OUT OF THE PAST

Part XXI - Separation

Much as Melanie suspected, she saw Layton only occasionally after that. And then it was mostly only when he needed to discuss matters of the train with her.

Other than that, their paths just didn't seem to cross that much. And from the past she knew this was how things were. It wasn't that he was particularly avoiding her. Their individual jobs on the train simply didn't have them interacting with each other much.

This was likely one of the biggest reasons she found that she liked that they lived together.

Or that they had.

More often than not, one of them would come in late, after the other had already gone to bed and was sound asleep. Respectfully, they never woke each other up then just to talk. An early bed usually signaled a rough day. And it was best to let that sleeping dog lie. But when they did find themselves in the cabin together at a decent hour, this would quickly lead to dinner together, watching a movie, or maybe doing some after hours work.

Or just an early bedtime for both of them.

Those were the nights she had enjoyed the most. And that she now missed even more.

It had been a chance for them to reconnect. To just spend time together when they weren't needing to solve some crisis or someone wasn't demanding the attention of one or both of them.

Just talking.

Sometimes it was serious. Sometimes it was just some silly gossip they both would laugh over. Who was sneaking around the train with who, what two groups were fighting today, who ended up in the medical car because a cow hadn't liked cold hands in the morning.

Layton had at first joking called it 'pillow talk'. But later it became something they both genuinely looked forward to.

Now there was no more 'talk'.

When they did meet, she compared it to his meeting with just anyone else on the train. Layton would give her a friendly smile. But to her it always seemed forced. Like he had a list of things to do each time they met and that was just the first item on it. He wasn't unpleasant to her or discourteous. He was just...stoic, was the best word she had for him. The meetings were usually short and to the point, and then he would leave with his barely acknowledging the end of the interaction.

While she had firmly told herself this is how things would be between them now and to expect it, it didn't make it hurt any less.

And when they did talk she noted he rarely met her gaze, usually focusing on notes he almost always had on hand. She didn't mind that so much as it gave her a chance to study him.

She decided past a few encounters that he definitely didn't look much better than she felt. The tired dark circles under his eyes spoke of the same sleepless nights she endured now. But she wondered if it was for the same reasons. For her, she simply hadn't gotten used to sleeping alone yet. Though she doubted Layton had the same problem. He was back living with his wife. Surely they slept together. He had someone to wrap his arms around at night. For her there was no more six foot four personal furnace in the bed for her to cuddle up to when the train needed to cut power to the heating system to recharge the batteries. Now all she could do was endure the cold.

She would, of course, from time to time, spend the night with Bennett. She never allowed him to spend the night in the cabin. Somehow she just didn't feel right about it. She and Layton had always had a 'no sleep-over's' rule regarding the bed out of respect for each other. Somehow she still couldn't bring herself to violate the rule, even though she was the sole occupant of the cabin now. But even being with Bennett didn't seem to help her sleep much. She knew in his own way he was trying to help, but it wasn't the same for her.

Mostly whenever they met in a corridor or hallway, she was grateful they were never alone. Of course, she almost always had Frank with her, and Layton was usually being followed by an entourage of people hoping to get a moment of his time for their own problem resolution.

Once when they had past in the hallway as they had three or four times that week, Layton had suddenly reached out, grabbing her hand tightly in his for a split second as they past. It had happened so fast she doubted anyone around them even saw the act. But it had reached right to her heart. Letting her know that at least on some level, he did still care about her.

And in someway, it had also hurt just as much.

Maybe, in her own way, she told herself one night as she lay staring at the ceiling as she did on so many nights, trying to will herself to sleep, he really did understand what had happened. That the whole incident had been an unexpected, unplanned series of events that had gone utterly out of control. Maybe he was, as he had told her, trying to work through it in his own way.

Layton had tried to get her to come out to eat with him a couple of times. Once he had come himself to ask her to have breakfast with him. She had wanted to accept the invitation a little too eagerly, having missed him so much in the past few days since he moved out of the cabin. But she had had to truthfully tell him she had tests to run in the engine with Javiar and she couldn't postpone them.

The second time he had invited her through a more formally delivered note by one of his own assistants to have dinner with him that night. But since they had more or less parted ways, she had convinced herself that a clean break was the less painful way to go, and she had politely declined.

Her own assistant had chided her outright for the act, calling it cowardly on her part.

"Whatever came between the two of you isn't being helped by running away from it." Frank specifically told her when she inadvertently mentioned the invitation the next day. "You should have accepted his invitation and talked out whatever the problem is this time."

Melanie sighed loudly at the man as they walked down the corridor. "It isn't a 'problem', Frank. Layton just decided that he needed his own space. Our sharing the cabin was never meant to be a permanent living arrangement. I always knew one day he would leave. It's just..."

"Just what?" He prompted in a firm tone when she didn't continue.

"It takes time. It takes getting used to...to not having him there anymore. When we first started sharing the cabin I thought I would go nuts having him there all the time. Always in my way."

Jackson waited for her to continue. But when she didn't, added his own interpretation of her circumstances.

"Now you're in that cabin all alone and no one is 'in your way'." Her astute assistant replied in a softer tone. "Why can't you admit you miss him, lower the gate, and talk this out?"

"Because there is nothing to talk out, Frank." Melanie repeated holding firm to her position on the matter. "You keep insinuating there is some problem between us, and nothing could be further from the truth. Layton just...wanted his own place to live. His own space."

"So he goes to live with his ex-wife?"

Melanie paused for a moment before stopping in the hallway as she turned back to her assistant. She wasn't sure how Layton felt about the news being spread about, but for her it was the perfect solution to getting Frank off her back about the matter.

"Frank, look," she finally said, keeping her tone to a conspiratorial whisper, "it isn't common knowledge, but Layton's wife is pregnant, all right? He just felt...he should be with her now. He wanted to be a part of this."

Frank's reaction wasn't what she expected. Instead of backing off, he doubted down. "He had to move out for that?" The man ask. "He could have stayed put and still been a 'part of this'."

Melanie sighed again, studying the ceiling for a few seconds. "Frank...,"

"And so you get tossed like a sack of garbage to the curb? Hardly seems right."

"I didn't get..."

"Seems that way to me if all you said is right."

Melanie hadn't counted on her assistant's protective nature extending this deeply into her personal life. And while she did appreciate his concern, it was being misplaced by her own doing. "Can we just get on with the day, Frank?" She finally said, heading off down the hallway once more.

"Of course, ma'am." He answered as cordially as ever. But he quickly managed to match steps with her again. "But a word of advice from someone who knows a thing or two about handling negotiations."

Melanie turned to him, about to put in that she and Layton weren't negotiating anything. But he quickly cut her off.

"The next time you get an invitation...," he advised, "...accept it."

But of course, there wasn't a 'next time'. Two refusals seemed to get her message across.

They had gone from the closest of friends to barely being able to call their relationship 'acquaintances'. But they both had agreed the train needed both of them, and in that order they still had to work together in some capacity.

On what might as well have been the other end of the train, Layton sat occupying what had become an almost nightly spot for him. His favorite stool at the bar in the Night Car.

Slowly wandering around the back of the counter, Audrey grabbed a bottle from one of the back shelves as she passed it by, bringing it with her to the bar where he sat.

"You know," she started as she topped off the contents of his glass, "if you keep coming in here every night spreading your good cheer, I'm going to have to start charging you some sort of depression tax."

"Depression tax?" Came the barely interested inquiry.

Audrey leaned on the bar counter. "You're not exactly a little ray of sunshine, if you haven't noticed." She explained. "You come in and take that seat, and half the patrons at the bar disappear or simply move as far from you as they can get."

"Then in my opinion, that's working for me." Layton replied. "As it's the only time they leave me alone."

A dark pair of knowing eyes settled on him. "So, how is married life suiting you these days?"

"I'm here." Came the flat answer as he took a drink from his newly filled glass.

An equally flat expression answered him.

Layton set the glass down as he met the stare.

"Look," he started off, "neither of us thought this was going to be easy. We've been apart for a while. She was with someone else. She had a whole other life I knew nothing about. We're just trying to...sort things out."

Audrey's expression shifted to one of mild confusion. "Are you talking about you and Zarah or you and Melanie here?"

Layton answered her with an irritated expression. The last thing he wanted to talk to the train's pseudo-counselor about right now was his relationship with his First Engineer.

"Have you even talked to her?" Audrey asked.

"Zarah? Of course. We live together. Try to keep up, Audrey." He answered with a smile that was looking to poke any nerve it could find.

"Melanie!"

"About what?"

Audrey threw her hands up. "The weather for all I care. Have you two had one conversation in the past several days that didn't involve something about the train specifically?"

Layton set his elbows on the bar as he faced down the Night Car manager. "Look, Audrey, as hard as I know this is on YOU, Melanie and I are working it out in our own way."

"By not facing it? By practically living on opposite ends of the train? By not sitting down and having a real conversation about it?"

"By giving it time."

Audrey pulled back. "I think your time is running out, Mr. Layton."

"For what?"

"Melanie, if you haven't noticed, does not like uncomfortable situations. She either solves them...or cuts them loose."

Layton leaned back on the stool. "Then I've already been cut loose, Audrey."

"How so?"

Layton leaned forward across the bar again. "I'm the one who keeps showing up with the white flag, wanting to talk. She's the one who keeps ripping it to shreds and dumping it at my feet."

"A lovely picture of words." Audrey commented blandly. "How is she doing this?"

Layton sighed as he leaned over the counter again, "I have invited her to eat with me. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, a snack in the engine for all I care. She turns down every invitation."

"Does it come with an explanation?"

"If 'No' is an explanation, then yes, I get an explanation."

Audrey took to wandering in a circle for a few seconds behind the bar as she chanted his name in exasperation before slapping her hands back on the bar and fixing a hard stare on him. "WHAT have I told you about her?"

"More than I think any living human being should know?"

"Melanie does not do emotions, Mr. Layton. When a situation gets too uncomfortable, she runs."

"She doesn't do that so much anymore." Layton defended his former roommate.

"How long did it take you to find her? And when you did, WHERE was she? The TAIL, Andre! As far from you, which is what is making her uncomfortable, as she could get."

"So, what? I should lock her in a cell and force her to talk to me?"

Audrey leaned against the back of the bar, crossing her arms in front of her as she studied the man in front of her.

"How did you two ever manage to survive nearly a year of living together?"

"Because for most of it you kept you pretty little nose out of our business?"

"Without my help you two wouldn't have survived a week."

Layton wisely kept his mouth shut on that one.

"The problem in this, Andre, is Melanie still sees herself as a monster. And what have you done to prove to her she's not?"

"I can't do anything, Audrey, with a person who won't talk to me. And if she still thinks she's that...that person she was a year ago, then I haven't made quite the impression on her you seem to think I have."

"But that's just the point, Andre. She's not the person she was. But YOU'RE right back treating her that way again. What else do you expect her to do when her best friend won't even speak to her?"

"I have TRIED, Audrey." Layton quickly defended again. "She's the one running again. She's the one who won't sit down and talk to me."

"Because she's scared. I swear, how many times do I have to tell this to you? You misinterpret her emotions as badly as she does. She's afraid, Andre! The standout in her memory right now is her best friend told her he wished he had left her in a chair and let an angry mob execute her." Audrey paused for a moment as she studied him. "That devastated her." She added softly.

"We have talked since then, Audrey." Layton pointed out. "And I explained that to her. I told her I was angry and confused when I said that and I didn't mean it."

"And of course she immediately threw her hands up and exclaimed 'Well, that makes it all right then!'."

"Hardly." Came the flat answer as he pushed his now empty glass across the counter at her.

Audrey sighed as she refilled it for him. "Well, there's a surprise, Mr. 'Why aren't depressed alcoholics allowed to drink here for free'."

Another irritated stare answered her from under the braids.

Audrey leaned over the bar on her arms as a thought came to her. "Why did you and Melanie get along so well, Andre?"

Layton thought over the question, but now working on his third glass was starting to slow the process in his brain.

"Because she saw you as equals." Audrey helped him out. "And maybe the problem now is she doesn't see you that way anymore."

Layton looked up from his drink. "How so?"

Audrey pulled back a little, pretending to think. "Well, it seems to me that Melanie sees what she did as an unforgivable act. Taking the life of another person, no matter how much circumstances seemed to warrant it at the time." She gave him a long, knowing look. "Maybe it's time to level that playing field."

Again, Layton wisely stayed quiet again.

Audrey leaned over the bar counter again. "I told you once, Andre," she spoke in a conspiratorial whisper, "that maybe there was something in your past you didn't want anyone to know just as badly. Maybe something you had done, which at the time seemed perfectly reasonable, but maybe doesn't quite shine in that same light today? Something you would give anything to protect? To keep out of the public eye? Something that...might make you understand Melanie's actions a little better? Something that makes you...equal."

Layton found himself captured in that knowing stare. He knew Audrey had her share of secrets about what went on on the train. But he would have bet his last work credit she didn't know this one. Only one other person knew what she was eluding to, and he wasn't talking.

But people were bound to gossip. And they loved to do that nowhere on the train more than in the Night Car. And hearing a rumor of how someone had mysteriously passed away on the train, the more than usually astute Night Car manager may have put together more pieces of that story than the average passenger.

"Maybe," Audrey continued in a smooth, cool tone, "the two of you have more in common than you want to admit.

Pulling back, Audrey left to attend to another patron.

Layton quickly downed his drink and left, wanting to be anywhere else on the train than in that same seat when the Night Car manager returned.