"Time flies when you're having fun" was a timeless phrase that always seemed to hold true for any of the best moments in life.

A less popular but still undeniably true phrase was, "Time grinds on at an agonizingly slow pace when your girlfriend has cut off all forms of contact with you and you are left to contemplate in misery what might become of your life when she has reached her final judgment on the state of your relationship."

Nate boarded the subway, tired from a two week lack of sleep and a terribly boring teaching seminar he had just escaped from. He unbuttoned his suit and loosened his tie, looking forward to a quick trip to his bed.

To the untrained eye, with his stubbly beard, dark-circled eyes, and sighs that almost spoke, "I give up," one might guess that Nate was handling his current situation well. As it would turn out, that was not quite the case.

The former con once lived a life that proudly boasted total independence on all fronts, particularly on an emotional level. Less than a year in New York changed that, and now Nate was suffering the repercussions of discarding Stephen.

Nate was hitting the bottle more frequently, and his motivation levels were at an all-time low. Even when he caught a restless hour or two of sleep, he subconsciously kept to what was once "his side" of the bed. He missed Quin, and he missed her something fierce.

As tired as Nate was, there were no seats available in what was a surprisingly crowded car. He found himself standing, hanging on to an overhead strap, trying to avoid making awkward physical contact with the various people he was sharing his uncomfortably close-quarters with.

Ugh the subway. Quin grumbled as she approached the stairs that would take her underground and into the tunnels. Yes, the subway system in New York probably should have been considered one of the world's modern marvels, simply based on the sheer number of miles that the track that ran under the streets. Not everyone thought it was all that impressive though. Some people thought it sucked and was dark and smelled like pee. Quin was one of those people.

Still, sometimes it was a necessary evil, and the redhead made her way down the stairs and into the crowd that was currently waiting on the platform to get on the train. Of course it was crowded. The train arrived and the mass of people moved forward, Quin following the stragglers in just as the warning gong sounded. Naturally, there was nowhere to sit, so the off-duty cop made her way to one of the handholds, staring out the window as the train started to move.

It could have been worse, right? Quin's phone vibrated and she pulled it from her pocket, wondering if it was finally Natha- Stephen texting her. It had been two weeks and he hadn't sent her a single text, called her a single time, or shown up at her door. He wasn't even trying.

Did she want him to try? Quin didn't know, but she could think about it while the train made its way...stupidly slow...through the tunnel. Down she looked at the screen. Twitter.

Another stop came up and more people flooded into the subway car. The population of New York could be overwhelming at times, but it was his home now, for better or worse.

He had put a lot of thought into whether the end of his relationship would mean the end of his time in New York. There was logic to leaving the city; Quin knew his past, and it might be a matter of time until she put him behind bars. The idea of returning to somewhere more suburban or even rural was appealing on days when the subway was packed.

No matter how often he contemplated a move, he always ended up deciding against it. Whatever happened, he had a rewarding job teaching young mutants and a handful of friends around the city. His life was good; it would just be infinitely better if he could return to holding Quin again.

Nate pulled out his phone, not noticing a particular redhead standing back-to-back with him. After several painful moments of his internet not loading, he grumbled in his noticeable Southern accent. "There's never any connection on these damn things."

It was difficult to understand how fate, and karma, and the stars all lined up sometimes to put two people in the same place. There were thousands of trains running on the tracks at 7 or 8 minute intervals, and there were at least three different stations Quin could have chosen to start her ride. She'd chosen this one, and the redhead knew the voice bemoaning the lack of signal.

Turning slightly so she could see him, Quin studied Stephen with the benefit of him being unaware of her presence. What she saw made her frown, he didn't look like someone devastated by the way things had turned out. He just looked like he wanted to make a phone call. Other people were looking too, probably because of the accent. Apparently that wasn't fake.

Leaning against the pole and slightly loosening her grip on the hand-hold, Quin continued to watch, wondering what would happen.

Nate resigned himself to defeat, putting away his phone; there was no point in waiting for signal that was never going to come. He was not even sure who he was trying to text. Over the past weeks, he steeled his will against contacting Quin, trying to hold true to his promise of giving her space. There were still times when he would have text messages written out with foolish sentences like, "I miss you," or "I hate this." Somehow, he always managed to keep himself from hitting send.

Looking back up, Nate caught scattered eyes sneaking looks at him; apparently his accented voice caught the attention of those who had never seen a Southerner in real life. He shrugged it off; it was a little silly, but he did not mind people enjoying his rare presence.

The train took a turn Nate did not have the footing for, but his grip tightened soon enough that he only stumbled back a step or two. He bumped into the person behind him, and he was not the typical New Yorker who lacked the sorry-center of the brain. He turned to apologize. "I'm sorry, the train caught me--"

Off-guard. Of all the people in New York to be waiting behind Nate, it had to be Quin. They already made eye contact, and Nate cursed his lack of sleep for giving him such raccoon-eyes. He did not want to burden her with the knowledge that he had lost so much sleep over her. Now, he was frozen. "Um, hi Quin."

Would it be too much to ask for the train to derail or explode?

There it was again.

Fate. Kicking her in the rear.

A person who didn’t put stock in things like fortunes and stars might have just passed it off to physics and a crowded train car, but Quin knew that the world was much to large a place for all those things to happen on their own. She’d been looking forward to watching for a while, observing and seeing what things were like when he knew she wasn’t watching.

That was blown to hell in a hand basket.

He stumbled into her, and Quin simply held her ground against the light impact. Immediately he was apologizing, and that was something else that the redhead could simply chalk up to personality. The words had been too spontaneous to be anything else.

There were two or three hundred different things that Quin knew she should probably say, but for some reason they were all bottlenecking before they could make it past her vocal cords. Had two weeks really been that long? Even more frustrating, she realized with a pang of irritation, she missed him.

Upon closer inspection, she could see that Stephen hadn’t been doing as well as she’d thought on first glance. Those were unmistakable dark circles under his eyes. The cause, Quin reminded herself, was yet to be determined, but it was something.


”Hi.” she said, choosing the simplest response. ”Small word.”

Yeah, small freaking world. They were in one of the world's biggest, most populated cities, and the fates arranged this little meeting. Maybe it was the power of prayer; Nate constantly spent his time wishing he could see Quin again. Apparently, when pleading your case to God or destiny, it was smart to iron out the details like "when" and "in a way that won't leave me standing there like an open-mouthed idiot."

All the bad considered, it was nice to feel his heart reacting to something again, even if it was five percent happiness and ninety-five percent instant anxiety.

He could not just pretend this did not happen and look away. They were talking now, and he had to say something. "Any chance this came up in your horoscope?"

”Nope. No warning.” she said, shaking her head slowly as the train pulled into its next stop and people started to perform the dance involved every time a station came into the picture. Quin stayed where she was, leaving the seat empty as a large number of people emptied from the car. With more space, somehow her proximity to Stephen was more pronounced.

Why was this so awkward? They’d talked like this a hundred times. Quin frowned slightly, tightening her hand on the grip once more as the train started to move, then releasing the thing all together as the train found it’s groove.

She nodded at his phone.

”Is it broken?”

Yup, no warning from the powers that be. She was expecting this less than he was, and now they were both standing awkwardly when they would have been happily conversing and maybe even holding hands a month ago.

Quin brought attention to Nate's phone. Was that a way of asking why he had not called her or just her being curious? Would she have wanted him to call her? The thought never crossed his mind-- he assumed she would just hang up on him after the hello. "No, just terrible subway reception. God bless New York."

There was a seat near them that was now empty. As tired as Nate was, he would have offered the seat to any standing woman, and Quin was no exception to that. "Um, you can have the seat if you like."

”Oh.” Quin said, when Stephen confirmed that the phone was in perfect working condition. She didn’t know what she’d really wanted him to say in response, just that for some reason this made her want to frown. Why hadn’t he called her? Of course she’d told him she needed space, but nothing? For two weeks? Were the dark circles from missing what they'd had, or from moving on?

He offered her the seat and Quin shook her head to the negative. ”I’m alright.” she said, nodding in that direction. ”You should sit, you look tired.” It was true, and even his southern sensibilities couldn’t complain when there were several other seats for women, the elderly, and invalids open since the mass exodus at the last stop.

Nate was not really expecting Quin to take the seat; she was the independent type, and not exactly the model example of traditional gender roles. She must have noticed his haggard state, which left Nate with little excuse not to sit down. "Yeah, I guess it's been a long few days." Or weeks.

Nate took his seat as the train darkened, entering a tunnel. There were not nearly as many people left in the car now. If Quin wanted to, she could have taken another seat; she could have taken a seat on the other side of the car. Still, she remained close. Did that mean something?

He had to try learning something about the time she had spent since their last meeting. His one weapon in life was always knowledge, and now he was on the shortest end of that stick. "So... how have things been for you?"

It was a generic question with a unique ending, as the car came to a sudden grinding halt.

Ugh…why wasn’t he giving her any valid information? Was he being obtuse on purpose? This was frustrating, no…infuriating, no…it was fine. She hadn’t asked a specific question, she wasn’t going to get a specific answer. That’s just how things worked. She wasn’t going to ask either.

”Late nights?” Dammit.

As far as how she’d been. Quin shrugged her shoulders. She’d been alright busy with work.

”I’ve been good, busy.” Checking her phone way too often…

The train screeched to a sudden halt, and Quincy Archer suddenly wished she’d been holding onto the hand bar. If she had…she probably wouldn’t have ended up in Stephen’s lap.

>> ”Late nights?”

How did he respond to that? He probably did not want her thinking he was out partying every night since they stopped talking, but he did not want her to think he was a total mess without her. Or did he? His inexperience in relationships was finally showing. "Oh, painting mostly. Not sleeping too well," he conceded.

She gave him a vague answer in return, followed by the immediate fall into his lap. He wanted to ask if she was okay, or maybe help her up. All the logical, polite things were hard to focus on when they were finally touching. After such a long time without being this close to her, Nate was overwhelmed with the warmth of her atop his lap and the scent of her hair.

It was not fair and it was not right, but Nate's hand took Quin's cheek in the dark subway car and he kissed her. After a few seconds, he pulled back, shocked at himself. "I, uh..."

That…had not been planned. The redhead knew that this was a bad idea, they were talking, possibly getting places…

Oh man, it just felt too right in his lap. Suddenly, it didn’t matter what anyone thought about the situation, because Stephen was kissing her and it had simply been too long. He kissed her, and Quin kissed back, at least until she remembered that they were sitting on a train. With other people.

”I should probably slap you or something.” she said breathlessly, cheeks pink as she pulled away and slid into the next seat. Tucking her hair behind her ears, she studied the man next to her, brows pulling together in a frown.

”Why haven’t you called?”

He did not imagine it; Quin definitely replied to the kiss. Now that the moment had passed, the terrifying possibility that she would have resisted or turned away from the kiss hit him. Either of those would have ironically been the kiss of death, but at least now he knew there was a part of her, however minute it might be, that wanted to kiss him back.

She slid off and into the seat beside him. It was dark enough on the train that Nate was not concerned about the handful of strangers in the car. Tomorrow, he and Quin would have been nameless, faceless memories without consequence to them. "I'm kinda glad you didn't, but go ahead if it'll help."

Quin asked her next question, and Nate was floored. Apparently he was supposed to call! Someone needed to write a manual for men stuck in his position, because he was unsure whether every choice he could make was just a lose-lose.

"I wanted to!" He caught himself before he spoke too loudly. "You said you needed space, and I wanted to give it to you."

There was a hesitation before he continued, because he knew what he said would not be fair while she was still making a choice. "I miss you like crazy, Quin. I hate this." There: the two texts he never sent in the span of two sentences.