The train arrived in a cacophony of noise after a tiresome wait; Mary repositioned the wiggly baby on her hip as she prepared to board. They had missed the first train due to her toddling troublemaker, who had decided that pulling the tail of a German Shepard was a good idea at the time. Luckily nobody has been hurt, but they had ended up with about 40 minutes to wait for their next train. Unfortunately it didn't make as many frequent stops here as it did downtown. The lights above them flickered as Mary stomped some feeling into her left foot, which was, annoyingly, asleep.

Night had fallen, which made the young mother a bit uncomfortable; she preferred to be back at the circus site by the time it was dark out. With a sigh of relief from her, the two Graysons boarded the train. She chose a seat about 9 feet across the down from two men and a woman, who was sitting between them. Mary immediately noticed and admired the beautiful scarf the woman was wearing, although it completely obscured the face. An attempt to strike up conversation about it resulted in a complete lack of acknowledgement as she was ignored by all three of them. Shaking off the weird vibe, she turned her attention to her son.

Dick was getting a little antsy, squirming In Mary's arms. It was definitely going on a bit past his bedtime. To get rid of her baby's jitteriness, and maybe make him tired in the process, she bounced him on her knee while singing his favorite Disney songs, making funny faces to go along with them. It always made him giggly. When he got sidetracked she would regain his attention by asking if he was ready to see 'Tati', to which Dick would clap his hands joyfully and exclaim "Tati! Tati!"

She was in the middle of singing 'When I see an elephant fly' when they stopped at the next station. Nobody got off, but at the last second a middle aged man shot through the doors as they were closing. He took a moment to catch his breath, then sat down a few seats away from Mary and Dick. He was a long lanky type, probably in his late 40's. Gray stands sprinkled his shaggy blonde hair; the length reminded her of when John had grown his hair just long enough to wear a ponytail. The memory amused her greatly.

They were speeding along again, and Mary noticed that the man casually watched her play with her child, and then seemed to assess the trio sitting a little ways away. The small group kept their hats low, heads down, coat collars up, and didn't look or speak to anyone. Seemed kinda shady. Mary found their still silence strange; something about it made her stomach do small somersaults. She remembered what John had told her about stomach 'butterflies' : "Honey, whenever you get those winged pests in your gut, DIGEST them. After that, you'll know whether to run or not. You know, 'fight or flight'. Like when I asked you to marry me; once I got rid of the boulders in my stomach I knew there was no way I was going to run, and since I didn't, look at where we are now! Offspring and everything!"

Well, currently, said offspring was vying for her attention, drawing out and repeating 'mami' while also blowing spit bubbles, laughing as they popped. "How old is he?" The man who'd gotten on at the last stop asked.

"Just turned two," Mary replied, "Dickie likes to make a mess." He kept turning his head away from the handkerchief as Mary tried to use it for wiping his mouth. Meanwhile, Mary thought back to the natural disaster Dick had created in the make-up trailer last week. She would never look at liquid eyeliner the same way ever again.

"Would you mind if I...?" The man gestured towards moving closer. Mary smiled, bemused. "Not at all."

He sat down next to them and introduced himself as Augustus, but they could call him Gus. He had very kind eyes.

"I'm Mary and this is Dick, he likes to get into things he's not supposed to."

Gus made Mary laugh as he shook both of their hands and said, "A pleasure to meet such a fine lady and gentleman."

As Gus was holding Dick's small hand and shaking it up and down, the two year old spotted a beautiful, shiny, gold watch on Gus's wrist. Squealing in excitement, Dick pawed at it with his free hand. Mary apologized, but Gus just laughed and removed the timepiece, handing it to Dick. At this point Dick was bouncing up and down in excitement as his tiny fingers took hold of it.

"It's fine for him to play with it, I understand the attraction," Gus reassured Mary, then continued with a different topic. "I'm sorry but I couldn't help but notice your accent, you see, I have a close friend that is Romani so I thought I recognized it. You don't happen to be…?"

Mary quirked an eyebrow and smiled, telling him that she was indeed Romani; as they carried on conversation Dick gnawed happily on the watch. However, Mary couldn't help but notice Gus shooting glances at the three other passengers nearby. In fact, she realized he had been low-key doing so the entire time. Had the reason he even came over here been an excuse to closer observe the strange trio?

Throughout all of this Gus had kept up full conversation, and began telling her of his research in genealogy. Pointing out several things about Dick's features, he asked, "The little one isn't full-blooded Romani, is he?" as he kept studying the child's face. Mary paused for a moment, surprised and impressed. "On my side he is, but his father is half Romani, and the other half a French and Northern England mix. It's very impressive that you picked up on that."

"Ah, but he has your exact eyes; interesting, very interesting," he said half to himself, then threw a hard glance at the other passengers again. Gus shifted somewhat uncomfortably in his seat.

"Oh, looks like this is my stop," he brightly announced, then leaned forward to be eye level with Dick, who was still drooling contentedly on the watch. Under the pretense of taking it back, he whispered in a low and urgent voice to Mary,

"Please listen to me, it is important that you get off at the next stop, you've got to trust me."

The train started to slow down, and Gus stood up, giving no further explanation. The butterflies in Mary's stomach had turned to cement as her thoughts raced. Her mouth went dry as she forced herself to make a split second decision. Trusting her intuition (which had never failed her), she bundled Dick up nice and warm, and stood up as well, just as the train was coming to a halt. While fussing over Dick, Mary had taken the switchblade knife she always carried with her and slipped it up her sleeve, just in case she was wrong about this, wrong about Gus.

Her heart was pounding so hard she felt like it was in her throat. The doors opened, a gust of cold wind hitting her face. She followed Gus as they disembarked, watching his every move the entire time…highly aware of her surroundings.

When the train had finally left, Gus turned to Mary and said, "Thank God, I'm a doctor and that woman was dead, the two men beside her were holding her up."

OKAY I WAS ON CREEPYPASTA AND SAW THE TRAIN STORY AND HAD TO MAKE SOMETHING OUT OF IT I KNOW THIS IS TOTALLY OUT THERE FOR ME BUT I LIKED IT AND I LOVE MARY SO I HOPE YOU LIKED THE STORY SOMEWHAT AND I DON'T KNOW WHY I'M YELLING BUT I'M NOT GOOD AT SOCIAL INTERACTION WHY DO YOU THINK I'M UP AT 2 AM WRITING FANFICTION WHOOPS TMI OKAY LETS CALM DOWN

*deep breath*

I LOVE YOU ALL TO PIECES HAVE A LOVELY DAY/NIGHT AND I WILL SEE YOU NEXT STORY AND HOPEFULLY WITH A BETTER AUTHORS NOTE

*HUGS ALL OF YOU*

YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, I LOVE HUGS

I WILL HAVE MET PEOPLE ONLY ONCE AND WILL GREET THEM WITH A HUG NEXT TIME I SEE THEM

SERIOUSLY THO, LIKE,

HUGS