Chapter 9 - POV

(So how does Melanie feel about everything that has gone on thus far? This chapter takes a look at the events up till now from her perspective. And if you don't know what POV is...shame on you and go look it up.)

Melanie sat on the sofa, staring at a picture in her hands. Carefully she ran her fingers over it, barely touching the photo itself.

At one time it had had a glass frame over it.

Until that one day he had made her so angry, she had grabbed the photo from its hiding place and threw it against the door of the cabin with enough force to break the glass in the frame.

Immediately she had regretted the act. For one, she worried he might come back, attracted by the sound, and want to know what she broke. She had quickly grabbed the picture from the floor and returned it to its hiding place. Secondly she regretted simply having damaged it so badly.

She smiled at the picture again, holding it gently in her hands as she stared at it. She remembered the day it was taken. How could she not? It was the last day she held any power on her train.

No. Not 'her' train. Not anymore. Now it was his train. Under his control. His authority.

His rule.

He had truly taken everything from her. Her train. Her power. Her authority.

Her life.

But the morning after the revolution, Layton's first day in power, she found herself waking up and actually smiling.

All she had to do that day was tend to her engine. There were no more decisions she had to make. No one would come to her with their petty squabbles. And if they did, she would send them on to the train's new chancellor. Let him get to know what she had dealt with for seven years. See how he liked it. Then let him come back and judge her, she told herself with rueful delight.

But the thought had faded almost as quickly as it came the first time he came to her for help. It was a small matter really that he came with. Something she had dealt with all the time. But to her he looked like the weight of it was going to crush him.

So she choked back her feelings and silently listened to his problem. She offered him a few words of advice, then quickly turned and headed back to her beloved engine. To her new sanctuary. She wasn't going to be pulled back into that life again, she told herself firmly. She was happy now. Leave it be.

But he couldn't.

He came to her again, once more asking for advice on what to her was again a minor issue. She listened again, and offered her advice once more.

But this time, he had brought her a gift. A 'thank you', he had called it, for her previous help.

"And for all the times to come." He had added with a soft laugh.

She had returned a small smile and accepted the gift. It was sweet of him, she thought. But it also told her so much more about him than she wanted to know.

She had turned and retreated to her sanctuary faster that time. She had felt the pull so much harder that time just by what he did and said.

She knew he wasn't a heartless person. He was actually too kind-hearted for where he was now. His gift had proven that to her. There was no need for it, but he had done it anyway.

She wished he hadn't.

She had wanted to think he was tougher. That he was going to be able to survive this baptism of fire without her.

But he wasn't.

He had even said so. "And for all the times to come."

But it also gave her an immeasurable comfort. She had wondered how he really felt about the train. About its people. His actions showed her just how much he cared. He had swallowed every ounce of pride he had and had come to her for help. Probably the last thing he ever wanted to have to do. But the train needed help. It needed her. And he acknowledged that at the cost of his own feels.

A few days later he came and surprised her again.

"I've come to invite you to dinner." He had said. "In the fifth dining car. Just the two of us."

The minute he said it she knew he realized it had come out sounding wrong, a he quickly began to back pedal.

"It's just that it would be a less...restrictive setting." He tried to make the invitation sound less intimate. "A quiet dinner where we can talk...about the train."

She had all but bit her tongue very hard to stop from laughing. He was not very good at this sort of thing. No matter what he said, it came out sounding like he was trying to get personal with her. And out of pity and to just mercifully give him a reason to stop trying to correct himself, but instead just digging his hole deeper with every word, she agreed to the dinner. If he tried anything, she would just deck him.

Granted, in their one real physical fight, she hadn't come out on top. She had ended up with a scalpel to her throat and not begging for her own life, but for the life of every other person on that train.

It hadn't been pretty.

And she had never been so scared of another person in her entire life.

Had the train not been in immediate danger, she had no doubt she would wouldn't be sitting in this cabin right now.

But at dinner he had been more than the perfect gentleman. He had cordially greeted her, pulled out her chair, ask about her day. He, in fact, did everything right, and the evening had progressed better than she had anticipated.

Not that she hadn't offered up her own concessions to the evening. She had held out a white flag of sorts by allowing herself no other addition to what she was wearing other than his gift. Not that she really had much else she could have worn instead.

She did her best to keep things civil and her tone conversational. The problem was, past the train, she really didn't have that much in common with the man. In short, she didn't feel they had much to talk about.

But in that evening he had done one thing she hadn't expected. He had shown her a small side of himself she doubted few other people saw. He clearly expressed doubt about himself and what he was getting himself into. It was the first time she ever saw in him the realization start to come out that he understood what this was going to be like. And without trying to sound to condescending or placating, she offered advice and suggestion to counter his concerns.

The rest of the evening had been pleasant enough. At the end she bid him a cordial goodnight and retreated to her cabin.

On the sofa she pulled her knees up to her chest, holding the photo still in both hands as she cradled it to her chest.

Someone had taken it as a joke. They made a comment about it with a slight laugh when they presented it to her.

They never knew how much that one photo had come to mean to her.

As much as the pictures of her daughter, she protected it. She was heartbroken that she had used it as an object of her anger at him. Why had she thrown it against the door? Why had she damaged it?

She pulled it up and looked at it again. It never failed to make her smile. Or to help her remember where her real feelings and her responsibility in all of this really lay.

And she hadn't abandon him.

Even when she had wanted to. She would have gladly left him to his failures. The great revolutionary Layton! He thought it was so easy to run this train? Then let him. He dared judge her for her choices. She waited each day to see him show up at the door to her engine, asking for help with the minorest problems. How was he going to deal with it when things really got ugly?

She sighed to herself as she pushed the thoughts out of her mind.

She pulled back again and looked at the picture in her hands once more.

No. She couldn't abandon him. At first it was because of her train. Of the people she had fought seven years to save and protect. How could she release them to a free fall under the hand of a man who had no idea what he was getting himself into?

That had been her reasoning at first. But as time went on, as she let him keep coming back to her asking for help, she began to see changes in him. He never approached her as the 'leader of the train'. He seemed in his own way to approached her as an equal. In short, he never forgot who she had been and what she had done for these people for seven long years. And he never stopped affording her the respect he felt she had earned and deserved.

And he was trying. She probably gave him the most credit just for that. He was trying with everything in him to make this work. To improve the system on the train. To make things equal. To treat everyone with respect. Even those who didn't afford him the same in return.

He never stopped trying.

That was one of the reasons Ruth's actions had made her so angry. Ruth was still treating the man like an insignificant, miserable little Tailie, over-stepping his bounds.

All right. Ruth wanted a fight? Melanie was determined to give her one. So she stepped right into Layton's corner. Even if he never understood it, she was going to make sure Ruth Wardell backed down and left the man alone to do his job.

It was going to cost her the one thing she treasured most, but it was ultimately for the good of her train.

His train.

So she relinquished her cabin to him. The true leader of the train. That should have shown her former friend where things stood once and for all.

She truly wasn't sure where she was going to go that night. She had thought of Bennett. He wouldn't turn her away. But Layton had made some solid, good points about how that situation was likely to end.

Her next thought was Audrey. While not overly happy about it, Audrey wouldn't turn her away either. And it would give her somewhere to lay her head once in awhile until she found somewhere else.

But then he had turned all of her plans around on her. Doing the one thing she had never expected of him.

He had offered to share the cabin with her.

Melanie had genuinely thought he had lost his mind.

The two of them? Living together?

She gave a small laugh even then at the thought. It still sounded ludicrous to her.

But no more ludicrous than how things had progressed from there within just a matter of hours.

From roommates to bedmates, all before the sun rose on a new day.

At first she wasn't sure of the arrangement. It was hard enough for her to conceive living with someone. But SLEEPING with them!? And him of all people.

But that night to her he just looked...miserable.

So she had relented, and let him stay in the bed. The sheer gratitude in his eyes she couldn't help but smile at, even though she turned over in the bed quickly to hide it.

But as she lay there, she considered the decision. Something she rarely did. She almost never thought on things after she had decided on them. Mostly because she had reasoned the situation out to every possible conclusion prior to making a decision. This one didn't allow her that luxury. But as she thought about it, she began to think it was the best decision. And as time went on, it proved her right in every aspect. Except for his annoying habits of being the most active sleeper she had ever known, needing more than his fair share of pillows at night, sharing way too much as he talked his way through some nights, and not respecting the boundaries of the bed.

She should have know the last one was going to be a problem when he broke it the very first night.

Towards early morning she had woken up to something heavy thumping itself across her waist. She was about to jab Bennett good with her elbow for the act when she remembered who was actually against her back.

For several long minutes she lay on her side of the bed, nearly at the edge for all the rolling around he had done through the early morning hours, and considered her options.

But her mind kept slipping back to one thought no matter how hard she tried to set it aside.

This man could heat up a bed like a furnace!

What in the name of every fire ever lit on the planet could one person do to produce this much body heat?

And still he professed to being cold.

She settled back down in the bed, her decision already made. She was warmer than she had been in months and she wanted to stay that way.

And so all that was left to do was to reason it out for herself. She had made due diligence to get rid of him at least once. Even gone so far as to shove him bodily out of her bed. But he had come back, as he always did, pleading his case to stay. And he had basically nailed it down when he had appealed to the logic of the situation with her.

In addition, they were the only two people in the cabin, so no one else had to even know, not that it was anyone's business to begin with.

And finally, she was entitled to a little self-indulgence.

As a pacifier to the situation, she told herself she would shove him off the train over the deepest ravine they went over if he said one word to anyone. She had even issued a warning that night, though she doubted he really heard her. All he had done was mumbled something back and tightened his grip around her waist as he pulled her closer to him.

She had quickly settled into that warmth, grateful for at least one night to have her very own personal human furnace.

She almost felt bereft that morning when she woke up and he was back on his side of the bed. But all in all, the night hadn't passed nearly as unpleasantly as she had anticipated. For a bedmate, he was respectful, mostly courteous, except for his fixation with pillows, and incredibly warm.

In the morning she had heard him get up. Not by any standard method, but by the sheer amount of noise he made. She had heard something early in the morning akin to him dropping something large and heavy on the floor, but had ignored it as she rarely had a chance to sleep in. But through the next 30-40 minutes, she found it impossible to go back to sleep just by the sheer amount of noise coming from the front room.

She was about to get up to see if he was still alive when she heard the door to the cabin open and close, finally delivering her back into blissful silence.

And so began their time as roommates. And all in all, she admitted over the passing days it wasn't as bad as she thought it could have been. The most advantage it offer her was seeing a side of him she doubted she ever would have gotten even a glimpse of otherwise.

His odd, if not even quirky, sense of humor.

Like the night she had come in late. He was already in bed, and, she thought, was asleep. But still as a precaution, she decided to get dressed in the dark. But as soon as she pulled her jacket off, a low, rumbling version of the opening instrumental to 'Bad to the Bone' came from the other side of the bed. She soon learned this was his favorite joke.

She quickly yanked the jacket back on as she turned to him. But he was still laying in the bed, facing the door away from her. She studied him carefully for a minute, then slowly slipped the jack down again.

The music started immediately.

Melanie turned around and picked up a pillow and threw it at him, hitting him squarely in the back with it.

A hand quickly reached behind him and felt over the object, then quickly yanked it over his side with a muffled 'Thank you'.

Finally he settled back down as she watched him for a few seconds.

"Is that pillow over your face?" She asked.

There was a brief pause, then some shuffling around on his side of the bed, then a muffled 'Yes, Ma'am.' answered her.

"Good." She replied with a smile, "Now smother yourself with it, Mr. Layton."

It also gave way for her to learn things about him she also doubted she would otherwise ever have known.

Like the time she had come in late, wanting nothing more than to go straight to bed. But he had stopped her halfway to the bedroom and turned her around, seating her at the table and insisting she eat first.

Whatever he called the dish, it was the most delicious thing she had eaten in weeks. Two platefuls later, her stomach now happily content, she allowed him to direct her off to bed while he cleaned up.

She had appreciated the gesture, and spent most of the following day trying to think of a way to reciprocate. She knew the relationship wasn't based on Quid Pro Quo, but she felt this time it was called for.

She figured anything with meat would work, but not being much of a cook, she settled on something simple.

And her efforts hadn't gone un-rewarded. He literally devoured two of the hamburgers before offering to help clean up and then trudging off to bed.

But of the two of them, he easily proved himself to be the better cook. Before they had become roommates, her diet consisted mostly of whatever you could pour into a bowl, a glass, or heat in a microwave. Now, with a little careful planning and attention to time, she was served a warm, steaming, delicious meal almost every night before she went to bed, as long as she made sure she came back to the cabin after him.

For his part, he seemed to enjoy cooking for someone. He had once told her in his marriage he had done the majority of the cooking, and it was his grandmother who had taught him most of the dishes he knew how to make.

She did offer each night that he did the cooking to help clean up, so he didn't feel she was taking advantage of this one particularly highly prized skill of his.

She also tried to offer up other compensations for his cooking. Every so often she would 'sleep in' in the morning, giving him first go at the shower, or make sure to keep a few bottles of Ms. Audrey's beer in the small refrigerator for him.

She also had gotten him a small gift that he seemed to have appreciated the most. One day she had taken off from working in the engine and headed down to the Market. While not greeted cordially by any means by some of the vendors, she finally found the one she wanted and made her order.

A few days later, before she went to bed herself, she had laid out a new pair of thermals for him on his side of the bed.

That night she listened as he quickly pulled them on, then settled into the bed with the most contented sigh she had ever heard him give before he settled off to sleep.

But their arrangement wasn't always peaceful or content by any means. They had their share of fights. Mostly it was over little idiosyncrasies, or which habits of one irritated the other the most.

But there were also the issues they couldn't help but bring back with them at the end of each day. That they simply couldn't leave at the door before coming in.

Layton was the worst at this, she admitted. And she always knew when he had had a rougher day than usual. And some of those 'rougher days' were worse than others.

Like the one night he had come back to the cabin later than normal.

She usually knew there was trouble just by the sound of his steps coming in the front door of their quarters. And so she sat stoically in the front room on the sofa, quietly sipping on a cup of tea as she watched him barrel through the room and go straight into the bedroom without so much as a word to her or even acknowledging if he knew she was there, shutting the door closed behind him.

For a few minutes she continued to simply sip her tea.

"And a 'Hello' to you , too." She finally commented.

She waited a good 15 minutes to see if he would come back out. Sometimes he would. It wasn't the first time she had been introduced to his temper by a long shot. The one thing that she was sure of, was except for one time, he never turned it on her. Hence the straight line to the bedroom. He needed time to cool off from whatever had been getting at him all day long.

Finally, when he didn't return, she got up with a resigned sigh and headed for the bedroom.

Opening the door, she stood in the doorway, studying him for a moment to get a better idea of what she might be getting herself into.

Laying out on his back on his side of the bed, Layton stared up at the ceiling in the darkness. He didn't say one word to even acknowledge her standing there.

"Hard day at the office?" She finally asked. Sometimes the question was just a private joke between them. But it also served at times as a barometer of how the other person was feeling at the moment.

"I don't want to talk to you, Melanie." Came the firm reply.

Despite the warning, Melanie stepped into the room, letting the door close behind her. She let the darkness remain for the moment. She didn't need any light to find her way around. It was, after all, her room long before it also became his.

Walking over to her side of the bed, she sat down and turned on the light on her nightstand before turning back to him.

"That's good." She replied, keeping her own tone low and level. "Because I don't care much for talking to you either when you're in a mood. So, how about this instead? I'll talk. You just listen."

Layton turned slightly to her.

"Layton, I have warned you, and warned you, and warned you about what you stepped in here. But some days, I swear, I feel like I'm just talking to myself. This position isn't just for the honor of walking around the train, shouting 'I'm in charge!' to every person you pass in the corridor. It's a JOB. And it's a hard one. And a thankless one."

Layton didn't answer her, but she could tell he was listening even though he turned back to the ceiling.

"Do you remember the joke I use to tell you about myself?" She asked with a small smile. "The one where, as the head of Hospitality, I was friendly to everyone, but I was no one's friend?"

Layton answered her in a low tone. "I remember."

"Well, that's exactly the same joke you need to tell about yourself now." She told him. "Everybody wants to be your friend now because of what you can do for them. But that's exactly the reason you can't be anyone's friend."

Layton turned his head back to her.

"It's not a job to take for the glory of it all, Mr. Layton." She said in an extremely sober tone. "Because there isn't any. It's hard. It's thankless. "It's draining. And in the end, more people end up hating you than cheering for you."

Layton stared back at her. "Then why did you do it for nearly seven years?"

Melanie gave him another small smile. "For the very same reason you're doing it now." She answered. "Because someone had to."

Layton sighed as he turned back once more to simply stare at the ceiling.

Melanie watched him for a few moments.

"Sometimes I wonder if you weren't happier back in the tail, Mr. Layton."

Layton continued to stare at the ceiling without answering her.

"Oh, it wasn't much, I know." She added. "But you had your whole world there. Safe. Secure. And you understood it. You had your little pseudo-family unit, your little pack of rats to look after..." She added with a bit of a smile, trying to make a small joke. And while he knew she was never serious, he wasn't having it that day.

"We weren't rats." He answered in the same hard, gruff voice.

"My apologies." She offered. "But I still think, in your own way, you were happy there."

"Happy to be cold and starving every day?" He asked, still staring at the ceiling rather than her.

"But you understood cold and starving." Melanie replied. She paused for a moment. "You know what I think?"

"What?" Came the low answer.

"I think sometimes you never wanted a revolution."

This time Layton turned to her.

"I think everyone else did. What they lacked was a leader. Someone to head their cause and carry their banner. And so they picked you to run it. And for whatever reason you just went along with it."

Layton narrowed his stare at her.

"And now, here you are. The great leader of the train. The head of Snowpiercer. And I think you're laying in this bed, staring at the ceiling, and you're thinking, 'How in heck did I get here?'"

Layton slowly turned to her. "You still don't believe in me."

"I told you before, I think you need to toughen up."

And she tried to get him to do just that. She never missed an opportunity to show him what it was to lead the train. What it REALLY was to lead it. Even in something as innocuous as a shopping trip. She used any and every situation presented to her to teach him. To try and help him become a good leader.

She laughed softly again at the thought as she looked at the picture. She sighed then. In truth, he was a good leader. What he seemed to need the most, as the picture implied, was simply to know someone was in his corner.

But out of all the things their new arrangement had spawned, she could easily put her finger on the one she valued the most.

The time of the day Layton had joking come to refer to as their 'pillow talk'.

Occasionally, whenever she and Bennett got together for the evening, they would talk over issues of the train. But Bennett only concerned himself mostly with the engine and the systems that ran them. He rarely bothered with the daily happenings of the train. That was her responsibility, he seemed to figure, and left her to it.

But Layton was in the heat of it. All day, every day. And at night he would bring it all back with him, dragging it right in the door after him. At first he tried to block it out once they went to bed. She supposed he simply didn't want to continually bother her with what was essentially now his job. But after a few cautionary introductions to small issues, and judging her reception to the subject matter to be more than just a passing interest, he began to bring the issues up more and more frequently.

For her, she simply loved hearing about what was going on on the train. And the way Layton presented it sometimes, it was almost like listening to gossip in the privacy of their cabin.

Sometimes it was a serious matter, and she would listen respectfully to what was going on and offer whatever helpful suggestions she could come up with.

Other times he would bring up something that would shortly have them both laughing so hard she swore she was going to fall off the edge the bed.

And so did these nightly talks eventually give birth to their 'pillow talk'. Where each night, soon after they had turned in, they would talk about what was going on on the train. The subjects ranged anywhere from just general issues and gossip, to ideas, plans, or what was talked about at the table of the last council meeting.

Anything was really fair game. But what it always was, was respectful between them. One never tried to maliciously criticize or degrade an idea of the other, and gossip was never repeated outside the cabin walls.

Melanie took one last look at the picture before she got up off the sofa and, walking over to the closet by the door, slipped it back into its hiding place.

She felt the place was perfect. There was nothing in the closet that was his that she knew of, so there was no reason for him to ever go in there.

She wondered sometimes what she would do if he did ever find it. What he would ask about it.

Why did she have it?

Why did she hide it?

Why was the glass broken?

Why was it so important to her?

All questions she didn't want to ever have to answer. And so she slipped the small frame back up onto the top shelf between a small box and the wall. From it's placement it was almost invisible on the shelf. So she always felt fairly certain her secret was safe.

Turning back to the cabin, she gave a small sigh. He would be back soon, so she had to start thinking about what they would eat that night.

Maybe she could innocently talk him into going down to the Market that night. They had done that a few times, and she had loved it. Several food vendors opened up in the evening hours and while occasionally questionable, the food was usually good. And it was a nice change of pace, in her opinion. Neither of them had to cook, so they both had the night free.

She wasn't sure why, but Layton seemed to like going to the Market. Maybe it was because as they ate, they would browse through the various shops, and again, talk about the train. The payment system was still mostly bartering, but he had mentioned a new system to her one night. Of issuing credits for the work people did on the train. According to him the matter was still in discussion by the council group appointed to come up with a workable plan. But progress was being made.

She sighed a bit more quietly as she studied the front living area of their cabin.

Sitting under the large window that let in the majority of the light was the sofa he had offered to sleep on that first night when he came to live there.

She started at it for a few moments.

She had told him the room got cold at night due to the heating vents not being connected in that room yet. Once she had moved into the cabin, she saw no point. She rarely left the bedroom between dusk and dawn.

But when he came to live there, she was reminded just HOW cold the outer room got.

She supposed she would have to hook the vents up eventually. Maybe she could even get him a bed of his own and let him move into what would have been her daughter's room. Then she could go back to sleeping in her peaceful, quiet room alone.

But since he had come to live there, aside from her mentioning it the first night, the idea of hooking up the vents had never been mentioned again. And if one of them inadvertently brought up anything that was even remotely related, like mentioning having had to come out to the room in the middle of the night for a quick snack, the subject was quickly changed.

The truth of the matter, if she only ever admitted it to herself, was that she liked having him there at night. He was someone to talk to. Someone to share ideas with or just grumble to over the day's events. And he was usually very patient, and an excellent listener.

A few times, when the day had been particularly stressful, she had cautiously scooted over a little in the bed to his side and leaned up against him as she lamented out how cruel the day had been to her. At first he simply let her lay up against him, eventually falling asleep that way. But after a few times, as long as she initiated the contact, as soon as she began carefully invading his side of the bed, he would lift up an arm, allowing her to curl up there as he asked her what went on that day.

What he actually asked her each time was 'So, did life smoke a cigarette after it go done with you today?"

She would laugh at the implication, and after a little more nudging, would tell him what was bothering her.

But he always seemed to be sympathetic to her problems. And she supposed that was one of the things she liked about their arrangement. Because each of them had been in the same position, they could truly sympathize with the other about the trials and hardships of the job.

Just then she heard the soft click of the outer lock opening in the door outside.

A small smile played over her lips as she quickly began putting together her argument on why they had to go out for food that night.