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Chapter Text

Regina

The train had that low rumble that worked like a clock, a steady breath, a mechanical heart beating the rhythm of forty minutes between two sides of a life.

For Regina, those forty minutes had become a kind of suspended bubble, neither home nor work, a space in between where she could, sometimes, breathe outside the roles she’d been assigned. Literature professor, thirty-seven, pencil skirts and tailored suits chosen with ritual precision, she’d learned to order the world in sentences and timetables. She liked control, clean lines, the way clothing granted her a quiet authority.

Every morning, her house woke to the rhythm of repeated gestures. The bright kitchen smelled of black coffee and, more softly, of toast. Regina prepared the same tray: a cup of black coffee, no milk, no sugar for herself; a small plate of jam-covered toast for Henry; a glass of orange juice he almost always forgot to drink; and apple slices, neatly cut.

Henry, eight years old, would finally come down the stairs, dragging his slippers, hair a sleepy mess. He sat at the table, still half-dreaming.

After a few drowsy words about his dreams, a dragon guarding a castle, a school floating in the sky, he went to shower and get dressed. His schoolbag, far too heavy, nearly brushed the floor, and he often wrestled with the sleeve of a stubborn sweater.

He loved watching his mother. When she leaned down to tie her scarf, he looked for the softness in the gesture that always reassured him. In his child’s eyes, Regina was unshakable, like a citadel nothing could touch.

“Do you have everything for school?” he asked.

Regina laid a hand on his shoulder. Her son was growing up so fast, a real little man of the house. She softened her smile, her firm features easing for a moment.

“Yes, sweetheart. And you, don’t forget your gym bag.”

Henry rolled his eyes with exaggerated despair.

As she left the house, Regina thought about the evening’s meeting. The word vacation already floated in her mental calendar, school holidays in just over two weeks, Henry at home. A soft tension filled her. Days without schedules always challenged her, who would hold the order together if the structure gave way?

Her leather bag held her lesson plans, her watch fit snugly around her wrist, her bun was perfectly pinned: everything reflected composure. But beneath that polished surface, cracks had begun to form. A few late-night texts on Graham’s phone, a restaurant bill missing from their shared account, a lipstick she didn’t own staining a pressed shirt, small humiliations, silent but burning.

Graham knew how to charm in public, easy smile, graceful gestures, well-timed excuses. At home, he was a quiet fatigue, a dull weariness settling into the corners of their conversations. Regina still remembered a recent dinner where her husband had spent the entire evening staring at his phone. She’d tried a remark; he’d shrugged. Sometimes, his late returns without explanation left a bitter taste no wine could wash away. She had stopped asking, but the question still pulsed inside her.

On the train, Regina took her usual seat, aisle side, middle of the car. She opened her annotated copy of Rilke and let her eyes follow the lines about the soul and attention to small things. She knew so many poems by heart they had become her refuge, a kind of silent therapy. To teach literature was also to teach oneself. In front of her students, she spoke of passion, human fragility, loss, with a solemnity she later paid for in the silence of her nights.

Emma

Across town, Emma’s apartment smelled of turpentine, lukewarm coffee, and dust. Her canvases dried against walls splattered with years of color. The floorboards creaked under her steps, and every piece of furniture looked like it had been rescued from a flea market.

Emma Swan was twenty-seven, tall, with eyes so vividly green they seemed to steal light.

She lived off odd jobs: waiting tables, babysitting, a few scattered gallery exhibits. Selling a painting was a rare miracle, but just enough to buy paint and stretch her rent one more week. She accepted precarity the way one accepts a scar, visible, sometimes painful, but part of who she was.

Every morning, before heading to the station, she ran. Jogging had become her outlet, thirty minutes to chase away nightmares, to feel her body take control again. Her sneakers struck the pavement in rhythm with memories she tried to quiet.

Every Sunday, an unchanging ritual: she went to the cemetery. Mary’s grave was tiny, a pale stone weathered by rain. The name was already fading, as if the world wanted to erase it too soon. Emma left wildflowers in a chipped little vase. She whispered the name like a prayer. Mary. Her beautiful little girl.

The loss had swept her marriage away. Killian, her husband, had drowned himself in alcohol and wild nights, unable to bear the grief. Infidelities, lies, their marriage had finally broken apart. Emma lived alone now, surrounded by canvases, memories, and silence.

Her hands carried the marks of creation, blue-stained fingers, pockets full of pencils and worn sketchbooks. She sketched the world in haste: a face in the street, a shadow of sky, a passing smile. Sometimes those sketches became paintings.

That morning, she stopped by La Petite Galerie, which had bought two of her paintings. The money would buy some paint and a few groceries. Back home, she tucked the bills into a crumpled envelope, like a fragile treasure.

The Train

The platform swarmed with figures as Emma stepped onto the train. Her battered bag knocked against her hip, sketchbooks spilling slightly from an open pocket. She felt a few curious or indifferent glances but paid them no mind. She only wanted a seat, a fixed point in the morning chaos.

Regina looked up. She saw her enter: blond hair tied hastily, coat too thin, the air of a woman who worked with her hands and dreamed with her eyes. They could have remained strangers among many. But Emma stopped before her and asked softly:

“Is this seat taken?”

Her voice carried a gentle fatigue, a polite but candid tone.

“No,” Regina answered, succinct.

Emma sat down, resting her sketchbook on her knees, as if her fragile life balanced right there. The train started, and a quiet silence wrapped around them.

“What are you reading?” Emma finally asked, breaking the calm like a first brushstroke on a blank canvas.

“Rilke. And sometimes Woolf,” Regina said, almost to herself.

Emma smiled. Her eyes lit up brighter than the morning.

“I like Woolf. Her sentences move back and forth like the sea.”

Regina almost replied, about correspondences, about the foam of words breaking like waves, but she held back. In class, she allowed herself such passion. With a stranger, she chose restraint. Still, something had shifted.

The train jolted. A pencil rolled from Emma’s sketchbook and stopped at Regina’s feet. She bent down, picked it up. Their fingers brushed, brief, but burning.

“Thanks,” Emma murmured, a little shy.

“You’re welcome. Artists often lose their pencils,” Regina said, her tone neutral, almost teasing.

The word artist hung in the air. Emma felt seen. And Regina found herself surprised, surprised that she could still be curious about a stranger.

Their conversation stayed light, punctuated by silences that no longer belonged to the train, but to the quiet expectation of another word.

When the train slowed, Emma stood. At the door, she hesitated, a smile playing at her lips.

“See you tomorrow… maybe,” she said softly.

Then she vanished into the crowd. A faint scent lingered, paint and cinnamon. Regina inhaled despite herself. She wondered where that smell came from as she left the train toward the school.

After the Train

The day went on. Regina taught with her usual precision, spoke of Woolf and the sea, asked her students to write about a memory that came back like a wave. She graded papers, accepted a late assignment, noted a parent meeting. But during her break, she opened her personal notebook and wrote a line that had nothing to do with her lessons:

How does one still allow oneself to be surprised by life at thirty-seven?

An intrusive thought, a shiver of youth she didn’t permit herself. She thought of Graham, of his absences growing more frequent, his “business dinners” with too-smooth excuses, shirts carrying unfamiliar scents. She’d learned to stop asking, but her husband’s silences filled their house like a piece of furniture too large for a narrow room.

Emma, meanwhile, spent the afternoon at the shared studio. She cleaned a stand, hung a new canvas, exchanged a few laughs with other artists. Someone offered her a chance to exhibit in a small public library. It wasn’t much, but it was something, a sliver of visibility. She accepted, her eyes glinting with quiet joy.

That evening, in her kitchen, she pulled out a wrinkled photo. Mary, laughing, in clothes too big for her, holding up a clumsy drawing for the camera. Emma placed the photo on the table and stayed still for a long time. The nightmares might come again tonight, but tomorrow she would run, paint, live. She opened her sketchbook and, without thinking, drew a severe profile, dark hair, attentive eyes, a face she’d glimpsed on the train.

At Regina’s house, the evening unfolded as usual, dinner prepared, a bedtime story for Henry, a failed attempt at conversation with Graham. A glass of wine to hold the silence together. Before bed, she reread a few lines of Rilke, but the thought of the young woman with emerald eyes returned with a strength she hadn’t felt in years.

Tomorrow, the platform would be there again. The train, faithful as ever.

And between two stations, the fragile promise of forty minutes where two lives might brush, without a sound.

Chapter Text

Regina

The morning began in the muffled chaos of routine.
Regina liked order, she needed it, the way one needs air. Every gesture, every step in Henry’s morning ritual followed the same familiar pattern: wake-up, breakfast, homework check if there was any, a quick straightening of his collar. Everything had to be in place, as if the fragile harmony of their home depended on that precision.

And yet, at the very heart of that reassuring mechanism, there was always one unpredictable note, Henry himself.

That morning, he had decided to turn the short walk to school into an adventure. Every puddle became a lake to cross, every crunch of gravel an ambush waiting to happen. Regina, poised on her sensible heels, tried to keep up with his antics while maintaining her usual composure. But she couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped when he threw his arms wide and shouted:

“Look, Mom! I’m an adventurer!”

She walked closer, masking her smile behind a gentle sternness.

“Adventurers are supposed to keep their trousers clean, Henry.”

“Not all of them,” he replied with a shrug. “Dad says a real adventurer sometimes comes home dirty… if he comes home at all.”

The words struck her like a blade.
Children’s innocence had a way of being cruel without meaning to. Behind his remark lay Graham’s too-frequent absences, his late returns, the excuses that blurred together until they meant nothing.

Regina brushed a hand against her son’s cheek, soft and protective, before letting him run toward the schoolyard. She stood there a moment longer, watching his small figure disappear among the laughter of other children. Her heart tightened, full of love, but weighted by a silence she never spoke of.

She turned back toward the station. Her navy pencil skirt hugged each deliberate step; her tailored jacket gave her the look of a woman in control, even when her inner world was splintering at the seams. She boarded the train, as she did every morning, and settled into her usual seat, book in hand, leather bag neatly aligned at her feet.

Habits were her crutches; they kept the cracks from widening.

And yet, beneath all that stillness, a small part of her waited,for a shift in the air, a break in the pattern… or for someone.

Emma

The night had been a battle. Emma had dreamed of Mary again, like always.
She was running after her through an endless field bathed in golden light that turned, without warning, into dusk. Mary laughed, her small hands reaching toward the sky. Emma kept running, again and again, but just as her fingers brushed her daughter’s, the ground gave way, swallowing the child in heavy darkness.

She woke with a start, throat dry, heart hammering. And, as always after those dreams, she put on her running shoes and fled into the dawn. Her feet pounded the asphalt in frantic rhythm; the cold air scorched her lungs but didn’t burn away the ache. Every breath carried Mary’s face. Every step hollowed out the loss a little deeper.

When her legs finally gave in, she stopped, bent over her knees, chest heaving, tears stinging but refusing to fall.

Back home, she glanced at the unfinished canvas propped against the wall, dark, slashed with red strokes like a wound that refused to close. She couldn’t bring herself to pick up the brush. So, almost without thinking, she slid her sketchbook into her battered bag. That notebook was her refuge, a way of keeping hold of the world when everything else slipped away.

She pulled on a coat too thin for the season, tied her hair into a loose bun already escaping in rebellious strands, and headed for the station. Despite the exhaustion, despite the shadow of the nightmare still clinging to her, there was light in her green eyes, that impossible, steady light that always made people look twice.

The Train

When she stepped into the compartment, Regina looked up. Their eyes met, and for one heartbeat, time stopped.

“Is this seat free?” Emma asked, a fragile smile on her lips.

“Yes,” Regina answered, her voice even.

Emma sat down. Her bag creaked against the bench as she pulled out a sketchbook and pencil. Her movements were quick, nervous even, yet there was something instinctively graceful in them.

Regina tried to focus on her Rilke, but her gaze kept drifting back to those graphite-stained fingers moving restlessly across the page.

“You draw?” she asked at last, startled by the sound of her own voice.

Emma looked up, surprised.

“Yeah. I mean, I try.”

She turned the sketchbook around, revealing an unfinished drawing of the carriage, the benches, the blurred silhouettes of passengers, and a face clearly recognizable as Regina’s.

“You drew me?” Regina asked, a little sharper than she meant to.

Emma flushed, eyes dropping instantly.

“Sorry. I just… draw what I see. It helps me breathe.”

Regina should have felt irritated, even invaded. Instead, a strange warmth spread through her chest. How long had it been since anyone had looked at her without judgment, simply to see her?

“Do you want me to stop?” Emma asked quietly.

“Do as you please,” Regina murmured.

A small smile softened Emma’s mouth, and the silence that followed felt lighter, almost gentle.

The train rolled through the morning fog, sun occasionally breaking through and catching in Emma’s hair. Regina looked away, but she noticed, still, how the light seemed reluctant to leave her.

After a while, Emma spoke again, her voice low.

“You have a child, don’t you?”

Regina tensed.

“How do you know that?”

“I don’t,” Emma said after a pause. “You just… carry that kind of presence. Like someone who lives a little bit for someone else. You look like a person who carries children’s stories with her.”

A silence hung between them. Then Regina gave in, softly.

“Yes. Henry. He’s seven.”

Emma smiled faintly.

“He must have a beautiful imagination.”

The image rose in Regina’s mind, bedtime stories, Henry’s wide-eyed wonder, his laughter that morning on the way to school. But the memory blurred quickly under the shadow of Graham, absent, indifferent, fading from her life in ways she couldn’t yet name.

Then Emma lowered her gaze to the sketchbook again. Her next words were barely audible.

“I had a little girl.”

Regina turned toward her. Time stopped once more.

She didn’t need an explanation. It was already there, in the tremor of Emma’s voice, in the way the light in her eyes dimmed. Before the words even fell, Regina’s heart clenched as if it had already recognized the shape of that loss.

“She’s gone,” Emma said simply, abruptly, cutting through the air before the grief could flood it.

The train kept moving, relentless, as if the world refused to pause while a chasm opened between them.

Regina felt her chest tighten. Her fingers pressed against the cover of her book, but her gaze never left Emma. Behind those flat, factual words she sensed the vertigo, the grief held together by sheer will.

No polite phrase, no learned condolence seemed right. Condolences. Courage. All of them sounded empty, almost cruel.

So she said only, softly

“I’m sorry.”

Three words. But honest ones.

Not pity, not politeness, a quiet acknowledgment. She couldn’t understand, but she could stand with her, if only for a breath.

Emma nodded without looking up, her fingers clutching the pencil like a lifeline. A fragile smile tried to surface, faltered, and in that broken smile, Regina saw a strength that shook her more deeply than words ever could.

The train began to slow as they approached the station. Emma gathered her things, slung her bag over her shoulder. Before she stood, she murmured

“Thank you.”

After the Train

Regina stayed seated for a few seconds, the book pressed against her chest. Morning light shimmered across the train’s windows. Her thoughts lingered on Emma’s words, on that fracture between pain and grace.

Through the crowd, she watched the blonde figure disappear, and for the first time in a very long time, she felt something stretch inside her. A thin, invisible thread, fragile but real, tying her to someone else.

And she found herself, quietly, waiting for tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Regina

On the third morning, Regina left home with that familiar mix of confidence and fatigue she wore like a second skin.
She had dropped Henry off at school, as she always did. That day, he had refused to let her go before she looked one last time at his drawing of a castle.

“Do you think it’s big enough for a king?” he’d asked, with solemn, childlike seriousness.

Regina had pretended to study it carefully, her finger tracing the crooked towers.

“It’s a strong castle, Henry. The king will be happy there.”

The pride that lit up his face stayed with her long after she’d walked away toward the station.
Moments like that, simple, fleeting, but radiant, gave her a strange kind of strength.
And yet, as she stepped into the train, she realized her heart was beating a little faster than usual. Everything looked the same: the worn seats, the dull windows, the flat white glow of the lights.
But no, not quite. Something had shifted.
For two days now, the carriage was no longer just a place of transit, it had become a space of quiet expectation.
A stage where, without admitting it, she was already waiting for someone.

Emma

Emma, on her side, had woken to a rough morning. The night had dragged her back into memories she never asked for, the sound of a child’s laughter, a fleeting silhouette, a race she hadn’t won. She woke with a heaviness in her chest and did the only thing she knew that still helped: she ran.Her morning runs in the cold had become a ritual of survival. The biting air sometimes drew involuntary tears, but at least the burn in her lungs drowned out the one in her heart.

Before leaving, she grabbed a red scarf, cheap fabric, worn soft with time, something she had kept for years. She tied it around her neck with quiet defiance, a flash of color against the grey. Maybe it was her way of reminding herself that she wasn’t completely gone. Not yet.

The Train

When she stepped into the compartment, Regina looked up. And despite her carefully composed mask, something in her eased. The blonde woman. Again.
The same too-light coat, the same messy bun, but today there was a red scarf, vivid and unapologetic in that muted space.

“Still free?” Emma asked, a playful smile tugging at her lips.

“Still,” Regina answered, her voice softer than she intended.

Emma took her seat. This time, she didn’t reach immediately for her sketchbook. She leaned forward slightly, elbows on her knees, fingers intertwined beneath her chin. Her gaze stayed fixed on Regina, intense, but softened by something tender behind it.

“Yesterday, I think I was too blunt,” she said without preamble. “I talked about… things that were too heavy. That’s not exactly what you share with a stranger on a train.”

The low hum of the train filled the silence.
Regina could have shielded herself, could have turned away. But a part of her, small, fragile, yielded.

“You don’t have to apologize,” she said quietly.

Emma nodded, that luminous smile breaking across her face again, the one that always seemed to push shadows away.

“Then today, I promise. No tragedies. Just sunshine.”

She finally pulled out her sketchbook and pencil. Her quick, nervous movements brought a landscape to life, a farmhouse half-lost in mist.
Regina watched discreetly, fascinated by the focus in those graphite-stained fingers

“You’re a teacher, aren’t you?” Emma asked without looking up.

“What makes you think that?”

“The way you hold your book. Like it’s not just paper, like it’s part of you.”

A faint smile touched Regina’s lips.

“I teach literature, actually.”

“I knew it,” Emma said, glancing up with triumphant satisfaction.

A clear, spontaneous laugh slipped out of her, and that sound, so unexpected, etched itself in Regina like a forgotten note of music. After a pause, Emma’s eyes drifted down to Regina’s hands, lingering on the discreet ring glinting on her finger. Then she looked back up.

“You’re married?”

The word fell suddenly, naturally, and Regina’s grip on her book tightened until her knuckles turned white.

“Yes,” she answered simply.

A gentle, genuine smile warmed Emma’s features.

“I’m glad you’re loved.”

Loved.
The word echoed strangely in Regina, almost cruel in its innocence. She wanted to say that love had become only a façade, that the marriage had long since cracked, but she stayed silent. She never gave the whole truth. 

Sunlight finally broke through the fog and flooded the carriage. Emma closed her eyes, as if to bask in it. Regina looked at her longer than she should have. The light over her pale skin, her golden hair threaded with fire, the image stayed in Regina’s mind like a painting she wouldn’t be able to erase.

“I’m Emma,” the young woman said at last, her voice soft as the light itself.

“Regina,” she replied after a pause.

The names lingered between them, suspended in a quiet kind of recognition.

After the Train

The station drew near. Emma packed up her things with brisk efficiency. Before standing, she turned toward Regina, a hint of mischief in her smile.

“See? No tragedy today. Promise kept.”

She disappeared down the station’s corridor, and outside, Regina followed her with her eyes. Emma slipped into the thick crowd of commuters, a dark tide of coats and moving silhouettes. Her red scarf floated a moment longer, a bright flash against the grey, like a spark the crowd tried and failed to swallow.

Chapter Text

Regina

The morning had opened on a fine rain, the kind that never truly falls but seeps into everything, right down to the bones. Regina had walked Henry to school beneath that gray veil. That day, he had refused to wear his black shoes. He wanted his red boots.

“That way I can jump in the puddles!” he had declared with radiant joy, eyes sparkling.

She had sighed, then given in. And when he leapt into a puddle, splashing his trousers, Regina had laughed despite herself. That laughter, clear, unguarded, still echoed in her ears as she left the schoolyard.

Yet something had disrupted the smooth, mechanical rhythm of her morning.
Graham.

He had been up early, rare enough to notice, already dressed in a perfectly pressed shirt, hair immaculate, charm polished like armor. Regina had hesitated for a second, caught off guard by the simple sight of him. For an instant, she saw him as she had years ago, admired the posture, the quiet confidence, the man who turned heads.
But the moment broke just as quickly. Graham was already scrolling through his emails, offering her only a thin, polite smile before disappearing out the front door to “go to work.”

The image that remained was that of a handsome man, distant, practiced, leaving behind a trace of cologne and an even larger emptiness.

In the carriage, Regina took her usual seat. Bag set down, book opened, her gestures were precise, ritualistic. Almost superstitious. If she repeated them perfectly enough, maybe they would keep the chaos of her life at bay.
Raindrops ran down the window, blurring the landscape outside into the wash of a watercolor. She told herself she wasn’t waiting for anything. And yet, she knew she was hoping.

Emma

Emma’s night had been fractured by dreams. Mary, her little girl, was running through a drenched garden, chasing snails, laughing that bright, pure laugh no nightmare could erase. She was five. Five years of wonder, of tiny treasures, and an absence that pressed down like stone.

Waking had been brutal, the slap of reality unforgiving. So, as always, Emma ran. Running wasn’t sport, it was flight.

Before heading to the station, she had grabbed an old red scarf with white polka dots, nothing special, but defiant in its brightness. A streak of color against the gray morning.
Her hair, loose from its bun, framed her face in a rebellious halo.

When she stepped into the train compartment, she knew instantly that Regina was there. It had become something she could feel, like a breath of warmth in air heavy with rain.

The Train

“Good morning,” Emma said softly, her voice like a tentative note.

“Good morning,” Regina replied, with a small nod.

Emma sat down, dropped her damp bag beside her, and left her umbrella dripping onto the floor. Her gaze rested on Regina.

“You look tired,” she said simply.

Regina’s fingers tightened on the book in her lap, as if the binding could serve as armor.

“It’s morning. Everyone’s tired.”

Emma’s smile was gentle.

“Not you. Not like that.”

The silence vibrated with the low rumble of the train and the steady drumming of rain against the windows. Then Emma murmured

“You were thinking of him.”
“Of who?” Regina’s tone sharpened, defensive.
“Your son.”

Regina looked down. She should have denied it. But a crack had opened.

“Yes.”

Emma nodded slightly.
“How old is he?”
“Eight.”
“That’s the age of discovery,” Emma said softly. “When every stick is a sword, every puddle a border to cross, every day an adventure.”

Regina saw Henry again in his red boots, splashing down the sidewalk, and her heart clenched.

Then Emma’s voice broke, trembling with memory.
“My daughter was five. She loved snails. She’d always bring them home. I used to pretend to scream… and she’d laugh, laugh like the whole world was opening up for her.”

Regina froze, her hand tightening on the book. Her first instinct was to reach out, to take Emma’s hands, to offer something, anything, but the invisible chains inside her held her still.

Emma managed a fragile smile.

“I’m sorry. I promised no tragedy.”

Regina took a slow breath.

“It’s not a tragedy,” she said softly. “It’s your story.”

Emma looked at her, startled. Then her smile deepened, genuine this time.
She opened her sketchbook at last. Her pencil moved quickly, nervously, yet with precision. Regina couldn’t see what she drew, only the movement of those graphite-stained fingers, intent and alive.

Emma turned the page slightly, revealing a small figure, a child in boots, mid-leap into a puddle.
“How…?” whispered Regina.

Emma didn’t look up.

“Just a sketch. But you had that look. The one mothers get. You can’t fake it.”

Regina stayed silent, shaken. Then Emma added, a teasing glint in her tone, pointing with her pencil toward Regina’s skirt:

“Besides… you’ve still got splashes on you.”

A spark passed between them, part embarrassment, part warmth, and it lingered long after the words faded.

After the Train

The train slowed.
Emma closed her sketchbook in a swift motion, gathered her things. Her red scarf fluttered as she disappeared into the dark stream of commuters on the platform. Regina watched her go, unable to tear her eyes away from that small, bright flame of color in all the gray.

Outside the station, on her way to work, she crossed paths with Katrin, her friend of many years, standing under a black umbrella, face lit with a kind smile.

“Regina?” Katrin said, shaking the rain from her hair.

“Back to another long day, ...”

The world resumed its usual rhythm.
But deep down, Regina knew, something had already shifted.

Chapter Text

Regina

Morning opened on a low, gray sky, as if the day itself hesitated to rise.
The rain had started again at dawn, fine but relentless, covering the streets in a shimmering veil. The streetlights, still on out of habit, reflected in the puddles like lazy ghosts. Each of Regina’s steps echoed softly on the wet pavement, her closed umbrella tapping lightly against her leg. Her bag, too heavy as always, dragged down her shoulder and her mood alike.

The night before, her husband had come home late, again. A prolonged meeting, an “urgent” matter, the same old refrain. She hadn’t asked for details. Truthfully, she hadn’t wanted to know. Not yet. The answer frightened her more than it would ever soothe her. Lying in bed, she had listened to the unfamiliar rhythm of his breathing, heavy and distant, and turned away, eyes open in the dark.

Yet this morning, he had gotten up at the same time as her. Perfect in a freshly ironed shirt, coffee in hand, already absorbed in the glow of his phone. Handsome, as always, but cold, untouchable. Regina had tried to speak to him, to share an anecdote about Henry, who the day before had jumped in a puddle and splashed all his friends. A funny, tender memory. But her husband barely looked up from his screen, murmuring a distracted, “Yes, yes…” She had fallen silent.
There was nothing in his eyes that asked her to stay.

The Train

She boarded the train with her usual precision, every movement rehearsed by habit. Her book slipped from her bag and landed on her lap, more a reflex than an intention. The words no longer helped her anyway. They blurred together, tangled with the thoughts she tried so hard to bury.

The compartment door slid open with a soft clap, and Emma stepped in.
She still had that stubborn, fragile smile, a small defiance against the grayness of the morning. Today she wore a faded denim jacket, smudged with paint. Her hair, damp from the rain, had escaped from a loose bun, a few strands clinging to her temples. She’d clearly walked without an umbrella, letting the rain soak through as if she refused to be sheltered.

Her gaze swept the carriage quickly, but stopped the instant it found Regina, as though she hadn’t been looking for anyone else.

She said good morning, softly, then remained standing there, not opening her sketchbook, as if this morning called for something different. She hesitated for a second, then, without filter
— “Are you happy?”

The air in the compartment froze.
Regina lifted her head sharply, taken aback, her dark eyes hardening.
— “Why would you ask me that?”

Emma gave a small shrug. Her smile faded, replaced by an awkward, almost childlike sincerity.
— “Because… it looks like you wear your smiles the way some people carry burdens.”

Silence thickened, swallowing even the rumble of the train. The wheels screamed on wet rails, rain streaked across the windows, yet inside, everything hung suspended.

Regina lowered her eyes to her book. Her fingers tightened around the cover. She could have raised a wall, replied sharply, hidden behind her usual armor. She hesitated, long enough for her breath to catch. But something in Emma’s gaze stopped her from running. Finally, her lips parted.
— “No.”

Emma’s head lifted abruptly, as if she hadn’t expected an answer.
— “No?”

Regina repeated, her voice steadier now, not cold, just honest.
— “No, I’m not happy.”

Another silence followed, but this one was different. Softer. Vibrating with a shared truth.

Emma closed her sketchbook, her eyes still holding Regina’s. She murmured:
— “Me neither.”

Three simple words.
The entire compartment seemed to stop. As if the train had halted mid-track, as if the rain had frozen against the glass. Time itself hovered there, fragile, suspended between them.

Outside, the train slipped into a wooded stretch. Trees cast moving shadows, wrapping the carriage in dim light. Regina looked away, heart pounding, her gaze fixed on the window where everything blurred. But Emma’s voice came again, gentler this time:
— “Sometimes I think trains exist for that… to say things we wouldn’t dare say anywhere else.”

After the Train

When the train finally slowed, the platform emerged through a thin mist.
Passengers rose in a rush of coats and bags. Regina stood by the doors, still gripped by the weight of what had just been said. Emma, beside her, packed her things slowly, her arm brushing almost imperceptibly against hers.

They stepped out into the drizzle. The crowd swept them along, umbrellas opening in a dark wave. Emma’s colorful scarf fluttered against her back, a small flame against the gray.

Before disappearing, Emma turned. Their eyes met. She gave a fragile, timid smile, one that seemed to say: I heard you.
Then she walked away.

Regina stood motionless for a heartbeat too long, the train doors closing behind her. Around her, the world resumed its rhythm, but inside, everything remained suspended, as if those words had cracked something unshakable.

At school, the familiar mask of routine fell back into place. Katrin burst into the teachers’ lounge, her face animated.

— “You should’ve seen Paul this morning! He arrived nearly half an hour late, soaked to the bone, and had the nerve to tell me it was a linguistic immersion exercise, ‘Madame, I wanted to test the expression Il pleut des cordes’”

Regina smiled faintly, but it didn’t last. She heard her friend’s voice, but her thoughts were elsewhere, circling endlessly around Emma’s question. Are you happy?

Her fingers tightened around her lukewarm coffee cup. She watched Katrin talk, her gestures, her laughter, but her mind was still in that morning train, in that suspended silence, and in Emma’s voice echoing softly: Me neither.

And the more Katrin spoke, the more Regina felt like a stranger in her own life, as if she were playing a part that no longer fit her.

Chapter Text

Regina

Morning rose on an uncertain light, suspended somewhere between night and day.
A low sky, heavy with clouds, seemed to press down on the still-drowsy city. The train moved forward with a metallic screech, its wheels sliding along the wet rails. In the carriage, the cold scent of iron mingled with the damp wool of rain-soaked coats.

Regina sat in her usual place, her book resting on her knees. Her fingers absently stroked the cover, but her gaze stayed fixed on the window.

One thought kept circling, sharp and relentless: No, I’m not happy.
She hadn’t meant to admit it, yet the words had slipped out, shattering a wall she thought unbreakable. Since then, they echoed inside her, heavy, irrevocable.

She thought of the house, the familiar mess that no longer meant comfort but surrender: dishes left in the sink, Graham’s jacket thrown carelessly over a chair. A physical presence, a hollow absence.
She thought of Henry, his backpack too big for his small shoulders, his sleepy smile when she kissed him goodbye too quickly.
She thought of her husband, absorbed in his phone at the very moment she’d left the house, as if she existed only at the edge of his vision.

Now, under the harsh light of the train car, her wedding ring caught the reflection. Too bright. Like an accusation. Her fingers brushed against the band, tempted to slide it off, to bury it deep inside her bag. But she stayed still, prisoner of a gesture she couldn’t bring herself to make.

A faint sigh escaped her. She tightened her grip on the book, as if the solid weight of paper could keep her from falling apart.

Emma

The night had not been kind. Emma had drawn until dawn. Her sketchbook lay open, pencils scattered, and again and again she traced the image of a child jumping into a puddle. Each line seemed an attempt to give shape to the boy she had never met but somehow sensed through Regina’s gaze. Henry.

Beside her, on the table, lay another drawing, older, clumsier, full of bright colors: an oversized sun, a crooked house, a giant snail. Mary had made it the day before her hospital stay, her small hands smudged with ink, her face focused and proud. Emma kept returning to it, her eyes shifting from that fragile memory to the sketch she was desperate to finish.

It wasn’t the same line.
Her daughter’s had trembled with innocence.
Hers now trembled with absence.
And yet, in drawing Henry, Emma felt a faint breath return, a small warmth flickering back to life in the middle of her darkness.

At dawn, she wrapped herself in a scarf woven with threads of red and gold. Her hair, still damp, clung to her temples as she headed toward the station. She walked quickly, almost impatiently, as if, for the first time in a long while, someone might actually be waiting for her at the end of the journey.

The Train

The compartment door opened with a rush of cold air. Emma stepped inside, her bright scarf cutting once more through the gray. Her eyes searched immediately for Regina, and when they found her, something in her eased.

— “Good morning,” she said. Her voice carried that soft, luminous grain, a fragile brightness she dared to set between them.

— “Good morning,” Regina replied, barely.

Emma sat without ceremony, setting her bag down beside her. Her fingers came to rest on the cover of her sketchbook. They didn’t open it right away, only brushed over the worn leather, as if touching a door before daring to push it open.

Silence settled between them, but not the silence of strangers. It hummed with the echo of words from the day before, still suspended in the air, invisible but palpable.

At last, Emma broke the fragile thread.
— “I thought about you yesterday.”

Regina’s heart clenched at once. The words, so simple, struck like a dangerous spark. She looked up sharply, her dark eyes catching Emma’s.
— “About me?”

Emma smiled faintly.
— “Yes. About what you said.”

Regina’s gaze slid away, seeking refuge in her book. Her voice came out sharper than she intended.
— “I said many things.”

— “No,” Emma murmured. “Only one. The one that mattered.”

Their eyes held for a long moment. Regina could have looked away, could have hidden again behind her pages. But she didn’t. She stayed still, suspended in a space that, strangely, no longer felt threatening.

Then Emma opened her sketchbook. Slowly, almost solemnly, she turned a page and angled it toward Regina.
— “I worked on this last night.”

Regina lowered her gaze, and her breath caught.
On the paper, a child was leaping into a puddle, boots too big, water splashing around him like sparks. But it wasn’t a quick sketch anymore. It was alive, detailed, full of motion. The boy had a face, an expression, a soul. And in those features, too real, almost painfully so, Regina recognized a hint of Henry. Not the still child of family photos, but her son as he truly was.

Her throat tightened.
— “How…?” she whispered.

Emma looked down, her voice barely a breath.
— “Your eyes. Your features. The way you talk about him… I think I found him in you. And I tried to draw that, what I imagine your beautiful little boy might look like. It just… came out.”

Regina reached forward, her fingers trembling as they brushed the paper, as though it could burn.
— “It’s… accurate,” she finally managed, her voice faint.

Emma nodded, without pride.
— “I wanted to give you this. Because sometimes, what we love… we need to see it through someone else’s eyes.”

Their gazes met again.
Time stretched, slowed by something invisible.
In Emma’s eyes, Regina saw no pity, no judgment, only a quiet presence, a simple, steady light.

A metallic voice cut through the air: Next stop in ten minutes.
Regina gently placed the sketchbook back on Emma’s knees, her tone returning to something more neutral.
— “You draw beautifully.”

— “Thank you,” Emma breathed.

The train plunged into a tunnel.
Darkness swallowed everything, hiding their faces. Regina felt her heart race, as though that fleeting night revealed something inside her she’d tried too long to bury. When the light returned, Emma spoke softly:
— “You shouldn’t have to say you’re not happy.”

Regina turned toward the window. Her reflection stared back, still, contained, confined. But behind her closed eyes, the drawing glowed on, vivid and alive.

After the Train

The train slowed and stopped with a wet screech. The crowd pressed toward the doors. Regina and Emma stepped out together, their steps briefly in sync before the flood of passengers pulled them apart. Emma turned one last time.

— “Tomorrow, I’ll show you something else. Something that isn’t sad.”

Then she vanished into the crowd.

Regina made her way to school. The students were already noisy, laughter spilling through the halls. She handed out papers, scolded the loudest ones, wrote a few words on the board, but her mind drifted elsewhere. Every burst of laughter, every lively movement of a child brought back the drawing of Henry, the echo of a joy that Emma had somehow placed back into her hands. And behind it all, like a quiet light, Emma’s voice.

Across town, Emma returned to the studio. The air smelled of old paint, dust, and damp wood. She set her bag down, opened her sketchbook, and let her fingers brush once more over Henry’s drawing. Then her eyes drifted to a blank canvas leaning against the wall. The gray light filtered through the window, hesitant, like the morning itself.

She stood there for a long time, pencil suspended, breathing in a silence that belonged only to her.
Finally, her hand began to move. A new line took shape on the canvas.
And within that first line, there was already a little bit of Regina.

Chapter Text

The Train

The train started with its familiar rumble, but this morning had a different glow. The sky, washed clean by the rain, had opened into a pale blue. Golden light filtered through the windows, wrapping the carriage in a warmth that almost felt cheerful. The passengers, usually sluggish and withdrawn, seemed lighter today.

Regina sat in her usual seat. Her book lay open on her knees, but she wasn’t reading a single line. She had caught herself, the night before, glancing at the clock, waiting for this ride with a quiet anticipation she didn’t dare name.

The compartment door slid open, and Emma stepped in. Her hair, hastily tied, escaped in wild strands. Her oversized, time-faded shirt hung loosely on her frame with an effortless kind of charm. Under one arm, she carried a shoebox, clumsily closed with a red ribbon, which she held as though it was a fragile treasure.

— “Good morning!” she called out, sunlight in her voice.

Regina looked up. Her reply, soft but sincere, carried an unfamiliar warmth.
— “Good morning.”

Emma sat down across from her, set the box on her lap, and tapped it like a secret she could barely hold in.
— “I told you I’d bring you something that isn’t sad.”

Regina arched an eyebrow, pretending to be cautious.
— “I’m afraid of your surprises.”

Emma burst into that full, honest laugh that always cracked Regina’s composure. Then, slowly, she lifted the lid. Inside was a pile of small loose sheets. She pulled out a few and spread them on the little table between them, quick sketches, but full of life, each one pulsing with quiet tenderness.

An old man absorbed in his newspaper, his wrinkled face like a fragile map.
A young woman leaning against the window, lost in a distant elsewhere.
A conductor, far too serious, with a pencil tucked behind his ear.
Even a sleeping passenger, mouth slightly open, awkward, but somehow endearing.

— “There,” said Emma proudly. “My collection of people who don’t know they’re beautiful.”

Regina leaned closer, studying them. Her breathing slowed. She was struck by the precision in the smallest details, the way Emma turned ordinary gestures, a frown, a hand against glass, a parted mouth in sleep, into something tender and human. It was as if Emma knew how to look at the world from a place no one else ever thought to stand.

Their faces drew nearer over the scattered papers. Regina felt, more than ever, the fragile nearness of this woman. Her fingers almost brushed the page, then she pulled back suddenly, afraid of damaging something too precious.
— “You see what others don’t,” she murmured, her voice slightly rough.

Emma lowered her eyes. Her smile trembled, and a shadow passed through her gaze.

Regina felt a question burning on her tongue: And your daughter? Did you draw her too? Her heart tightened. She wanted to know, to see the face of the little girl lost too soon, imagined alive again under her mother’s hand. But she held back. She didn’t have that right.

As if to erase the silence, Emma brightened suddenly:
— “You know I’ve had… twelve different jobs in five years?”

— “Twelve?” repeated Regina, incredulous.

— “Yes! Waitress, toy store clerk, night cashier, flyer distributor… Oh, and window washer! Three months dangling above the ground. It was… dizzying.”

She mimed the motion of swinging in the air, and for the first time, Regina let out a real smile. Not polite, not forced, a genuine smile, bright and almost childlike.

— “And now?” she asked.

Emma placed a hand over the box, her tone softening.
— “Now I draw. I paint. That’s the one thing I never stopped doing. And I still take small jobs to pay the rent. I don’t have much… but as long as I have a sketchbook and a pencil, I figure I’m lucky.”

The word hit Regina like a gentle slap. Lucky.
She, who had everything anyone could envy, a large, perfect house, an elegant husband, a beloved son, a reputation for composure and success. And yet, each day felt hollow. Her dinner parties were empty rituals, her pristine rooms suffocating, her duties a gilded cage. She owned everything, but felt nothing. Gratitude was a stranger to her. Happiness, a rumor. Shame rose inside her, shame for this secret ingratitude no one would ever guess.

— “You’re… very different,” she whispered.

Emma tilted her head, smiling faintly.
— “Different from you, you mean?”

— “Yes.”

— “That’s why it’s interesting to talk to you. If you were like me, it’d be boring, wouldn’t it?”

The train slowed slightly, making their shoulders sway. Their eyes met. And Regina knew, with a tremor she couldn’t name, that Emma was beginning to matter.

Emma carefully gathered her drawings again, like relics being placed back into their altar. She closed the lid, and this time, her arms wrapped around the box protectively, a fierce, gentle embrace. Regina understood then that inside it were treasures more valuable than jewels: fragments of life that only Emma knew how to preserve.

The station neared. A metallic announcement cut through the air. Emma stood, adjusted the box under her arm, and leaned closer, close enough that her hair brushed Regina’s shoulder.

— “Thank you for smiling today. It suits you.”

Regina lowered her eyes, unsettled. She didn’t see the quiet smile Emma kept as she left, a smile that said she’d succeeded, if only for an instant, in cracking the fortress.

After the Train

Emma climbed the narrow staircase leading to the studio. The room smelled of linseed oil, dust, and cold coffee. She set the box down on a cluttered table covered in brushes, stacked canvases, and paint-stained jars.

A knock sounded at the door. Emma opened it to find a woman well past sixty, perhaps seventy. Her movements were slowed by age, her worn coat hung heavily from her thin shoulders. In her trembling hands, she held an empty frame, clutching it like a lifeline. Her eyes carried an old weariness, the weight of years of widowhood, or simply of solitude.

— “Is this where you do portraits?” she asked.

Emma nodded and invited her in. They talked for a while. The client explained that she wanted a drawing of her late husband, “from an old photo.” Her voice shook. Emma took notes quietly, but her eyes were already observing: the sadness in the woman’s gaze, the way she held the frame against her chest as if it were sacred.

When the woman left, Emma remained by the closed door, breath uneven.
These people came searching for traces, for what might outlive them.
And she, in her own way, was doing the same through her sketches: holding onto what was fading.

Emma closed her eyes, her breath trembling, and whispered:
— “See, Mary… there are still people we can save from silence.”

Her fingers brushed the photography like a fragile skin. Then she reached for a new pencil, bent over a blank canvas, and began to draw.