The Sixth | Ekko

Chapter Nineteen

Six finished recounting the memory to him, leaving out the bits with Pip and Claret. He wouldn't know who they were anyway.

Ekko recalled the conversation he had with Jinx on the bridge years ago. It took him a moment, but eventually he realized what Six was referring to. He stared down at her with a renewed sense of incredulousness.

"That's your reason for not telling me you were alive?" he scoffed, shaking his head and moving away, his back now facing her. "You let me think you were dead for over a decade because I forgot to mention you during a conversation while I had a gun aimed at me?"

She didn't like this. How he was treating her like her reasoning was foolish. She glared at his back before forcing herself to look away and at something else—anything else—which just ended up being the discarded sample slides on the counter from last night.

"I was hurt, okay? After that, I didn't think you cared whether or not I was alive. It's not like we were close as kids."

She heard him exhale before he turned around again.

"That doesn't matter. I spent all those years thinking that I was the reason that... you and the others died."

She looked at him, seeing anguish etched on his face. She knew what he meant by it being his fault. He'd been the one insistent on following that customer back to Piltover. But she had followed him, and she'd been just as eager to tell the others about the potential job.

"If you're the reason, then so am I," she stated firmly, holding his gaze. "I followed you, and I told them about what we found in Piltover too."

He opened his mouth to argue but she interrupted him.

"It's true and you know it. You can't blame yourself without blaming me too."

He stared at her and then sighed in defeat. "I know."

She didn't say anything else to him. Instead, she sat down on the bed he'd previously been laying in, her mind closing off from the touchiness of the topic. She missed them. Oh Gods, did she ever. Without realizing it, silent tears began to trickle down her cheeks. Her mind wandered, her hand subconsciously reaching up to grab Mylo's lockpick that she attached to a chain around her neck.

Ekko saw the tears on her face, and it caused his gut to churn and his throat to swell. Seems they were both burdened with the guilt of what took place that night. Robotically, he moved to sit next to her on the bed. He noticed her immediately tense up, and he couldn't blame her. He wasn't exactly comfortable with this either. With awkward movements, his hand eventually found its way to her shoulder.

When she didn't move to shove him off her, he allowed himself to relax a tad bit. He felt her tremble ever so slightly under his touch, and he could see the river of tears on her face glisten in the lighting. He forced himself to look away, his head dropping and eyes closing as tears burned behind his eyelids.

They stayed like that for some time, just sitting in silence while they both felt the weight of their shared guilt.

Eventually, Six reached up and wiped the tears from her face and dared to look over at Ekko.

He looked up to meet her gaze when he felt her eyes on him, his own glossed over.

She started to feel uncomfortable, the awkwardness of their staring at each other from such a proximity causing her to stand up abruptly.

"I think you should be okay to leave now. The Firelights are probably worried."

Ekko cleared his throat ineptly and stood as well. "Yeah." He moved to grab his mask and coat off the bedside table.