"Tomorrow is Christmas Eve," said Claire.
Sierra Six appeared not to hear. He stared ahead, his hands firmly locked on the steering wheel. His attention flickered in regular rotation between the freeway, the side mirrors, and the rearview mirror. Endlessly vigilant.
They'd been five months on the run after Six rescued Claire, moving from country to country like indecisive migrating birds. Claire had seen the backstreets of 'Frisco and the geysers of Iceland in less than two weeks. Sure, when she'd been with Uncle Fitz, she got accustomed to moving round — but the Gray Man covered more ground in a month than Donald Fitzroy had in a year.
The two were now driving across Cyprus in their latest acquisition, a smoky brown Wrangler. They'd been through so many different vehicles that Claire had lost track, but Six seemed to have a definite penchant for jeeps.
Outside, the night flashed past. Freeway lane markers and waving shrubs caught the light from the car's powerful high-beams, before disappearing in a blur.
Claire turned her head. Her straight, dark hair was frizzy with static from brushing against the seat covers.
"I said, it's Christmas Eve tomorrow."
"Yeah, I know," said Six. He changed gears as they approached a hill. "Kinda hard not to, when the radio stations won't play anything but 'Joy to the World' and 'Little Town of Bethlehem'."
Claire cocked an eye at him.
"Do agents get a Christmas?"
"Haven't in the past, no."
"Well, you should. We should."
"No." Six kept his eyes trained on the road. "We still have a few vultures on our tail after Syria."
Vultures.
They could be anywhere out there. Five miles behind them on the freeway. Waiting in the next town. Waiting in the next boat. Ready to press a gun to Claire's head and tell the Gray Man to stand down.
At least there wasn't a chance Lloyd was among them. The only place he existed now was in her nightmares. (Or so she hoped.)
Claire pressed her hands into one another. She stuck her chin forward. Her voice held only the slightest quaver as she asked: "Would you have celebrated Christmas if we were still on the canal boat in Volgograd?"
"No," he said, but with less conviction this time.
Claire looked sideways at him and wriggled in her seat. "What if we were in Barbados?"
"No."
Claire put her feet up on the seat and pretended to admire her socks. "Portugal?"
A sigh riffled through Six's blond beard. "Would you stop?"
There was a brief period of silence. Then Claire spoke, slowly and cautiously, like she wanted him to know that she'd thought all this through.
"Even if they're after us…we could stop for a night and hide away somewhere. You can make sure they won't find us, right?"
Six frowned. He dug around in his jacket. His frown spread to a full grimace. He clicked his fingers at the glovebox in front of Claire. "Any gum in there?"
Claire dutifully poked around in the glovebox. She sat up and shook her head.
"Probably for the best," she said, with a wise air. "Chew enough gum, one day it might turn you into a blueberry."
Six's attention drifted from the road long enough to give her a suspicious once-over. "Did you throw out my last pack?"
Claire scowled. "I'm not five."
"Sometimes you are," he said.
"Sometimes you are, too," she retorted, as haughtily as she knew how.
He remained, as always, infuriatingly calm. "Can't be five, I'm Six."
Claire rolled her eyes. She huddled up against the window and stared out.
Six glanced over. His fingers tapped against the wheel.
Claire puckered up her mouth. She pretended to admire her socks again — pretended she couldn't feel the tiny pinpricks of tension coming from Six. Her nose had a tight, pinched feeling.
"I'm not a kid just because I want Christmas, okay?" Her voice gave a treacherous wobble. "Everyone should have a Christmas."
He didn't respond.
The Jeep's red backlights shone faintly into the yawning, hungry dark. The night passed on, uncaring of Christmas, of a thirteen-year-old's longing for something like home and family.
...
Claire woke to Six shaking her. The car had stopped. The early morning sun was peeping through the windshield, and the sky was a pale, cloudless blue.
"What is it?" Claire asked, her voice blurry with sleep. She rubbed at her eyes vigorously as if trying to force herself into a more alert state. "Have they found us?"
"No." Six placed his hand on Claire's sleep-tousled head and ruffled it up even more. "C'mon, sleepyhead. Going Christmas shopping."
Claire let out a small shriek and sat upright. "WHAT!"
...
Christmas lights. Boxes and boxes of them. Different colours, different quantities, different styles.
Six's face wore a heavy frown as he stared them down. The boxes impudently stared back. They dared him to choose a single box from such a dazzling and varied selection.
Indecision wavered in his eyes. Eventually, he swept a liberal armful of them into a paper bag, and moved on.
They wandering through the outdoor market. It was a wonderful sight. The market started in the town plaza and branched into the connecting streets like a huge, colourful snowflake, swarming with shoppers. Tall trees stood in the plaza, decorated from top to bottom. Tourists and Cypriots alike jostled past stalls of local cuisine and handmade trinkets, yelling and bargaining, all in search of the perfect gift for this person or that.
A few steps ahead of Six, Claire gleefully bounced around like an overwound jack-in-the-box. Six moseyed behind her, ponderously exploring the displays, with half an eye on every camera, phone, and stranger in the vicinity. A babble of "We should get this. It's really cute. Six! Can we buy it?" poured in his direction, to which he patiently nodded and made appropriate reaction faces.
Claire tapped her chin, scrutinising the stalls. "I don't know what to get you," she complained.
Six poked at a stuffed toy. His shoulders and neck remained tense, his hands never quite relaxing.
"An electric razor?" Claire whirled around to look at him.
Six scrubbed at his beard. Admittedly, it was tending towards the ragged side.
"A new jacket?" she said. "Your old one is kinda smelly. Like old potatoes."
Six wrinkled his nose. "No, it smells like a girl called Claire Fitzroy sat on it. Again."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Claire scoffed. Her small face twisted into a comic imitation of his nose-wrinkle. Six shrugged.
Claire darted to a rack of specialty ties. "Maybe one of these?"
"Stands out too much." Slowly, he undid the first button of his shirt. He loosened the collar, his eyes trained on something reflected in a nearby mirror.
"Hrm-mm. A new watch?"
Six placed a protective hand over the cracked screen of his wristwatch. "Still works," he said, defensively.
"One of those thermos cup thingies that keeps your coffee warm in the car?"
Six made a face. "Don't like coffee." He calmly reached under his jacket to double-check the Glock pistol he carried.
"Tea?"
He gave her the silent side-eye of disapproval.
"Kind of a shame," said Claire, "I picked you for a peppermint tea kind of guy."
She continued walking down the stalls, grumbling to herself. "What about a hat? Neh. Can't see you wearing a hat."
No response from Six.
Claire sighed, long and dramatically. It was a sigh she'd picked up from one of her past nannies, one that grunkled pleasingly in her throat, and made her sound like a past-middle-aged British woman who's just returned from her day off to find that someone forgot to order milk and absolutely no one had arranged tea.
Claire picked up a straw Panama hat from a market stall, and turned to offer it to Six.
He wasn't there.
Claire's heart seemed to grow very big and then very small indeed.
A small crowd of ten or twenty people walked towards her, swinging bags and talking loudly. One of them looked directly at Claire.
She froze.
In a flash, it all came back—
Rough arms dragging her out of her chair. Crushing her to the floor.
The chill touch of Lloyd's gun against her head.
Black gloves smothering her mouth and nose.
The smell when her uncle staggered out of the torture room. He cradled his hands, curled up like claws in agony; pink, bloodied flesh where there should have been fingernails.
—every moment from five months ago jolted through her. Like it had just happened.
Claire's chest hammered. Her knees trembled.
She screamed for Six.
The group came closer, boisterous and laughing.
Claire began to run.
She pushed through a knot of tourists. Someone clutched at her. An elbow caught her across the side of the head.
She made it out the other side, gasping for breath. A dizzy, painful rush went through her chest and head. Claire put her hands over her ears. The world swam, close to blacking out.
She screamed for Six again.
Her name was yelled back. Six came shoving through the edge of the crowd, craning his neck as he went. When he caught sight of Claire, his hypervigilant expression gave way to relief.
Claire burst into tears. He ran to her, and she buried herself in the safety of his jacket.
"Hey, hey…" He bent down and checked her all over. "Are you hurt?"
Claire clung to the front of his jacket. "I'm okay," she croaked.
Six wrapped his free arm around her. The other hand hung at his side, still gripping the paper bag with the Christmas lights. He was breathing heavily, as if he'd sprinted from one side of town to the other in the last ten minutes.
They stood there for a little while.
"Like my smelly old jacket now, huh?" he murmured.
Claire grinned a wobbly grin. She brushed her sleeve across her eyes and blew her nose on her shirt hem.
Six stepped back and inspected her at arm's length, anxiety keen on his face. "How's the heart?"
"Chest hurts. I feel pretty shaky."
"Okay. Come and sit down. Got your medication? OK."
He helped her to a bench. Claire huddled against his side, completely exhausted. Tremors and twinges ran through her body.
Six waved to a nearby vendor selling bottled water. "Can I get two, please?" He opened one for Claire. The other he sculled in ten seconds flat.
Claire sipped the water and swallowed her meds. She lay back with her eyes closed. Several minutes passed.
"Where'd you go?" she asked, eventually.
Six rattled the paper bag. "Gift shopping."
Claire tilted her head and opened one eye. "But your eyebrow's bleeding."
Six dabbed a couple of fingers experimentally at his brow. Blood was trickling down the side of his face from where the skin had split just above the eye socket. "Oh. A few of our friends, the vultures, decided to drop in." He was still taking large gulps of air. "There was a snake, too."
Claire's eyes flew wide open.
Six waved the water bottle around. "Really, there was a snake. Not metaphorical. Don't ask me why. I don't think it was happy to see me."
He called for another bottle of water. He tipped it over his head and washed off the blood.
Claire's chest constricted. "Are they still here? Should we leave?"
Six emerged from his makeshift shower snorting and huffing, like a horse after a swim. "Took care of it. They won't be going anywhere in a hurry." He looked at the little face beside him, crumpled up with pain, and he winced in sympathy. "Let's get you home."
"That would be great," Claire mumbled.
...
They stopped over at a hotel. Six had booked a room on the bottom floor, close to an exit. He helped Claire into bed, pulling the blankets over her a little awkwardly. During all their months of travel, she hadn't really had to depend entirely on him till now, and as Six had once told Donald Fitzroy, he was a fighter, not a nurse. But he'd been Claire's bodyguard long enough now that he knew most of the ins and outs of her condition, and Claire had shown him how to check her pacemaker app. He sat on the end of her bed and went through the whole process till he was dead certain she didn't require a trip to the emergency ward.
After making sure Claire was safe and comfortable, he found a stepladder in a side cupboard and scoured the entire room for bugs. Claire soon fell asleep. Six continued more stealthily, trying not to make a single sound.
Once he knew the room was safe, he moved the stepladder into the middle of the room. He scavenged some packing tape and wire coat-hangers from the cupboard, as well as an old newspaper from 2018. Then he unpacked all the Christmas lights he'd purchased — nearly a dozen boxes — and spread them across the floor.
Six crossed his arms and scratched his beard. "How are you going to do this, Court?" he muttered under his breath.
He looked over at Claire. A smile tugged at his mouth.
Six sat down on the floor and set to work.
...
Claire's eyes fluttered open. The hotel room was dark and very quiet. Through the window, a streetlight could be seen across the hotel parking lot, a dim, white glow.
How many hours had she slept? Right through Christmas?
Tentatively, Claire pushed back the bed covers. She got herself into a sitting position. She let a small, relieved breath. OK. She felt better. Not great, sure — nauseous, dizzy, feeling in general like she'd been thrown against a brick wall (and then run over by a bus for good measure) — but she could manage. She'd been through worse.
Six was propped up against a wall, his head back and his eyes closed. His arms were crossed over his chest.
Claire slid out of bed, gripping the headboard in case she felt too dizzy to stand.
So far so good.
She grabbed the pillow and tossed it as far as she could across the room. It landed beside Six with a light thump.
Six cracked open an eye, then quickly shut it again, with a small grin that was lost in the dark.
A second pillow followed the first. Claire grabbed the bed cover with both hands and heaved with all the might in her puny arms. Slowly but surely, it began to slide off the bed. She dragged it over to where Six sat. Claire began to arrange the bedding into a cosy cocoon on the floor.
"Hey."
Claire let out a startled squeak and dropped the pillow she was holding. Six, with a tired chuckle, leaned over and picked it up. He tucked the pillow into the cocoon.
"Thanks, Six." Claire slipped into the little cocoon and pulled the covers snug around herself. She let out a contented sigh.
Six tapped his fingers against his palm. He turned his head to look at Claire. In the grey dimness of the room, he could just see her chin poking over the edge of the covers, and her dark, round eyes staring up at the ceiling.
"I'm sorry I left you, Claire."
A thin little hand reached out from the cocoon and patted Six's leg. "You did what you had to." Then, after a pause: "I guess that's Thursdays for you."
Six nodded and let out a quiet "Yeah".
"Seems we've had enough of Thursdays to last us forever," Claire grumbled, and added, sadly: "Worst part is, I didn't end up getting a present for you."
There was a pause. Six got up. He walked over to a power switch on the wall. "Claire," he said, "you sure got me something."
And he flicked the switch.
Claire sat up. She let out a soft squeal.
The room glowed like the inside of a Macy's window display. Christmas lights ran along the skirting boards and around the window, even taped to the door. Shadows and light waltzed across the walls, a blended haze of green and blue and red and gold.
In the centre of the room stood the "tree". It was the stepladder, wrapped from top to bottom in Christmas lights. A star balanced on top, made from newspaper and coat-hanger wire. Each point and corner had been carefully set with a twinkling golden light.
Claire fell back in her cocoon with a joyful crow. She put her hands behind her head, eyes alight with happiness. Six surveyed his handiwork for a moment before returning to sit beside Claire again.
"First Christmas anyone's ever given me. I, uh, never really had one." The pattern of the lights changed, from a twinkling display to a gentle fading in-and-out. Six gazed at the walls, mesmerised. "Even when me and my brother were kids, well, all the other kids in the street, at school — they'd talk about it, but… My father never bothered."
"That sucks."
"Yep."
It was the longest speech Six had ever delivered about himself. Claire, normally so comfortable with words and sassy comebacks, was quiet for once. She laced her hands together under the blanket and stared at the stepladder Christmas tree.
"I spent two Christmases in hospital," she reflected a while later, "but at least they were Christmases."
"Fitz spend any with you?"
"Sometimes. If he could."
Six turned away with a sad ghost of a smile. He checked the time on his watch. "You miss him?"
"Lots," said Claire. "Lots and lots and lots."
"Me too."
There was a peaceful silence. Then, distant bells pealed in the night. Midnight Mass was finished. Christmas had begun.
Claire puckered her lips. "Six."
"Mm?"
"Could you get my medication bag?"
He got to his feet immediately. "Everything OK?"
"Yeah, I just…remembered something."
Six dropped the bag into Claire's lap. She dug around inside, then gave a cry of excitement. "I forgot about this! Six, turn away. Don't look!"
Six sighed, and, with a great show of reluctance, turned his back to her.
Claire crawled out of the blankets. She held her hands out, palms spread flat. On each palm rested a (slightly squished) pack of gum. She ordered Six to turn back around.
Six's eyebrows went up. He held the gum near some Christmas lights so he could read the label. "Cherry flavour. Gee, Santa really knew what I wanted." A broad grin spread across his face. "I mean it's no Watermelon Bubbilicious, but…"
Claire stuck out her chin. "For your information, American gum is really hard to find in Cyprus."
Six raised the packs of gum with an appreciative nod. "Thanks."
He went over to the stepladder tree. "I have something for you too." He returned holding a flat, square cardboard slip.
Claire squeezed her hands into fists so tightly that her knuckles ached. "A new record…!" She reverently took it in her hands. It was Jim Croce's 'I Got a Name'.
Six popped a piece of gum into his mouth. "Set your player up, too." He pointed to the nightstand beside the bed.
Soon, the crackle of a vinyl record filled the room. Jim Croce's wistful voice spread among the lights accompanied by fingerstyle guitar and gentle strings.
Claire sank into the cocoon bed. Six fetched a bag and rummaged around inside.
"Cold pudding sound alright?"
Claire nodded. Six sat down next to her and handed her a pudding cup and spoon. Claire ate her pudding drowsily, humming along to the record album.
"Nice work on the tree," she said.
Six licked pudding from a spoon and pursed his mouth like a gourmand appraising a subpar lemon pie. "I think it needs a few more lights."
"It's nothing but lights."
"Kinda the point of the joke," he retorted.
Claire's brown eyes crinkled in a smile. Her voice might be a bit shaky, her breathing still patchy, but she was smiling, and to Six, that was all that mattered.
"Merry Christmas, Six."
"Merry Christmas, Claire."
...
And that is how Sierra Six finally got a Christmas — in a hotel in Cyprus, with a stepladder for a tree and a newspaper star on top.
Six stretched his shoulders and let out a satisfied grunt. Claire was safe at his side, and he had a fresh pack of cherry-flavoured gum in his pocket. What more could a man want?
Nothing, really. Nothing at all.