Two

Never once did she assume that her passenger seat would be occupied by anyone other than her son in his later years. So it was nothing short of bizarre as Killian clambered into the seat while she contorted her body to buckle Henry in the backseat. "Stay awake for a little while longer, baby, okay? Mommy will get us home soon," she told him, tickling his feet, smiling as he laughed.

Finally satisfied that he was safe as he could be in the death trap that was her yellow bug, she wiggled herself out, popped the seat back and climbed in, uncomfortably aware of the sight she must have made. I have nothing to prove to him, she thought, just barely catching her from uttering the words aloud as she normally would alone.

With a sigh, she buckled herself up and turned the key. A peaceful melody floated through the speakers, but she quickly changed it over to the soundtrack of Henry's favorite show. "Sorry for your ears in advance," she told him, turning up the volume as loud as she could handle before she pulled out of the parking lot.

She began to sing along obnoxiously loud, her voice cracking and falling in some places. Her cheeks flushed bright red, her eyes staying pointedly on the road ahead of her rather than risking a glance in his direction. Would he think she was nuts? He wasn't a parent, he didn't know how difficult it was to get a child back to sleep after they get a catnap, even if it was only a few minutes.

No matter how many times Emma told herself that the opinions of others didn't matter, she was uncomfortably reminded that a part of her still wanted reassurance. She wanted to know that she was doing the right thing and the sooner she squashed that urge, the one that made her seek validation in the eyes of others, the better off that she would be.

Rather than question what she was doing, he laughed once and asked, "What's this from?"

"A show about cartoon chipmunk singers," she said, launching into the chorus of one of the songs as they paused at a red light. Her fingers tapped the steering wheel along with the beat – the song was catchy, she could reluctantly admit - and her gaze flickered briefly over to his without her consent.

She grinned despite herself, enjoying the look of confusion on his face. Cartoons were like another world, it was best not to question the logic in some of them, particularly ones geared towards young children.

"I… will assume that's normal," he said after a moment, long after her eyes had returned to the road in front of them.

"It's his favorite show, he loves the colors and the music and the voices," she replied. She hesitated, looking over at him again and the honest curiosity on her face had her elaborating more than usual. "And it's certainly more amusing than what he used to watch. It was awful for me, but informative for him."

"Aye? He a bit of a couch potato?"

She chewed her lip, looking away as the light finally turned green and she turned the corner, squinting along the road for the pay phone she knew was around here. "Only when I'm trying to do something else. Ah, here it is," she said happily, spotting the bright blue box and pulling her car to a stop beside it.

Safely stopped, she reached around her seat, poking Henry's leg and he swatted at her, squealing angrily. She drew back, content to know that he was still awake.

"Thank you for the lift, lass," he said, unbuckling and climbing out. Before he closed the door, he crouched down, his blue eyes bright and dancing as he locked with hers briefly before switching his gaze to the bit of Henry that he could see. "Till next time, Sir Henry and Lady Emma."

He closed the door after a final nod as she floundered for a reply. Through the window, she could see him wrestling his wallet out of his tight pants to grab change, shaking his head at himself. Perhaps he couldn't believe his own ridiculous words any more than she could.

He shoved his wallet back into his pocket, which only served to draw her attention from his words to the figure he cut in those pants.

She turned pink, looking away quickly. Before he put the coins in, she rolled down the passenger window. "What makes you think there's going to be a next time?"

"I believe in fate, of course," he said easily, turning on his heel to face her. His face broke out into a stupid little grin that she lingered on a moment too long. "And also, we ride the same train so I imagine we'll run into each other again."

"Oh." She paused a beat. "Will you be alright waiting for somebody to pick you up?" Not that there was anything she could do if he wasn't, not after an exhausting day at work and a tired one-year-old in the backseat, but a part of her couldn't help asking.

His smile dropped a fraction, a thoughtful furrow to his brow as he contemplated her words. She shifted uncomfortably, waiting for a response, half considering just leaving without hearing one, when he finally spoke again. "I'll be right as rain, luv. I'm a survivor, you know."

Emma nodded. "Right. Okay. Well, it was nice meeting you, Killian," she said, rolling up the window before he could response. That had been enough interaction with other people for one day, she thought, but despite her reservations, she still looked in her side mirror to see him waving at her.

She shook her head when he disappeared from view.

"See, Henry, I can be a people person," she said to him, peeking over her shoulder briefly. His eyes were heavy-lidded and expression blank, seconds away from succumbing to sleep; she switched the radio up high, singing loudly once more. From the train station to her home wasn't far – around ten minutes – with most of the time taken up going on strange one way streets till she reached the residential area.

It was an abrupt change, from a barber shop, a convenient store, and a gas station before it turned into little houses clustered together on either side of the street, so close that a single fire would bring down the whole place. Perhaps that was why it was so cheap, according to the people who paid to live there.

Honestly, she didn't think cheap was the right word. It was too much for her still, even with the money she saved up working in prison and the work she spent at a diner, where the older woman managing the place let her live in a garage with Henry. After the woman's death, the new owner hadn't allowed for it and Emma had to trek to somewhere else, hoping that she would be able to find a place for her son, all the while wondering if she was making a mistake in keeping him.

Then Doris Zimmer came along. The woman was no stranger to hard-work and being in over your head, she was a single mother of twins, a boy and a girl, and her biggest hassle was getting the kids to school in the morning and having somebody to watch them when she left for her night shift.

Emma met her in a fluke accident.

Nicholas Zimmer had been playing tag with the other kids and slipped on loose stones, falling straight into a pond that was deeper than it appeared. He was eleven at the time, but the knock to his head hadn't been productive with staying afloat and Emma had ruined her last pair of clean jeans wadding into the water, a baby on her hip, to drag him out again. Ava had been there to help, taking Henry from her arms so that she could get Nicholas out safely and Doris Zimmer had sprinted, her hair a mess and her face streaked with grease, from her work fifteen minutes later.

The next night, she offered Emma the spare bedroom in exchange for help around the house in the evenings, chaperoning the kids to school in the morning, and help with the groceries whenever she could pitch in. It wasn't easy, Doris was kind, but she was a mother still and she had scrutinized Emma for the first few weeks, checking in periodically and randomly, till she was satisfied that Emma's past would stay just there.

It had been nearly a year since then and things were settled into a routine enough that Emma knew, even with her detour to drop Killian off, that she would arrive with enough time to catch Doris before she left for her shift. Only a few minutes later than usual, she pulled into the driveway of a small looking house painted a peeling blue.

She switched the music off, climbed out, and started the process of getting Henry out as the garage door opened, Doris' car slowly rolling down the drive.

Doris paused the car before she hit the street. "Evening, Emma, bug working alright?"

The only thing that kept her old, dying bug alive was Doris' skills. It was probably cheaper – and safer - to just let the thing die, but Emma couldn't quite walk to the train station in time to reach work without it. She chose her battles wisely; she would fight with the bug till she could get something better or relocate to another place.

She had her eye on a two-bedroom apartment only two blocks away from the train station, but hadn't mustered up the courage to look at it beyond that. Her place with Doris wouldn't last much longer, not if her rekindling relationship with the kid's father – she thought his name was Michael - worked out and they relocated to his small town home in Maine.

The Zimmer's were her family, in a way, and if Doris hadn't given her a chance, Emma didn't know if she would have made it this far. It was a nasty thought that she didn't linger on. The idea of not having Henry in her life filled her with raw agony.

"No, it's fine, the train was just abnormally busy tonight," she explained briefly, slinging his diaper bag over one shoulder and then wrestling him out. He didn't wiggle in her arms for once, leaning his head against her shoulder, hanging onto to wakefulness by a mere thread.

"Alright, call me if there's any issues."

They wouldn't have any issues, but Emma nodded anyway, waiting till Doris disappeared from view before locking the bug and heading inside.

Henry went to bed without any fuss, slumping into the playpen beside her bed and falling asleep within moments, undeterred by Nicholas' snoring in just the other room. Like her son, she was asleep the moment her head touched the pillow.

...

"Brother, you do realize the whole point of the train is to save gas," Liam chided the moment that Killian climbed into the car, sounding tired. Perhaps another person would find it strange to still live with your older brother at twenty-two, but maybe they didn't experience the same things that the Jones brothers did. Back in England, maybe he wouldn't still live with Liam, perhaps he would have a job and a girlfriend and a house - you know, the usual - but things didn't always work out as people expected.

He didn't expect to move to America or expect to see how difficult it was to do some things, like get a job and own a house. As it was, they shared a two-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of the city that was only just big enough for them. For the moment, things worked for them and other than a little more free time, he wouldn't change much.

Not even falling asleep on the train and missing his stop if it meant he got to meet Emma and Henry. Sure, it meant they lost some in gas money for Liam to come pick him up, but that was worth it. What was it his brother talked about all the time? Find a silver lining?

"Killian!" Liam said, snapping him out of his thoughts.

"Yeah?" He replied absently, thinking of her hair, wondering how it would look in sunlight rather than the harsh, blinding lights of the train or the dim lights of her bug. Would it be golden or more silver? He was leaning towards the former.

Liam snapped his fingers in front of Killian's face and he jumped, swatting his hand away. His brother laughed. "What has you all lost in thoughts?" He asked, but then he seemed to think the worst and his face fell. "You didn't lose your job, did you? I thought you liked working there, it's not the job I expected you to take, but you enjoy working with the flowers!"

He felt a flush go across his face. For all the brothers shared, their romantic entanglements had always been silent, something they only acknowledged to the point of letting the other know they would be gone for the evening. Liam was too preoccupied with his job to really bother at the moment and figured that Killian should be too.

The brothers were different in that regard: Liam chose duty over love, over anything, and Killian figured he could have both. Someday.

As it was, he didn't know enough about Emma to even contribute her to that category, but he nonetheless didn't want to explain her. He could barely understand and he didn't relish his brother's response.

He shrugged absently, a lie falling easily off his lips. "I'm just thinking of how much longer until I can get this bloody cast off. Didn't think it would be so much of a nuisance when I first got it."

Liam shook his head, suspicious of his answer. "Maybe next time, you'll be more careful."

"Yes, yes, I'm well aware of what you think," he replied, waving off the oncoming lecture that he had heard more often than not since he got the cast a few weeks ago. "I'll be more careful, I'll watch both ways before crossing the street, I won't talk to strangers, and I'll eat an apple every day, don't worry so much."

He rolled his eyes in response and Killian counted it as a victory when Liam didn't bring it up again. The car ride was silent the rest of the way home, only a jazz station that Liam enjoyed playing softly in the background. He didn't mind this, it let his mind roam freely, thinking of the exact moment he had seen her on the train.

It was Henry that he heard first, admittedly. The boy had a strong set of lungs on him and he wasn't afraid to let everyone on the train, perhaps the entire city, know it and that, plus the harsh turn of the train and the awkward angle of his sleep, had sent him straight to the floor. Not a very dignified first meeting, the tips of his ears red and his face warm before he mustered up the courage to sit with them.

She was beautiful. Stressed as well, a little crease to her brows as she tried to quiet the boy down.

He had never looked at someone and thought that he had to know them, but it happened then, the sight of her striking him dumb. How can you come to enjoy someone's company so much in only a few minutes? It was luck that her stop was the very next one – he would have gotten off the train regardless, knowing it best to stop before he got too deep in the city – and he got to spend a little bit longer in her company.

Her bug was awfully small, his legs cramped into a small space and her singing was just… awful, but it was worth the discomfort to see the brief flashes of joy in her eyes as she thought about her son. Waving goodbye to her was both strange and uplifting at the same moment, as though something had changed since he met her.

You're being obsessive, a voice like his brother whispered in his head. He couldn't help agreeing, there was something a bit – or a lot – strange about thinking of someone like that, like they had somehow shaken your world, when you had only known them for around half an hour.

He sighed, shaking her out of his head. Right on time too, he thought dryly as Liam made a masterful turn into the apartment's parking lot. It was an abrupt opening - no warning on the road before it came up – and lead to a narrow, single way road into the lot. Most people missed the turn, swerved in, and caused a wreck somehow. No surprise.

It was also no surprise that Liam knew when to turn and how to turn to make it in without slowing once, the movement almost instinct. Even Killian, who had lived there the same amount of time as Liam and driven much of the same roads, stepped on the break. More so with his gimpy arm than ever, but that was understandable.

"Fawn over my driving later, I've got to get to bed," Liam said, raising his hand to muffle a yawn as they parked and left the car, heading for the apartment. His brother had just been going to sleep when Killian called him and the reminder of that made Killian wince, feeling like a schoolboy that had bothered his mother in the middle of work.

You're twenty-two, not eleven, he reminded himself, but the feeling stayed as it always did.

He only had vague memories of the time that his brother was just his brother, so many more of Liam being his only parental figure. Their mother had died when Killian was just a baby - she was a faceless stranger to him now - and their father had left years ago, so long that his voice had faded and only his picture, blurry and faltering, remained for Killian to remember. Liam filled those roles the best he could, taking on all the responsibilities that their distant relatives and harsh school teachers had failed.

It was hard to reconcile the man who scolded him for acting out at school or at home with anyone other than the ideal goal, the person for him to be someday. That someday was now though and Killian was woefully unprepared, so unlike his brother that he couldn't help feeling two inches tall in comparison.

"I had takeout and the leftovers are in the fridge if you'd rather have that than wrestle with the stove," his brother said, unlocking their door. One incident nearly a decade ago had marred Killian from ever stepping foot in the kitchen when his brother was around – as though the twenty-two-year-old man would make the same mistakes as the twelve-year-old boy.

He didn't have the heart to explain to his brother that he was a damn good cook most of the time, mainly because he learned that his brother was an equally good cook. But tonight it felt like one thing too much when he was facing all the inadequacies that normally ate at him silently.

He mumbled a response, not entirely sure what it was he was saying other than an affirmative of sorts, but it didn't matter. Liam merely nodded and yawned, his own goodnight as muffled as Killian's reply, before disappearing into his room.