."
"Right, your journal," he said, glancing up after making sure she was back in her chair and it was safe to look at her again. "It isn't as we expected something to happen here, as we did everything possible to conceal your location. However, a daily report of your activities helps us to know how secure you are here, since we still don't know who could have leaked your investigation to these gang members."
Holiday couldn't help but have a funny image in her mind of all these silly video games Rex liked to play, where for some strange reason, the main protagonist always left notes to talk about their fate, but never did anything to escape from their captors or the malevolent entity following them. It was as if they expected to enter one day into the secret passage and find one of her journal notes written in her own blood in a hurry.
"Well, as the door can only be opened from the inside, I sincerely doubt that they could enter without anyone noticing first."
"Unless they bring an entire army of EVOs, so anything could still be possible," Six reminded her and she hoped that he was just expressing genuine concern and not just simply joking. But it was hard to tell, since his definition of joking was to just say something sarcastic while maintaining his stoic face or just barely smiling. And he wasn't smiling.
Six glanced at his own wristwatch and then arched an eyebrow. She supposed that his visit time had ended and that perhaps it was time for Rex to come by. As much as she didn't want to admit it, those visits, especially Six's visits, were the ones that mostly kept her still sane. She loved her job as much as anyone else could, but those interactions were what she missed the most.
"I will be here by lunch. Perhaps it will coincide with Rex's visit and then we can all eat together like in the old times." He said, standing up and picking one of the chocolates from the plastic box. "Bobo kept nagging me to get him some of these as well, but I will just take this one with me since I didn't buy them for these two."
She smiled at his words, even though he had already his back turned to her and was collecting any trash they had left behind or anything else that needed to be cleaned for her. If he was buying her sweets with money of his own and not because White asked him to, then those sweets meant even more to her than anything else he could do. Of course, she still enjoyed his cooking.