Honey Springfield was called the Handlers 'favourite' - a nickname she despised right down to the bones of her very existence - almost as much as she despised the woman herself. No one ever looked closer enough to realise that it was given to her fo...
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Weeks had passed since that night and Five had noticed Honey retreating into herself more often than not. It was almost like they were back to where they first began; she engaged in casual conversation less, she often had a faraway look on her face and she was quieter than usual.
He had tried giving her time to adjust after the obvious trauma of getting spiked, but something about that night had stuck in his mind - maybe it was the signs of something else having happened to her but her insistence that she was fine that rubbed him the wrong way. He knew she was keeping the truth from him but a small part of him didn't believe he even had a right to know.
With her retreating into herself, he began subconsciously doing the same without realising.
Honey was beginning to feel, well, not concern exactly for her partner in time, but something similar that she couldnt quite describe.
During their jobs and all the time in between she was very much used to him scribbling numbers into the little book of his. But as the time he spent distracted by it increased, she observed that more often than not he spent his time scribbling things out. She knew, then, that whatever he was doing, he had hit a wall and couldn't find a way past.
Stuck, again.
If she said anything he'd just tell her to mind her own business, and these days, even using her voice to start a conversation had become a chore. Something in her mind had just switched off and she felt that keeping to herself and disengaging from her partner any way she could would perhaps send the Handler off of their scent; she knew that word had got out about Honey being the one to 'become friends' with the cold-hearted, bloodthirsty Five Hargreeves - and that label alone had been dangerous.
The closer she got to him, the closer the Handler got to having more leverage; over the both of them, this time.
She had asked once what the numbers meant, and he responded only that they were to do with time. Unhelpful as ever, she was disappointed.
What, in their life now, wasn't to do with time?
She had connected the fact his spacial jumping was to do with how he'd gotten stuck in the apocalypse for most of his life and had then come to the suspicion that he was working on something to do with that.
But she had seen his focus shift from looking after himself to trying to come up with more answers in that book of his.
He ate less during meals.
She brought it up once and he denied it, taking another bite to silence her. At the end he had pushed some food around on the plate and went back to marking his page and she had noticed because he was distancing himself from her, and it hurt.
He tried to pass it off as being distracted, which he was, but she'd always hear the same thing from him - I'll eat something later. I'm busy.
But later was now and he was starting to look awfully pale.
