A/N: So. I apologize profusely for the wait, but this chapter gave me an utter FIT. It took forever and a day to write! That's why It's about 1k words shorter than the other two. I had wanted to go ahead and get them on the plane—but that didn't happen. Oh wells. I did a lot of research for this, but as I don't live in England nor have I ever been on a train, etc, so some of it may be off. . . Yeah. Thanks to the lovely pink-strawberry-lemonade for beta'ing! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: If it's called a 'disclaimer', then I obviously disclaim. You can still sue me, of course, but you won't get much.
. . . Beep. . . Beep beep. . . Beep beep beep. . . BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. . .
Nina jerked awake as her phone started beeping and vibrating against her thigh. Her head flew up, and knocked into something.
"Ouch!" Fabian muttered, holding his head as he blinked into awareness.
"Fabian! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to hit your head." Nina bit her lip, worried that she actually hurt him.
"No, it's okay. Just a small bump." Fabian smiled. He had been using her head as a pillow—much like she had been using his shoulder—and he figured he shouldn't have left himself in a position to get whacked awake.
"Alright." Nina nodded. She finally got her phone out of her pocket, and turned the alarm off.
Fabian leaned over, trying to see what time it is. "Wow, it's already 1 o'clock in the morning!"
Yawning, Nina replied, "Yeah. I set my alarm for a few minutes before we're supposed to get there. We need to get off at the next stop.
"Ah. We'll probably want to wake the others, then."
Looking around, Nina agreed. She turned around in her seat, and started gently prodding Amber. "Amber. Amber. Time to wake up."
The blonde lifted her head off of Mara's arm. "Wha—?"
"It's time to wake up," Nina repeated. "We're almost at our stop."
Amber rubbed her eyes, looking much like a little kid, and turned to wake Mara.
While Nina had been doing that, Fabian reached over and tried to wake Alfie. After several failed attempts, he shook Jerome's shoulder. Jerome instantly sat up, and looked around. Fabian nodded at Alfie, mouthing, Wake him up. Jerome stretched, then knocked Alfie into the floor. Fabian leant back into his own seat, and watched as Alfie sat up, alarmed, yelling, "What happened to my bed?"
"Oh, do you have to be so loud? You woke me up!" Patricia grumbled.
"Well, that's a good thing, then," Amber said. "We're almost at our stop."
"And we don't have to deal with waking the terrible goth Trixie!" Jerome sniggered.
"Oh, shut up, creepazoid." Patricia glared at him. She yawned and turned to Nina. "Are we almost there, really? It seems we only just left."
Nina nodded. "Yeah, we are we should be there in about—" She was cut off by an announcement.
"Good morning passengers, this is your train conductor. We'll be arriving at Paddington Station in approximately 10 minutes. Please gather your things and prepare to depart the train at the platform."
"—10 minutes, like he just said," she finished. Patricia nodded and stretched before standing up and getting her bags from the overhead compartment.
"Ooh, we're going to Paddington Station! I want to see the statue of Paddington Bear!" Amber said, getting her luggage together.
"Paddington Bear?" Nina asked, confused.
"Ah! Do you not know who Paddington Bear is? He's so cute!" Amber squealed.
Nina turned to Fabian for an explanation, letting Amber's ramblings become background noise. "Who's 'Paddington Bear'?"
Fabian thought of a way to explain it. "He's a character from a children's book series. Did you come through Paddington on your way here?"
Nina nodded.
"Then you probably at least passed the statue they have of Paddington Bear, even if you didn't know it."
"Oh. Okay."
Conversation died down as the train pulled into the station. They waited for the all clear to get off the train, then filed out onto the platform.
"Where to now, Nina?" Mara asked as they walked into the large station.
Nina looked at a map of the station nearby and said, "We need to go out front and get cabs. Then we ride to . . . Heathrow Airport."
Fabian, who'd been inspecting the map alongside Nina, gave her an inquiring glance. "Take cabs to Heathrow? Wouldn't it be easier to take the Heathrow Express?"
Nina looked around, wide eyed and confused. "I-I don't know what that is."
Fabian chuckled. It's cute how American she is sometimes. "Come on." He took Nina's hand, and started to pull her in the direction of a ticket booth.
The rest of the group—who'd been standing around tiredly, not really listening to the conversation—jumped with a jolt as they changed direction.
"Where are we going now?" Amber asked.
"We're going to get tickets to the Heathrow Express," Fabian said over his shoulder, taking the lead.
Everyone else nodded and "Oh"ed, reaching in their wallets and purses for their credit cards to pay for the tickets.
Nina was confused. "Fabian," she said, trying to get his attention.
"Yes?"
"I still don't know what this Heathrow Express is."
He chuckled again. "It's a train line that transports travellers directly from here—Paddington Station—to Heathrow Airport. You took a cab from there to here, correct?"
"When I came from America, yeah."
"You probably just didn't know about it. But that's okay. It'll just save us time." He smiled at her as they reached the booth.
Amber waltzed up to it first, even though Fabian had been first in line. "I need one ticket for the Heathrow Express!" she said, holding out her credit card, which was standard color except for a splash of pink on the outside. She'd obviously gotten one of the personalized ones.
The half-asleep woman behind the ticket glass yawned, swiped Amber's card, and slid the ticket underneath the window. "Have a nice ride."
Mara went up next, having followed Amber. Then Jerome, and Alfie. Fabian was about to step up, when Patricia cut him off with a glare and a threat of an elbow to the ribs. She got her ticket with her dark hued card, and went off to stand with the others, all of whom were crowded around a bench little ways away.
Fabian approached the ticket booth.
"Fabian?" Nina was riffling through her bag, but couldn't find her money. She was about to panic, when she remembered that she had packed it in her larger suitcase with her wallet for safe keeping. She knew she wouldn't have had enough already converted to British currency anyways.
"Just a moment," he said, turning back towards the ticket booth. "I need two tickets for the Heathrow Express, please."
Nina had opened her mouth to protest, but closed it again in a snap. She realized that he was going to buy her ticket for her without her asking. Meaning he would've done it anyways, even if I didn't have the money. She smiled.
Fabian got the two tickets and turned around. "Did you need something?" he asked, handing her the ticket he bought.
"You're so sweet," she said instead, hoping he wouldn't ask if that was the real thing she wanted to say or not. She leaned herself forward and gave him a peck on the lips before pulling away and turning around abruptly. "Where to next?"
The brunet blinked, trying to keep up. He cocked his head to the side, and grabbed his bags. "To the Express platform," he said, pointing out the way. He sped up until he was right beside Nina, matching her pace. He wrapped his arm around her waist, and smiled at her.
Then they realized that not everyone was following. Nina twisted around. "Hello? Are you guys coming with me to America or not?"
Amber and Mara jumped up, the first two to not want to be left behind. Jerome and Alfie were next. Patricia brought up the rear, grumbling along the way that it was much too late in the evening to be running around a train station.
"It's not evening, Patricia. It's technically very early morning," Mara said, as they made to wait for their Express train, which would arrive in about 15 minutes.
"Late in the evening or early in the morning—blah blah. It doesn't matter, it's still a time I should be sleeping!" Patricia snapped, plopping herself down on the bench and crossing her arms.
"Well, this will certainly be interesting," Nina said, as she sat down on another bench, Fabian's arm still wrapped around her. She looked at her phone, noting the time, then she snuggled into his embrace, enjoying the small moment of peace they'd have in Paddington Station before they'd have to leave for the airport.
A/N: . . . I'm not as happy with this chapter, but I do admit I like the ending. For the research, I looked up train stations (do you know there's a TON of those in England?) and airports that would be plausible for the Anubis residents to take/use. I tried to get it right, but as I'm a mere American who doesn't travel, I may have some slip ups. If the timing doesn't fit—well I had to do it that way for the story. Creative license and all that. Please tell me what you think! I've gotten some lovely reviews so far, and they do make me so happy.
On another note—I've decided to take story requests (don't worry—this one will still be written!) so if you have an Anubis story you want to see written, or just like my style, or whatever, shoot me a message/review and I'll see what I can do! I'll do almost anything except Joy/Fabian. That's one that I won't do. Gracias!
-Zenelia*Sky