AN: For Saima, maraoders on tumblr, based on a short film called "A Thousand Words" on youtube.
James likes trains. The silent hum, the shifting fields, the dose of infinity between stations.
His favourite song is playing through the headphones he's got on, and the seat next to him is empty. It's not hard to get lost in the blurry canvas beyond the glass pane. Usually, almost always, he looks out of that window for the entirety of the trip, indulges his mind the breather it demands.
But today his gaze wanders. He doesn't have time to question it; the compulsion comes too easy. Too fast. As natural as breathing.
Today he looks up—it only takes a second, really; only a second to forever—and he sees her: green-eyed girl across the aisle, legs crossed, flaming red hair, sitting with a box of assorted things. Her fingers are careful around the camera she's occupied with, and her smile is the sun barely risen; quiet, gentle, radiant.
James stares. He can't help it. His glimpse halts and stretches on undisturbed—unashamed, unconscious—almost as if to make up for the ruckus his heart has decided to create. Another song starts. He doesn't notice.
Too often he thinks life's too stagnant to have been planned; it's getting off the same stations on the same days and writing the same names on the same fogged up windows. He hasn't contemplated it much—he has no reason to, really—but when posed with the question of whether or not fate is real, there isn't much thought put into it: it's not real. It can't be. But right now… right now she looks up, this girl, for some reason, right at this second—and it feels like it can't have been just some aimless shot at either of their timetables. Her smile doesn't waver when those eyes meet his—pinewood and crystal streams, nothing compares—and James's heart is in his throat.
He thinks he should say something. Smile back, at least. Get up, never mind the hand imminently rubbing the back of his neck or the soft garbled 'hello' or the pathetic nervous laugh at her amused half-smirk, never mind acting like an idiot like he's bound to, just get up and talk to her, ask her her name, make it happen—
The train stops and they both start. The doors hiss open, she picks up the box and gets to her feet—
Get up. Now, James, get up—
He thinks there's a sheen of regret on her face when she passes by him, the upturning of her lips graced by a sigh and a fleeting glance at his direction—
She's walking out, James Potter, goddamnit, she's getting away—
The doors close, and she's gone.
James swears. He's still mentally berating himself when he notices the camera on the seat she left. He doesn't hesitate; he gets up and takes it.
He's always been known as the rule breaker. There's a slight pinch on his conscience when he turns the camera on that night, but that's it.
Even that's forgotten when he sees the first picture. Same red hair, same green eyes. He keeps on; more angles, more places, more moments to wonder how her voice sounds like. There's a picture of a group of girls holding up a cake. Red cursive letters over the frosting, in clumsy penmanship, spell, 'Bon Voyage, Lily!', and below there's a kindergarten drawing of a redhead figure beside the Eiffel Tower. James stares at it a bit longer than the others.
Lily. Her name's Lily.
He smiles to himself. Hits next.
And then—it doesn't quite process at first, his eyes widen beneath his glasses, his breath comes out in a disbelieving huff—there's a picture of him. Of him. Looking out the train window, head tilted to the side, teeth chewing on the inside of his bottom lip in thought.
There are more after it, all him, different angles in the same worn out seat, glasses flashing every now and then, silent, engrossed.
His heart races.
Did she want to say hello? Would she have told him her name herself if he'd only asked? Did she wonder what his voice sounded like?
The next day he's going around Cokeworth in Sirius's motorcycle, putting together a jigsaw puzzle with the spare pieces from her camera—Lily's camera—half-foolish, half-hopeful.
He finds her well into the afternoon.
Well, doesn't find her. He locates the right building after a fair bit of surveying around the area, learns her last name's Evans, learns she lives in Room 326 of Stardust Hall.
Except she doesn't anymore.
"Found the train girl?" asks Sirius when James, barely parked yet, comes by to bring the motorcycle back.
James takes his helmet off, hands it to Sirius. He smiles at nothing over Sirius's shoulder and rakes a hand through his already disheveled hair. "Sort of."
Sirius smirks. "Can't wait to meet her," he says, clapping him on the back. "You're fucking smitten."
He sits on the foot of the bed, flipping the camera around over and over in his hand. He can't sleep.
There's the image of her walking away, with that box of stuff and the small smile on her lips and that regretful last glance that just kills him, and it's overtaken the pictures his dreams have stolen from her camera.
Lily.
With a groan, he slumps back down the bed, arms spread, and glares at the ceiling. The camera bounces harmlessly from his fingers onto the mattress.
Lily Evans.
The night is seeping out from the windows, and his mind is making up. Rather abruptly, he gets up, grabs his glasses and his phone from the nightstand, and dials Sirius's number.
Sirius has hardly whisper-yelled his admonishments—this better be fucking good, Potter—when James says (half-foolish, half-hopeful), "We're going to Paris."