Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It is day two of Grace’s four day work week. 

He leans his head back onto the glass panel of the subway train and catches sight of his reflection on the window right across. Blond hair peeking out of a blue beanie, ceil blue scrubs under a fully-zipped, navy blue NASA hoodie from a dream he had three lifetimes ago, and in between his teeth, a Twizzler to appease an oral fixation that’s followed him since boyhood. 

A moment longer of locked eyes with his mirror image and everything fades away until Grace can't notice anything other than the darkened bags hanging beneath his dulled eyes that manage, impossibly, to show up even in the high transparency of the glass. 

These proofs of exhaustion used to alarm him. They don't anymore. He finds himself a bit proud of them even, wearing them like some badge of honor, like, here, look at all the hours I've lost helping save lives, helping make a difference. Look how they’ve indented and purpled my face.

The train squeaks to a stop at an almost empty station. The doors slide open. In she walks. 

Short, slender, pale and dressed in darks, holding a black thermos and a black purse. The door slides closed behind her, and she sits on a seat on the opposite aisle. She unclasps and reaches into her big purse as soon as the train jolts to motion again, and she retrieves, like she always does, her sleek, black iPad. 

She is beautiful, sharp and severe and put together in a way that suggests her day is just starting, not ending like Grace’s. Her hair is pinned up into a tight bun, her makeup is quite simple, and she is wearing a long black coat over office attire, ironed white blouse tucked into a dark gray pencil skirt, 20 denier tights and black, dressy kitten heels. She is beautiful, but she does not exude beauty— she exudes power, and it seems as if beauty just happens to be a byproduct of that.

Anyway. 

Grace has seen her a million times before on his commute home, because she always steps into the same car as him — car four — four stations after he has boarded and made himself comfortable on the plastic seats. 

She’s been a part of his routine since four months ago when they changed his regular shift hours at the hospital and he began losing more sleep than he had before. He often wonders how long these early morning subway rides have been a part of her routine. 

He wonders a lot of things about her, and he finds himself, sometimes, imagining stories about her life. Who she must be, what kind of person she is. 

He imagines her with a very interesting, very serious job. She gives Grace the impression of being discreetly important. Maybe not quite the president, more like the woman behind the scenes telling the president what to do. The country’s most high-ranking spy, maybe. Accountant. Some kind of diplomat who had offended a more important diplomat and been sentenced to public transportation for the rest of her life. Head of HR at a big tech company. A woman you would be relieved to see during an emergency and terrified to disappoint during a meeting. 

She doesn’t strike him as somebody who would entertain the thought of having a pet, but Grace imagines her with one nevertheless. A Siamese cat or a Doberman. Definitely not a Pomeranian. Perhaps she has a goldfish, one of those really fancy ones that are shaped like spheres and have long, veil-like tails and big, bulbous heads. 

He imagines she has a family of equally serious, equally put-together people with hair as auburn as hers and eyes as icy blue. He imagines what their conversations must be like — her mother and her father and her, sat around a miles-long, dark mahogany table eating… hm, salads, maybe, and her father who she calls Sir asks, “How were the numbers today?” and she responds, “They went up a little, and then they went down,” and her mother called Ma’am nods approvingly and says, “Good to hear,” which is as close as they’ll ever get to saying, “I’m proud of you,” since her high school graduation when they clapped her on the back and congratulated, “You did it.”

Ridiculous. Grace’s constructions of her backstory are nothing short of ridiculous. Probably wildly inaccurate, too. But it keeps him occupied on these long commutes home, keeps him entertained. 

Perhaps if he’d spoken to her like he’d intended to the first week he began regularly coming home this late, he wouldn’t have to invent these stories. Perhaps she would’ve shared the truth. But he never did, and now it seems it’s been too long they’ve been riding together in silence that it would be weird if he started a conversation. 

Grace isn’t too upset by it. He likes the intrigue of not knowing somebody — the freedom of his imagination at the cost of real connection — and if he didn't, well... he prefers the silence, anyway.

Or, well, the lack of conversation, he should say, because the subway is never silent. Even this late into the night/early into the day, it’s all metal shrieks, tired brakes, and bored recorded voices announcing stations as if naming places no one would ever willingly go. Many times, Grace has found himself wanting to doze off to the sound of the metal, the machinery, but he’s got a fear of waking up at the wrong station, or worse, waking up at the end of the line.

So, he usually just opens up a Twizzler from his dedicated Twizzler pocket in his work bag, tilts his head back, puts his earbuds on, and listens to music the entire time, occasionally glancing at the redhead, watching her expression as she scans her screen, never really betraying emotion beyond a squint here and there. Maybe she’s reading a novel. One of the classics that he would know nothing about. Or a magazine on office attire. Expense reports. News articles. Who knows.

Ten stops later, she stands as soon as the train has halted. 

Wordlessly, she exits through the sliding doors, and they close behind her with finality. The train starts moving again, and Grace watches with an inexplicable sort of sorrow as her back disappears from his sight through the windows. Two stops after that, he exits, and he begins, with a sigh, his tired walk home.

The next day, again.

Her coat is brown this time, and instead of a skirt, she is wearing loose-fitting trousers, but other than that, she is the same. Black purse, black iPad, probably black coffee in her black thermos. Before she sits, she briefly glances at Grace. The eye contact is quick but electrifying, exhilarating but strangely guilt-inducing? Like he’s just been caught doing something he shouldn’t. He has to look away.

He tries to busy himself by looking at his phone, but his brain is fried from STAT labs and blood cultures, gram stains and MALDI-TOF analyses. Twelve hours fighting fatigue and snacking on Quaker Chewy granola bars, twelve thankless hours alternating between task monotony and anxiety-attack inducing pressure. 

He can’t look at his screen, because his mind wanders in between TikTok videos, reliving the day through flashbacks, and it’s like he’s still on the clock, still in the hospital. 

He takes a cautious look at her again. Thankfully, she’s looking down at her iPad once more. 

Grace lets out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding. He lets his thoughts of work drift away. He thinks of what her name might be.

Evelyn. Rosa. Lily? No… Lily sounds too silly for her. She needs an elegant name, a regal name. Like… like James. Or Alexander. Or Robert. Grace stifles a smile at that thought. Elizabeth. Jane. Ma’am II, named after her mother. Maeve.

He goes through names for about twenty minutes before the train stops at her station. Once more, she is gone, but left with Grace is calm and clarity.

The fourth day is always the worst day.

A week of fatigue clings onto Grace like… something that clings. He can’t even think. His mind is fog, or muck, or molasses, and— hey! Those things cling. Look at him go. Still as sharp as… something sharp. Like, err…. Scalpels. Needles. The corners of microscope slides and cover strips. Filled glass culture tubes, when Grace’s lab assistants get their hands on them and trip ten hours into his shift, which wouldn’t be a problem, except one of them is containing a STAT sample that needed to be processed, y’know, STAT, and so, it becomes this whole thing. 

Christ.

The fourth day is always the worst day.

Grace loses patience, loses energy, loses bits of his mind. Grace becomes nothing more than a slave to the high hum of hospital lights, freezers, blood culture systems. He loses strength. Clocks out and collapses into the arms of the subway system, loses himself in the squeaks of this big machine, the thuds and echos of underground city tunnels. He wants to sleep. He can’t. He chews on spearmint gum until it loses its flavor — yet another thing he loses — then he swallows it and clenches his jaw shut. He shoves earbuds into his ears, turns the noise up all the way.

The fourth day is always the worst day.

She steps into the train, elegant and clean as always. 

Thank God she is here. His own patron saint of sanity. His Christ-like figure of consistency. She becomes his religion in times like these. 

She sits where she always sits, thermos in one hand, iPad in another. Cross legged goddess, nameless and mystical. Her presence silences his thoughts. 

He leans his head back against the cool glass, closes his eyes in silent prayer, and when he finds the strength in him to open them again, he finds that she is staring at him, curious sort of glint in the icy-blue glaciers of her irises, and he must look a mess because he always looks a mess, but despite how terrible he must be on the eyes like this, she does not look away.

Grace is too exhausted to process the eye contact, so this time, he does not shy away from it. Just blinks, slowly, and holds her gaze as apologetically as he can. 

Her lips purse. Then part. Then move. And Grace almost doesn’t register what that means, but when he does, he jolts with a start and pulls his earbuds off quickly. Perhaps he shouldn’t seem so eager, but he can’t help it, because she’s speaking to him. For the first time in four months, she’s speaking to him.

”You can sleep,” she says softly. And oh. An accent. Pointed like German. But soft like Dutch? Either one of those. Anyway, doesn’t matter, really. An accent is an accent. Wow. An accent! He never expected that! Probably terribly narrow-minded of him. Hm.

Grace realizes he has not replied. He shakes his head and says, “What? Sorry, I didn’t catch that,” and he cringes when his voice cracks with exhaustion.

She raises a dismissive hand, excusing the apology. 

“It’s okay. I said you can sleep.” She sounds like a song, like piano keys. “You get out later than me, right? I have about twenty minutes before I step out. If you nap, I’ll wake you up.”

Grace blinks at her with awe. He swallows. 

“You’d do that?”

“If you trust me,” She shrugs. “Looks like you could use it.”

A saint. An honest-to-God, real life saint.

Grace nods thankfully. “Thank you.”

He lets his eyes fall shut like curtains closing. He wakes up a restful blink later to the train slowing to a stop and her closer than she’s ever been, shaking his shoulder with a gentle, gentle touch. 

“Grace,” she’s saying, “Grace.”

Grace blinks awake. She steps back with a curt nod. He runs a hand down his face and says again, “Thank you,” voice raspier this time. 

“See you next week,” she responds, which means, “Have a good days off,” which means, “I notice you too.” 

Grace nods. 

And as she leaves and as the train carries on its way with Grace still inside it, he wonders how she knew his name. Only when he gets home to his small studio apartment and starts to strip off his scrubs does he realize his ID badge is still clipped onto his breast pocket. Ryland Grace. Microbiology Medical Lab Tech. St. Mary’s Hospital.

How unfair then, that she knows all this already and he knows nothing about her. 

Grace sighs. Inhales as much air as he can fill his lungs with, holds, then exhales. He pads to his bed, lifts the sheets, settles beneath them. And he rests.

The first day back into twelve hour shifts is not so bad. 

After three days off, Grace had missed the chill of the hospital lab, the tasks which gave him purpose, the thrilling rush of adrenaline and clear metrics for success, the routine. The exhaustion after work is almost welcomed. Grace walks into the subway train and settles into his usual seat.

Four stops later, her. 

Except something has shifted, something is different, because instead of silently settling into her seat without acknowledgment like usual, she stares at Grace, and a polite smile reaches her lips, and she nods at him, which never used to happen before. 

Grace nods back with a shock he hopes he hides well. She sits down, exchanges her thermos for her iPad, and does not look at him again, but it doesn't matter, things have already changed.

This is who they are now, Grace thinks. They're people who nod at each other on the train. What next? People who talk to each other on the train? People who exchange numbers? Grace shudders. Absolutely not. How terrible it is to be known, to be able to disappoint. 

Grace chews on the end of a Twizzler and stares determinedly out the window, determinedly not at her. He's getting ahead of himself. Four months of silence and one polite, empathetic favor does not a friendship make. It barely even constituted an acquaintanceship.

If anything, they're coworkers. Subway coworkers. Colleagues in the field of riding the train at unreasonable hours. This is impersonal, polite. There will be no knowing involved.

Across the aisle, she shifts, sighing at something on her screen of mysteries Grace has no plans of actually unraveling. He glances up to see her already staring at him. 

She has this perpetually pensive look in her eyes, but her posture is grounded, legs crossed at the ankles, back rigid and straight, head pointed straight at what she's looking at, which is him. Grace swallows under her gaze, then nearly chokes on the piece of licorice he forgot he still had in there. 

"How were your days off?" she asks, incredibly casually, like this is just a thing they do, like they haven't spent the past four months riding in silence, like they weren't always ghosts to each other.

Oh Christ. Grace doesn't know how to talk to her like this. Grace doesn't even talk to her in his head! Just... invents half nonsensical, half could-be-believable things about her and mythologizes her. 

He doesn't know how to talk to her, any more than he would know how to talk to Mother Mary if she appeared to him in car four of a train going down to Fulton. How were your days off? What did you do? Who are you, really? A lonely man on a lonely train at a lonely hour trying to act regular in the face of a perfectly normal question? How were your days off — there's nothing more to it.

Grace's shoulders tense. 

He gulps, then manages, "Good."

She tilts her head at him, and her eyes narrow slightly with interest, curiosity, and he doesn't blame her, is entirely aware of how needlessly awkward he's making this interaction go out to be by being so clamped up and cagey. He can't help it. He's never stared at her for this long with her staring back before. Were her eyes always so blue? Was her hair always so orange? Were those freckles underneath her pale makeup? Why is she looking at him like that? Like he's a puzzle, or a specimen.

"That's good," she says, and nothing more. 

He watches her return to her iPad, watches the questioning glint in her eyes fade away to a dull focus as they scan the screen once more, knot forming between her brows, and he feels a bit guilty or maybe regretful as she closes off right in front of him, a sort of nyctinastic-like shift. 

The following silence is then different from the silence of the past four months— awkward instead of comforting, stilted instead of natural. Like an itchy jacket.

Grace chews on the inside of his cheek. He makes it two stops before it becomes unbearable.

"Sorry," he hears himself blurt.

Her eyes lift from the screen, settle on him once again. Her attention is quite nice, Grace thinks, even as a hot flash of embarrassment washes over him. 

"What for?"

"I don't know." Grace shrugs. "I made that weird."

The corners of her mouth twitch upwards.

"Made what weird?"

"The conversation."

"What conversation?" she asks. 

Something playful, something smart lights up her eyes, and she smiles at Grace like they are sharing a private joke, which is a little bit strange, because Grace doesn't quite think he is clever enough to really be in on it. 

She must read his confusion, because she huffs out an amused sound and grins, "How were your days off?"

And then it dawns on him that she is letting him get away with it, letting him have another go. Which is silly. Silly and kind. It is pleasant, and not at all like how he imagined her to be just last week. Grace finds himself smiling nevertheless. 

"They were good," he answers this time, applauding himself for sounding like a normal person and not a socially stunted cross between a brick wall and a weirdo. “Very restful."

She hums with acknowledgment.

"Looked like you needed restful."

"Like you wouldn't believe," Grace chuckles.

She shrugs one shoulder. 

“I think I could believe," she smiles. "I've sat across from you often enough."

Again, I notice you, too.

”I hope your hospital is treating you well,” she says.

Grace shrugs. 

“Treats me well enough. It’s the hours that get me.”

”Yeah?”

“Yeah. But there’s a bit of pride you get from it. Working in the medical field will instill a lot of pride into you, actually. Saving people, y’know? Helping make a difference. Makes the hours worth it.” 

Makes the pay worth it too, Grace adds in his mind. A hospital lab tech gets far less than one would expect. But he doesn’t want to talk finances with her. Doesn’t want to take this conversation someplace cynical. Wants to keep it light, polite, impersonal.

“Interesting,” she hums. “St. Mary’s, right? Not far from me.”

”Right, yeah.”

Once more, I notice you, too. I remember things about you. I pay attention.

He tries not to feel discomforted by that. Ignores the soft chill that goes down his spine. Attempts normality and returns, "And how was the rest of your week?" Feels privately relieved that his voice does not shake even one little bit.

She lets out a deep exhale. 

“Busy, if you can imagine it.”

Grace thinks to say, Yes, I can, thinks to say, I have imagined a million things about you, thinks to say, I’ve imagined you as an international spy or undercover princess of a foreign country currently under a political coup and more than that, far more times than I can admit without feeling entirely stupid, which is to say, I’m sure I can imagine you busy.

He says none of that. Just purses his lips in sympathy, somewhere between a moue and a tight-lipped smile.

“Another day, another dollar,” he sighs.

She laughs. Sighs too. Then returns to her iPad. And that’s that. And the following silence is much more comfortable, thank God.

Grace chews on Twizzlers. She scans her screen. 

Eventually, they arrive at her stop.

She packs up her things, stands beside the doors as they open, and just before she steps outside into the station, she nods at Grace, and she says, “See you tomorrow.”

Grace smiles. “See you.”

It is not so bad, he thinks, to be acknowledged, and it is only after the train has sped away that he realizes, he never did catch her name.

The next day, she steps inside and nods at him again, and this time, when she sits opposite him in the aisle, she does not pull her iPad out of her purse. Just sits there, glances at Grace, and greets, "Hey."

"Hello," Grace responds. And then, because he's been practicing, "Good morning so far?" 

She shrugs, considering it like "Good morning?" is this deep, philosophical question and not just a polite thing people say. After about a minute, she seems to decide her answer. 

"Yeah, it's a good morning."

Grace laughs. "Why the long pause?"

"I was trying to see if the busy day ahead makes my morning any less good. I suppose it doesn't. Are you having a good night?"

Usually, Grace would just say "Yes, great," and nothing else. But, taking inspiration from her, he considers the question with sincerity.

Is he having a good night? He's feeling pretty calm in the moment — he usually feels pretty calm when she enters the car, something about the consistency of her presence probably — so he supposes he is feeling good at the moment. Did the business of the day behind him make the night he is currently having any less good? No, not really. So, after careful thought and consideration— 

"Yeah, I'm having a good night,” Grace decides.

She laughs. It's a very pretty sound. Reminds Grace of soft jingle bells or the distinct and melodic chimes of the hospital paging systems— that hauntingly pretty song that plays during a code blue when you're not the one who has to deal with it.

A comfortable silence passes over them. She uncaps her thermos and raises it to her lips to drink. Grace watches for a minute before figuring it's a bit strange that he's watching her throat bob up and down as she swallows with so much focus, and he flushes slightly and stares at the ground in front of her instead, eyes eventually wandering to her feet like a magnet drawn to metal, blue drawn to 20 denier tights wrapping over soft skin, wrapping over the prominent extensor tendons leading to her toes, which disappear under her black Kate Louboutins. 

After a moment, Grace realizes staring at her feet feels tons more perverse than staring at her throat, so he elects to just stare at the ceiling of the train car until she starts speaking again and he allows himself the privilege of lowering his gaze to her face.

“Is there anything in the bag other than Twizzlers?” she wonders out loud.

Grace arches a brow. “Why? Want one?”

She wrinkles her nose. “Couldn’t pay me enough to want one.” 

Grace laughs. “Your loss.”

And she lets out an amused grin before asking, ”What else do you have in there?”

”Extra scrubs,” Grace shrugs. “Sharpies— fine tip, obviously. Notepads. Lotion. Granola bars. Other stuff.”

”Twizzlers.”

”Twizzlers,” Grace smiles. And he nods at her big purse. “What do you have in there?”

Grace keeps a long mental list of things he expects her to carry on the daily. Among them, a handheld revolver, a bottle of fancy wine, a knife disguised as lipstick, and a hard drive containing state secrets. 

She shrugs. “My iPad.”

He rolls his eyes. “I know that. What else?”

“Blue pens,” she adds, and does not continue listing.

”Okay… what else?”

”Black pens.”

“God, it’s like pulling teeth with you.”

She smirks. “It’s all just work stuff.”

Work stuff. Grace recalls the past four months of conspiracies he’s come up with regarding her line of work. Her accent and sly refusal to even hint at what she does for a living really does bring some merit to that international spy theory.

“What do you do for work?” Grace pries. He can’t help it. She makes the mystery too enticing to ignore.

She shrugs again. “I work for the diocese of the city.”

Grace has never heard a sentence that sounds more like code for “I am an international spy” than that. Sure, he could believe her an employee of the diocese of the city, if “diocese” meant “German-or-maybe-Dutch government.”

“I’ve never met a nun dressed in office wear before,” Grace says, and she laughs. 

“Nuns don’t work under the diocese,” she says. “They belong to their own independent religious orders.”

”Oh. You weren’t lying then. You do work for the Catholic Church?”

”No, no,” she smirks. “Let’s explore why you immediately assumed nun and not, perhaps, an accountant or head administrator or the chancellor of the diocese or something like that. Do you see women in leadership roles, Grace? Are you opposed to it?”

She’s fucking with him. Cleverly and playfully avoiding questions about her career and fucking with him. Grace wants to catch her off guard, maybe reply, I actually love women in leadership roles, especially in my personal and intimate life, especially sexually, so there! But he only shakes his head and snorts.

”Are you an accountant then? Or an administrator or chancellor?”

”Of a sort,” she says, and Grace groans. 

“This is so unfair. You know my job. You even know where I work! I don’t even know your name.”

Her eyes go as warm as blue gets. “My name is—“

The overhead garbled PA announcement stating their arrival to her station interrupts. She closes her lips into a delighted grin and rises to stand. Saved by the bell. 

“Looks like I have to go,” she says.

Grace lets out a long groan. “Oh, come on, you can tell me your name!”

She makes a point to take her sweet time gathering her belongings as the doors slide open. 

“Sorry, Grace,” she apologizes with fake sincerity. “Wouldn’t want to miss my stop.”

”You’re horrible,” Grace says, but he’s smiling, probably the widest he’s smiled today. “Actually horrible.”

”I’ll see you tomorrow, Ryland Grace, lead microbiology lab technician at St. Mary’s Hospital.”

Grace rolls his eyes and sighs. “See you tomorrow.”

The next day, a little tireder, but it all melts away the moment she steps into the train, nameless and beautiful, rousing and neat.

Grace has spent the entirety of his day coming up with ways to solve the mystery of her in the back of his mind, trying to think of conversation starters and cleverly phrased questions, and as soon as she sits down, Grace says, “Hello.”

She gives him a small smile. “Hi.”

”My name is Grace. What’s yours?”

And she laughs at the effort. “It’s—“

The subway’s PA announcement interrupts, “Stand clear of the closing doors, please.”

She fakes a startle, hand over her chest, lips slightly parted, eyes slightly wide. She says, “Sorry, what were we talking about?”

Grace shakes his head with a smile. “Your name.”

”Oh, right, of course. My name. Well, it’s—“

Grace can’t hold back a small yawn. Day three of his twelve hour shifts. You know how it is. 

She arches a brow. “Oh, wouldn’t want to bore you.”

”Oh, come on, don’t be like that,” Grace laughs. “It’s two AM. I’m tired.”

“Third day,” she acknowledges. “Getting fatigued?”

”Little bit. And I know what you’re doing, so don’t think you’re clever.”

”What am I doing?”

”Trying to distract me.”

”From what?”

”Your name.”

”What about my name?”

“You’re ridiculous.”

Her eyes twinkle with mirth. Her lips quiver from the effort it takes to keep from smiling. Grace has to roll his eyes at the sight of her, looking so pleased with herself. 

“What’s in a name, even?” she smirks. “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

”Is that a clue?” Grace squints. “Rose? Is that your name?”

”Grace, bless you,” she laughs. “It’s from Romeo and Juliet.”

Grace rolls his eyes and allows her to laugh at him. It’s worth it, being the joke when she’s laughing like that. Who would have thought he’d ever be privy to that sound? A month ago, they were riding in a silence which seemed impossible to break. Now they are sharing jokes. Is this what Grace has been missing out on, all this time?

”I don’t know if I ever read Romeo and Juliet in school,” he says. “I think we read Macbeth in the twelfth grade.”

“We did Romeo and Juliet when I was a kid.” Her face goes soft at the memory. “I was Juliet.”

You would be, Grace almost says, but he catches himself. “Were you any good?”

She scoffs. “I’m always good.”

“At everything?”

”Yes.”

”That’s ridiculous,” Grace says. “But even more ridiculous, I actually don’t doubt that for a second. You could tell me you know every language in the world and I would believe you.” 

Part of the reason why Grace was able to construct so many different stories for her was because of the air of confidence and self assurance she projects around herself, head always held high, shoulders always back. It’s the type of confidence that can’t be faked. The type of confidence that suggests she’s been successful in her ventures and relentless in her work for a very, very long time.

“You think too highly of me,” she says, though there is a sparkle in her eyes. Then, faux-modestly with her chest puffed out, “I only know nine.”

Grace huffs a laugh. “Show-off.”

She shrugs like she can’t help it.

“Be honest,” Grace eventually starts, “are you a spy?”

The corners of her eyes crinkle with delight. 

“I’d be a terrible one if you’re asking that.” Her grin is sweet, infectious. “Language just comes very easily to me.”

Grace, stupid American, asks, ”What occasion would anybody even have to need nine languages?” 

“Having a mother in Amsterdam and a father in Hamburg,” she shrugs.

That’s a new bit of information. Sir and Ma’am live in Germany and the Netherlands. Parents living in two different countries? Divorced? Never married? Strange. Her life is all these things Grace never even considered. Rewarding to know her though.

“Fair enough,” Grace says, and he lifts fingers as he lists, “German, Dutch, and English, then. What’s the use of the other six?”

”Reading primary sources as a History and Philosophy double major in college, mostly. I have a higher propensity for language than other people, so why not make use of it? Russian, Mandarin, French, Japanese. Came in pretty handy when I was writing my undergraduate thesis.” She smiles. “Spanish and Italian, I learned for fun.”

Amazing. She is a treasure trove of amazement. 

Grace wants to ask her more. Wants to know more about her. But the train halts to a slow stop, and she begins to gather her things, and Grace realizes they’re here, and she must go now with a pang of disappointment. 

She rises with a heavy exhale.

“Gonna go out and do spy shit now,” she says. The doors slide open. She stretches as they do, and then she lets out a long, drawn exhale. “Espionage-ing and all that stuff you Americans love to think about. Pray for my safety.”

”Whatever,” Grace snorts. 

She walks off the train with a half-groan, half-breath. 

“Though I may not be a spy, this job really is killing me.”

“Do not go gentle into that good night,” Grace shrugs.

She turns around and tilts her head at him. “Dylan Thomas. Nice.”

Grace blinks at her. “What? No. Interstellar.”

The doors slide shut. She laughs so loud, it leaks through. Laughs so hard, it echoes in Grace’s brain even after he has made it home, even after he has gone to bed. 

Last day. Worst day. Made a little bit better by her entry.

She sits opposite him. He sees her through a haze of exhaustion. Fog and molasses. Mud and muck. Sleepy. So, so sleepy. But the worst of it is over. The worst of it is over, and she is here, and he’s on his way home. 

“Rough day?” she asks him, her expression of mix of sympathy and concern as he struggles to keep his eyes open.

Her voice has taken to a soft quality different from her teasing and playing. A whisper but not really. Coaxing and calming, like speaking to a child or a little animal, and Grace is often put off by this kind of treatment, often feels belittled by it, but the sincerity in her voice and kindness in her eyes makes it difficult to make feeling like a child or a little animal bad a bad thing. 

Grace stifles a yawn and nods. 

“Last day is always the worst day,” he says.

And he examines her again, forcing his tired eyes to focus. Her hair, slicked neatly back in a nice low ponytail. Her face glowing and radiant. Her clothes, not a wrinkle in them. He squints at her with confusion.

“How do you always manage to look so good?”

A surprised laugh escapes her. She looks at Grace fondly. He feels warm under that gaze.

”My days are not as long as yours,” she answers. 

“Right. Working as a mafia boss must give you really flexible hours, right?”

“Right,” she grins.

Grace yawns. “But really. Come on. Whatever your secret job is, it’s hard, right?”

“Yes.”

”You wake up at two AM for it.”

”Midnight, actually. To shower and get ready.”

”That just proves my point even more.”

”Which is…?”

”It’s demanding. Your life is demanding. At the very least, your line of work is demanding. So… how do you do it? Look as composed as you do? Be as… y’know, pretty as you are.”

She smiles again at his compliments. And then she shrugs. Pauses to think, really considering the question. The moments stretch on as she ponders her answer. 

“A rigorous routine,” she says finally. “Good diet. Good exercise. Eight hours of sleep always.” 

Grace sags a little bit. Generic advice. He’s been hearing it for years. 

She notices his disappointment. Looks down at her hands. Then back up at Grace.

“It helps that I don’t go out much. Every hour of my day is portioned out to accommodate this schedule. Ten hours of work, including breaks and lunch. The commutes to and from, which together are about an hour long. Cooking dinner. Cardio. The work after work on my laptop. Eight hours of sleep. Two hours getting ready.” 

Another pause. Then, “It’s difficult, maintaining friendships and relationships and such, because they all want to go out to the bar for a drink after work, or meet up at the park for an aimless and unproductive stroll. I don’t quite think I have the patience to balance work and life if friendships are involved. So, yeah. I suppose that’s how.”

“Oh,” Grace says. 

She makes a face like, Yeah, well. 

She is lonely like him, he realizes, and resigned to her loneliness like he is. Go to work, go home, go to sleep. Go to work, go home, go to sleep. Day in and day out, and on their days off, he suspects she does what he does as well— count down and prepare for the next shift. Across the aisle, she shifts in her seat with a slight discomfort, her honest words hanging in the train as it rumbles over the tracks. 

He knows exactly how she feels. He feels the same way. 

Grace shrugs. He attempts to give comfort in camaraderie. Says, “If it helps, I’m basically doing the same exact thing, but I don’t pull it off like you do.”

She lets out a breathy laugh. It helps.

Her posture softens. She leans back against the hard plastic of her seat and sighs, closing her eyes for one satisfying moment.

”This train ride is the best part of my day,” she admits softly.

And how special, Grace thinks. How special it is to be a part of it. How special it is to be trapped in the amber of this moment. 

He dozes off to the sight of her, and he wakes up to her tousling his hair. 

“This is my stop,” she whispers.

Grace nods at her thankfully. “I’m awake. I’m awake. Have a good day.”

”Have a good rest when you get home.”

Grace salutes, like, Yes, ma’am. She chuckles and goes on her way.

So, the weekday, which is Grace’s weekend, which is never too exciting. Groceries. Chores. The shoddy gym of his apartment complex. Sleep. Bad reality TV and ice cream to pass the time, which ticks down always in the back of his mind. Hours til next shift.

Meaningless. All meaningless. Meaningless and lonely. Aimless tasks to get him through the day, almost worse than the tasks he performs at work, but at least those have meaning, so maybe this is worse. Idling. Resting. Recuperating.

He cooks dinner for one. Does crosswords as he waits for the meat to cook. Five across. Crucial moment or connection. Nexus. He cooks it for a little longer than he should. The meat comes out tough.

He misses conversation, the impersonal requests and small-talk from lab assistants and scientists, “Grace, would you mind getting my cultures out from the refrigerator? Grace, could you sign off on this? Weather’s weird this time of year, huh? Doing anything fun on your off?”

Absurdly, he thinks of her. Her words, more significant to him than anybody else’s, saturated with sincerity and the type of humanity you only really find in odd spaces at odd times. The train at night long after and long before anybody else has boarded, when one is ending his day and another is starting hers, when both are strangers.

He misses her, which should be impossible. How do you miss a stranger? How do you miss something you don’t even know? Miss them by the copper of their hair and the lopsidedness of their smile, always so sly, like she knows something you don’t, which she does? Miss her by the sheer sheen of her stockings of the faint scent of her perfume from across the aisle— rich and gourmandy, mysterious and cashmeran, reminiscent of Christmas cookies and fog, wood and rain.

Impossible. Her name escapes him. Her life is a puzzle with which he has at most two pieces. Not even corner ones. He doesn’t know her age, her job, her favorite color, whether or not she has children, wants children, whether or not she… has somebody. She is to him transient and ephemeral as Christmas cookies and fog, wood and rain.

But he misses her. Impossibly. He Googles “Popular Dutch names” and “Popular German names.” He wonders what she might be doing, if she’s sleeping or awake, if she’s at work or at home. 

He finds a supreme lack of rest in his last day off, and when his first day back to work comes around, he is buzzing almost with excitement as he works, like a child ready for his bedtime story, like a boy wanting to be put to rest.

He enters the train at the end of the day. Four stops later, so does she. 

She brightens up at the sight of him. He glows.

”Hello, Ryland Grace. How’s you week been so far?”

“Perfect.” And then, because he can’t help himself, “I’ve missed riding on the train with you.”

Instead of looking alarmed, she looks touched. She smiles at him softly, warmly. 

“So have I.”

Grace feels relief wash over him. This is real, that means. Whatever warmth Grace feels in his chest when she enters the car, he is not alone in it. Whatever camaraderie they’ve built together is not imagined, not fictional. This is real.

Grace asks, “Don’t you think I should know your name by now?”

She laughs at him, and Grace lets her. She laughs at him, and the sound is music. And after her shoulders have stopped rising and falling, after the music has faded away, she is left with mirth in her clear blue eyes and a grin.

“Please?” Grace says, smiling too.

And she shakes her head with a fond disbelief. 

“Eva,” she says. “My name is Eva.”

Grace’s brain fills with it. Eva, Eva, Eva. Eva Eva Eva Eva. EvaEvaEvaEvaEva— Even more musical than her laugh is her name. Like mourning dove coos. Like the rustle of bright young leaves during a Summer breeze. Like cymbals and bells. Like rain.

“Eva what?” Grace asks.

She smirks. “Don’t get greedy, Ryland Grace.”

He rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “Sorry.”

A beat passes. Two. 

“Stratt,” she says. “Eva Stratt.”

Eva likes to be called Stratt. 

Her favorite color changes every time Grace asks. Green, then brown, then blue, then red, then purple for three days until she changes it back to brown. Grace can remember exactly one time his favorite color changed. Green in boyhood to orange after one really good sunset a year ago. Hers changes by whim.

Her mother and father never married, so Stratt got her mother’s last name, which she says is “fortunate, because imagine me going by Drommerhausen.” When Grace asks about her accent, she says, “It’s definitely a mix of Dutch and German, but more German,” and when Grace asks why, she shrugs and says, “My father argued louder.”

She has no pets because she honestly believes she would not be a good pet owner. She says she doesn’t have the patience. She is single with no children for the same reason. 

She refuses to tell Grace her job, because “I think I need some things to remain a mystery, to keep you interested,” and to that, Grace responds, fondly, “You’ve already got me hook, line, and sinker, Stratt. How much more interested in you can I be?”

And she laughs says, “Okay. Okay, fine, I’ll tell you.”

Grace tries not to look too excited, but his eyes have gone wide with anticipation and his smile cannot be contained. He leans forward and waits patiently.

“I work…,” she says slowly, “…for the diocese—“

”You’re terrible,” Grace groans.

She laughs, and laughs, and laughs. And Grace finds himself laughing along.

Her favorite smell — “Favorite smell?” “Yeah, that’s a thing.” “Never been asked my favorite smell before. You’re grasping at straws trying to get to know me.” “Answer the question, Stratt.” — is, “Hm… let me think.”

Stratt — how wonderful it is, by the way, to know her name — shifts in her seat across from him. Crosses her legs. Pauses in thought. 

"There's a cathedral in Maastricht,” she says after a moment, and at Grace’s confused look, she rolls her eyes and says, “That’s in the Netherlands.”

”Right,” Grace nods slowly. “So your favorite smell is… an old church in the Netherlands.”

Stratt rolls her eyes again

“So, my favorite smell is rain.” Like that makes any sense.

“Rain?” Grace repeats. 

She nods solemnly. “On old stone.”

“Like castles?”

”Like cathedrals in Maastricht. Like churches.”

Grace is beginning to think she actually does work for the diocese. But the spy thing is still, weirdly, in the running. Wasn’t that a thing? Spies historically meeting in churches? 

Well, anyway. Everything always loops back to churches with her. Even Grace, who does not believe in God, feels religious around her. 

“Is there nothing better to do in the Netherlands than visit churches?” Grace jokes.

“There’s nothing better to do anywhere than visit churches,” Stratt returns. 

Grace shrugs. An atheist in the earliest memory he can remember, Grace doesn’t quite agree, but he knows better than to start a debate about this. A silence passes over them. 

Stratt’s purse dings, the first time it’s ever made noise since Grace has known her, and her expressions shifts from that contented, contemplative look she usually has around Grace to this contained annoyance. She sighs and digs her phone out, and she shakes her head when she notices Grace’s arched brow.

She types for a moment. Sends a text. And the phone goes back in the bag.

Grace lets a second pass before commenting, “That’s new.”

”That’s work,” Stratt huffs. 

”And what is work?”

”Busy.”

”You know what I mean.”

She inhales deeply, exhales with a shaking head, like, Where do I even begin? And Grace laughs, because he sort of understands the feeling but also sort of doesn't. 

After a moment, Stratt shrugs and says, "Arguing, mostly?”

”About what?”

”About whether something written in the 1400s still applies to a different thing written in the 1600s."

"You're losing me."

Stratt sighs and reaches for her thermos. She takes a small sip and does not cap it. Grace waits patiently for her to swallow. 

“Canon law,” she says after swallowing, and Grace blinks owlishly at her.

“Like… church law?”

“Like church law.”

He stares at her. “You’re a church lawyer?”

“Of a sort.”

It’s stranger, more outlandish, than anything Grace could have imagined. He didn’t even know the church had lawyers. It’s a job as mysterious to him as spying. In fact—

“…That’s the most spy answer you’ve ever given me,” Grace deadpans.

Stratt raises her thermos to her lips again and smiles against it. “Maybe I’m a church spy. For the pope.”

“Confessional Intelligence Agency,” he nods solemnly.

That gets a laugh out of her, sharp and delighted, one hand pressed to her mouth like she’s trying to keep it from escaping any more than it already has, and as stupid as it is, Grace feels an overwhelming rush of pride sweep through him, eliciting that reaction from her.

“So,” he says, grinning, “you argue about old church documents for a living.”

She shrugs. Nods. Half-shrugs, half-nods. 

“And new church documents. And people. Mostly people.”

“Sounds….” Grace doesn’t finish. He doesn’t know the word for what it sounds like. Exhausting? Weirdly specific? Indescribable?

Stratt smiles, and she understands what he means.

She says, “It is.” Her smile fades into something softer. “But sometimes it matters.”

Grace nods, because he understands that.

He understands unbearable work made bearable by the occasional, shining proof that it has meaning. He doesn’t believe in God in the way she seems to, doesn’t really agree with organized religion in most capacities, but at the end of his work days and the beginning of hers, they understand each other and know what it means to be a part of something bigger than themselves. 

Hospitals and cathedrals, laboratories and basilicas. They are both in the business of hope, and healing, and great, big buildings with many windows that make some people into ants and others into giants. 

The train rattles on. Stratt looks at him over the rim of her thermos.

“And you?” she asks. “Any exciting bacteria today?”

Grace snorts. “Oh, Stratt. I thought you’d never ask.”

Stratt confesses she doesn’t much like hospitals.

Grace shrugs and says, “Most people don’t.”

“I could never stand the fact that there were people dying so close to me,” Stratt says. 

Grace shrugs again. 

“There are people being born, too.” And then, “It’s a very neutral place, when you really think about it.”

Grace confesses he doesn't much like churches. 

Stratt smiles and understands. "Most people don't."

So this is where they exist. The train.

Two lonely people, alone together. Wholly devoted to something other than themselves. Tunnels underground where nobody else is, conversations nothing compared to the dull rumbling of one big, heavy, metal machine, ever moving, always going somewhere. 

Twenty minutes a day, four days a week. Such a small blip of time is the end and the beginning of something, and yet, so definite, so defining. Twenty minutes of care and humanity. Is that enough? It has to be.

Stratt asks to see what kind of notes he writes down in the hospital once, so he digs out his notepad and tries to stand to pass it over to her, but the train jerks, like a heart tremor in the body of a giant, and Grace nearly stumbles. 

She startles and says, “Sit down, just stay there,” so Grace sits back down and stays there, and he watches her pick up her purse and walk across the aisle. She situates herself on the seat beside him, shoulders almost brushing, and Grace has to hold his breath because she’s been this close before, sure, but there are eight stops left, and they’ve never been this close for that long before.

Gently, she pulls the notepad out of his grasp, and her hair, down this time, falls slightly over her face as she looks down at the yellow page. 

Grace thinks to push it back behind her ears, but he doesn’t, because the thought alone makes him seize up immediately, so he just keeps holding his breath and keeps his jaw locked tight, tight, tight.

Her index finger traces over his letters. And the notes are indecipherable, of course, just a whole bunch of reminders like “Ask Dean why MALDI is acting coked out again” and “Verify MRSA result before release” and “Blood cx #4271 check at 9,” but she drags her prints over it so reverently, as if reading scripture. Grace wonders how it would feel, if the paper was his skin, if—

“Your handwriting is terrible,” Stratt says.

Grace startles. Flushes — at the path his thoughts were wandering to before she spoke, or at her teasing, who knows? He clears his throat.

”Yeah, well. They only have to be legible to me.” 

The train jostles again. Has the train always been this jittery? Stratt’s shoulder bumps against Grace’s, and even though the fabric of their layers, Grace thinks he can feel her warmth. He swallows thickly.

”How’s your handwriting?” he manages.

Stratt shrugs. She pulls the sharpie out from where is tucked between the pages of the notepad and writes, all flowery cursive, all loops and flourishes, “Grace is an idiot.” Grace rolls his eyes.

”Perfect as usual,” he grumbles. “This shit looks like John Hancock.”

Stratt laughs. 

“Seriously,” Grace continues. “How do you even write your G’s like that? It’s ridiculous.”

She writes her cursive G again. Then, at Grace’s confused look, she does it again, even slower. Grace takes the notepad back, and he tries. It looks nothing like hers. 

She snorts and says, “You made it look like a drawing of a duck.”

Grace laughs loudly. He tries again. It’s worse. She shakes her head. 

“No, no, come here. Give me your hand.”

And before Grace can even process it, Stratt’s hand is around his own, holding the pen through him. His mind goes blank. His chest rumbles with the train. Her hand guides him through the letters, ink on paper, a not very fluid. Jittery. Have Grace’s hands always been this jittery? 

He goes pliant in her grip, lets her lead entirely. And before he knows it, her hands have gone away, and on the paper is “Grace,” just as loopy and jittery as he feels. Has the whole of him always felt this jittery? 

He says, “Hm. Not bad. Might need a little practice on that, though.”

She snorts and says, “We’ll hold lessons for you here on the train,” and she bumps her shoulders against his, on purpose this time, and she smiles.

And God. She’s always been this beautiful, hasn’t she?

Grace basks in it for a moment.

“We lost so much time just sitting in silence,” Grace says, and he means it to be something light, an observation they can both say “Oh, cool,” to, but spoken aloud, it has weight. 

Four months they sat across each other and pretended not to notice. Four months, they sat across each other and did their best impressions of people who did not care. Ridiculous. They could have had this all along.

Stratt sighs. She looks at Grace with a solemn sort of expression. 

“Why didn’t you ever talk to me?” she asks, and the question hangs over them for a minute. Two. 

Why didn’t he?

Because she seemed so caught up living her own life that inserting himself felt wrong? Because he was so caught up in his own that involving her felt wrong? Because the train is a place of neutrality, 2 AM is an hour of passivity, and perhaps if they’d met at any other moment, at any other time, like bumping into each other in the park at midday, or going to the grocery store and reaching for the last pint of coffee flavored ice cream, hands brushing accidentally, things would be different?

Why didn’t he? The truth is simple, isn’t it?

“I… liked imagining you,” Grace says. “I mean, I wanted to know you, of course I did. But then that would mean you’d be able to get to know me, too. And… I didn’t think you’d like me, if you got to know me.”

“I like you,” Stratt says.

Grace’s heart swoops. “I like you, too.”

Stratt shrugs. “Even though I’m a spy?”

”Your secret’s safe with me.”

She snorts. Then laughs. And Grace laughs along. And it’s not particularly funny, not even really worth a chuckle, but there’s something about the closeness, something about the train. They laugh so hard their chests hurt, they laugh so hard they brush against each other.

What are they doing? Acting like children. Smirking at each other. Finding excuses to brush skin against skin when they have this entire train car to themselves. Trying to stifle their smiles, looking away to compose themselves, cracking up as soon as they meet each other’s gazes once more. Stupid. This whole thing is stupid. What are they doing?

The train slows to a stop at her station. She stays seated for longer than she usually does. Grace wants to say, “Don’t go. Stay with me tonight. It’s two more stops until my apartment. Please come home with me.”

He doesn’t, because he has sense. Her smile turns slight, private, knowing. Her cheeks blush pink. Grace arches a brow at the strange look but says nothing. He watches as she rises to her feet and steps out through the sliding doors.

She waves goodbye, then salutes. Grace laughs and copies. And the doors slide closed, and the train speeds away. What were they doing?

She must have realized before Grace does.

Flirting. 

Things change. Little by little, day by day. An adage by Heraclitus goes, “A man cannot step into the same river twice, because it is not the same river, and he is not same man.” 

Stratt tells Grace this one day in her quest to educate him about the Presocratics, except in the middle of her lecture, she yawns and tries to rest the back of her head against the glass, but the vibrations of the train bother her, so she stops and gets this annoyed wrinkle between her brows.

Naturally, like breathing, which is strange, Grace stands up, unthinking, and he walks and sits beside her, like she had that time with the notepad. She gives him a questioning look, and in lieu of an answer, he only pats his shoulder and says, “Rest your head here.”

“I’m not sleeping,” she replies.

And Grace shrugs. “Just rest your head, then.”

And slowly, she does, and only when that happens does Grace realize what is taking place, and although she continues speaking, talking on and on about the archê, Grace cannot follow along because her body is against his side, and her head on his shoulder, and her calf against his calf, and all he can think is, How is this happening to me?

How had the river changed so much to allow this to happen? How had Grace changed so much that he became the type of man who stands up, crosses the aisle, sits beside a woman, and says, “Here is my shoulder, it’s a nice place to land?”

So this becomes routine, finding excuses to sit side by side until the excuses fade away, and it is just a silent action. Here you sit, here I sit beside you. Say nothing of it. This is normal. We are normal. My heart is not exploding out of my chest.

It’s just another thing they do, like things people usually do, like pray before bed or try not to say the “Q” word during the shift. A ritual, for lack of a better word. Something you do on purpose, something you do repeatedly. Something that means something.

Another shift ends, then the subway. Grace walks into car four with a reverent breath. He sits on his seat and waits four stops patiently.