I checked my watch for the umpteenth time in the last 10 minutes, pacing back and forth on the platform near the edge of the tracks. I checked my watch again. 6:41am. My train should have been here 10 minutes ago. I leaned out over the tracks and looked down the line to see if the train was anywhere close. He must have noticed.

"Uh, they're fixing the green line at Petworth, connecting red line trains are stuck waiting at Fort Totten, which puts the next train to Shady Grove about twenty seconds away."

I looked to see who was speaking. When I finally spotted him, I felt stuck. My heart skipped a beat, my feet somehow planted themselves into the ground, my head started spinning. His eyes... They were like nothing I had ever seen before. His face was covered in thick brown hair, but his eyes killed me. They were so... sad. So incredibly sad. It was like all of his emotions hung there, in those brown eyes for the world to see. Only the world wasn't there. I was just us. It felt like it was just us.

"Thank you." It was all I could think to say. The train, sure enough, pulled up twenty seconds later. "Look at that, just like you predicted. You here tomorrow?"

"Everyday." He nodded.

"Coffee's on me." I slipped a dollar into his paper cup. I took a few seconds to study his face, the face underneath all the beard. The face that screamed pain, suffering, battle. I knew, he was a fighter. A warrior. A Gladiator.