Having no access to any form of technology, made every aspect of her investigation a real pain as she had to usually write everything by hand and wait for Six to bring her printed documents that could help with her studies, usually forgetting some specific aspects she needed and having to delay the investigation for another day. But she couldn't blame him for that, he had already done so much for her.
She raised her head from the dinner table she was using as a support to write more crazy theories and glanced at her bed. Rebecca noticed the man in the green suit sitting with his back against the wall, seemingly asleep. Smiling, Holiday sighed and stood up, stretching her cramped hands and carefully walking towards the man so as not to scare him and wake him up. She bent over slightly to take his glasses off and gently lay his body down in her bed.
"Holiday..." She heard him mumble in his sleep and she smiled again.
"Shh... I'm safe, I'm fine. Keep sleeping." Holiday whispered, placing his glasses on her bedside table and covering his body with the bed sheets.
It was quite late, past their dinner time, so she wondered if she should wake him up or simply let him sleep and find another place to sleep to not make it more awkward than it already was. Holiday knew that perhaps the smell of her fruity shampoo on her pillows, would wake him up after a while. Hopefully he wouldn't be angry with her for not waking him up and letting him fall asleep on her bed.
She simply sat on the floor and let her head rest gently against the wooden bed, as far to his head as she could, just to avoid any frightening moment if the man woke up disoriented. She knew perfectly well how quick his reflexes were and how strong his grip was, so she didn't want to end up injured.
Rebecca fell asleep almost immediately, embracing herself and remembering the words of her sister in the letters she had been reading before Six returned for their dinner.
You will succeed, I'm sure. You have no idea of how much I miss you.
She couldn't tell how many hours she had been sleeping, but something woke her up after a while. Holiday couldn't really tell what it was, but her room was now dark and she had something draped over her. It had a strong male scent that quickly made her remember where she was and with whom. Six was still sleeping in her bed or so she thought, since there was still someone's hand lying off from her bed and touching her head, making her wonder how he had turned around without waking her up at all.
His jacket still felt warm, so perhaps he had gone back to sleep just a few moments ago. It was not normal for someone like him to still be sleeping on her bed after noticing that she was sitting against it, dozing off on the floor. But then the man moved and his hand, on her head, caressed her hair as he sat up, feeling as disoriented as she thought he would. She tried to get up to turn on her bedside table lamp, but her body felt numb from the position she had kept for hours.
"Holiday..." His muffled voice was part of a long yawn she never thought she would ever hear coming from Six. "What time is it?"
"Could you check it for me? I've been sitting here for a while now and I'm afraid my body is a bit sore." He didn't reply to that, but she had to blink a couple of times and cover her mouth to stop a yawn of her own, as soon as he turned on her bedside table lamp and looked around for his glasses, still confused as to why he was sleeping in her bed while she was sitting on the floor, wearing his jacket.
"It's midnight already. Why didn't you wake me up?" He asked, taking the bed sheets off his body and standing up to lend her a hand and help her stand up as well. She wobbled for a moment, so his hand held her arm as she awkwardly fell against his body.
"I'm sorry, Six. I wanted to, but you seemed so tired that I thought you deserved to get some sleep. We were in the middle of discussing part of the research together, but then all I heard was my own voice as you were asleep, sitting on my bed, leaning against the wall." She obviously lied, since there was no actual discussing, but she thought that he was still too disoriented to really remember how he ended up in her bed.
"So, you decided to just sit next to the bed and sleep in an uncomfortable position?" She thought he didn't really realize what he was implying as she tried as hard as she could not to blush and, instead, raised one of her eyebrows, looking up at his brown eyes.
"I don't think you would've appreciated it if I had slept in the same bed with you, right?"
His brain felt jammed, so he decided to simply help her sit on her bed and then take his glasses from the bedside table as she thought it was odd that his fingers were shaking a little. She was still wearing a pair of thigh-length jeans and a white T-shirt, which he was glad was not as revealing as her pajama shorts.
"I will go back to my room so you can get a proper sleep," he said, placing his glasses back on his face. She nodded but then, even in her tired state, had to ask him something.
"You haven't been sleeping much, am I correct?" Holiday asked, her medical brain seeming to be awake enough to notice the symptoms. "You literally fell asleep and even covered me with your jacket without even knowing what you were doing," she decided to leave out the part about his hand over her head as she handed his jacket back.
"I don't need an evaluation right now," he said.
"Don't lie to me; even your fingers are shaking and they never do. Your reflexes are too quick and too good to be shaking at all."
"My hands aren't shaking," he said, but still raised both of his hands to look at them. "Whatever Rex said isn't..."
"You've been going to each mission with them, right?" She asked, crossing her arms. "You literally fell asleep in my bed. Six...I'm worried about you..." She tried to hold one of his hands, but he moved away from her and put his jacket back on, shaking his head.
"I'm fine and I can handle it," he said before giving her a quiet "good night" in a whisper, leaving her alone with her thoughts. She fell onto her bed and stared up at the ceiling, shaking her head before finally letting out the tears she desperately needed to relieve the stress of everything.
The morning was quite different as she woke up later than usual and felt her throat sore after crying herself to sleep. Sitting on her bed, she noticed that she hadn't changed into her pajamas and was still wearing what she had worn the day before. Standing and stretching her still sore body, Rebecca looked for a glass to fill with water and try to make her throat feel normal again.
She couldn't tell if Six was just busy or if he had decided to let her sleep a bit more, or if he was angry with her because of their midnight conversation about his mental and physical health but perhaps it was better if she just went back to her notes and stopped focusing on thoughts that only caused her pain.
A shower seemed like a good starting point.
Turning her shower on, she folded neatly her discarded clothes and upon entering the shower, shook her head a couple of times to release the tension in her shoulders. Even though she had slept the rest of the night and part of the morning in her bed, her legs still felt shaky and her hands were quite numb as if the mere idea that she could be making everyone around her suffer was taking a toll on her physical health.
"C'mon, Rebecca, control yourself," she whispered to herself in the shower, leaning her wet head against the cold white tiles and staring at the water running through the drain. "You aren't just another member of this huge facility, but also an integral part of the team. He voluntarily decided to take care of you, as did Rex and Bobo, and even White. You're as important as any of them and..." But shaking her head again and spitting out the water she was retaining on her mouth from talking to herself, Holiday knew that part of Rex's words were right. If the confinement didn't end making her go crazy, then it would end having the same effect in the ones around her at some point. She felt her hands shaking again and decided that it was enough. She would take another shower after lying in bed for a while to try and collect herself enough to properly function.
She couldn't understand why her health was declining so badly if she had been fine the days prior to her discussion with Six, but her entire body felt as rigid as a rock. As soon as she tried to raise one of her legs to step out of the shower, the numbness in her toes made her entire body collapse against the crystal door's railing, pushing hard enough to break part of the glass. She awkwardly fell to her knees, with all her weight, pushing her skin against the protruding aluminum border that served as support for the sliding doors.
"Shit..." was her only word as her entire body collapsed to the floor and soon she felt the sharp pain of open wounds in her hands and knees. She thought that if she were on one of the upper floors, the thud would be loud enough for everyone to notice that something had fallen quite hard. That and all the broken glass that was now on her bathroom floor and sticking out from one of her bleeding hands.
Crawling on the floor to at least grab a towel to cover herself, the scene looked like something straight out of a horror movie, leaving drops and stains of blood everywhere. She barely managed to cover herself with the towel and crawl enough to sit against one of the bathroom walls.
A medical kit was needed, but she didn't even know if she had one or if it was at hand. She couldn't concentrate enough to remember anything, and all she wanted was to simply lie there and close her eyes for a moment, trying to stop the numbing pain that, like waves, was making her wish she weren't alone in there, even if she was all wet and naked.
"Holiday, are you awake?" She heard Six's voice from behind the door, but she knew she couldn't do anything about it. The door could be opened only from the inside, but she supposed they had another method to break in if it was necessary. She raised her bloodied hand and tried to take the pieces of glass, hissing each time she pulled too hard. Six's voice was still asking if she was awake, and as the minutes passed, the man seemed to knock even harder.
"Six..." she whispered, but even after all the water she managed to drink, her throat was still hurting after hitting the floor with such force. Her internal prayers were heard as soon as she heard the clicking of the door opening and the man stepping inside and placing her usual breakfast on her dinner table, looking around and then glancing to the half-open door of her bathroom and the stains of blood that weren't there the night before.
"Holiday!" he exclaimed at her, but she didn't look up immediately as she was busy trying to take the largest piece of glass out of the palm of her right hand. The man quickly held her other hand and stopped her from doing so, as gently as he could, dropping it just as he could turn the shower off and start asking questions that she was too numb to respond to. He asked, "Can you stand?" But then he noticed the wounds on her legs and knees and decided against it. "Hold onto the towel as much as you can and I will take you to your bed," he decided, inclining himself to cover her as well as possible with the blood-stained towel to hold her in his arms and sit her on the bed, lying against the same wall he had fallen asleep against the night before, so she could keep her legs stretched out towards him.
Kneeling in front of her, he decided to take off his vest and cover her with it, hoping that it wasn't too cold after he had been out in the snow with Rex on another of their usual missions. It was long enough to cover her almost completely from the waist up, as he was obviously taller than her, and it helped to keep her modesty while he thought of the quickest way to fix the problem.
"Rex..." He turned on his ear communicator and hoped that no one could hack it while he was talking. "I need a medical kit from the medical ward, quickly!"
"What!? What happened? Where are you!? Is Holiday okay!?"
"Don't ask questions and do what I'm ordering you. Bring it to the underground chamber, now!" Taking off his black gloves, Six then looked up at Holiday before taking one of her feet and moving it as carefully as possible. "Can you feel anything? Is anything broken?" She shook her head. At least that was what she thought. Her pain seemed to be just bruises and a few cuts here and there, making her wonder how on earth she hadn't broken or twisted anything.
He then removed each piece of glass he could find and looked at how deep the cuts were. Going back to the bathroom, Six returned with a wet hand towel to clean her hands and knees as she hissed in pain again.
"How did this even happen, Holiday?" His brows furrowed as she seemed too confused to say something.
"I... don't know. My leg just stopped responding and I couldn't keep my balance on the wet floor." Before he could even reply to her words, a loud knock on the door made Six stand up as if he had been spring-driven, to open the door for Rex, whose eyes were as big as plates after looking at the pieces of glass and the wounds on the woman's legs and hands.
"What the..." he started, not knowing what to say after seeing the state the bathroom was in.
"This will hurt for a while," Six said, but she didn't know the reason why. As a doctor, she knew how the hydrogen peroxide worked with the wounds. His hands weren't shaking as much as she had seen them shaking the night before, and that made her wonder if he finally had enough rest for at least one night. She preferred to hold onto that thought as he diligently cleaned each wound and covered them with bandages.
"How are we supposed to get her clothes to wear?" He heard Rex ask and then knew why he was asking such a question. None of them wanted to go through her wardrobe and have to pick a pair of underwear for her.
She told them "I will do it once I can stand by myself." Warily, looking at both of them looking at each other. "All I need is to rest."
"Stay wearing that," Six told her as he stood up and walked to the bathroom to wash his hands. "I have enough of these."
"Thank you," Holiday whispered, covering herself with it as Rex decided to also cover her legs with her bed blankets, obviously looking away and as flushed as he had ever felt before.
She knew she had to eat her breakfast, but at that moment all she wanted to do was curl up in bed and close her eyes, forgetting all that had happened.
"Does it hurt anywhere else?" Six asked, even though he knew the woman was completely naked and wouldn't let him see. "Can you take care of any other wounds without our help?"
"I think I can manage," she replied, placing both her hands on the mattress and pushing herself up as much as she could, so she could lie on the bed and cover herself entirely with the blankets.
"I will bring you new, clean bed sheets after we clean the bathroom," Six said, but she was tired of hearing it. Tired of knowing she couldn't do it by herself and had to rely so much on them to survive. She was an independent woman and, as much as she enjoyed his company or Rex's, she felt completely useless.
Had her courage ended after her talk with Six the night before?
She was hurting them both and she couldn't stand it.