A/n: Thanks everyone for all the super-special awesome reviews! They are the best thing in the world to me (besides cheesecake). I apologize for the long wait, but exams and real life. You know how that goes. This chapter was difficult for me to keep a low rating. The story itself is meant to be more light-hearted than what I usually write for Holix or G-rex.

Sempaiko, remember when you suggested I raise the rating? Well, this ending was extended just for you. XD.

Six's words intrigued her. Where exactly was he planning to take her?

Holiday had to know.

She was a scientist. She had to solve equations, dissect information, seek out answers. The quest for knowledge was ingrained into her, into every nanite that resided in her cells.

With newfound determination, she perused him from the corner of her eye, forcefully trying to understand the recent motives of a man she's been frustratingly trying to comprehend for five years.

It helped in no way that the man had the best damn poker face in the world.

The very best, she grudgingly reminded herself, and he was not letting today be any exception, even when an unusual quirk was replacing his usual frown. With Six, his mouth conveyed the emotions his shielded eyes were prevented from telling; lips thinned when he was disappointed and jaw clenched when he disagreed. That irksome tug at the corner of his mouth, like he was amused at a thought that was unknown to her, was new, and skewered her calculated formula she had assigned for understanding him.

She released a strangled scoff that was swallowed by the wind, the very same wind that upturned his collar so she could view his strong chest. Not helping her in the slightest.

Forcefully, and grudgingly, she returned her focus to the scenery of which, most of the time, she only had an aerial view of from the Keep or a jumpjet. It was so vast and open, unhindered by concrete buildings, tiered freeways, and noisy cars. The information churned in a mental centrifuge until it settled in her thoughts, and suddenly she loved being out here with him, experiencing life.

She breathed in the dirty, cinnamon desert air, finally resolving in her mind that she liked the gritty, earthy scent, but only when traveling like this. Having fun. With Six.

Never would she have used those words together before today.

The roadster whined down when Six slowed to turn them onto an unpaved road off the highway, oversized hind wheels tossing gravel in the air, leaving a gigantic, dusty wake behind them. It was unmarked, and Holiday straightened in her seat to examine the new surroundings.

The desert amazed her by proving how it could be so drastically malleable. Not even a mile from where they pulled off, the scenery changed, like a new slide, replacing the barren expanse with cluttered outcrops of rock formations angrily jutting out from the ground. Six took them another two miles, twisting and circling the earthy towers until they disappeared and the ground dropped off into a deep canyon.

Even before the car came to a complete stop at the cutoff, she stood up in it, removing her sunglasses from her face to fully examine the sight. The slowing setting sun bled its rays on the canyon, soaking the sandstone walls in a kaleidoscope of colors; amaranthine, magenta, crimson, sienna, vermillion, and every value in between. It was breathtakingly beautiful. She wondered how it compared to the Grand Canyon, which she, sadly, had never seen. Considering Providence was in the Southwest, it was an insult that she had never seen anything like this until now. Her stomach growled, distracting her from the scenery. If the annoying human trait of hunger didn't pang through her, she would have stared for hours, and she resignedly sat back down to quell it.

"How did you find this place?" she asked, not even caring she sounded as exuberant as Cesar in the midst of new data.

A tug at his lips, Six seemed pleased with her reaction, no trace of annoyance on his features because she had stood up in the roadster again.

"I spotted it from the jumpjet."

So, she wasn't the only one who had found an appreciation for the desert. His answer made her aware of another layer of depth to him, one which she never considered before, and she felt they stood on a level of equal understanding for once.

Pulling rebellious strands of hair the wind tossed up behind her ear, she offered him a provocative statement on the subject. "It's a whole different perspective."

Six turned his head to face her fully, nodding with a rare, candid smile. "Completely."

Perhaps it was the way he had said it, laden with unhidden emotion, or perhaps it was because his attention shifted, appreciating her now, but she found herself locked in his gaze. She formulated that the hitch that developed in her chest was from the altitude, but her brain knew it was incorrect.

Intentionally or not, Six broke their eye contact when he began to distribute their food. Her hunger was taking priority to everything and she appreciated the shift of subjects. They ate in companiable silence, both equally hungry enough to put speech on hold.

She had ordered Chile Relleno, Pedro's favorite dish to make he'd once said, and she could tell it was too. His recipe was as traditional as it got, stuffed poblano peppers dipped in corn masa rather than fried in egg batter that was a popular variation in franchised restaurants. It was an honest meal made by an equally honest man and she enjoyed its rich flavor.

Holiday wiped her mouth as Six finished up his torta and did the same. Amused, she watched his meticulous post-meal ritual. Folded down a quarter inch, his napkin pressed against his mouth, lifting off oil his tongue couldn't swipe off his lips. The napkin was creased a second time- down the middle- as he patted the corners of his mouth. A third fold returned the napkin to a modest square which he finally tossed into the now empty food bag. Holiday knew he wasn't done yet, not until he fished the mint tin from his breast pocket, popped one into his mouth, and offered her one. He'd learned long ago not to offer Rex one.

As always, she accepted. More often than not, it was out of habit, but she had grown used to the unusual flavor of peppermint and something else she was still unable to identify. And another thing she'd learned: he never offered them to anyone else. Maybe she always recalled this information because of peppermint's natural tendency to enhance memory and recall. Already, the mint was half dissolved on her tongue and she wondered what parts of today would imprint permanently on her already exceptional memory.

She cleared her throat. "So, why the roadster today?"

She was still intent on getting answers from him. The question was as innocent-sounding as she could make it. A slightly inquisitive brow furrow and interested glance around the vehicle's interior should be able to deter his suspicions.

Six didn't answer immediately, and even though the mint tin was already in his pocket, he still fiddled with it. Apparently, it was important enough to require his full attention. She wondered if he was stalling.

Satisfied the tin was secure in his jacket, or perhaps, because he had finally construed a viable answer, he shrugged. "Hadn't taken it out in a while."

A shrug. Interesting, but insignificant. She tried another question.

"So you've taken it out before?"

He shrugged again. "Once or twice."

Holiday raised an eyebrow this time because Six never shrugged twice, if ever. He was direct, clipped, terse. Never unsure. Her next question had to be carefully scripted.

She feigned uninterest and ran a finger on the windowsill of the door, leaving an immaculate trail through the dust on the body.

"Gotten lost?"

She flicked her eyes to his face just in time to catch his expression. His lips twitched, lost in the decision to purse or smirk.

"Not those times," he answered just as carefully, and she knew he had seen right through her ruse.

Lips slanting upward, Holiday also knew she had finally gotten an answer.

"See, now that wasn't so difficult to say."

Six perked an eyebrow, unwilling to tell her just how difficult it really was, and rolled his tongue over his lips. "And you have something in your pocket," he countered.

Her smirk grew wider. So he had noticed. He thought he was clever by putting her on the defensive. Perhaps if this were a physical competition, he would win, but this was not. She was a scientist and a woman. Mind games were her specialty.

The angle of the sun backlit his shades and she could track his eyes perfectly, where they looked, where they lingered. She followed them to her legs, more exposed than ever, courtesy of shorter boots and a shorter hemline.

Holiday crossed her legs, the action sliding the edge of her dress, and his eyes, higher up her thigh.

"Has that been bothering you?"

Briefly alarmed, his eyes flicked back to hers, but then there was a glint in them not coming from the sun and he cocked his head.

"Should it?"

Damn. She forgot how good he was at this. Because Six, a man of few words, was adept at hidden meanings. Sixth deadliest man or not, she wasn't going to lose to him. She moistened her lips as slowly as she could, watching his face for the reaction of her next move.

"It's for you."

Six blinked, disoriented and lost in the meaning of their double entendre. His eyes darted; to the dashboard, to her thighs, to the gear shift, to her eyes. He swallowed roughly.

Victorious, she offered him only a sly smile and pulled out what she had in her pocket.

:::

He wondered what she meant. Truly meant. Because he knew they were not talking about what was in her pocket. He meant it when he said he didn't have a clue with women.

He meant her.

Even now, when she presented to him the item of mystery, he didn't understand her actions. Apparently, he had to earn his gift by either admitting he had gotten them lost or that he was a man. He wasn't quite sure which. Through her fierce determination, he had admitted both.

"I saw this at the gas station and knew I had to get it."

Six looked at what she held in her hand. It was a green solid-color six-ball from a billiards set.

"It's a gear-shift knob," she explained, turning it over so he could see the hole drilled on the bottom and handed it to him.

He rolled the ball in his palm, feeling the weight it still maintained despite the hole. She couldn't have made a better choice with this. He hadn't touched a pool cue in years, nor even remembered the last time he had used one to actually play a game, but the six-ball matched him so well. It had a six numeral etched perfectly in the middle and was the perfect shade of green. It was the perfect addition to the roadster.

"Do you like it?" Holiday asked, full lips gently parted as she leaned forward a hair's breadth. Her vibrant eyes anxiously searched his own for his answer.

A full smile reassured her that he did. He loved it.

"I do."

Handing it back to her briefly, he unscrewed the original gear-shift knob and replaced it with the new one.

Holiday leaned back to examine him in the driver's seat.

"It adds personality," she commented pensively, and he examined her in the passenger seat, heeding Pedro's not so subtle advice. In her loose, yellow dress, she accented the maroon interior beautifully. The new gear-shift wasn't the only thing that added personality to the roadster.

"Thank- you."

She tucked a lock of hair behind an ear, something he learned was a habit of hers. If it wasn't pushed back in irritation, it was fiddled with in nervousness. She smiled shyly.

"Thank you for this," she gestured to the canyon.

He shrugged as if it was nothing, because truly it was. "You're welcome."

Removing her cardigan, she climbed out of the roadster and stood on the cliff to peer at the landscape. He did the same, the gravel crunching under his shoes as he walked around the roadster to join her. For a minute, there was only silence between them, and he leaned carefully on the red body of the hot rod, taking the opportunity to study her.

In all honesty, this was what he had been looking forward to all afternoon. When he'd seen it during a flyby, he knew he had to take her here. He had it perfectly planned, from Rex's road trip to dinner up here, and the unexpected detour had him worried the sun would set before he could show it to her. But here they were. She was fully enthralled with the scenery, and the expression that graced her face when she saw it was worth it, worth all the trouble they went through today to see it.

Rarely did he see her in such a normal setting. It was always laboratories, battle zones, and conferences. Always concentrating, always working. Here, she was simply enjoying herself, and he was content just giving her an afternoon in which she could.

"This is beautiful," she sighed, as if the breath-taking view had literally done just that. She whipped around, eyes alight with a new idea. "We have to take Rex out here sometime," she said, but then her lips pushed forward in a pout and she discarded the idea all together. "On second thought, he'd probably complain about taking him out here to see rocks."

She walked the few steps back to the roadster and rested next to him.

"That's why I took you," he admitted. The light scent of her perfume picked up by the wind as she walked the few steps back to the roadster threw him off.

"But," he continued, "I think you're judging him too harshly. He's getting older, learning new things, noticing old things."

She arched a perfectly sculpted eyebrow, the kind of one she reserved for him when she didn't approve of something he did.

"What?"

Holiday shook her head and glanced at her feet before looking back at him. "I'm not even sure. Did we just switch roles from caretaker to handler? That sounded like something I would've said to you."

That's because it was something she'd told him, only he wasn't going to tell her that. She was peering at him from the corner of her sunglasses, observing him like the scientist she was.

"Rex is...Rex," Six answered plainly. "I'm noticing we're both influencing him, and he's influencing us."

She squinted at him now, suspicious of his sudden revelation. "How has he influenced you?"

Even through her sunglasses, he could feel her scientific gaze, and it occurred to him in that moment just how much she took pleasure in dissecting things. Especially people. A new sympathy formed in him for any EVO or animal ever to be victim to Holiday's scalpel.

"To be more...spontaneous."

That same sly smile she'd been favoring all afternoon spread across her face again, and he knew she was about to pounce on his answer and tear it apart.

"You're telling me this joyride was spontaneous?" Holiday turned her head and shared a smile with the wind before continuing. "I think Rex needs to teach you to lie better to me, because that was horrible."

Was it really so terrible? He was finding his ability to lie to her was severely hampered. He blamed the dress. It twirled around her when she moved to stand in front of him, molding to her hips and becoming a bigger distraction when it danced with the wind.

"You planned this," she stated, eyes alight with knowing.

"Why?" He wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of being right, not yet at least.

"Because," she started with the tilt of her head, displaying the delicate curve of her neck and collarbone. "You have the car, the speed. All you needed was one more thing."

Barely able to contain his widening smirk, he perked an eyebrow to urge her to finish.

"Which is?"

"A beautiful woman in the passenger seat." Her smile was triumphant and sure, and she lifted up her shades to peer up at him for his answer, green eyes as vibrant and mesmerizing as ever.

"You flatter yourself too much, Doctor."

She playfully slapped his chest and pushed him away in mock disgust. "You ass."

He supposed he deserved that, but he couldn't resist returning her banter.

"So then, why ask me to accompany you?" Her voice was softer and she tilted her head slightly. His eyes flicked down to her lips as she moistened them, and he dropped his arms to his sides, changing his tactics like her. He was not going to fall so easily to her charm this time.

"Unless, of course," she paused and took a step closer to him. "That really is your reason." Her voice was at its lowest and smoothest, dropping so that he had to lean closer to better hear her, and he realized his mistake only when she had her hands on either side of him, resting on the door, trapping him in her question and with her body.

One sentence from her, and he already failed. With her body so close to his, Six reconsidered his mentality. Was it really such a failure now?

He responded by placing his hands on her waist. "It is."

Holiday hummed approvingly and neatly wrapped her arms around his neck, as if deciding that was where they belonged.

Six knew that was where they belonged, because without her heeled boots, the distance between their lips was even greater and she had something to use as leverage to close it.

Her lips were soft and warm, still lingering with the spicy heat of pepper, and it heightened his senses of her. She smelled like apples, as sweet and fresh as the feeling of her skin against him. When she pulled away slightly to catch a breath, she dropped back down on her heels, glinting eyes locking with his as she released an amused laugh at their height difference.

He chuckled too. He hadn't foreseen four inches of space throwing off the best part of his plan, but he was confident between her sharp mind and his sharp reflexes they'd find a solution. For now, he settled for pressing his hands against the small of her back to hold her as she stood on tip-toe again to press an eager kiss to his lips. Her mouth moved insistently over his, trying to enjoy as much as possible before her calves ached under the strain of lifting her. Six indulged her, slipping his tongue past her hungry mounds to stroke against her own.

Holiday pulled herself closer to him, running her nails through his short hair at the nape of his neck, making him shiver despite the heat of the desert. He felt her smirk when his grip tightened on her hips and her delicate fingers started tracing slow circles on his skin exposed through his open collar. He nearly groaned, reluctantly letting her back down to the ground.

She still wasn't making this easy for him. It was bad enough her dress was fraying his self-control, and now she knew it too. Somehow, in the course of this afternoon, he had lost his leverage over her, somewhere between getting lost and their gift-sharing, but he was perfectly fine with it. Just like he was perfectly fine with her arms wrapping around him as she rested her head on his chest.

For a moment there was nothing but the wind rustling between them as they held each other, his chin buried in her dark hair as she stared at the canyon, a content smile on both their faces. After a while, Holiday looked away from the landscape and smiled up at him.

"Thank-you for this," she repeated and tip-toed once more to give him a quick peck.

Six's smiled grew. "You're welcome. Are you ready to leave?"

She nodded, and he fetched her cardigan from the seat. After she put it on, he helped boost her into the roadster.

"Will we have more rides like this?"

"I'm not sure," he confessed as he walked around the car to the driver's side, and he smirked when he saw her slightly crestfallen expression. "You're too much of a distraction for me. Especially in that dress."

Her eyes darkened and her sly smile returned. When he landed in his chair, she climbed over the console and lowered herself onto his lap. Six sucked in air through his teeth slowly as his hand tightened over the gear shift.

She was definitely not making this easy.

Holiday slung an arm on his shoulders and placed her other hand on his chest. "Let me drive then," she suggested. Or extorted. His mind wasn't working properly.

She shifted slightly in his lap, and his hand moved from the gear-shift to her knee to keep her from moving dangerously over him.

"I'm not that distracted," he chuckled, nervously turning his head away from her, though the action only made him miss her impish grin.

"Not yet," she whispered silkily, breath hot and lips ghosting over the shell of his ear.

No. As difficult as it was, he wasn't going to fall for her tricks a second time. He started counting backwards from ten and only got to nine when she nipped his ear and shattered his concentration.

To hell with self-control, he thought. He would demonstrate to her that he could play dirty too. He was a man, after all. The sixth most dangerous.

Six tilted his head back to hers and caught her lips roughly, crushing, almost bruising them. He relished the soft moan she gave, approving of his roaming, delving tongue. Holiday's fingers strangled his shirt, manicured nails scraping against his shoulder through the fabric. His hand slid up her thigh, spanning the fleshy fullness of it until they disappeared under her dress. She worked her lips needingly over his, her teeth grazing his bottom lip, but he ignored her request and brought his lips down to her throat.

He nuzzled up the sensitive skin, leaving a trail of kisses, and even though his life as a cold blooded killer was well behind him, the habits and fascinations of his depraved lifestyle did not. With his thumb resting over her carotid, he felt her pulse quicken, felt how her body involuntarily responded to him. Holiday arched, sighing over his shoulder, breasts shoving against his chest.

Now it was his turn to smile slyly at her, especially since his hand had reached the top of her thigh. She locked eyes with him, waiting with a growing grin for his next move. He gave a gentle squeeze, only for her to hiss unexpectedly when his fingers pressed tender skin. Frowning, she inched up her dress so they could both see the problem, four dark bruises from when he had caught her earlier.

He cringed. He didn't think he had grabbed her that hard. The bruises were angry shade of purple, marring her creamy skin, and making it look like he was an animal marking his territory.

"I'm sorry."

She brushed her dress back down, along with his concerns. "Don't worry about it," she dismissed, and her smile returned, along with her arms around his neck. "It adds personality."

Six smirked. "Does this you belong to me now?"

Holiday laughed. "Only if you let me drive."

A/n: Well that's it! Thanks so much for reading!

Some fun facts:

1. This whole fic started with one phrase: "His hand tightened over the gear shift."

2. Pedro is the name of my uncle.

3. Correction from last chapter: Lina has informed me that the I-10 runs through Louisiana as well. I did some research...and found out that it runs from California to Florida.

4. It's sort of a running belief I have that Six's favorite part of Holiday is her legs.