For the thrill of it all

Nick sank back into his seat and patted his stomach, letting out a pleased sigh. Maybe it wasn’t the classiest thing to do in a luxurious place like this, but hey- he and Vivian were the only people there.

And as for Vivian, she was showing remarkable table manners. It was impossible to forget that Vivian was raised in high society and was used to places like this, no matter how she acted around other people.

Vivian raised her head and flashed a smile at Nick. “I take it you liked the food?” She chirped, stating the painfully obvious.

“Yeah,” Nick said, sitting up in his chair and nodding. “It was amazing. Some of the best food I’ve ever tasted.”

He didn’t know how to pronounce half the stuff Vivian had pointed out to him on the menu (which of course had been written in cursive on top of everything else) but it had all tasted amazing. He wasn’t some gourmet, and his palate was relatively unrefined, but even he could tell the difference in ingredient quality for the food he had sampled.

Vivian beamed at him. “Well, I’m glad you liked it,” she said proudly. “Most people don’t think about trains when they’re considering high-quality restaurants, but the class of customer that takes a trip like this is pretty considerable.

“I can imagine,” Nick agreed, looking around. “It’s… pretty fancy.”

He was actually uncomfortable. Vivian had taken advantage of Dream Alley to change their outfits into something better-suited for a place like this, but even still Nick felt out of place.

“I hope you can get used to it,” Vivian said, taking a sip from her glass of champagne. “I eat at places like this all the time, you know. So in the future, we’ll probably be dining at all sorts of restaurants that are for more exclusive than this. So prepare yourself!”

That didn’t help set Nick’s mind at ease. Vivian’s comment about being used to eating at places like this, it reminded him of the fight they’d had before coming here. How they still had a lot of issues that they needed to work out.

Nick tensed, and Vivian immediately picked up on his discomfort.

“…I shouldn’t have said that, should I?” Vivian said quietly, averting her eyes.

“Ah… Vivian, no, that’s not…” Nick wanted to tell her that wasn’t something she needed to worry about, but his voice wasn’t working.

Vivian shook her head. “No, I messed up,” she said pointedly. “I wanted to pretend like everything had gone back to normal, but it didn’t. We both know it. And now… we’re both trying to **** this date to still work, huh?”

Nick bit his lip. “…So you were thinking the same thing?”

After their discussion in the park, when Vivian had brought him here, they had both agreed to try and make the rest of the date work. And while dinner had been nice, something was still clearly off.

And that something was the both of them.

They still hadn’t resolved the issue at hand. They were just pretending like everything was okay, but… it wasn’t. Things were still awkward. There was a tension in the air, even if they tried to pretend there wasn’t. And now that they had brought it up directly again, everything felt uncomfortable.

Vivian sighed and sank back into her seat. She flashed Nick a rueful grin that just barely didn’t touch her eyes. “I’m trying the best I can here to have a good time, but it looks like it’s gonna be a lot more difficult than I hoped, huh?”

Nick nodded somberly. “Yeah… I’m trying too, but… my mind keeps going back to earlier. …The hospital, I mean. And also…”

“Yeah.” Vivian brusquely cut him off with a tone that he’d never heard from her before. Normally the heiress was quite the chatterbox, but she sounded like she wanted to put an end to the conversation now.

Nick didn’t blame her. This was clearly a hard topic to discuss.

“…You think it’s always going to be like this, then?” Vivian asked, finishing her glass. “Or is it just awkward tonight because of… you know?”

“I think it’s just tonight,” Nick assured her. “Today was a lot. The aquarium, the balloon ride, the hospital, and now a train… it was a pretty packed day. I guess I just don’t have a lot of energy to think about other stuff.”

He wanted to have a good time with Vivian, he really did. And he could see that she was trying, too. But the conflict was just too raw.

Vivian seemed to feel the same way. “Sorry for not having a concrete plan,” she apologized. It still felt strange to Nick, getting a sincere apology for something that clearly wasn’t her fault. “You ended up getting dragged all over the place a little bit.”

“The fun parts were fun,” Nick pointed out. He looked out the window at the night sky. “And you really knocked it out of the park with this train idea… I’m surprised you like trains, actually,” he said, turning back to her. “I figured you were the kind of girl who zipped all over the place on your private jet or something.”

Vivian laughed. “Well… that too. Don’t get me wrong, if I’m traveling somewhere, absolutely, flying’s the way to go. A luxury train isn’t for traveling, it’s for the experience.”

A wistful smile crossed her face, and she turned and gazed thoughtfully out the window.

She looked so picturesque sitting there, staring into the night. Nick found his heart stop in his chest momentarily. Sometimes he forgot just how beautiful Vivian really was. When she wasn’t joking around and poking fun at him or running all over the place, when she could just sit still and let things breathe… it really made her glow.

Telling her that would probably get him laughed at, though, so he kept quiet. Their relationship had gotten a dozen times more complicated as a result of today, and while it felt like a good instinct to compliment her, he was aware that could just lead to awkwardness between the two of them.

“…You’re not going to ask me?”

“Huh?” Nick looked questioningly at the heiress. She was still looking out the window, but she was talking to him.

“You’re not going to ask me about why I like trains so much?” Vivian asked quietly. She didn’t sound concerned or worried, just… playful. In a somber sort of way.

Is she trying to say she wants me to dig deeper? Nick thought. That’s true, she did say she wanted to bring me here so I could see a real side to her… maybe this is related to that.

But dealing with Vivian still felt like defusing a bomb to Nick. He had to be very careful with her. “…I didn’t know there was any special reason behind it,” Nick said, shrugging. “It seemed kind of normal to like trains, I guess.”

Vivian giggled softly.

“Also, I assumed that you liked trains because of the name,” he added, laughing a little. “You know, the old ‘iron horse’?”

Nick chuckled at his bad joke for a few seconds, only to see that Vivian wasn’t laughing. She slowly turned to look at him, her expression stony and serious.

Then she cracked a grin. “…That name only refers to steam locomotives, you realize,” she pointed out jovially. “And this certainly isn’t one.”

“Ah, but the fact you even know that proves my point, doesn’t it?” Nick replied, smirking back at her.

She narrowed her eyes and pouted. Then she sighed and shook her head, her smile relaxing into a more casual expression.

“…Jokes aside, no, that’s not why,” she informed him. “Not that I thought you actually believed that, obviously.”

“I would hope you could give me a little more credit than that,” Nick said with a nod.

She nodded back. “Just a little. No… the reason why, it’s actually because of you.”

“Huh?” That one threw Nick for a loop. He stared at Vivian in confusion, wondering if she was about to reveal some deeply-hidden secret like how they used to play together when they were little, or some other past event that showed they’d had a connection all this time. If it could happen with Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin, then…

“To be clear, I don’t mean you personally,” Vivian clarified. “…I meant you in the sense of you Americans.”

“…Oh.” Nick was relieved to hear that. “I thought… never mind.”

Vivian giggled. “I wonder what you thought…? No, no, the first time I went on a train, it was in the United States. I was… mmhm.” She cleared her throat and poured another glass of chilled champagne. Nick could see the tension in her eyes, and realized this was a serious story.

She gazed up at him, and her eyes began to water.

A really serious story.

“As you can probably guess, my mother isn’t one for long trips,” Vivian said solemnly. “With her condition. She can fly, of course, but even with resources like ours, long travel isn’t really a good thing for her condition.”

“I can imagine that,” Nick quietly agreed. He didn’t know what exactly it was that ailed Mrs. Carrington, but it clearly took a lot out of her just to talk to him in bed.

“Because the United States has better care facilities-”

“Sorry, could you repeat that?” Nick interrupted. “I think you were about to say something about my country having better health care than you all and your publically funded system?”

Vivian gave him a dirty look. “Don’t let Kim hear you say that,” she pointed out.

“Kim would know I’m just messing with you,” Nick defended himself. “Come on, it’s a joke. Everyone knows the U.S. has the best health care money can buy.”

Vivian gave him a cheeky smile. “Exactly my point. …For better or worse. So yes, my mom spends a lot of time in the states, paying into your absurdly-priced yet state-of-the-art hospital system, which means I don’t get to see her as often as I’d like…”

She sighed and a shadow crossed her face. “…Is this alright with you?” She asked. “Talking about this? Considering your mother, I mean…”

Vivian still couldn’t believe she’d done something so thoughtless. If she had known… …But it was too late to have those thoughts now.

“It’s fine,” Nick assured her softly. While any memory of his mother hurt, this was different. This was Vivian trying to share something personal with him, not playing a joke. He could tell that this was hard for her to talk about, as well.

“…Alright then,” Vivian said, relaxing slightly. She took a sip of champagne to dull her nerves. “Once, my mom was feeling well enough that she was released for a while, and we spent the summer in our villa in the Hamptons. I think it was the longest period I ever got to spend with my mother at one time, actually.”

The fact that she could say that so matter-of-factly, without even flinching, sent a pang of sympathy through Nick’s chest.

“…And one day, out of the blue, she decided she wanted to take me for a train ride,” Vivian said, her tone picking up joyfully. She shook her head like she couldn’t believe it even now. “Imagine that. Woman has the money to do anything, and she wanted to take her daughter for a trip on a train. Of all the things…”

Vivian’s eyes watered and she turned to look out the window again. Her smile was her weapon of choice for fighting off the urge to cry, and Nick had to admire her stalwart refusal to shed a tear as she pushed all the painful emotions from her face before turning towards him again.

“…It’s not gonna get any more detailed than that, just so you know,” she said, her voice cracking just barely. “All in all, it’s not some grand tale of adventure. Just… a train ride, that’s all.”

And yet, Nick could see that to Vivian it was so much more.

The heiress closed her eyes, and her body slowly started to rock in her seat. “These fancy cars, the trains move so gently, sometimes it’s easy to forget where you’re standing, you know? But not that old thing, no, somehow my mother managed to find the most rickety, shaky, jostling train still in service for our trip.”

She cracked open an eye and smirked. “Honestly, what’s the matter with you yanks? Here we know how to build a good train. We’re the ones who gave the world Thomas the Tank Engine, after all.”

Okay, that was just a low blow and Vivian knew it. Nick narrowed his eyes, and she closed hers again.

“…You’re right, I shouldn’t complain,” she relented. “It really was amazing, that rickety old thing… I can still remember how it felt…”

It took incredible focus for Vivian to not just bring them both back to that moment inadvertently, that was how much she treasured those memories. Cuddling up beside her mother in that cramped little compartment because the train didn’t even have first class seating, feeling her mother’s arm wrapped gently around her as the shaking train rocked her to sleep…

She didn’t tell Nick any of this. It was too much, even for her. But he didn’t need the specifics to see how much that moment meant to her.

It was written all over her face.

Eventually, Vivian came back to the present, and took another sip of champagne. “Well now… almost dozed off there!” She chuckled, flashing a toothy smile. “I think that’s probably enough of this, then!”

And yet she still finished her glass.

“I’m feeling a little tired too,” Nick agreed. “It’s getting late. We should really turn in for the night.”

“Yeah,” Vivian echoed, her voice soft and distant. “We really should…”

The two stared at each other from across the table. Vivian was clearly a little buzzed from the ****, but with her excellent tolerance not by a lot. Nick had refrained from drinking more than a couple glasses because he wanted to keep his wits about him.

An unspoken question hung in the air, until Vivian popped the bubble.

“We could sleep in separate rooms you know,” she pointed out. “There are countless sleeping cars on this train.”

“That’s a good point,” Nick replied. “Of course, whether or not Dakota would let us do that…”

That was the real question. Considering how drastically this date had gone off the rails, pardon the train pun, Nick had no idea how much Dakota would endeavor to push things. But neither one of them needed to say outright that sexual acts were off the table- that went without saying after what happened this afternoon.

Vivian nodded slowly. “Do you think-”

“Tickets, please!” A loud voice interrupted the heiress.

Surprised, Vivian snapped her head around to look up and see that the supposedly empty dining car was no longer empty, and a woman in a train conductor’s outfit was standing over their table with a sunshiny smile on her face.

Her pink hair shimmered in the light.

“Nola?” Nick questioned. “You’re still here?”

“Still?” Nola batted her eyelashes innocently. “Whatever do you mean? I just arrived, to collect your tickets! Per Dakota’s orders, of course. I have absolutely no idea what beautiful women you encountered before, Nick, but they certainly weren’t me, even if they were just as cute and helpful and deserving of their own seasons.”

Vivian raised her eyebrow and Nick rolled his eyes.

“…Tickets, huh?” Vivian didn’t know what Nola was talking about, but when she opened her purse, she saw there just so happened to be two tickets, one for her and one for Nick.

She handed them over to Nola while wondering what exactly was going on here.

Nola checked the tickets and gasped. “Oh my! How lucky for you both!”

“Lucky?” Nick wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that.

“How lucky?” Vivian asked, studying the leprechaun with suspicion.

“As a reward for your continued patronage, Miss Carrington, you’ll be pleased to know that you’ve been upgraded to the honeymoon car! It’s a wonderful and fabulous sleeping car designed for loving couples to spend their night together in peace! Doesn’t that sound just smashing? I know I’d love to stay in a car like that!” Nola chirped.

“…Oh, really now?” Vivian slowly shook her head, unable to fight the rising sense of amusement in her breast. “How about that.”

“Gee, talk about lucky,” Nick said sarcastically. “I don’t suppose we can turn it down?”

“…We really do insist,” Nola answered with an unshakable smile.

Vivian slowly turned to Nick. “…Well. Honeymoon car it is, then.”

The honeymoon car was about as blatant as Nick expected. “I’m guessing this wasn’t part of your memories?” He asked, looking at the obnoxiously red walls and the heart-shaped bed. The damn thing was so big he wondered if Dakota had designed the suite with TARDIS technology just to fit that mattress on the train.

“Yeah, no, I think this is the work of our generous host,” Vivian said, maneuvering around the scattered rose petals. “Still, can’t say she doesn’t have taste!”

She walked over to a table next to the bed, where another bottle of champagne was waiting on ice. “…I can’t say I don’t appreciate the direct approach, either.”

“This doesn’t change anything though, right?” Nick asked, looking to Vivian for confirmation.

The heiress shook her head. “Not for me,” she replied. “For you?”

Nope. Not a chance. Even if they had to spend the night in bed together, the last thing on Nick’s mind was doing anything sexual with the beautiful woman in front of him.

That seemed strange to say out loud, though, so he shook his head.

“It’s a pity, though,” Vivian said, stepping into the walk-in closet. She emerged seconds later in silk pajamas, ready to wrap up the night. She cast a wanting look towards Nick, even if they both knew nothing would come out of it. “Such a nice room, it feels like such a shame to waste it.”

She noted that Dakota had even provided her side of the bed with a nightlight. That was sweet of her.

“I think it’s best if we go to sleep,” Nick replied. He was glad that he could finally get out of the stuffy tuxedo Vivian had **** on him. Even if it meant going back to those pajamas from this morning.

Vivian laughed and flopped down onto the bed, spreading out her arms and legs and staring up at the heart-shaped chandelier hanging over them.

“That’s right,” she murmured, closing her eyes. “A nice, long sleep… haahhn…”

She drifted off faster than Nick expected. Today really must have taken a lot out of her. He looked down at her smiling face, and noted again how peaceful she looked. He really wished she could always wear a smile like that one. But then he’d miss out on her energetic smiles… what a dilemma.

In the end though, he was just happy that this long and exhausting day was finally over. He climbed into bed beside the heiress and flipped off the light, and ignored the fact that she immediately scooted closer to him, as if clinging to him while he slept was a natural thing for her to do.