A quick note here about this chapter.
I need to defend my position on Javi and how he conducts himself.
Do I think Javiar does not take his position as an engineer seriously and is determined to corrupt the apprentices?
Not at all. More so I feel he's the type of guy who, while taking his job seriously, likes to have fun with it as well. And yes, I can easily see him as the guy who sits around at 1 in the morning with a guitar, teaching the apprentices songs of seriously questionable character.
I like that in a person.
Chapter 31 - Facing Down What Divides Us Part II
"LAYTON!?"
Melanie reacted immediately to the commotion directly to her left as she stepped a safe distance back from the panel.
"Layton?!" She cried out again as she listened intently for whatever sounds were around her to try and assess the danger level. But the arc seemed to be contained to one flash, and while alarms were going off, nothing else seemed to be damaged.
A sound of a soft moan behind her directed her to where Layton was laying on the floor. She knew others would be coming to the alarms, but they were a good two to three minutes away.
"Layton?!" She quickly crouched down beside him and began running her hands over his body, trying to assess if there was any immediate injury. But a cautious smile came to her lips when a long and descriptive list of adjectives suddenly began being hurled at her engine.
Melanie began to try to calm him down. While he sounded all right, she had no way of knowing if there was blood or a cut or anything a sighted person would immediately notice.
"Layton!" She stated firmly, but still with a slight tremor in her voice. "Calm down! You have to stay still until the others come."
Taking her advice, Layton ceased his tirade at the engine and leaned back against the wall behind him. But he gave a slight wince of pain as he moved his back and neck.
"What's wrong!?" Melanie asked, reacting to the sound. She was fighting with everything in her not to lose control herself. But it was driving her to near panic that he was hurt and she had little to no way of knowing how badly.
Where were the others!?
Layton slowly shook his head in answer to her question, but immediately stopped as the pain flared up again. "That stupid engine just slammed me into a wall, that's what's wrong." He stated, but immediately winced again at the pain of his muscles tensing up under his ire at the engine.
Melanie was still trying to check for any injury to his body. "Are you cut?" She asked quickly. "Is there any blood? Are you hurt anywhere?"
Layton settled against the wall. It had suddenly dawned on him how frightening this had to be for her.
"I'm fine, Melanie." He quickly lied to her in a much calmer and quieter voice. "Just a little shook up is all."
"What happened?"
"It felt like a sudden electrical discharge from the panel. But it wasn't very strong. More like the engine just letting me know it didn't want to be touched there."
Melanie gave him a confused look. "'Touched there?' Touched where?" She asked. "There was no place you should have had your hands that would have caused an arc. And don't lie to me and say it wasn't strong. It threw you across the room!"
"Well, I'm still alive."
"But..."
That was as far as Melanie got when other voices suddenly could be heard shouting their names as others came closer to where they were.
Relief poured through her as she listened to the steps getting closer. Others were coming now. Ones who could actually do something.
She called out to them several times to lead them to where they were.
Moving as quickly as they could with Bennett leading the way, a small group of the other engineers entered the room. While Bennett went to see to the two of them, the others immediately descended on the engine itself, quickly plugging instruments into panels and running analysis of the damage.
But Melanie quickly turned to them. "Leave it alone!" She all but shouted at them. "It was an arc. Nothing more. The engine can deal with that itself. We need to get Mr. Layton to the medical car immediately."
The assistant engineers all turned to Bennett as a single group, looking for instruction. But on his nod, they quickly unplugged the instruments and, returning them to pockets and carrying cases, helped get Layton to his feet and all but carried him out of the room.
Melanie carefully followed behind. But she paused for a moment at the door. Turning back to the room, she took a long, drawn out sniff of the air around her, then quietly listened for a few moments. But all she heard was the quiet, content running of the engine once again.
Staring at the room past her bandages, she finally turned and followed the others.
Bennett let the medical team that arrived in the engine room with a gurney deal with Layton and all of his protesting as he led Melanie behind them to the medical car. For an excruciatingly long amount of time in her mind's frame of things, they both waited outside the exam room while Pelton checked Layton. Hearing his near constant protests gave her a certain amount of calm. He wouldn't be so verbal if he were seriously hurt, she told herself.
Finally Pelton came out of the room, a hard look on her face.
"My apologies to you, Ms. Cavill." She stated with a deep frown. "Of the two of you, I thought you were the difficult one."
"Is he all right?" Was her first question, spoke through more anxiety and fear than she wanted to admit to.
"He's a little worse for wear." the doctor replied. "He'll need a few days rest to fully recover. Mostly he has some extremity numbness. More than likely caused by the sudden shock to the body. But that should go away shortly."
"Can we see him?" Melanie asked.
"You can do better than that." Pelton replied. "You can take him back to his cabin. Have him come back tomorrow for a follow up."
Bennett was directing her towards the door when Pelton stopped them suddenly.
"Oh, I almost forgot." She stated, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a small metal circlet. "He'll likely want this back. He wasn't very happy we had to cut it off. But it looks like it was what the surge went for and it was pretty badly mangled by it."
Taking Melanie's hand, Pelton placed the small metal disk in it.
"What is it?" She asked, rolling it around in her fingers.
Pelton shrugged. "From what I can tell, and the finger we cut it off of, I'd say a wedding ring."
Melanie's finger's froze as they held the ring. "Wedding...but Layton doesn't wear his wedding ring." She replied in a small voice.
"Well, he wore it today." Pelton replied before turning and leaving them to deal with the train's leader.
Melanie stood at the door to the exam room, pondering the small disk she was again rolling in her fingers.
Bennett nudged her. "Come on." He stated. "Lets go get him back to the cabin."
But Melanie didn't move. "Why was he wearing this, Bennett?" She asked. "He hasn't worn it since I've known him. He never even mentioned it. And he wasn't wearing it before my accident. I'd have noticed."
"Maybe he got sentimental." Bennett replied. "Let's just concentrate on the immediate problem."
Getting Layton back to the cabin wasn't much of a challenge as he could mostly walk on his own. But it was a slow process as he would stumble every now and then, claiming his leg would suddenly go numb under him. When this happened, they would quickly find a place to let him sit down and he would rub the leg the way Pelton had showed him until the feeling came back.
Once back in the cabin, to Melanie's surprise, he didn't even protest being put to bed, almost seemingly grateful to be able to lay down.
Promising she would be able to handle his care, Melanie sent Bennett back to the engine room, stating she was worried what Javi and the apprentices were getting up to without someone there to check on them. To her suspicions, since they had had more than enough time by now to make sure the engine wasn't damaged and was running all right, she could see them all sitting around the engine room singing some interesting song the third engineer had taught them on the late night shift.
Once she had seen Bennett on his way, Melanie returned to the bedroom where Layton was happily tucked into his personal cocoon of blankets and pillows.
Walking into the room she quickly caught the contented sigh from the bed.
"Happy?" She asked with a small smile.
"Ecstatic!" Came the enthusiastic reply. "If I could run the train from right here, I would be a happy man."
Walking over she stopped when her leg bumped the edge of the bed on his side. Carefully feeling her way so she didn't end up sitting on him, Melanie lowered herself onto the edge of the bed.
"So, is this how you felt when I got injured?" She asked.
"Depends." He replied in a more somber tone. "Are you scared out of your mind right now?"
"I was. When we were in the engine room, and I couldn't see if you were hurt, or do much to help you, yes, I was scared out of my mind."
"Then yeah, that's about how it felt."
Melanie reached out for his hand, but he found her's first, giving it a small tug as he took it in his.
"Hey." He said, looking up at her. "Stop that."
"Stop what?"
"You're over thinking this. I can tell." Layton replied. "It was an accident. Everyone's OK. End of story."
She sat for a moment on the edge of the bed, then mustered a small smile for him along with a short nod. "OK." She answered. "Do you want something to eat? It's nearly time for dinner."
"Is there any of Rosa's grandmother's containers left?"
Melanie frowned at him. "That shock scrambled your brain's, Layton." She said. "That food has been gone for days."
"Oh. Right."
"You can have left over pasta or a sandwich."
A soft sigh answered her. "Pasta then. It's easier to eat in bed. And I know how you are about crumbs."
Melanie got up, letting go of his hand as she headed for the door. "Excuse me for liking a clean bed."
"Trust me, it's more fun to eat in bed." He called after her. "Zarah and I ate in bed all the time."
The mention of his ex-wife's name stopped Melanie at the door. Slipping a hand into her pocket, she immediately found the mangled wedding ring.
Layton noted her hesitation.
"Something wrong?" He asked.
Melanie turned back to him, then shook her head slightly with a small smile. "No. Nothing." She stated, then headed back out the door. "I'll be back in a minute with dinner."
Out in the kitchen, Melanie fished the small circlet of gold out of her pocket and ran it between her fingers again. Of one thing she was sure. Since she had known him, Layton had never worn a wedding ring. He never, in fact, wore any jewelry. It was the reason she hadn't felt the need to warn him against it when they started working in the engine. Any metal could prove to be the exact disaster the small gold circle had proven to be. Even the spare engineer's uniform she had found for him was specially made, with everything that one would expect to be metal replaced by plastic or some other non-conductive material.
So why had he suddenly started wearing his wedding ring?
After considering the matter, she thought she found an answer in a conversation a she had had with Audrey a few weeks ago.
Audrey was, as usual, filling her in on the latest gossip, which Melanie admitted to herself was something of a guilty pastime for her with Audrey.
"Now, you see that little barmaid over there?" Audrey pointed out a younger woman who was chatting with one of the male bartenders.
To Melanie the man looked for all the world like he would have listened to the cute little barmaid if she had been reading to him from a physics textbook.
Melanie gave her a slight nod.
"Your Mr. Layton was in here a few nights ago talking to her."
Melanie felt she knew where the conversation was going. "Layton is perfectly free to talk to whoever he likes, Audrey." She answered in a firm but low voice. "As I've told you a thousand times, we don't have that sort of..."
"Oh, you're not the one that girl needs to worry about." Audrey stated, still watching the two. "But while your Mr. Layton was talking to her, Zarah was standing behind this counter watching them like a green eyed hawk. After she broke the second glass she was drying, I felt I had better go get that girl back to work and away from your Mr. Layton."
Melanie looked up in serious disbelief. "Oh, now really, Audrey." She stated. "They've been divorced for years. I doubt after Zarah left the Tail they even saw each other."
"Well, she sure keeps an eye on him now that he's come up the train." Audrey stated, nodding her head of black curls towards the girl. "Had a few nice words for that little sparrow, believe me. I haven't seen that girl within staring distance of Layton since." She added, turning back to the two. "And it looks like I have to go get my pruning sheers out and nip this budding little romance or I'll get zero work out of either of them anymore."
Melanie stood in the kitchen, the mangled ring held between two fingers as she thought about the conversation. Zarah was one of the few people who knew she and Layton shared the cabin, and she wasn't the least bit happy about it. But there wasn't much Layton could do other than tell her the truth. As soon as had he settled into his leadership role, she had all but insisted they should share a First Class cabin, since he was now the train's leader. But Layton was more interested in restoring order on the train. And to do that he knew he had to work on establishing a working relationship with it's former leader rather than appease his ex-wife's demands.
Even though to most people on the train they were divorced, Melanie knew that Zarah simply referred to it as just a prolonged separation by circumstance. She also figured that now that Layton had come up the train and was leader of it, Zarah saw her former husband in a whole new light apparently. One that benefited her and her station among the other passengers. But while Layton had remained, to the best of his ability, cordial to his ex-wife, he had chosen the train over her. And the train and it's citizens, to him, were best represented in a stable, working relationship with it's former leader.
"Melanie?" Layton suddenly called out to her.
Melanie immediately snapped back the present with a bit of a start. "What?" She yelled back.
The tone tapered down a bit now that he knew she heard him. "Everything OK?"
Melanie quickly slipped the ring back in her pocket. "Everything's fine." She replied, pulling a container of cold pasta out of the refrigerator and placing it in the microwave. "Dinner in three minutes."