Lisa sat on a bench in the train terminal near headquarters. The sound of an arriving train cut through the late sunset and Lisa watched as people folded their newspapers or magazines and stepped closer to the edge of the terminal. Her train would arrive in another ten minutes.
Suddenly, someone's hands covered both of her eyes. "Guess who?"
Lisa let out a self-conscious laugh. "Um... uh... Kanazawa?"
The hands were pulled away, and Lisa craned her neck to see if her guess was correct. She was met with her coworker Kanazawa's grin. She was relieved. It would have been embarrassing if she had guessed wrong.
Kanazawa tilted his head to the side a bit. "Working late again?"
Lisa nodded.
"Hey, I haven't seen you in a long while," Kanazawa said. "Where've you been?"
Wonderland, Lisa was about to reply. But she didn't know whether her colleague actually knew about Wonderland. "I've been working. I was on a big project that required me to go to... um... another area."
"Oh, I see. How was it? Judging from the assignments you get, I bet it was pretty exciting, huh?"
Lisa turned the question over in her head. How was it? All the things that she had experienced in Wonderland were getting jumbled up in her head. Kanazawa was probably expecting to hear something like, "Yeah, it was exciting," "It was nice," "It was chaotic," "It was pretty tough." But none of those really described her feelings about Wonderland. Lisa didn't know what to say.
So she laughed.
Taking Lisa's mysterious yet somehow relaxing laughter as a "Yes, it was pretty exciting," Kanazawa went on, talking about things that had happened at the agency while she was gone. Lisa smiled. It was nice hearing about a normal, peaceful world.
Kanazawa's talking was interrupted by the whistle and rhythmic noise of an incoming train. A voice over the intercom announced the line and destination.
"That's my train," Lisa said.
"All right, see you around then. Maybe lunch sometime?"
The train slowed to a halt in front of Lisa, and the automatic doors on its sides slid open. Lisa gave a small nod before boarding the train. She waved good-bye to her coworker and smiled until the doors finally closed and the train took off.
Lisa exhaled and let her smile drop as soon as the terminal was out of sight. Until now, Lisa had hardly thought about all the things that had happened in Wonderland, and all the emotions that she had felt at the climactic battle with Chaos had been dulled and numbed. It was as if she had never gone to Wonderland. Or at least as if going to Wonderland had just been a long vacation and now she was returning to normal work. But now, no matter how she looked at it, just thinking of Wonderland made her chest ache with sadness.
It was odd. She had protected the twins from danger. She had found and recovered their parents. Chaos was gone. The mission was complete. Shouldn't she be happy or pleased with herself?
Of course, she had lost friends, people dear to her. But she had lived before without knowing of their existence. She had gained something, and then lost it. In the end it was the same as never having gained it at all. And was that so bad? She had lived the first twenty-two years of her life without that something. Why should she be so attached to it?
This line of reasoning did little to cheer Lisa up. She had only managed to convince herself that she should be happy, but that didn't mean that she actually was happy. Lisa sighed. She just didn't want to think about Wonderland any more. She glanced outside the window. She could mostly only see the interior of the train, as the window was reflecting light, but she could also see some of the dark landscape going by in the night. It looked cold.
/--Let me listen to your heart some more. Let me close my eyes and become dizzy.--/
She stared at both images in the window, feeling her eyes lose focus. Far off in the reflection she could see that somebody was walking down the train car, their back toward her. They opened the door that connected this car of the train with the next and stepped through. Tall—thin—long red hair. Lisa's eyes were taking in the images of the scenery outside and the scene of the car inside, but it took her mind some while to actually process them. It was then, seconds or perhaps nearly a minute after her eyes had perceived the reflection in the window that her brain jolted itself awake. Lisa shot from her seat, whirling herself to face the door behind her.
Without thinking, a word attempted to escape from her throat, but was caught in a web of hoarseness. "Ka—"
There was nobody in the aisle, as far as Lisa could tell. She felt her legs moving toward the door to the next car. With some effort, she managed to get the heavy door open and cross the wobbling gap between the two train cars to the next car.
It was quiet. Some people looked up at her as she opened the door, then looked back down or back out the window. Lisa walked between the seats, looking at each person she passed.
She continued on to the next car, carefully examining each of the passengers. Then the next car. And the next.
Her heart was pounding in her ears. She was clenching and unclenching her hands nervously. Her legs kept on walking down the aisle. Her mind had automatically shut out the nervous suggestions to turn back, just stop and turn back.
/--I want to forget about what's waiting at the last stop of this journey.--/
Lisa walked into the next car. It was empty. She walked down to the far side and stopped abruptly. The next car was for train personnel only. This was the last car. It was very quiet.
It was over.
Lisa stood straight and still in the middle of the empty room. Now that it was over, she could look back on her actions with the eye of an outsider. What had she been thinking? Lisa thought, with the mind of an outsider.
Him? In this world? On a random train in the middle of Japan?
Lisa smiled, then let out a small laugh.
Alive?
Lisa couldn't stop laughing—she must have looked so ridiculous. She fell to her knees and held her stomach which ached from the laughing with one hand and supported herself with the other.
Then the tears slid down her face and fell to the floor, and she was crying, smiling and crying and laughing and aching.
/--Romancing Train; bring all the pain... It binds and heals those flowing tears too.--/
And then she was just crying, and aching too, but the ache in her stomach was a sickening kind of ache.
For a while, she cried like that, on the ground, head down, letting the tears roll off her cheeks. It was the first time that Lisa had cried since she had come back from Wonderland. Somehow, even as she lay on the bed of her apartment, or sat on the swing of a rundown playground, she hadn't felt as if she could cry. Somehow, it was as if there was some sort of polite reserve that kept herself from making a scene, even when she felt like she was all alone. Yet somehow, there was something about this empty train car that made her feel free to cry.
The oddest thing was that she didn't feel like she was all alone here. In a comforting sort of way, she felt like she was in Wonderland again, with Ai and Yu and Lou and Kaze nearby as they traveled on the Phantom Train.
Even with the short time she had spent in Wonderland, she had grown so fond of the people she had met there. People she would probably never meet again. She recalled the thoughts she had had earlier.
She had gained something, and then lost it. In the end it was the same as never having gained it at all. And was that so bad?
"Yes," Lisa thought, almost fiercely. She had loved them. Her mind lingered a few moments on the tall, thin, red-haired man. She had been willing to make a fool of herself if it had meant that she would have some tiny, ridiculously miniscule chance of seeing him again.
Slowly, Lisa's lips formed a small smile. She wiped the last of her tears away and took a seat in the train car. She leaned against the window, suddenly aware of how warm her face was and how heavy her eyelids were.
/--Just let me quietly sleep, just like this.--/
She had a feeling that she would miss her stop, but she didn't care. The rhythmic rocking of the train had a sweet, soothing effect and was gently lulling her to sleep.
/--Romancing Train... don't stop here. Keep on going like this, leaving the train whistle trailing behind in the night... --/
-:FIN:-
Author's Notes: As you can probably tell, this fic was inspired by FF:U's second ending song, "Romancing Train". I really liked the lyrics to that song, so I put in some of the lines from it (however, they're my translations, so they're probably not 100 correct).
Hm... it seems that the only kinds of fics that I write are either a) fluffy romance, or b) depressed, pining-after-someone romance... -sigh- Oh, well.
In any case, please review! I would really appreciate feedback and criticism on this. Thank you!