Quote from Indy on May 20, 2020, 9:43 pm

I pretended I hadn't heard Robin's under-the-breath-insult, looking instead to the little girl without so much as a flinch.

"Yep," I nodded. Robin and I had a code - no matter how ridiculous the comment, the other must at all times swear by it.  A three inch bat probably wasn't the worst thing anyone had ever thought of me.

"Bitten by a radioactive bat," I shrugged, trying to remember superhero origin stories.  I dont think that's how The Batman got his taste for vigilante justice, but I suppose it was close enough to apply to me.

She was looking at both of us strangely with her pepper brown eyes.  It's something else to be assessed so deeply by another person, even if that other person is barely over two feet tall and not even into their first decade of life.  With her attentive eyes, I felt almost certain she'd found us out somehow.  A wisp of fur on our clothing or the strange colored eyes, she must have put it all together.

Instead the girl frowned, then nodded sagely with a little finger to her lips. Secret safe.

Suddenly I was aware of footsteps behind me. Though I'd taken my eye off the center aisle to watch the girl, it didn't leave me entirely blind.  Smell, of course, could offer something -- although in a cramped train, it was more like a soup of disjointed human.  Sound, however, was perfectly serviceable so long as you didn't get distracted by the whine of the engine.

I turned my head just in time to see a tired looking woman.  She looked something like our dear Cinderblock with her dark hair and pepper eyes, though with a few more worry lines teased into the creases.

"Oh, Marie..." she sighed as she glanced down at her daughter, "She wasn't bothering you, was she?"

Quote from Adriana on May 23, 2020, 5:20 pm

"No, ma'am." I responded, smiling, but furrowing my brow. "...Anyway, just because some people may be bothered, just remember that your child isn't the problem. It's peoples attitude that is. You've got a sweet girl."

That being said, I leaned forward in my seat and took off the overly huge jacket. Then I leaned back in my seat and put it over my front like a blanket, resting up against the wall. "Now, if you'll excuse me, Sidekick, I need to get some shut eye."

Quote from Indy on May 24, 2020, 10:25 pm

The woman took Robin's compliment with a timid chuckle and half a nod.  She was too polite to agree one way or the other, but there was relief nonetheless as she settled into the chair.  She must have been shy, or taken cue from Robin's closed eyes, because neither she nor the girl uttered another word our way.

The Phantom mountain range fell besides us, collapsing like a children's dominoes set and the grassy plains rolled out like a fresh carpet.  I couldn't sleep.  It was a funny old habit - I could never fall asleep in a place I wasn't entirely comfortable. With Robin out cold, I figured at least one of us needed to keep watch.

Keep watch.... but our problems should have been left miles behind us with the mountains.  Rival gangs and our own kind shouldn't, couldn't, have followed us.  There wasn't even a whiff of their scent in the cabin, besides our own.  That should have given me comfort. But it didn't.

Because even if there were fluffy pancakes and little cabins in the middle of the Oregon wilderness, it couldn't stop the gears of the world from turning.  I could run away from the past at a hundred miles an hour and never go back, and it would still find me. It always did, one way or another.

Though my nature protested against it, I leaned my head against the rest in front of me, bracing my head between my forearms.  I didn't think about anything else, really, except the hum of the train engine and counting footsteps.

Quote from Adriana on May 31, 2020, 9:32 pm

It takes a while to learn to live outside of your demons. To feel safe in spite of the eyes in the shadows. The trip was a learning experience more than a vacation - it was about trying to learn that the world isn't always bad. It was about learning to enjoy the sound of silence. To remember the constellations in the sky, what it felt like to have a solid roof over your head. The private cabin in the woods, not too close or too far from civilization, was a place with some semblance of serenity. When they were done there, after they had taken in the smell of fresh, rich soil after a rain, and hiked through the beautiful scenery - enjoying it because it wasn't a necessity, but a pleasure.. they moved on. Their next stop was a coast side bed and breakfast straight from a Thomas Kinkade painting. It was north of a trendy town with restaurants and clothing boutiques and saltwater taffy stores which Robin would all but get a cavity eating copious amounts of. The smell of the ocean filled every cool breeze. The blankets on their separate beds were quilted with love. There was fresh coffee every morning, and a window overlooking the cliff into the vast ocean. Robin even got the gumption to put on some swim trunks and a t shirt and brave the freezing waters, if only for a minute, and not without several screams of regret and vulgarities. There were laughs and midnight scares, when the unfamiliarity of the territory was so overwhelming and underwhelming all at once. There were nights laying awake talking across the room to one another, about family, about life, however brief, when they had known something besides fear and desperation. And when it came time to leave, Robin would sit on her bed and stare out the window across from her, her suit case still open.

"We could start over here," she'd say. "Make up new identities and see if we can get work in one of those places in town. Won't pay the bills for a while, but maybe we'll settle in, get promotions, get an apartment or a one bedroom place a little outside of town." she'd add wistfully. "There's nothing for us on the other side of those tracks." she'd finished woefully. Even being homeless somewhere new with a sense of security was better than surviving somewhere old with a constant threat of danger.

At each mention, save the last, her traveling partner wouldn't reply. Instead he'd stop in the middle of whatever activity he was doing - packing up his suitcase, a sock in hand, or else straightening the bed with a pillow in hand. The ghost of Christmas past would stir; the first time the chains clinked, and the second time it was only a rustle. The past didn't hold the same weight it had even weeks before. The air here was lighter and cleaner, the burdens of their past on the other end of a map. At the final mention before their return home he shrugged, "Speak for yourself. I left a Honda at the other end of those tracks".

Quote from Indy on June 6, 2020, 12:54 pm

The road back aways seems longer. Where once familiarity had fallen into the great unknown, the opposite was inclined to bring with it the old feelings left behind. Had the sky always been that color? Had the Phantom Mountains always left such a deep shadow stretching across landscape? Yet it is said that one cannot cross the same river twice in life - and so too as the familiarity returned, the lessons of midnight chats and constellations would not leave the two wayward souls.

Uno slept most of the way, more easily and naturally than he'd slept in months. Though sometimes funny noises might send his single lantern eye ajar, each time he'd find rest again quickly. It was as if he were still catching up on years of unmet rest, and very little would motivate him to leave it.

In the last few miles before the final stop, Uno sat by the window. The mountains, hills, and trees were familiar now, yet strangers all the same. He hadn't thought they'd be returning. It seemed silly now, in retrospect, to return just for a beat-up old car. He sighed. The train creaked to a halt, shortly thereafter allowing the passengers to unload. They lingered in the back a moment, before following the rest of the crowd.

"Maybe it's not about outrunning the past," he mumbled, almost inaudibly, more a wayward thought than a directed statement of fact. The car still bugged him. Why did it matter? It was just a car, just a thing that could be replaced. People couldn't.

He squinted against the afternoon sun, picking out the white Honda parked in the back. Robin had done well to pick the spot. It was ideally located to the exits, but not close enough to be easily visible from the street. He caught himself in the thought, but even the ease of vacation couldn't banish it. The better men of the world had almost all gone and left. In the world of lesser men, you either learned how to keep out of their way or faced the consequence.

He almost missed the object amiss on his car, catching it perhaps fifty yards away. It was an innocent thing, a slip of paper caught under the wiper. It could have been a traffic ticket. But he knew they'd paid for their parking...

His fingers closed on the paper. It was folded in half and bound with a paperclip. Inside were photos of a familiar face caught at a distance, copies of traveling documents and receipts. His hands trembled as he passed it to Robin.

'I FOUND HIM' an ordered, familiar script read on the inside cover.

He eased the faint tremble in his fingers, finding all at once a steadiness in himself he hadn't known before.  The past couldn't be escaped, but maybe it could be embraced.  Even if the better men had gone and left, that didn't mean there weren't people left worth fighting for. He watched Robin as she read, his steadied nerves solidifying to resolve.

"We'll find him," he said softly, "We'll bring him home to you".