…PROLOUGE…
“Excuse me, is this seat taken?”
Spike looked up with mild disinterest at the dressed up blonde who was addressing him with a slight smile on her glossy lips.
“No.” he said, grabbing his stuff from the chair and stuffing it down by his feet, then gesturing at the now vacant seat. “Enjoy.”
The girl nodded, her smile broadening as she slipped into the seat, tugging down the small plastic table attached to the chair in front of her and setting down her cardboard coffee cup, shifting slightly to rearrange her skirt.
Spike looked at her briefly, before sighing. He hated coffee drinkers.
The girl leaned heavily on her fold-down table with one arm, using her left hand to push her high-heeled shoe off and rub at the arch of her foot, screwing her face up with discomfort as she did so.
Spike looked at her curiously.
“Are you… You know, alright?”
She flushed, looking embarrassed as she shoved her foot back into her shoe, straightening up and picking up her coffee cup.
“I’m fine,” she said, pulling a face, “I just have this… Date thing, and I think I might have overdone it a bit. High heels are really not my forte.”
Spike resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
Coffee-drinking klutz. This was going to be a long train journey.
She took a sip of her coffee, placing a hand on her chest as if attempting to settle the nerves she had about her date, and Spike quickly glanced her over as her eyes drifted shut.
High heeled sandals and a short denim skirt, honey blonde hair and a pretty black top. She wouldn’t look half bad, if it wasn’t for the expression of pre-date fear on her face. Oh, and the coffee of course.
She set the cardboard cup back down, pushing her fingers under the lip of the plastic lid in an attempt to pry it off.
Spike shifted slightly, receiving a premonition of the blonde spilling her steaming drink all over him, and, noticing his movement, the girl quickly halted in her action, looking embarrassed once again.
“Sorry.” She said, and Spike didn’t reply. “Just nervous I guess.”
Spike nodded patiently, though didn’t attempt to further the conversation, since he preferred the idea of passing the journey in silence.
“It’s been a while since my last date.” The girl confessed, and Spike sighed, resigning himself to an unpleasantly dull conversation as he turned to face the girl.
“That so?” he asked, not bothering to mask the boredom in his voice.
She looked slightly taken-a-back by his rather blunt tone, but didn’t comment. Merely looked down and nodded.
“My friend announced yesterday afternoon that it’s time I got back into the dating game, and then she informed me that she’d arranged a blind date for me with her cousin.” The pretty blonde girl rolled her eyes, grabbing her coffee again. “I said ‘no thank you; no sir-ee’, but my friend- she really doesn’t take no for an answer. She has this ‘resolve face’ you see, and once she’s wearin’ the ‘resolve face’ you know you’ve gotta do whatever it is she’s telling you to do.”
“Uh huh.” Spike said.
“So now, here I am, on my way to meet some guy up in LA and- he’s probably a creep, or a freak, or something horrible like that. And for some reason, I thought that wearing ridiculous heels would be a great idea, and now my feet hurt even though I’m just sitting down. I mean, what if he wants to go out dancing or something? I’ll have to buy new shoes- probably sneakers- and then my shoes won’t go with my outfit and I’ll look absolutely terrible.”
Spike decided that whoever had sold coffee to this woman really deserved to be shot.
“Oh no.” he said instead, glancing back down at her sandals. They really were ridiculous.
“You’re telling me.” She agreed. “Plus my friend’s getting on at the next station and I’m supposed to be saving a seat for her, but this train is so crowded, I doubt I’ll even see her before we get off in LA.” She gestured around at the jam-packed train. All of the seats were taken, and several people were standing in the aisles. “I mean, who would have guessed that so many people would want to go into LA on a Saturday night.” She mused.
“Crazy.” Spike agreed.
She looked at him for a moment, her eyes focusing on his, before smiling and saying; “You’re not much of a talker, are you?”
For some reason, Spike almost found her observation cute, but he fought the desire to smile before saying, “Not really- no.”
She took another sip of coffee, and it helped to remind him that he didn’t actually like klutzy coffee-drinking blondes.
She smiled at him again, and the train darkened as it shot through an enclosed tunnel. The girl’s features looked softer, more appealing, in the lower light.
She opened her mouth to speak again, when suddenly there was a deafening crash and their train seats shook violently, throwing her against him.
Her cardboard cup slipped from her fingers, covering the plastic table that was still flipped down. It was hot chocolate, not coffee.
The train began to tilt dangerously to the left, pressing the girl even closer to him as he was forced into the window.
There was a screeching noise, and a shower of sparks, and then the lights were gone.
People were screaming, and Spike felt the girl’s slight weight covering him.
The train veered again. Then there was an almighty bang, and everything shuddered.
Spike was about to ask the girl if she was okay, when the entire train tipped even further to the left. And then the tracks gave way and the train slammed down, landing on it’s side.
The impact shook the dark tunnel, and Spike felt the girl clutching his chest tightly as the tunnel caved in around them.
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A/N: Oh, this idea has been in my head for so long! I know I’m already mid-way through ‘Fix You’ and ‘Invisible Ink’, but this story was poking my muse and begging to be written, so I had to- if only to save my muse from getting too battered =) Anyway, I have this story planned for not too many chapters, so hopefully it won’t be too time-consuming, and I’ll still be able to update my other fics.
I really hope you enjoyed the prologue, and please please please REVIEW! if you liked what you read!!
Thank you so much for reading!! Xx
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