quack quack snack

Requests are closed! <3

Genres I Will Write:

Smut - Please do not send me any smut requests from now on!

Angst

Fluff

Masterlists:

Jujutsu Kaisen

Sweet Home

Gray Man

My Demon

Alice in Borderland

All Of Us Are Dead

Teen Wolf

Harry Potter - Marauders Era

Outer Banks

Seven Deadly Sins

Smut Topics I WILL Write:

Various Kinks (Ex: choking, bondage, knifeplay, etc) (must be specified because there are some that I will not write for)

FxF

FxM

Dub-con (but it will be very subtle because consent is very good)

Smut Topics I WON'T Write:

Non-con

Doggy style

Anal

BJs

Gagging

Degradation (Mainly degrading terms like slut, whore, etc.)

Certain Kinks (Ex: Piss, shit, daddy/mommy kink, etc.)

Pedophilia (Age gaps are fine but I will make them legal)

Sometimes you dream about what his real name would be. Would it be a common name like Noah or Michael? Or would it be something classier and somewhat more unique, like Ian or Nathan? You would never know for sure. That, you were positive about, but dreaming about what could have been was the only thing that kept you from breaking down about his absence. 

You dreamt about what your life would’ve been like if you had both been born and raised differently. Perhaps you’d buy a cottage in the woods together. You’d both man the garden and cook dinner. Claire would come over on occasion, and you would always have chocolate ice cream at the ready for her. 

He’d put a pretty rock on your ring finger, not too big but big enough that you’d have a hard time looking away from it at some points. 

Maybe you’d have a little dog. A Golden Retriever or maybe a Bernese Mountain Dog. It would be the extra joy in your life, waking you up by pouncing on top of you in your bed and indicating it was hungry. 

And when you fell into your deep sleep, you sometimes would dream about something so unspoken and impossible to have that it made you wake up every time. 

Having children with him. 

He was a Sierra. There was no way he would ever be able to have kids, even if he did somehow escape from the CIA. He would constantly be on the run, and that was no life for a child.

Even so, you think you would risk it if it meant you would be able to be with him and live a hint of the life you’ve been dreaming about. 

Two years went by from the time Six left you. Claire got over his disappearance pretty quickly, thankfully. She sometimes brought it up and told you she missed him, but often times she wouldn’t say a thing about him. You, on the other hand, had much more longing in your heart. You always hid it the best you could so you wouldn’t bring down the spirits of Claire, though you knew she could see through you sometimes. Those were the times her voice was softer around you, and she was more huggy. It was nice, and you needed those hugs, but it also worsened the pain. 

Over time, the pain lessened, and you didn’t feel like your heart was breaking every day. Even so, you realized you might never find a love like that again. You already don’t go out very often, and nobody made you feel even a fraction of the way you felt for Six. He had ruined you for anyone else just by being a kind soul to you in those two months you spent with him.  

He had ruined you, and he had barely touched you. 

It wasn’t until Claire said something that you noticed how dull your life had seemed to become. How dull you had become. 

“Okay, something needs to change.”

You looked over at her from where you were stirring brownie mix with a confused look. “What do you mean?”

She rolled her eyes. “I mean that you have been staying inside for months. You hardly go outside to walk around anymore, and the only reason you leave is if you’re coming with me as a supervisor. You only make the food that I like anymore, even if it’s stuff you don’t like, and you’ve stopped replying to all your friends asking you to go out with them. It’s like when Six left all over again. So either you tell me what’s wrong and then you go out with your friends, or you don’t tell me what’s wrong and you still go out with your friends. Your choice.”

You glared at her, noticing the mischief in her eyes as she returned your gaze with an all too innocent look of her own. “What have you done, Claire?”

She winced a bit at the accusation in your tone but smiled guiltily at you nonetheless. “I may or may not have called Nancy to take over for you this weekend and set up a girls' day for you with your friends… maybe.”

Her smile made your heart melt despite how you wanted to be mad at her for going behind your back and doing this. You couldn’t be mad at her when she was just trying to help, so instead you just sighed in exasperation and started pouring the brownie mix into the pan. “I’ll forgive you this one time, but next time you shouldn’t do that without talking to me first. Going out with friends may be something that I need to do more often, but you are still my number 1 priority, and I want to be prepared if I ever leave you with someone else, even if that someone is Nancy,” you told her with a pointed look in your eye. 

Nancy was your babysitter growing up, as well as Claire’s caretaker before you took over. You trusted her with your life, but more importantly, Claire’s life. Despite trusting her as you did, you wish you would have had more time to prepare. 

Noticing the guilty way Claire looked down and played with the hem of her shirt, you sighed again with a smile and got her attention. “You wanna lick the spoon?” You asked her playfully, to which she immediately perked up and walked over to grab the spatula you had used to mix the batter. 

Saturday finally came around, and you were genuinely excited to get ready and go out with your friends. It was something you hadn’t done in a long time, and you knew it was exactly what you needed to get yourself out of this depressive episode you were in. 

When you had finally gotten yourself ready to go and were just putting on your tennis shoes, because you didn’t want to go out dancing all night in 6-inch heels, Claire walked into the room with a happy look on her face at your dressed-up person. You stood up and did a twirl. “So? How do I look?”

“Wow! Who knew you were able to not look like a goblin for once in your life!” She joked, and you lightly shoved her shoulder as you walked out the door of your bedroom and toward the house’s living room. 

“Okay, so tell me what the rules are again for when Nancy gets here?” You asked Claire, setting up a plate of your homemade cheese pizza for her (since she doesn’t like pepperoni). 

“No going outside without telling her, no making a fuss about going to bed unless it’s before 11 o’clock,” you paused and looked at her. She rolled her eyes, knowing she wouldn’t be able to pull one over on you. “Unless it’s before 10 o’clock,” you nodded in satisfaction while placing the pizza in the microwave and heating it for 30 seconds. “No skipping on eating my vegetables, even if it’s asparagus, even though they’re disgusting and taste gross, and no leaving any dirty dishes in the sink unless the dishwasher is running.”

You nodded and gave her a high five while placing the plate in front of her spot on the island. “That’s my girl.”

You sat down beside her and watched her eat and talk about how she just managed to beat her high score again. You pretended to be exasperated and annoyed when you heard that last part and delighted in the smile you managed to get from her. When she got down to the last 3 bites of her pizza, excluding the crust, you heard the doorbell ring. “That must be Nancy. I’ll go get it. Make sure to put the crust in the compost bin when you’re done!”

“I will!” She replied. 

You walked to the front door and opened it without a second thought. 

“Hey, Nanc- Who the fuck are you?” You cut yourself off when you saw a man you’d never seen before in front of you. He had an awful-looking mustache while wearing a white and blue-collared polo shirt along with black khakis. His hands were held behind his back and he had a serene yet cocky smile on his face. 

“Oh, me? My name is Lloyd. Lloyd Hansen,” he replied. 

“Why’d you introduce it like that? That was so weird. It’s not like you’re James Bond,” you sighed, looking around behind him and searching for Nancy, who should be pulling up any minute now. “Well, can I help you? I’m about to leave,” you purposely left out the fact that you were leaving your 13-year-old sister/patient in the house. 

“You actually can help me by coming with me.”

Your eyebrows raised, but just as you opened your mouth to speak, you saw two men step into your line of sight on either side of him and step toward you. When you took a step back, you heard Claire’s voice speak up behind you. “Is that her?” 

Just before she turned the corner, you yelled, “Claire, run!”

Asking no questions, she did as you told and started running toward the panic room in the house, meanwhile, you grabbed onto the two Sai weapons placed behind the decorative bookshelf next to the door in case of an emergency like this one. 

Wasting no time, the two men on the side of the mustached man in the middle started walking toward you, and wasting no time yourself, you started swinging. Your trident weapon was blunt, but still a heavy metal weapon that you used to slam against their ribs and head. You didn’t want to kill them, but you would be damned if they got past you and to the girl hiding away behind the bookshelf in your uncle’s room. 

Successfully, you were able to knock them out, so they were nothing more than heaps of breathing meat on the floor. It was only when you heard clapping that you looked up and noticed the mustached man looking at you in an amused and impressed manner. 

“What do you want, Larry?” You asked him.

He frowned at the mispronunciation of his name and crossed his arms. “You know, it hurts me when a pretty girl like you doesn’t know my name.”

“Then I guess you don’t get hurt often, considering it’s hard for me to believe you see any girls.”

“Ooh, burn,” he playfully clutched his heart like you’d just given him a heart attack. 

You lunged forward, swinging at him left and right. He dodged with a near-perfect accuracy that made you mad. That dance you had with each other went back and forth for a while. It was clear he wasn’t going to hurt you, but you weren’t above hurting him. 

Your focus was on him and only him until you heard the familiar, fearful shriek of the 13-year-old who was supposed to be safe and sound. You whipped your head around to find her, only for a needle to be pressed into your neck and a liquid injected into you. You gasped and yanked your neck away, turning around and swinging your weapon at him. It seemed, though, that the liquid made your movements delayed, and your hand was caught by his before he disarmed you and brought your knuckles up to his lips, where he mockingly placed a kiss. You clenched your fist and threw a punch at him, only for him to catch that too and then jam a taser into your side. Your body tensed up with the shock waves, and you gasped, falling to the floor. 

With bleary eyes and the wind knocked out of you, you looked around, trying to find where the gasping shriek had come from. When your eyes finally landed on her after sluggishly scanning your eyes around the room, you felt a mix of conflicting emotions. On the one hand, you saw she was unharmed and was more than happy about that, but on the other, she had been caught and was being dragged toward the front door where you were still lying in front of. 

You weren’t lying down for long, though, because the mustached man from before picked you up and threw you over his shoulder.

You still tried your hardest to call out for Claire, though you could only manage a soft mumble or near incoherent words. It seemed to be enough for her to hear you, though, because she started calling out for you instead of cursing her handlers to let her go. 

Finding enough strength to look up right as you were walked out the door, you saw the terrified yet defiant look in your sister’s eyes and the bloody body of Nancy lying against the wall of your house. 

Just as your eyes started getting heavier, you mumbled out with all the bite you could manage, which, admittedly, wasn’t much, “Screw you, Leslie.”

Then everything went black. 

You woke up on a plane with your hands tied to the armrests of your seat and your feet bound to the floor. Claire sat in the seat right next to you with her arms and legs in the same position and her head resting on your shoulder while yours rested on top of hers. Her eyes were closed, and you immediately assumed she was asleep. 

When you lifted your head off of hers, you were immediately hit with a wave of nausea and dizziness. It was almost like you were having the worst hangover of your life. At first, you were confused as to why you were tied up and why you had a hangover-type headache. You didn’t have an explanation for the first part, but then you remembered you were going out with your friends the night before. 

It was only when you spotted the mustached man enter through the curtain of the aisle in front of you that you remembered you had never gone on that trip with your friends. You were too busy getting attacked and kidnapped to do that. 

“Ah, Sunshine! You’re awake,” The man said, grinning widely at you. His loud voice not only made your headache worse and your ears hurt, but it also made you fearful of Claire waking up. 

“Shut the fuck up, Lucy, I’m way too hungover for your voice right now.”

You saw a twitch in his eye at your continuous mispronunciation of his name as he sat down on the plane seat across from you. “Well, that’s too bad, Cupcake. I’m finding myself bored of being all by myself, and when there’s such a beautiful girl in my presence, why wouldn’t I take the opportunity to talk to her?”

“Because that girl has told you to shut up and get the fuck away from her?” You asked rhetorically. 

“Your words cut deep, Dollface. Can’t we just get along?”

“Considering you just kidnapped my sister and me for no reason, I think not,” you said with a roll of your eyes before you closed them and rested them against the headrest behind you. 

He sighed, but you could hear the amusement in it. With a snap of his fingers, you heard another pair of heavy footsteps approach you, and suddenly your head was being yanked back by your hair, and Claire was being rudely shaken awake. 

“You know,” Logan started, getting up from his seat and picking up a glass cup of a brown liquid, and taking a sip. “You should be nicer to your captors; the only way you’ll be making it out alive is through me. And I would be nicer to me.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, did I hurt your poor feelings?” You taunted, your voice strained from the awkward position your neck was pulled to. “Maybe if your ego wasn’t so big, I wouldn’t be so rude.”

He pointed at you and laughed. “You just don’t quit! God, you’re feisty. Makes me just want to cut open your head and see what’s going on in there,” he expressed disturbingly. 

You grimaced, and he gave you a smile before taking out his phone. It was only then that you noticed the gun aimed at Claire’s head and her terrified and petrified face. You started struggling against the grip, trying to get the gun away from her, even if it was moved onto you. “Get your filthy hands away from her!”

Ignoring your demand request, Mr. Mustache put the phone sideways and aimed it at the two of you. With a wide grin, he said, “Say cheese!”

The rest of the ride was pretty calm after that. They left you alone for the most part, except for one guard who was in the room with you at all times. It was only when you landed that you were rid of your binds and led into a beautiful historic building. It was so gorgeous, yet you were unable to appreciate its beauty because of your current predicament. You kept one hand around Claire’s arm throughout the entire walk, not allowing her to be separated from you, but also not allowing any of the guards to touch her. You could tell she was in a state of shock with the way she hadn’t spoken a word for the entire trip, even on the plane. You wished you could do something to ease her anxiety and allow her to feel less fear about the situation, but you couldn’t. The only way you would ease her fears would be if you were to take away those fears permanently by taking her out of the situation altogether. 

When you entered the room you were supposedly staying in for the time being, you pulled Claire in for a hug as soon as they closed the door behind you. That was when she started letting out gasps of sobs. You could tell she was trying to keep it together, but you didn’t want her to. That was your job. She was the kid, she didn’t need to suppress her emotions like that. 

“Let it all out, it’s okay. I’m here. You’ll be okay, I promise. Everything will be just fine.”

At your words, she started sobbing harder, clutching onto your shirt like it was a lifeline as she let out her fear and anxieties about everything that was happening. 

You stood like that for a long while until eventually the two of you moved over to the couch, where you continued to comfort her. After a while of silence, she spoke up. “Where did you even learn to fight like that?”

It took you a minute to understand what exactly she was asking, but once you did, you smiled lightly. “When we had that break-in when Six was around, the one you walked into with the guy on the floor, I realized just how vulnerable I was when I didn’t know how to fight on my own. I asked Uncle D. to set me up with some self-defense lessons, and we went from there. It appears that I am a natural at kicking peoples’ asses, especially with double handed weapons. Only reason I lost was because the motherfucker drugged me.”

“Stupid motherfucker,” Claire mumbled.

“Hey! Don’t use that word.”

“What?” She asked in surprise and exasperation. “You literally just used it, that’s so unfair!”

“Yeah, well, I’m the adult and I say you can’t use the word, so hah!” You stuck your tongue out to emphasize your ‘adultness’ and she laughed. You grinned at her until it died down into something more serious. “We’ll get out of here, okay? We’ll be fine.”

She nodded, believing you. You just wished you believed yourself. 

Later that day, after you realized you had arrived at nearly 2 in the morning, you were sitting in silence with Claire on the queen-sized bed you were provided with. Both of you had exhausted all conversation topics you could think of, and now you were stewing in your fear. You held it together for her, allowing her to rest her burdens as well as her head on your shoulders. It was hours later, and when the golden rimmed clock hanging above the room’s entrance displayed it was around 3 p.m., that the door opened. Neither of you looked over, guessing it would be another guard to provide you with a tasteless meal that you would taste test first to make sure it wasn’t poisoned before making sure Claire ate. Instead, the voice that followed the door opening and closing was one you longed to hear since you got into this mess. 

“Hello, my sweethearts.”

You both snapped your heads over to the voice, and Claire got up first to rush over to him and encase him in a hug. You let them have their moment together, not wanting to interrupt. 

“I’m so sorry,” Your uncle said sorrowfully. “I know, honey.”

With a look and a wave of his hand, he saw the way your nose crinkled at the burn from the tears you were holding back and the wetness building on your waterline, and he motioned for you to join the hug. 

You did so with a barely suppressed sob that rattled your chest, hugging them both and sandwiching Claire in between the two of you. 

He mumbled his apologies while holding both of you tightly, and you could only rest your head on top of Claire’s and sniffle. 

An hour passed of you all sitting together, Donald looking thoughtfully out the window like he was waiting for something, while you sat beside Claire and held onto her hands to keep them from shaking or from her anxiously picking at her cuticles. Everything was relatively silent until the doors opened and Lydia stormed in with two men armed to the teeth on both his sides. “Goldilocks!” He started, aiming his attention at you and Claire for the moment being. “Would you be a lamb and excuse us for a moment?” He asked, though his words were most definitely not a question. 

“Go to hell, Lindsey,” Claire said, taking a page from your book. You would have laughed if the circumstances were any different, but you only started yelling and jumping forward when the man grabbed onto the front of her shirt and yanked her up and off the couch, throwing her into the guards right behind him. 

“She has a pacemaker, jackass!” 

“What the hell! Let her go!” You screamed at the same time as your uncle, standing up and rushing toward her to help. The only thing that stopped you was the sudden and dizzying way he twirled you around and placed you in a headlock. That was when the tables turned and Claire started shouting your name in a panicked sort of anger. You pulled at his arm around your neck, not really choking you, but holding you in place, until he placed a gun against your temple. 

In a tone too quiet for Claire to hear from her spot, being dragged out of the room while kicking and screaming, he said, “You know, if the circumstances were different, I like I would have brought you into my bed already. You would have had a great time, that’s for sure. Girls that have a fire like you are hard to come by, but they’re exactly my type.”

“If circumstances were different, I still would have swung a Sai at you the second I saw you,” you spat out in response, really debating biting his arm, but honestly, he would probably like that. Or he would just shoot you, either or. 

He stuffed his face in your hair, and you nearly headbutted him in response. Instead, you merely grimaced in disgust. “In another life, I suppose. Take her boys.”

As soon as he gave the command, you were dragged along in the same direction as Claire. You didn’t need to be dragged, though, because as long as they were taking you to her, you would follow them willingly. As you walked away, though, you heard the man speak one last time. 

“If the lamb has a pacemaker, she definitely shouldn’t stick around for this next part.”

That didn’t bode well for your uncle. 

When they opened the door that you could hear banging on from the other side, you were shoved in and stumbled into Claire. You immediately grabbed her shoulders and started looking her over. “Are you okay? They didn’t hurt you, did they? God, I will kill them if they hurt you.”

She shook her head. “I’m fine, they didn’t hurt me. What about you? Did Lasagna hurt you?”

You let a small smile climb onto your face at her words and shook your head. “God, you’re so funny. No, he didn’t hurt me. I’m okay, same as you.”

She nodded, and that was that until you heard screams coming from the direction you just came from. They were faint, but you knew it was your uncle. That was when you resumed Claire’s previous banging on the door and started yelling out profanities for them to stop hurting him. 

“Let him go!”

For a minute, you just screamed and pleaded with the guards on the other side to do as you wished, with no luck until the door suddenly opened and you stumbled back. You thought they were going to order you to quiet down, maybe smack you around a bit until you stopped, neither of which would work, but instead they grabbed you by the shirt and started dragging you away. 

“Wait, no! Not you too!” Claire begged, only being held back by another guard while they tried to shut the door. 

“I’ll be okay! I’ll come back safe!” You promised her emptily. You had no idea whether you would be making it back to her alive after this. You weren’t even sure why they were grabbing you. 

The two men dragging you led you back to the original room you were in, and you caught a glimpse of the conversation happening before you entered the room. “Who’s in Prague?” Mr. Stache asked. 

“I already told you, I don’t know.”

“Boring.”

Then, you heard screams and grunts of pain from your uncle. When they stopped was also when you entered. You were dragged over to a seat right beside your uncle, looking him over to see if there was any damage done, and catching on the two bloody fingers of his left hand. Looking at the table beside the stached man, you saw two detached fingernails.

“Ah, the entertainment is here! Maybe I’ll be able to get a more exciting answer out of your uncle through you.” 

Suddenly, the realization hit you, and you started to panic internally. Outwardly, you took your seat with grace and allowed them to restrain you against the chair. You heard your uncle start to chant a constant stream of No’s under his breath. When the man moved his chair in front of you and placed himself on it, your panic started showing in your breath, and you clenched your hand tightly to resist what you knew he was going to do. He clicked his tongue at you. 

“You know, I wish your uncle were exciting on his own. If he were, I wouldn’t have to do this to such a pretty hand. Is every body part you have this beautiful? I’d like to see,” he flirted one more time before he forced your hand open and placed the nail of your pointer finger in between the pliers’ two prongs.  

“I don’t know who’s in Prague, I swear!” Your uncle swore pleadingly. His eyes shot back and forth between you and the man in front of you, but you could only look at him. 

You stared him right in the eye and stared in yours as he asked, “Who’s in Prague?”

Your uncle hesitated, still glancing between the two of you with frantic eyes before sighing in defeat. “Margaret Cahil. Margaret Cahil is the one in Prague,” he was angry, you heard that in his voice, especially with his next words. “Now get your hands off my niece.”

You let out a sigh of relief as soon as your nail was out of the grip of the pliers and looked over at your uncle and his abused and tortured fingers. 

“Now was that so hard?” Leonard smiled at the two of you before clapping his hands together. He pulled something out of his pocket and tossed it into your lap just as you were unbound from the chair. He winked at you. “Now, Ms. Nurse Lady, do your thing.”

And do your thing, you did. As soon as you realized he threw a wad of bandages, cleaning solvent, and a balm onto your lap, you immediately got to work on bandaging your uncle’s fingers, being extra gentle because you knew they had to be sensitive. You had just finished moving him to the bed by the time Claire got into the room shortly after and nearly threw herself onto your uncle if you hadn’t pulled her back in time, and told her to be gentle with him. 

She cried in his arms for the next ten minutes, all the while you caressed her hair with a sorrowful kind of gentleness. 

“He’s coming for us, isn’t he?” Claire asked after the light from a helicopter overhead shined through the window next to the bed you three were resting on. 

“If he can walk, honey, it’ll be through those double doors over there,” your uncle responded without hesitation. 

“He’ll be walking, alright. Six wouldn’t die on us, not when we needed it most,” you supplied to further supply her with assurance. You knew Six would never leave the three of you like this. Even dead, he would still probably find a way to help you, but you refused to believe he might be dead. 

Six was coming for you, and it would be soon, you just knew it. 

You looked out the window as the helicopter that had been circling above you for half an hour went crashing down onto the ground below. Your uncle stood beside you as you watched the fighting happening below. There were tens of men shooting at an unknown target through the gates across from the entrance of the building, and you just hoped the other person was on your side. 

“What’s happening?” Claire asked in a panic when she heard the crash, walking up behind you as your uncle started to scold her. 

“I told you to stay over there, please-”

“What’s going on?” She interrupted him just as gunshots interrupted her. 

“Go! Get under the bed, quickly!” You told her with urgency, pushing her forward so she was hiding under the bed with you shielding her with your body and your uncle standing in the middle of the room so if worse came to happen, he would be the first one hit instead of the two of you. 

In a moment of pure fear and adrenaline filling the air, you waited with bated breath as the gunshots came to a stop and the door slid open. 

Through the door, with his chest clad in a bulletproof vest and his arms aiming a gun into the hallway in case of any more threats approaching, stood Six. When he finally looked into the room, you saw his eyes go straight to you, and he winked. 

Claire gasped out a relieved laugh, and you hugged her as a gasp of your own escaped your lips. 

“Attaboy,” your uncle sighed out, also relieved of his appearance. 

Six walked in and closed the door behind him before nodding at Donald. “Fitz,” he said in acknowledgment. He glanced over at you every few seconds before turning to him again. “You able?”

“Well, I can walk, but I’m missing a wing,” he replied, raising his left hand to show off his wrapped fingers. 

“Can you wiggle your finger?” Six asked after closing the curtains of the second window in the room. 

“With this wing,” Donald raised his right hand, wiggling his fingers to show his capability. 

“That’ll do,” the younger man said as he handed a gun to him and then walked over to where you and Claire were standing side by side. “You two okay?” He glanced between the two of you, closing the curtains on the other window as well. Claire nodded her head, but you could only stare at the man in shocked awe. 

“Took you long enough,” the 13-year-old said.

“Sorry about that, my flight was delayed,” he provided as an excuse, though you knew he didn’t mean it literally. 

“I knew you’d catch another one,” your uncle nodded, playing along with the underlying message of the conversation. 

It was after this that you stumbled forward and gently wrapped your arms around Six’s shoulders. Your breath caught in your throat, and you let it stutter its way out of your lungs while he wrapped his arms around you in return and leaned his cheek against the crown of your head. You didn’t say a word while you were in his embrace, not even feeling the need for tears despite how you hadn’t cried yet and how just minutes ago you were desperately wanting to. You just rested your head on his shoulder and let the fears and worries of the past day and a half - hell, of the last two years - wash away. With a final inhale of his scent - like an expensive perfume mixed with blood and the earth - you pulled away.

“I missed you,” you whispered to him honestly. 

He nodded with a quirk of his lips and a squeeze of your hand. You returned the almost smile and inhaled sharply, taking a step back so all three of the people in the room were in your view. You were just about to open your mouth and ask about what the plan was when the floorboards in the hall outside creaked. Six held up a hand, indicating for all of us to be quiet. “Put these in your ears,” he told you and Claire, giving you each two rolled-up pieces of gauze to use as earplugs. You did as he asked, making sure Claire put hers in as well, and grabbed onto her hand while he aimed his gun through the wall, estimating where the person on the other side was through sound alone. He shot the gun three times, and you were instantly thankful he had given you the earplugs. A moment later, the guy on the other side fell to the floor and knocked the door back open. “You ready?” He asked rhetorically, only sparing you all a fleeting glance before he started walking out the door and leading the three of you down the hall. 

You can’t remember going down the halls until you arrived at an iron door, waiting for Six to knock on the other side and indicate it was clear. You could only remember Claire squeezing your hand for dear life as she walked by your side. 

You exited the door, still following behind Six as he led you down the path along the top of the building's walls. You crouched with the girl whose hand you held as you walked swiftly and with purpose. You didn’t feel scared. You didn’t feel anything, really. All you knew was you would get her out of here alive, and safe if it was the last thing you did. 

And it very well may be. 

When you came to a piece of concrete that extended up in a pretty shape, and was big enough to provide you with cover while Six looked around, your uncle spoke again, though it was muffled through your earplugs. “Do you have a plan? Or are we just improvising?”

“Yeah, I got a plan. You got your swim trunks?”

Just as he said that, the four of you were being shot at by Liam and his men. Six shot back at them to cover you while your uncle escorted you and Claire to the concrete gazebo next to you. You crouched down, hugging Claire while she started gasping and sobbing at the chaos around her. Six joined you a second later and crouched down beside you. 

“Alright. Let’s get ready to jump,” he prepared you all. You nodded in response and released Claire from your embrace. 

“I think I’m gonna have to take the stairs,” the older man said, sounding out of breath. 

You looked over at him with a confused look on your face. “What do you mean?”

“What are you talking about?” Six emphasized your question with a tone indicating no nonsense. 

He started wheezing, and that was when you knew something was wrong. When he pulled his hand away from his torso, the gauze that had been surrounding it was completely red, and so was a large circle on his white button-up shirt. “Not good,” he said exactly what you were thinking. 

“What the hell is that?” Six asked stupidly.

“What do you think it is?”

Taking all of your years in medical school into practice, you immediately got to work. You grabbed Six’s hands and pressed them against his wound. “Hold them there and stop the bleeding as best you can,” you ordered as if he wouldn’t know what to do. Your voice and hands were steady, surprising even you. You ripped the tie off of Donald’s neck and rolled it up in your hand. Then, you revealed to wound and started getting ready to pack it. “This is going to hurt a lot, so prepare yourself.”

Despite your warning, you barely gave him any time before you were stuffing the tie into the bullet wound to stop the bleeding from the inside. He screamed in agony, but you didn’t stop. You couldn’t stop, not when he might die without it. Six grabbed up the gun again and started shooting at the men, causing them to run off. When you finished, you pressed against the wound tightly and grabbed his hands to press on top of it even more. 

You were staring at the wound, spaced out, when you heard your name being said loudly by the man in front of you. “Honey, I’m not going to make it.” He was still out of breath from the pain you subjected him to, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to feel guilty. 

“No, you’re going to be fine. Just come on and get up so we can go,” you spoke seriously. 

“No, honey. I’m not.”

“I’m not letting you die after I just did all of that to keep you alive!” You yelled out, frustrated and stubborn. 

“Six,” he said, directing his attention to the man next to you. “Get them out of here. I’m not going to make it, so take the gun and give me the grenade, and then get. Them. Out.”

“No, you’re coming with us,” Six protested, just as stubborn as you. 

“Six! Take the gun and-!”

“Get the damn gun out of my face. Shut up! I need to think!” He said, cutting him off. 

“You don’t have time to think!” Your uncle told him. You watched in real time as the look in Six’s eyes changed, and how he looked at you and Claire. “Six! I’m out. Get them gone! Now take this, and give me a hand grenade. You understand me? Now go!”

The tears you didn’t feel before were now bubbling over the surface, and you watched Six place the grenade in his hand before taking the gun and standing up. You could only sob in an advanced grievance while watching your uncle. 

He looked at you and smiled. “Take care of our girl, okay? I love you. Blood or not, you will always be my niece,” he confessed to you, and you sobbed harder. 

You heard Six grab Claire and lift her up behind her, only for her to struggle and run back to Donald. “I don’t know if I can do this without you,” you told him honestly, your voice cracking halfway through. 

He smiled sadly before Claire fell to her knees beside you and started sobbing and pleading, exactly what you’d been doing a minute ago. “No!”

“You go with Six, okay? I love you, baby.”

“No! No, no, no, not you too!” She begged, and you felt your heart break even more when you picked her up and started dragging her behind Six while the three of you ran off. 

She begged for you to stop, but if you stopped, you would never start again, and that was something you couldn’t risk taking when her life was at stake as well. You were thankful when Six grabbed onto her other hand to help you tug her along because you weren’t sure you would be able to do it all by yourself. 

You all jumped onto the railing of the ledge before jumping off into the water below, and then all you could hear was the water rushing over you. You grabbed Claire under the water and brought her to the surface, watching as she sputtered before regaining her breath. 

As you all started swimming away, it was all you could do to bite back your sob when you heard the explosion behind you. Claire started sobbing again, and you were thankful when Six took over her swimming for her and started pulling her to shore. When you got to shore, you both helped Claire first before Six helped you get up onto land and into the motorboat sitting idly. You brought Claire into your chest, where she sobbed at another one of her family members, the only one she had left, dying practically in front of her eyes. 

Six got to work on untying the boat, and you were grateful to at least have another person here with you, bonus points when that person is him. When another boat started flashing its lights in your direction, you cursed.

“Stay down,” Six ordered you.

“Six! No, come back! Six!” You whisper yelled in his direction. 

You ducked as he started shooting at the men in the car and covered Claire’s head so she wouldn’t look. You weren’t used to seeing death, but you were older than her. You didn’t want to expose her to any more of that than was necessary at her age. 

Suddenly, after Six had taken down the men in the car, Layla started running up behind him and tackling him to the ground. In a rush, you shot up to help him. “Stay here, please!” You begged Claire, knowing she wouldn’t follow an order from you, but praying she would follow if you asked her to with a voice as pleading as yours was. You ran toward them, tackling the man off of Six and onto the ground, where you landed with you on top of him as you started punching his face repeatedly. Your knuckles stung, and you wanted to stop so badly, but you couldn’t, and you knew that. It was only when you were thrown off of him, and it ended up with you below him as he started choking you out, that you stopped. 

“You know, if you weren’t such a prude with the way you keep rejecting me, I would’ve fucked you by now. But no, you had to ruin it for both of us. At least I get to choke you, even if it’s not the way you might’ve enjoyed,” Lincoln lewdly told you, pressing his nose up against yours in a way that made you squirm even more. 

“Fuck… you… Louis…” you told him, still trying to peel his hands away from your neck and gasping for air that wouldn’t come. 

Six was on the ground beside you, clutching his side in agony. He only regained that sense of urgency when he looked over and caught your eye while the air stopped being supplied to your head. The darkness started trickling into the edges of your vision when a whizzing sound was heard, and the man on top of you exclaimed in pain, his grip loosening and his attention focusing on the person who shot at him. 

He then looked over at Six, who was aiming a gun at his face, and he stupidly covered the gun with his face, ending up with two of his fingers being blown off. 

“Eye for an eye, ey?” You said, still choking on the words and gasping for air. 

You kicked him off of you and watched as Six started rolling into the water to get away from the bullets being shot at him. You ran over to Claire, who had disobeyed your wishes, and grabbed a flare gun, which she shot at Lyla. You were thankful for her saving your life, but still scared shitless about her being out in the open. 

“Thank you, you saved me. Now get the fuck back in the boat and keep your head down. Every boat keeps two flare guns in case one of them breaks, so go find the other one and be ready to aim it at anyone and everyone who poses a threat. Do you understand me?” She nodded. “Okay, now go! Go!”

Just as you saw her disappear into the boat and you let out a sigh of relief, you turned around only to be backhanded and fall to the ground. Only a moment later, you were being pulled back up by your hair and placed in a headlock with the flare gun that had just been in your hands placed against your temple. 

“Damn. At least take me to dinner first. First choking, now hair pulling, and a headlock? You move quickly, don’t you, buddy?”

“Oh, so now you want to go on a date? Sorry, Cupcake, but it’s a bit too late for that.”

You scoffed at his words and watched as Six got out of the water, now following after the two of you as Leah started dragging you into the labyrinth beside you. You dragged your feet, not on purpose at first, but then it progressively got more and more purposeful by the second. 

“Hey. Hey!” He stopped to threaten you. “Now you pick those feet up or you’re gonna end up dead real quick.”

“You know, maybe if someone wasn’t dragging me, I wouldn’t have to drag my feet.”

“Funny. Now listen. You shut up, and you don’t move, and I won’t shoot you in the head.”

You did as he asked, knowing from two experiences now that he was strong enough to overpower you and crazy enough to be true to his word. He kneeled down and pulled off the shoelaces of your left shoe, wrapping them around his missing fingers to stop the bleeding. When he was done, he wrapped his arm around your neck again and started dragging you more to the center of the labyrinth. 

“Six!” You called out when you reached the middle despite the man’s warnings of killing you. You hoped your voice would give him an easier path to the center than finding it on his own. 

It must have worked, because less than 30 seconds later, Six came walking through the entrance to the center of the labyrinth with his gun raised and aimed at the man holding you at gunpoint. You let out an involuntary sigh of relief when you made eye contact with him. 

“Now, I’m going to stop you right there, Cupcake. What do you say we wrap this up? I mean, I’m having a blast, but the lady’s gotta put the kid to sleep, because it’s way past her bedtime, don’t cha think? Now here’s what’s gonna happen. You’re gonna throw me that gun, or your girl gets a new face.”

“No, Six! Don-”

“Shut the fuck up!” Levi gritted through his teeth. When Six didn’t throw the gun over, the man added some encouragement to his demand. “If your strategy relies on whether or not I’ll kill a woman, you need a new strategy.”

With that, he aimed the flare gun at your cheek and pulled the trigger. The sensation of it going off right next to your face burned, but the sound of it shooting right next to your ear is what hurt worse. You let out a sound of pain without your mind’s consent and watched as Six lowered his gun and started emptying it of the magazine and bullet in the chamber. 

Good. At least he wasn’t handing over a loaded weapon to this sociopath. 

“Cute,” Leila said after Six threw him the empty weapon across the pretty water fountain separating the two of them. “I meant with the bullets.”

“Nobody throws a loaded gun, Lloyd.”

Six started walking around the fountain, to which Liliana replied by doing the same, dragging you along with him, where your feet started to drag again. You were exhausted, and your bones were aching; he would just have to forgive you if your feet dragged while you were getting dragged. 

“You know, I think we would have been friends, you and I,” the moustached man started. “Aside from your childish sense of morality and eight-dollar haircut, we have a lot in common. It’s really a shame this isn’t gonna work out between us.”

“Oh my god, are you breaking up with him?” You gasped, only for it to turn into a grimace when the guy jammed the flare gun harder into your temple. 

“Be a dear and shut the fuck up from now on, yeah?” He asked, nodding your head for you when you refused to answer. 

You watched the way Six’s jaw set and his hands clenched from across the fountain. 

“Now, normally at this point in the night, I wouldn’t be sticking around. With the house lights about to come on, I’d find a desperate, ugly chick to lick my wounds and split.”

You bit back the retort you had for that comment. 

“But you have been a pebble in my shoe since the very beginning.” He stopped walking, which meant you did too. “And now I just don’t think I can walk away,” he waited, and a moment of silence passed by. “Guess what i’m thinking right now!”

“That you’ve overshared,” Six responded easily. 

“I think I’m better than you.”

You also bit back the sassy comment you had about that. 

“What do you say, Six? You wanna dance?”

Lexi let you go, and you spent no time rushing away from him and to the side of Six, nearly tripping over yourself in the process. 

You let yourself fall into his warm, slightly wet from the water’s, embrace. 

After a minute of silence where you just breathed him in, he spoke to what must have been a person in his ear. “Forget the shot, come get Fitz’s nieces,” then, he finally tore his eyes away from where they had been stuck on the man across the fountain to look you over. “Let me see your face.”

You obliged, pulling away from him to let him see the redness that must have bloomed on your face from the flare gun. You laughed, but it was wet with tears you held back, and you joked, “Am I still pretty?”

He didn’t say anything, but the look he sent you was something that didn’t need words to get the meaning across. 

You will always be beautiful.

He gently ran his thumb under the mark before he looked back over to Laurel and glared at him. The other man grinned cockily and threw the flare gun to the side. 

“My friend is going to meet you and Claire at the edge of the maze, okay?” He told you, and you looked at him incredulously.

“Is this your way of telling me that you’re not coming with us?”

“I got this, okay? Don’t worry about me,” he said instead of replying.

“No. That’s an insane thing to do, and you’re insane for even thinking of battling this psychopath. You’re going to fight him for what? Your ego? Just because you can? That’s a dumbass thing to do any you know it! Claire needs you in her life. She has already lost two male father figures in her life, she cannot lose another. And… and I need you. I can’t do this shit by myself. You can’t just do this.” You protested, scoffing at the idea of his doing this. 

“I have to,” he insisted. 

You scoffed, looking back and forth between the man across the fountain and back at him. “You’re a dumb piece of shit, I hope you know that.”

He smiled lightly at your behavior. Despite all of your words, your grip on his hand - despite you not even remembering grabbing ahold of it - hadn’t loosened in the slightest. “I know.”

You glanced between the two men once more before squeezing his hand in a goodbye and slowly letting your grip loosen as you walked away, up until it fell back to his side. “If you die, I’ll bring you back to life and beat you to death again, you got that?” You asked him. All you got was another amused smile and a nod of his head. With a responding nod of your own, you added on, “Kick his ass for me, yeah?” Before heading out of the maze. 

When you stepped around the corner, you heard Loretta say, “No wonder she never accepted my invitations to dinner. She already had a bitch of a boyfriend.”

And for all the gross things Lloyd had said to and about you, that one made you smile, especially since he was about to get his ass kicked by that bitch of a boyfriend. 

You sat next to Claire on the bed of the safe house you’d been taken to by the CIA after being found in Croatia. Six was taken somewhere by a medical team in a helicopter, but that was the last you saw and heard from him. Since then, you’d been asking the agents assigned to the house with you every five minutes if they had any news about them, but they either didn’t answer you or lied and told you they didn’t know. 

It had been two weeks since that day in Croatia, and you were still as shaken up about the whole thing as you were when it was happening. You needed Six. He was the only thing that could help this situation feel a little less hopeless and make you feel a little stronger, and you needed to be strong. You may have lost someone you cared about when Donald died, but Claire lost the last blood relative she had. She had no one left now, no one except for you. 

When the CIA first took you, they almost tore the two of you apart. The only reason they didn’t was because you fought tooth and nail to remain by her side. You didn’t remember actually fighting anyone, but apparently, you put two guys into the hospital before a woman with short brown hair called Agent Brewer approved and assured you that you would be by Claire’s side, especially when she found out you were her full-time appointed nurse. 

You stopped fighting after that, just making sure to take care of Claire and provide her with as much support as you could in this time of need. 

You played Silver Bird as often as you could, thankful they at least provided you with her records and record player. It kept her spirits up a little bit, but you didn’t expect her to be the same right away after a tragedy like that. Hell, you didn’t expect her to ever be the same after that. 

You just had to keep your heart open with hope that Six would come for you. You weren’t surprised he hadn’t come yet, especially with his wounds that bad, but you knew that he would come as soon as he was able. 

Until that day comes, you would stay here, in this empty room, with these empty thoughts, and this empty heart. 

A knock at your door snapped your gaze away from where you were stroking the part of your cheek Six did when you last saw while while watching Claire rummage through her records, trying to get back into a sort of routine that was similar to the one you had before the catastrophe that happened. 

“Lunch,” the soldier said. When the two of you just stared at him, he flicked his head in the direction of the kitchen like he was in a rush. “Come on!”

You stood up before Claire, offering your hand to her. She sniffed and grabbed it, allowing you to pull her up and lead her out into the kitchen. 

The soldiers made a very mediocre PB&J for each of you that both of you picked at. Neither of you had had an appetite since that night, and you were pretty sure you had unhealthily lost some weight because of it. Giving up on forcing yourself to eat, you turned to Claire. “You need to eat something, you’re still growing,” you reminded her. 

She gave you a look before glancing at your own sandwich. “You’re one to talk.”

You sighed. “I know, but it’s my job to take care of you, so please let me take care of you.”

“Well, you can stop taking care of me, now. Your employer died, I don’t know if you know.”

You stopped talking and stared at her before wrapping your arms around her shoulders and bringing her into a hug. You didn’t say anything else after that, just held her until you were both escorted back to the room you were staying in. When you walked in, you immediately noticed something was different. When you heard bird sounds, you knew exactly where that feeling was coming from. 

The door to the outside was open. 

Looking around the room to make sure there were no intruders or anyone who posed a threat to Claire’s safety, you noticed the case holding the Silver Bird record was placed on the lamp like it was on a stand. You picked it up, glancing over at Claire in confusion, wondering if she had put it there without you noticing. That theory was debunked when she shook her head no. Looking at it in more detail, you noticed the piece of paper sticking out of it that read ‘PLAY ME LOUD.’

So, following directions, you placed the record on the record player and placed the needle down, allowing the song to start. Grabbing Claire’s hand and bringing her to kneel beside you, you brought her head to your chest and covered her ears. Even after raising the volume to the loudest it would go, you could still hear the sounds of violence and death outside the doors of the four walls you had seen every second of every day for the past two weeks. 

When the door finally opened again, you saw the man you’d been holding out hope would come find you walk through. 

“Am I allowed to chew gum in here?” He joked, referencing one of the first things Claire had said to him when they first met, and you took a deep breath in for what felt like the first time since you’d last seen him. Claire laughed and ran over to him, hugging him tightly. You saw the wince on his face at what must have been his wounds being aggravated, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. He was here, and your heart didn’t feel empty anymore. 

As soon as Claire let him go and his eyes refocused on you, you strutted forward and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, pulling him into you and kissing him on the lips. It was something that was well overdue, if you asked yourself. You smiled into the kiss, feeling him wrap a hand around your neck to keep you from going far as you leaned back. “Thanks for coming to get us, Six.”

“Court.”

You looked at him with a confused smile, releasing one arm from around his neck to grab onto Claire’s hand, for your sake and for hers. 

“My name. It’s Court.”

You smiled wider, no longer confused. “Well then, Court. Where to next?”

So, with all of that in mind, as you graduated high school and started college, you started your path in medical care, specializing in pediatrics so you would be able to help them with taking care of the young girl alongside her full-time nurse on standby. 

Within only six years, you became the youngest person to ever graduate with a medical license. It wasn’t something all that special to you, considering it was all for one person. All for her, the girl you viewed as your little sister and the person who meant the most to you in this world. As soon as you graduated from med school, you became Claire’s full-time caretaker, a fact that her and your parents were more than thrilled about. It helped that Claire absolutely adored you even as an infant. She would always act up unless you were in the room or holding her, and it warmed your heart each and every time. Being able to be around her now every minute of the day was something that made you more than happy, especially since even though you’d heard stories of her being a bit of a hellion for her parents, she was nothing but an angel when around you. 

Overall, at only the age of 25, you were the happiest you could ever be with your life as fulfilling as it could be, and your heart full all the time. 

That all changed, though, when the Fire Nation attacked when you turned 28, and both she and your parents died on their way back from the store buying your birthday present. It was a truck pile-up that killed them, though the circumstances always seemed especially strange for reasons you couldn’t quite place your finger on. 

You held a sobbing Claire in the hospital hallway that night, suppressing your own tears as she exhausted herself and eventually fell asleep in your arms. Later on, Claire’s uncle, Donald, came walking out of their hospital room with a sullen and pale look on his face. It was only at the subtle shake of his head that you let the first tear drop fall. 

It had been three years since that day, and you hadn’t been able to celebrate your birthday that same way since. It became a cursed day that brought a heavy rain cloud over your head whenever it approached. Claire had been able to grow from it, and it luckily didn’t impact her personality too much, at least not in a concerning way. She seemed more mellow and sad at times, especially when the anniversary of their death came up, but she was still the same amazing girl you would always love and cherish. 

It was an awkward time of year, your birthday. Especially for Claire. You could tell it was strange for the day of her parents' death, along with yours, and your birthday, a day of celebration, to be on the same day because she was never quite sure about what to do. 

Was she supposed to celebrate? 

Would you get sad if she threw you a little surprise birthday party? 

She really had no idea how you felt about the day, when each time it rolled up, you were always taking care of her and making sure she was feeling alright on the day of your family members’ deaths. You never mentioned your birthday, but you always made sure hers was the best day you could ask for. 

Although it’s 100% not how you would have wanted the rest of your life to be spent - living in sadness on the one day of your life your parents always tried to make the happiest of the year - you couldn’t do anything to change it and decided to at least make it so that Claire wouldn’t have to struggle that same sadness of a day that is supposed to bring her joy. 

When Donald told you about the release of information about the house in Hong Kong that the three of you lived in, you were rightfully anxious. You had known about your uncle’s job since you were a child, and it never bothered you, but this was one of the few times you wished he had a normal, boring job like the rest of the world. 

Not that you didn’t already wish that for him, but now especially that it was putting more people you care about in danger. 

You were glad he was already way ahead of you about the safety of not only Claire, but also of you. Donald had not only taken over as the acting guardian of Claire, but he also had become a sort of father figure for you to rely on in times of need. With you being the motherly figure of Claire at such a young age, it became hard for you at times to keep up the happy sisterly nurse for her, always strong and never allowing yourself to crumble in front of her, because the gods knew she needed someone like that. With Donald around, you allowed yourself to fall apart bit by bit in his presence because you knew he would always be around to catch you. With him being away on work for most of the time, you were the main caretaker and family member of Claire, and he repaid that not only with money - because yes, he did pay you very handsomely - but also with a shoulder for you to cry on. 

He briefed you on Six and what exactly he would be doing in Donald’s place while he was away. Although you weren’t the most comfortable with a stranger in the house at all times, you trusted your uncle with your life. If he trusted this man, then that would be the person in charge of your and Claire’s safety for the time being. 

A knock on the door brought you back to the present, where you had been helping Claire look through her records. It was a sort of tradition of yours to pretend to be interested in the other songs when, in reality, you both knew you would choose Silver Bird by Mark Lindsay. After all, it was both of your favorite songs because it was the birthday present your parents had gone to get for you before their crash. Unfortunately, the one they bought was destroyed beyond repair, but you bought a different one and pretended in your mind it was the same one they bought for you. 

You got up from where you were kneeling on her bed beside her and ruffled her hair a bit before walking to the front door. You had no doubt the person at the door was this mysterious Six, but you were still slightly cautious and worried about the chance that it wasn’t him. 

Looking through the peephole, you saw a man in a dark purple button-up with a gray blazer and matching slacks. Opening up the small mail slot on the door, you spoke. “Identity Challenge: Virgo.”

He responded within a heartbeat. “Response: Jupiter.”

You let out a sigh of relief and relaxed your shoulders that you hadn’t even realized were tensed up. Unlocking the door and opening it up, you got a good look at the man you would be spending the next few months with. 

You remember being shocked and scared when you heard how long your uncle was going to be gone for, but there was nothing you could do. His job was demanding, and you could only hope he remained safe throughout it all. He was much more handsome than he was through the distortion of the peephole. You stuck a hand out for him. “Welcome to the Fitzroy house, Mr. Six,” you started, giving him your name right afterwards. “I’m Claire’s primary and full-time nurse and also Donald’s other niece, though not by blood. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to let me know,” you told him with a kind smile. He nodded and stepped through the door, closing it behind him, as you turned to start leading him into the house and to Claire’s room. 

“Claire Bear,” you said as you entered the room, noticing she had stopped looking through the records, having chosen Silver Bird as expected and started playing it on the record player, and was now messing around with the Polaroid camera you got for her on her last birthday. “This is… Six. He’ll be staying and looking after us and the house while Uncle D is away.”

Six looked around the room, scanning everything like a true security guard before walking over to the side of the room Claire was at. “Just the two exits?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” you confirmed. 

After a moment of silence, Claire spoke up. “Six is an odd name.”

“Claire!” You scolded gently. She sent you a semi-apologetic glance before the man spoke up. 

“Yeah, just, uh, 007 was taken, so…” He shrugged, and you let a small sigh of relief, glad he didn’t take any personal offense to the comment. You knew very little about the man from what your uncle told you, so knowing whether Six was his real name or an alias was something that wasn’t mentioned, and you weren’t too keen on asking about it. At least not yet. 

“Are you chewing gum?” Claire asked. While they talked, you started collecting the records off the bed to put them back on the shelf under the record player where they belong. 

“Yep.”

“We don’t chew gum in this house.”

He sent a glance over at you as he spoke, and you smiled a small, slightly amused smile.

“I wasn’t… briefed,” just in that moment, Claire took a photo of the man with her Polaroid. “Won’t happen… again. Well, I’ll try and stay out of your way, for both of you. Do you mind?” He asked before leaning down and picking up the picture she had just taken of him. After inspecting it for a moment, he asked, “May I?” Indicating he would like to take the photo. 

Claire shrugged and replied, “Sure.”

“Thanks,” he expressed as he placed the photo in the inner breast pocket of his blazer. “Nice to meet you,” he said, glancing between you and Claire. 

“Likewise, let me know if you need anything,” you told him for the second time. He nodded and walked back out the door of Claire’s room, presumably scanning the rest of the house and doing his job. 

“Let me know if you need anything,” Claire mocked after making sure Six had gotten far enough away that he wouldn’t hear. “Can you be any more obvious?”

Your jaw dropped, and you lightly slapped her arm. “Claire! There was nothing to be obvious about,” you deflected, and she raised her eyebrows at you. 

“Uh-huh. Sure. I might be 13, but I’m not stupid. You’ve got the hots for that guy,” she said while lightly nudging her elbow into your ribs. 

Your jaw dropped even further. “Where did you even learn that term? That’s insane, and you’re insane. Shut up,” you rambled, flustered, and turning your head away from her as she laughed. 

You did not have the hots for this new attractive bodyguard your uncle assigned to the two of you. You didn’t. 

Okay, so you might have the hots for the new attractive bodyguard your uncle assigned to the two of you. Maybe. But it was only because you spent so little time with people outside of taking care of Claire that it was just nice seeing another face around. You got lonely sometimes in the sense of not having many friends, and the friends you did have, you never really hung out with. 

So yeah, maybe you did have the hots for this new guy, but could you blame yourself?

The second time you interacted with Six was later that day in the kitchen as you were preparing a grilled cheese sandwich and broccoli cheese soup (because she doesn’t like tomato soup) for Claire. He walked in with an empty water bottle in his hand. When he saw you, he practically turned the other way and started walking again. “Sorry, I’ll leave you be.”

Without turning around, you spoke up. “Six, you don’t have to completely avoid us. You’re here to protect us, but this is going to be your home as well for the next couple of months. I hope we don’t make you feel uncomfortable because that’s the exact opposite of what I want to do.”

When you turned back around to look at him, he was practically frozen in place. It took a moment of the two of you holding eye contact for him to respond. “Thank you. I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

He was a man of few words, that was for sure, but it wasn’t really something you minded. As long as he understood what you were saying, then that was all you needed. 

The third time you interacted with Six was around 5 o’clock that day, outside beside the pool, as you and Claire sat on a hanging chair. You were reading a book, and Claire was on her phone playing her favorite game. He walked up the steps beside the house, eating a sandwich, before doing the same thing he did earlier that afternoon and turned around to walk back in the direction he came from. “Excuse me.”

“Looking for your jacket?” Claire asked. He turned around, walking back in your direction before she continued in a mischievous tone. “Looks like I sat on it!”

You scoffed out a laugh, glancing up at Six before going back to your book. 

“Is that a secure phone?” He asked. He was only a few feet away from you now, your knee nearly grazing against his thigh. 

“All of our phones are secure, don’t worry, Donald had that ensured,” you told him softly, still looking at your book. 

“Just got the high score,” Claire said while showing him the phone screen. That made you snap your head to her, looking at her phone to make sure she was telling the truth.

She was. 

You clicked your tongue, annoyed. That was your high score that she beat. Now you just had to beat it again. 

Claire stuck her tongue out at you childishly, and you scrunched your nose at her playfully. She looked back at Six to continue the conversation. “I had a lot of time to practice after the operation. They made me stay in bed.” She waited a moment, and when she realized Six wasn’t going to respond, she continued with a more mocking tone in her voice. “‘How long they make you stay in bed for?’ Quite a long time. Several weeks, actually. ‘Oh, hope you’re okay.’ Better now, Six. Thanks for asking! How’s your time been here? Enjoying the grounds? ‘Oh, they’re lovely. I like to walk in circles and stare at my shoes.’” You nudged her in the side scoldingly.

“Can I get that jacket?” He asked instead of responding to anything she said. Claire pressed her lips together before pulling the jacket out from under her and handing it to the man. 

“I like your tattoo,” she tried another conversation, hoping he would open up and talk to her. “Where’d you get it, prison?”

You pressed a hand to your forehead and let out a sound that was a mix between a scoff and a laugh. “Claire, you can’t just say things like that, dude.”

Six sent you a look that you couldn’t quite decipher before responding to Claire. “Yeah, actually.”

“I’m shocked,” the girl responded sarcastically. 

He nodded his head to the side in acknowledgment before turning around and walking until he stopped at the 13-year-old’s next words. 

“What’s it mean? The writing?”

“Oh, it’s, you know… Just a guy’s name in Greek.”

That caught your attention, and you placed your bookmark in your book to mark your spot before setting it down in your lap and listening to the conversation. Six glanced over at you, noticing this, and you smiled. 

“What guy?” Claire asked persistently. 

“Just a guy. You know, trying to get a rock up a hill.”

“Why?”

“They made him.”

“Who made him?”

“The gods.”

“Did they need a rock?” She asked, and you let out a small laugh. 

“They were just trying to punish him, I think.”

“Did he deserve it?” She asked him, continuing the conversation even though you could kind of tell Six was getting anxious to leave it. 

“Probably.”

“Did he like it?”

“Probably not.”

“So why’d he do it?”

Six nodded thoughtfully before saying, “You ask a lot of questions.”

“And you’re quite the conversationalist,” she retorted. You sent the man an apologetic look before he nodded in both of your directions and replied. 

“I’m going to get back to work.”

When he was about halfway across the patio, Claire spoke up again. “Hey! Does he ever get to the top of the hill?”

Six let out a short laugh. “I’ll let you know.”

As he walked off, Claire let out a sigh. “He’s boring to talk to.”

“Well, he wasn’t sent here to talk to us, so I think he’s doing pretty well considering everything,” you told her while poking her cheek annoyingly. 

She slapped your hand away with a laugh and went back to playing the game on her phone. 

You narrowed your eyes and snatched the phone out of her hand. “Gimme that. You can’t just beat my high score and get away with it!” You told her playfully while starting up a new game. That started a mini war between the two of you, where she would try to do whatever she could to distract you from the game while you tried to beat her new high score. 

In the end, you weren’t able to beat it (and you definitely weren’t purposely doing worse to allow her the win). 

The next couple of weeks went by without a hitch. Six was still somewhat distant and relatively emotionally absent in both your and Claire’s presence, not to mention the lack of conversation skills he had, but he seemed to be getting more comfortable and less awkward around you two. He would make more jokes, that dry, almost dad humor of his more than enough to make you crack a smile or laugh aloud, and he was also getting less and less shy with touching you, though shy wasn’t exactly the right word for how he had been before, more distant. While his touch never lasted more than a few seconds, he didn’t hold back on placing a hand on the small of your back when he gently manhandled you away from a cabinet he was trying to get into, or when he walked behind you and lightly brushed his hand against your back so that you knew he was there.

Or even when you fell asleep at the table during your nightly tradition of staying there with him, and he picked you up to bring you to your room. 

Your relationship with him had become something new. Less than friends, but more than strangers. It was nameless, but you wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Now, when there was silence, you didn’t feel like you had to immediately fill it. It was comfortable. He was comfortable. You even started a little ritual where you would sit at the table with him after you put Claire to bed. He would watch the cameras, and you would either read, work on the puzzle that was on the table and had been for weeks, or talk with him. 

The talking was usually one-sided, however, and you rarely got more than a one-word response or a grunt. That didn’t stop you from rambling about anything and everything under the stars. He might not be the best conversationalist but he was a damn good listener. 

Tonight was like any other night. You’d put Claire to bed about an hour earlier and had been sitting at the table like you’d done for the past week or so. Tonight, you were reading on your Kindle. It was a romance story about a princess and her appointed knight. The princess and the knight were in love, big shocker, but it was forbidden for them to be together. 

Lowering the Kindle to your lap, your thoughts drifted off. You couldn’t help but relate yourself and your situation to the book. Although you were no princess, you somehow felt like the princess in the book, slowly falling for her knight in shining armour. The only difference was that it seemed to be a bit more one-sided in your story. It had only been a couple of weeks since he’d arrived but with every interaction, every soft chuckle you got out of him when you said something silly, every small smile he shot Claire’s way when she was being her normal, amazing self made you feel things you’d never felt before for anyone. 

You knew about his line of work, though, and specifically about who he was. He was a ghost. He didn’t exist to the world, therefore, he shouldn’t even exist to you. You knew he would never feel the same way, and even if he did, he would never be allowed to act upon it. 

But he did exist to you, and that was what made it so hard to get over your growing feelings for him. 

With your thoughts distracted and your teeth unconsciously biting at your lower lip, you hadn’t noticed the way Six kept glancing over at you every couple of seconds. It was only when he spoke that you got shaken from the thoughts in your mind and looked over at him. “Claire doesn’t like it when you do that.”

“When I do what?” You asked, confused. 

“Chew on your lip,” he said simply. 

He was right. Each time Claire caught you chewing your lip, she always smacked you on the arm and scolded you the same way you always scolded her for picking at her cuticles. It made you laugh that he noticed that, and you forced yourself to release your lip from its tooth jail and sigh. “Most of the time, I do it subconsciously. I’ve been trying to get myself to quit it for years, but I’ve never been able to,” you confessed, leaning back in your chair after completely giving up on reading and turning the Kindle off.

He hummed in response, and you let out a soft little laugh sound that he quirked a smile at. 

Just as you were about to open your mouth and continue the conversation, you saw him sneakily opening up a packet of gum, sending you a look before he asked, “Well, are you going to tell on me for chewing gum in the house?”

You stared at him incredulously as he stuffed the gum into his mouth and started chewing. You scoffed out a laugh and shook your head. “Your secret’s safe with me, Mr. Number Man,” you teased. 

Just as he was about to say something in response, the two of you heard a familiar, feminine voice call out for you and then for the man next to you. “Mr. Six…” She started, her voice sounding strained and laborious. “Something’s wrong,” she gasped out before falling to the floor in a heap. 

“Claire!” You yelled out, standing up as soon as she started falling. Six was two steps ahead of you, already running over to her and picking her up. You didn’t even need his instructions when you grabbed the car keys and your phone before heading to the door and opening it for him. It took you less than a minute for you to unlock the car, get in the backseat where Six quickly but gently placed Claire onto your lap, and for him to get into the front and start driving. The entire way, you kept a finger over Claire’s pulse to keep count of her heart rate, all while giving Six directions to Mount St. Mary’s. 

When you got there, the car had barely come to a stop before Six had put it into park and opened the door. You followed closely behind him as he carried her into the hospital and placed her onto a wheeled bed as doctors crowded around her and wheeled her away. You followed them as far as you could until they told you to go sit in the hallway until further notice. You sat with your head in your hands while Six stood beside you, offering support with his presence, even if he didn’t hug you or hold your hand. 

Later on, after the doctors had transferred her over to a regular hospital room, you were able to go in and see her. The entire time the doctor was speaking, you were holding Claire’s hand with the gentlest grip despite how you wanted to squeeze it for dear life at the fear she just instilled in you. 

“She’s stabilized,” the doctor told you, pointing at her now regulated heart rate. “Tell Donald there was a programming glitch. We were able to repair it, non-invasive.”

You nodded before asking. “Is there any possibility this could happen again? Should I- should we be worried?” You corrected yourself. There were the occasional times when you would forget Claire wasn’t your real sister or daughter. 

“The probability of this happening again is very slim, but we would like to keep her here for a couple of days to make sure everything stays as it should. We managed to fix it and place some backup protocols into the program as well. The remote system flagged it ten minutes before you pulled up. We can keep track of her pacemaker from just about anywhere.”

“Thank you, really. I’ll let her uncle know right away.”

The doctor nodded at you before you turned to face the small girl. Despite being in such a fragile condition, she was still the strongest girl you’d ever met. You leaned over her to kiss her forehead. With a playful smirk, you told her, “Try not to get into any more trouble in the few minutes I’m away.”

She clicked her tongue, her voice sounding muffled under the mask. “No promises.”

You winked and gently placed her hand down before walking away and passing Six with an acknowledging nod of your head on your way out of the room. Grabbing your phone out of your back pocket, you dialed up your uncle's number and waited for him to answer. Once he spoke into the phone, you let out a small sigh of relief. 

“Hey, Uncle D., Claire had an accident. Her pacemaker had a malfunction, so we brought her to the hospital.”

“Is she doing better?” He asked, and you could hear the worried tremor in his voice. 

“Yeah.. yeah, she’s doing okay now. They fixed the glitch and everything, but I just wanted to let you know. It was a non-invasive procedure, and they had tracked the glitch ten minutes before we even arrived at the hospital,” you told him. 

“Okay. That’s good to hear.”

“They want her to stay here for another day or two just to keep an eye on her. Six and I are going to stay with her the entire time, so we will be okay.”

“Alright, sweetie. Let me know if anything changes, alright?”

“Yeah, will do. Do you want to speak to Claire? I’m sure she’d love to hear from you. I don’t think she’s asleep yet,” you suggested.

“No, let the poor girl get some rest. I’ll call her tomorrow if I can. I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”

“Okay, bye, uncle, we love you.”

With that, you hung up and walked back over to the door of Claire’s room, where you leaned against the opposite wall from Six. Glancing over at Claire, you saw her fast asleep, and you smiled. 

“You doing alright?” Six asked. When you turned back to look at him, you saw him already looking at you, which caused your breath to hitch in your throat. 

You nodded while staring into his clear blue eyes. “Yeah, I’m doing fine. A little worried about Claire, sure, but I know she’ll be okay. She’s a whole lot tougher than me and maybe even tougher than you,” you joked.

He smiled back at you, and you mentally pat yourself on your back. “Oh, definitely. I’m a giant wuss compared to her.”

You giggled softly before letting out a yawn. “You need me to stay up with you, or are you good to keep watch by yourself?” You asked playfully, knowing he doesn’t need any help for the job he does every night. 

He confirmed that thought when he shook his head. “I’ll be alright. Get some sleep.”

You nodded. “Goodnight, Six.”

“Goodnight,” he replied just as softly. 

You walked into the room to take a seat on the cushioned chair in the corner of the room, and it was only seconds after your head rested against the side that you conked out for the night. 

The next day and a half were relatively boring. You sat on Claire’s bed with her, chatting away and watching her get a new high score after you downloaded her favorite app for her on your phone since you had left hers at home before you left. Six watched over the two of you the entire time, making sure only confirmed doctors and nurses came into the room with the three of you. It was only later, the next day, after all three of you were tired of living within the same four walls and ready to go home, that Claire was finally cleared to leave. The three of you practically sprinted to the car and started your journey back to the place you called home. 

When you finally parked in the house’s driveway, you helped Claire get out of the car and sat her down at the kitchen table as soon as you entered it. With a mischievous gleam in your eyes, you snuck over to the freezer and pulled out the tub of chocolate ice cream you knew was her favorite. Her eyes lit up once she saw it, and you laughed, getting a bowl and serving two scoops of ice cream into it. Placing it down in front of her, you messed with her hair before kissing the crown of her head. You gestured with your hand to Six, asking if he wanted any ice cream, to which he shook his head at. You nodded, flashing him a smile and walking over to wash the ice cream scooper. 

“You feeling better?” Six asked the young girl as she scooped the ice cream into her mouth. You listened to the conversation over the sound of the rushing water from the sink. 

She shrugged. “Just another Thursday.” Six nodded before Claire continued with a happier sigh, leaving her chest. “Donald says this is the best medicine. Ice cream? I tend to agree.”

“He’s a very smart man,” Six agreed with a quirk of his lips. You smiled at the interaction. 

“Only family I got,” Claire told him, her smile falling from her lips and being replaced by a slightly more somber look. 

“Closest thing to family I got too.”

The 11-year-old rested her head on her hand as she looked over at Six with a thoughtful expression. “Maybe that kind of makes us family.”

You finished up your dishes and watched as Six looked over at her with a soft look on his face before shooting her a small, quick smile. 

Claire yawned, and within a heartbeat, Six said, “You should go to bed.”

You dried your hands as he did, walking over to place your hands on the girl’s shoulders and guide her out of the chair. “Alright, Claire Bear. You heard the mathematician. Off to bed you go.”

“Night, Robot,” Claire told Six as the two of you walked away. 

“Good night, Claire,” he said to her in response. 

You winked at him. “Goodnight, Mr. Mathematician.”

He nodded your way with a somewhat forced smile as you walked away. You noticed the furrowedness of his eyebrows, though you ignored the way it made you nervous. 

“You want to take a bath before you go to sleep? Rinse off the hospital smell?” You asked Claire while walking to her bedroom. 

She scoffed. “Is this your way of telling me I stink?”

“What? No! That would be crazy,” you told her as you plugged your nose playfully and fanned your hand in front of your face. 

She laughed just as you got to the bedroom door and entered it. “Can I play a record?

“Okay, fine. You can only play them until your bath is done, though, okay? You’ve had a long past few days, and I don’t want you to stay up for any longer than you need to. I’ll go start the bath while you start that up.”

A few minutes later, she was sitting in the tub, scrubbing herself clean while you tidied things up around her room, listening to ‘Silver Bird’ reverberate throughout the room. When she called out for you, you walked over to the door, still allowing her to have her privacy as you asked what was wrong. 

“I just ran out of conditioner. Could you get some from under the sink in Donald’s room?” She pleaded. You stuck your thumb up from around the corned, smiling when she giggled. 

“You got it, Claire Bear.”

“I think I’m getting too old for that nickname, you know?” 

“You’ll never outgrow being my Claire Bear,” you refuted, sticking your thumb down around the corner and hearing her laugh again. 

“Okay, whatever. Go get me that conditioner, peasant.”

You scoffed playfully at her demanding (yet also playful) tone before walking out of her bedroom and heading in the direction of Donald’s room. Just as you were about to pass by the kitchen, you noticed Six wasn’t in his normal spot. You were a bit confused, so you called out his name, only to have a gloved hand place a knife up against your throat and another stick a gun out in front of you to whoever may be in the house (AKA Six). 

“Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to be quiet, and you’re going to lead me to where the girl is, and maybe I won’t kill you.”

You grit your teeth, finding courage to speak up despite the fear coursing through your bones. “Here’s what’s actually going to happen. You’re going to go to hell and I’m going to stomp on your grave, you piece of shit.”

You heard him angrily curse you out and you prepared yourself for the worst as you felt the knife dig into your skin more, cutting it just enough for a drop of blood to start trailing down your neck, when he was suddenly yanked away from you, dropping the knife to the floor with a clatter and incidentally shoving your forward where you tumbled into the tall, brick pillars in the house. Your forehead scraped against it as you tried to cushion your fall with your hands, only to be a bit too late. You quickly spun yourself around, getting vertigo in the process, and looked only to avert your gaze from the violent scene in front of you. Your eyes were clenched tightly, and you only noticed the fight was over when a careful, gentle hand placed itself upon your cheek. Instinctively, you swung your hand out to hit him square in the face. Thankfully, for his safety and your sanity, he caught your fist mid-air and placed it on his chest over his heart. He stood with you for a few minutes, letting you follow his breathing as you attempted to regulate your anxious breaths and get your heart rate back to normal. 

When you finally calmed down enough to take a deep breath without it stuttering in your lungs, you leaned your head against his chest and wrapped your arms around his waist without thinking. After a moment or two of his body remaining still and not returning your affection, you quickly backed away and apologized. “Shit. I’m sorry I shouldn’t have done tha-”

You were cut off when he grabbed onto your arms and pulled you back into his chest, leaving no room between the two of you. He leaned his cheek against the crown of your head as he held you tightly. “Don’t apologize, you’ve done nothing wrong.” After a moment, he gently separated you from him and took a look at you, finally fully assessing the damage over your forehead and neck. “We should get this cleaned up. Is your head hurting at all?”

“Well, my forehead kind of stings, but I don’t have a headache or anything like that, so most likely no concussion.”

He nodded. “Good. Go sit at the table, I’ll bring over the first aid kit.”

Before you could even protest or ask if he even knew where the kit was, he was already walking away. You sighed and sat down at the table as you were told to do. Seconds later, he returned with a washcloth and the first aid kit in hand. You watched him move in silence as he prepared to clean you up. When he brought the washcloth doused in rubbing alcohol up to your head, you barely even felt the sting as his eyes captured yours. Even in the dim lighting of the kitchen, they were still the brightest and most mesmerizing things you’d ever seen. 

“Does that hurt?” He asked, his voice soft and careful as his eyes flickered between the cut above your brow and your eyes. 

You lightly shook your head. “No.”

He cracked a smile as he quipped. “Joining the tough gang, huh? Welcome to the club.”

You exhaled through your nose in amusement just as your eyes started to feel heavy. The adrenaline from the night had started to wear off, and you could feel the ache in your bones weigh down on you. “I guess I have,” you spoke through a yawn. He snorted but said nothing else as he finished with the cut on your brow and moved on to the cut on your throat. You knew you were probably in shock, but you expected to be a little more scared and shaken up after having nearly been killed. All you really felt was tired. 

Just as he finished putting the bandages over your cuts, Claire walked out of her room with her pajamas on and her hair still wet. “Did you forget you were supposed to bring me some conditioner? What took you so lon-”

Her words got cut off by her own finding as she saw the two shoes belonging to a stranger peeking out from around a corner. When she looked over at you and Six sitting at the table, you both stood up immediately. 

“Is everything okay?” She asked hesitantly, looking specifically at you since you seemed the most beat up out of the two of you. 

“Yeah,” Six answered in your stead. “Broke a bowl.”

“Yeah, and I just accidentally cut myself while… shaving…?”

Claire, obviously, did not look convinced. “You sure you’re alright?” Her eyes flashed back and forth between you, Six, and the body lying on the floor.

“Yeah. Just another Thursday,” Six threw her words from earlier back at her, and she hesitantly nodded. “You should go to bed. Goodnight.” She lingered hesitantly, and it was only when you passed by Six, placing a grateful hand on his shoulder in a silent way of saying thanks, and walked over to her to lead her back to her room, that she let it go and went back to bed. 

Things changed for you and Six after that night. Before, even if he was slowly becoming more comfortable with occasionally touching you, he tried not to do it that much. It was only now that he seemed to find excuses to touch you. 

Having trouble getting a glass off the tall shelf (that you were secretly pretty sure he moved so he could do this exact thing)? He was already standing behind you with one hand on your waist and the other reaching above you to grab the glass for you. 

Handing him a coffee in the morning so he would have an easier time staying awake after staying up all night watching the cameras? His fingers were slowly brushing against yours as he grabbed it from you. 

Have an eyelash on your cheek? Six was already closing in on you and taking it off, holding it out for you on his thumb while he waited for you to make a wish. 

Things were beginning to get so good, and your feelings were growing more and more each day until you felt like you would burst at the seams with affection for this man who stole your heart in less than two months. 

And you decided too late to tell him. 

2 days after you finally admitted to yourself you were in love with him and planned on confessing, your uncle came back home. You were ecstatic to see him, of course, but seeing him also meant that Six would be leaving, and that was something that broke your heart. 

When your uncle walked through the door with little bits and bobbles from his trip that he decided to bring back home with him, you didn’t know whether you should laugh or cry. Not even when Six went up to him and shook his hand, patting him on the shoulder and using government terminology you definitely hadn’t heard before, even in your time spent around your uncle and his subordinates. 

When Six grabbed the camping bag he’d brought with him for the trip that was already packed (he never unpacked it in the first place), you knew it would be a goodbye you would hear from him next. 

He stopped in front of Claire first, kneeling down in front of her and holding his hand out for her to clap before they both snapped, their own mini handshake. “See you around, kid.”

“Don’t call me kid, I’m currently taller than you,” she joked with a bittersweet lilt in her voice. 

Six gave his signature amused quirk of the lips before standing back up to his full height and walking over to you. “Hey,” he said softly. 

“Hi,” you said with the same tone. 

“I don’t know if I’ll see you again, so take care of yourself, will you? Claire can’t have her favorite nurse getting sick, now, can she?”

You let out a sad laugh. “Yeah, guess not. You try and do the same, won’t you? I can’t have my favorite mathematician dying, now, can I?” You joked in the same way, though yours was much more real and much more serious than his. 

He just nodded, not saying anything, so he wasn’t making any promises he might not be able to keep. With a hand giving your arm a long, gentle squeeze that conveyed more than just a goodbye, he turned around and disappeared into the black SUV, out of the driveway, and out of your life forever.