A/N: While I am pretty sure at this point in the story no one could give a rat's a**, I would like to issue a CONTINUITY alert.
In other words, I messed up. It happens more than you know.
If you recall back in chapter 35, Layton 'mentions' he knew certain things were off limits with Melanie when they played 'Secrets'. One of those things was if she had a child, she might have been married, and who was he.
Well, folks, WAAAAYYYYY back in chapter 17, if you follow the progression of those questions, assuming, as implied, Melanie started, Layton directly asked, "Were you ever married?' Plus, it makes no sense Melanie would asked the question. She knew for a fact Layton was married.
Just sayin'...
Chapter 40 - Changes - 5 - τεύχος πέντε
In the front section of the engine room, Melanie listened to the announcements along with the rest of the train. But her mind was anywhere but on what Layton was saying. She was just listening to his voice.
From the last look he gave her, all she heard was his resentment. But at what? What was he so angry at her about?
A small smile came to her lips none-the-less. If Snowpiercer hadn't come back to life when it did, what they would be doing right now.
She sat and thought for a moment.
What would they be doing right now if the train hadn't started moving? There was no doubt in her mind just how far he was willing to take it.
But the train had started moving.
And apparently so had they. Right back to being enemies, she ruefully thought as she hung her head over the instrument board she currently sat at.
Was that what he was so angry at? That the whole thing had been cut short? Had he honestly wanted to change the terms of their relationship that much?
She had felt at the time it was a mistake. But a small, quiet voice in her head urged her on. She realized now that voice had been her mother's. 'Nothing ruins a good friendship like falling in love,', she had always told her, 'but then sometimes it leads you to something better.'
"It didn't lead to something better this time." She quietly answered her mother's wisdom.
She always admitted to herself she and Layton had an unusual relationship. But it worked for them.
To date she felt their hardest days were just after the failure to execute her. Because of Layton's play against Ruth's attempt, they had faced the same fate. But they had faced it together. He had told her many times in the darkness as they lay facing each other in the bed they shared that he knew the outcome might have been different for them both. But he had come to her door that morning facing that reality head on. Even thought he had a plan, nothing was a 100% guarantee. But in the short time span he had, he'd tried to work out every angle, right down to the last one.
"If they somehow managed to move forward with their madness," he told her, "than I would honestly rather they killed me as well. Because that isn't the society I fought for, and the revolution failed anyway."
And so they had helped each other through the mental struggle of facing a life that came close to never having been.
'Survivors guilt', Ms. Audrey had called it. 'When you feel like you're living a life you shouldn't be. That you're not entitled to anymore.'
She and Layton had run into the train's pseudo-counselor one day in the lounge of the Night Car. Though neither said anything directly about their feelings, Ms. Audrey was remarkably perceptive. And she knew how to keep people talking even when they knew they should shut up. And quite frankly, Melanie and Layton liked her insights into their situation. To hear just one other person say, 'You're not crazy. Do what works for you right now. You'll both know when you're free of the fear and strong enough again to survive alone.'
And so their arrangement went on.
And so for weeks after the failed attempt to take her life, they continued to share the bed in the cabin. While to everyone outside of their cabin door she seemed fine and life went on for her, behind it she still struggled with the event for weeks afterwards. Layton tried to help as best he could. But she still was keeping him at arms length, feeling the place she would go to sometimes was simply too dark for anyone else to see.
But his last words to her every night before he turned out the light on his side of the bed were, 'Wake me if you need anything'.
Some nights she had just smiled at him and with playful disdain told him she would be fine. It wasn't, after all, the first time they had tried to execute her. She had sat in that chair before. And she had done it alone. No one stood beside her, facing down her enemies with her.
Why had this time been so different?
On other nights she seemed to try to find any reason she could not to have to go to bed. Anything not to have to close her eyes and face down that darkness another night. And so she would sit in the outer room and try to read or work or do anything to stay awake. When he would press her after a while, when the room started to get colder and colder, with her head held down she would finally quietly admit to him she didn't think she would be able to sleep that night. On those nights he would gently get her to her feet, guide her half asleep body into the bedroom and tuck her into her side of the bed, talking to her the whole time, even making her laugh if he possibly could. And only after she was settled would he then walk back around the bed, and pulling himself in, pick up a book from his nightstand, and begin reading to her. It was a perfect distraction to get her mind off of less pleasant thoughts and concentrating just on the words and the sound of his voice. At some point during the night, she would wake up and find herself comfortably curl up next to him, usually with an arm wrapped around her waist. Sighing contentedly, she would will herself back to sleep. Concentrating solely on how safe and utterly warm she felt, instead of allowing the darkness to cloud her mind again.
She had missed those nights. While there wasn't one thing sexual about it, she had never felt closer to someone. She supposed it was because she knew he wasn't there for sex. He was there solely because he knew she was afraid and wanted to help, just for the sake of helping.
She smiled slightly then, remembering that it wasn't a one way street between them either. Layton had his share of dark corners as well. And like her, his always seemed to focus on the same issue. And in his own way she supposed he used to ask for her for help during those times when the darkness encroached a little too closely.
A small laugh escaped her at how she remembered he asked for her help.
He never really ask. He just made sure he was already in bed before she got there. Usually he was sitting propped up on the pillows, reading a book. She would never say anything, just come over to her side and crawl under the covers. She just always seemed to be able to sense when something wasn't right with him. Even though he held the book in front of him, she knew he wasn't actually reading it. It was just something to focus on other than the problem. On those nights she would carefully scoot a little closer to his side of the bed and as casually as she could, ask him how his day had been. Sometimes, when he wasn't ready to talk, he would give her half-hearted answers, never once putting the book down.
But sometimes he would put it down.
These were the times she braced herself for the worst from him. While she knew he would never physically hurt her, there were times he did frighten her a little. But she did ask, and she accepted that sometimes she just got more than she bargained for.
But then, sometimes, so did he.
But on those nights when he would let the book drop into his lap, he would start out just answering her question by telling her how the day went. But it usually quickly degenerated into a rant and rave about the stupidity of some of the people he had to deal with. He would rile on about the endless demands. Why couldn't they just ONCE solve the smallest problem on their own!? And if they couldn't, how were they going to survive on the train? What if something happened? What if something really major went wrong and they all turned to him to make it right.
That was where the tension always broke, as he would slowly turn to her and in a soft voice ask her, "What if I can't?"
That was what his greatest demon always seemed to be to her, lurking in that darkness.
Failure.
He had come so far. Brought so many to this point with him. What if something happened beyond the scope of his abilities and he failed them now? It was the same fear he had to face every day, over and over.
At those times she would simply curl up close to him and playfully but gently tell him he was 'catastrophiesing' again. Creating things to worry about that may never come to be.
Then she would try to pull him back to himself by reminding him of all he had accomplished. Remind him that the people on the train would not turn on him if he failed. He wasn't a tyrant. He didn't run the train as she had, on his sole judgment. Choices were made as a group. Success was shared, but so was failure.
"And no matter what," she always assured him, "you're never alone in this. No matter who else may run for cover when things get rough, I'll never abandon you."
She would sometimes tell him although she had run the train for years, that many of her fears were the same. But HER fears HAD nearly become reality because she tried to hold on too tight. She had been the very tyrant she was warning him against becoming.
"I never trusted anyone, Layton." She often told him. "I was the head of Hospitality. 'Friendly to everyone, but no one's friend'. That was the mantra I took up every day to survive. Everyone was my enemy. First Class, Second, Third, the Tail, the Brakemen, the engineers, even Bennett. I didn't trust anyone. I ran this train and no one was going to take her away from me."
"Sorry." he would often mumble to her.
She would laugh softly then. "You saved my train." She replied. "Oh, I hated you for it. I hated that you took her from me. Maybe on some level I always will. But I also came to realize you saved her.
When I first started the lie about Wilford, I studied him. I wanted to make sure I could front him completely to anyone. Answer all their questions just as he would. Never back down. Never compromise. Just as he never did. But then you came into the equation. And you made me start to realize that the very thing I tried to save Snowpiercer from, the very thing I studied so long to try and keep at bay...was the very thing I had become." She always finished in a sad, dismal voice.
"Don't be the tyrant, Layton." She would warn him again and again. "Learn to trust others. Force yourself if you have to. But don't ever be what I became."
"You weren't a tyrant." He told her. "You cared for the passengers."
"I cared for myself." She would answer ruefully. "For my position. For the lie I perpetrated every day. I became the mantra I lived by. I never trusted anyone, because in my eyes, everyone was my enemy. And look at where that got me."
"You trusted Bennett with that secret." He reminded her once.
Melanie laughed in response. "Bennett was a part of it from the start. I never had to tell him." She replied. "But he cared about me, and so we agreed to keep the secret between us. I suppose I tricked him all those years the same way I tricked you at first. I told him it was for 'the good of the train'. If the passengers found out, there would be a revolution." She laughed again. "The problem with you was, that was exactly what you wanted." Then she would grow somber as she would reach out and lay a hand on his shoulder, getting him to look at her.
"Don't become the tyrant, Layton." She would warn again. "Don't be me. Learn from me. Study me like I studied Wilford. But don't become the monster."
He stared down at her, hating that she thought of herself that way. "You're not a monster." He would tell her.
"But I am. As much of one as he was. Maybe that's why we worked together so well. Until I had something to protect more important to me than myself."
He smiled at her. "Your precious train." He replied.
It always puzzled him that she grew very somber again at the comment, as though thinking about it for a moment. Then she turned back to him. "Yeah. That too." She replied.
She would go on reassuring him then. Listing his accomplishments and adding to the list daily. Never allowing him to forget one good thing he had done.
But the talk always ended the same.
Once more she would warn him, 'Don't become the tyrant'.
Then she would simply ask him to read to her.
What it had taken her a few times to realize, was that the first time he had read to her, he started at the beginning of the book he had. The next time, he had flipped back several chapters from where he was currently to pick up where he left off with her. A few times after that, he had actually changed books, putting down the one he was reading and picking up another one on his nightstand and begin reading where they had left off. Soon she began to realize what the changes reflected. At first he had been reading ahead in the story, so they were literally at different points in it. But eventually he had stopped reading ahead, changing to a different book for his personal reading. But when he read to her, they were now discovering the story together rather than at different places.
It was just one of the many things she found herself liking about the man. And the more she found out about him, the more she appreciated him as her ally.
But in the lower engine room just a few short moments ago, she had thought of him as anything but a close ally. Ripping off his jacket, she practically gasp at the sight of him. She had slept next to this man for weeks. At times held him so tightly you couldn't have forced a knife between them. Why had she NEVER noticed this man's body before!
She had wanted him so badly she was afraid she was going to implode right then and there. Locking her mouth over his, she couldn't kiss the man deeply enough. Everything; the cold, the danger, the consequences, all came secondary to seeing just how far down his throat she could get her tongue.
When he had grabbed her cheeks and squeezed each one hard she thought that was going to be the end of her right then and there.
Then suddenly he had stopped and pulled back, and her whole body cried out in desolation.
'Was she sure?' he asked her.
Melanie laughed softly to herself again.
'Was she sure?'.
She thought about the question. Was she? Was she glad the train had interrupted them? Was she glad it hadn't gone further? Had this been their wake-up call?
The thought brought a sting of a tear to her eye.
She wasn't sure if she needed him anymore to help her through the longer nights. But she was sure she wasn't ready to lose him completely.
Melanie rested her head in her hands. How was she going to fix this?
Could it even be fixed?
