Humming a half remembered tune and shivering slightly at the crisp air, Daniel Gordon stepped out onto his front doorstep. It was a bright, cold morning, the sun shining onto frost dusted grass, gradually dissolving it into icy slush. Fumbling with his keys in one hand, Daniel took a tentative sip from his thermos. Still too hot he concluded, hissing air through his teeth onto his mildly scalded tongue and twisting the key. With the door locked, he skipped down the steps, closed the gate and set off at a brisk walk towards the station, the slowly melting frost alternately crackling or splashing under his feet.

It was one of those unusual days when he'd managed to get his bag together, his tea made, his breakfast eaten and himself generally together with time to spare and it was really quite refreshing not to have to dash. It certainly made a change for Mrs. Baron across the road, who was more used to seeing him frantically pelting down the street towards the train station with a desperate look on his face and his laces not done up. Today as he walked, he performed the difficult balancing act of inserting headphones into his ears and phone while selecting a song and holding onto the thermos at the same time. It was complicated further when he reached the station and had to fish out his travel card, but he managed somehow.

The walk was short but cold enough to make him glad when he collapsed into a comfortingly warm train seat, humming along to particularly harmonica heavy song in his ears. The tea, he judged, should now be at the perfect temperature for a hearty swig so heartily swig he did. One day I'll get this right was all he could think as his mouth complained and his eyes watered gently. He dropped one hand into his bag to retrieve a book, looking to distract from his twice burnt tongue but couldn't find it. He packed quite tidily but as according to the laws of the universe, everything had mixed up will nilly in the five minutes since he last looked inside the bag.

Eventually he retrieved it, found his place and settled in to read. It was a classic piece of genre fiction, a fantasy about magic, war, betrayal and a towering romance. If he was honest with himself, Daniel would have to admit that he tended to hold the book in such a way that no one could see what he was reading. There was something so... schoolboyish about reading fantasy books. He was distracted enough by it, however, that he completely missed another person taking the seat opposite. He looked up when he heard them move around, perhaps finding their own book, and caught the other's eye. He was a friendly person, any could tell you, and smalltalk was one of his only primary skills.

Nodding a head towards the window, he said "Bit cold this morning, don't you think? Feels like it's about time Winter packed up and left." with an afficable smile.

"You think? That's a shame, the melted bits of the ice gave me some hope. Still, I guess I should've known better than to trust the temperature, Spring can be hard to pin down." Daniel delivered his reply in a distracted manner, his mouthing going on automatic as he first looked at his fellow passenger properly. She was very pretty, seemed polite, conventionally attractive and well dressed but there was something slightly off about her...

Was it the slightly askew eyeshadow, the conspicuously not brown hair sticking to the arm of her top or that she looked as flushed and flustered as he did on 99% of all morning occasions? Or maybe how despite being obviously hurried and possibly somewhat harassed by life, she seemed more than ready to have a banal conversation about the weather with a stranger? She should surely seem a little more bothered, given she was breathing like she had just sprinted to catch the train? From personal experience, Daniel knew that being accosted when you'd only just caught the train at a dead sprint was extremely jarring and almost annoying.

He couldn't tell exactly what it was and it put him enough off his normal conversational rhythm that he just nodded at her response and stared for a moment or two longer than felt casual. To cover it, he jerked his gaze back to the novel in front of him and tried to focus on the page. There was that itch, you know the one, to look at the other person in case they're looking at you. But you don't want them to see you looking at them because, well, then they'll either think you were staring at them or know you were trying to catch them looking at you. The mild irony of reading a book probably written for teenagers while engaging in the mental gymnastics required to not want to look at someone in case they were looking at you, something you wanted them to do, was not lost on him.

The time seemed to fly past on the train ride and through the rest of the day, Daniel's heart not really in the performance he growled, muttered and bellowed into the microphone. It was noted by the sound director but they were recording ambient lines for a video game character and, well, there was a limit to the level of commitment and performance you could drag out someone for something that would be heard but rarely and never be the focus of its intended audience's attention. It wasn't that Daniel was day-dreaming, exactly, and he wasn't really obsessing over the woman on the train, not really. It wasn't an infatuation with her, he just couldn't work out why she had stayed in his head. Which, in turn, meant he kept on thinking about her.

Still, he thought as the bade his co-workers farewell and wandered towards the train station, what were the chances of seeing her again?

Distracted as he was by the conflicts between good and evil on the page, Daniel’s head jerked upwards immediately upon hearing the voice that had been running through his head all day for real. In a hasty motion, he stuffed the book and its attendant bookmark into his bag, while setting his face to a friendly smile. If anything, he had to tone down the smile from downright manic to merely friendly. He had very nearly forgotten about the lady from the morning while reading and now felt strangely guilty about that.

“Hello, fancy seeing you here!” Too strong, take it down a notch. “I take this train pretty much everyday, actually, though I haven’t been living on this line long. How about you?”

”Yes, all the time! I’m absolutely terrible at driving, I figure I might save myself and some others a trip to the hospital by using the train.” Elaine self-consciously tucked her hair behind her ear, swallowing her words before she went off on a ramble. When she was nervous, her words would spill out of her mouth without any thought and she would end up embarrassing herself more often than not. ”I hope I didn’t interrupt you or take you away from your book…”

“Oh, no, not at all! It’s just some easy reading to get me through the journey, I much prefer talking to… I’d much rather talk to someone.” Way too strong, move on quickly Daniel extended a hand. “Daniel Gordon is my name, nice to meet you.”

“Elaine Fitzgerald, the pleasure is all mine.” Elaine answered, grasping the offered hand. The handshake was pleasantly firm — nothing like the wimpy, loose ones that she had grown to despise over the years. Now that they knew each other’s names, their relationship instantly shifted from mere strangers to acquaintances. Now Elaine could allow Daniel to wander across her mind without feeling as guilty or creepy as she did earlier in the day.

”So, Elaine, what does this train take you to and from, apart from home?” Daniel asked, trying in the back of his mind to recall what station she’d gotten on from in the morning. They hadn’t been sitting opposite each other for that long earlier so it couldn’t be far to her place, meaning their conversation would likely be cut short soon.

“Nowhere special, just to my job,” She answered, momentarily forgetting that she should elaborate. There was a beat before Elaine hurried to supply some more information. “Oh, I’m a music teacher. I teach people how to play instruments at the local music store. What about you? What do you do?”

Don’t bring up The Proclaimers, she won’t like them just because she’s a music teacher. Don’t bring up The Proclaimers “Oh, I’m an actor. Well, not exactly a real actor, a voice actor. I do roles in audio dramas or books and that sort of thing…”

“Oh my gosh, that sounds so much more interesting than what I do!” Elaine chuckled. There was so much more that she wanted to ask him, but she couldn’t help glancing out the window every few seconds in anticipation for her upcoming stop. The thought of missing her station and doubling back for at least a few more minutes of chatter did cross her mind, but that was far too clingy and creepy even for her.

“I actually have to get off here,” Elaine reluctantly slung her bag over her shoulder with an apologetic smile. She slowly got to her feet well after the train came to a gentle halt. “Well Daniel, it was lovely meeting you! Maybe tell me more about talking into a microphone some other time?” With the implication that they would see each other once again, Elaine dashed off to exit the train without waiting for a reply, slipping through the doors right before they shut.

“Yes, great, sure!” Daniel replied, his words garbling a little as he waved her off. Settling back into his seat, he ran a hand through his subconsciously and examined himself in the window’s reflection. Was that okay? Did she think I was weird? I wasn’t expecting her to be here on the train, I mean, I was hoping for… calm down, deep breathes.

With a hiss, he let out a long sigh. I’m too old to lose it like this over a girl, no matter how good looking, polite and friendly she might be...