Last Train to London

[mp_strikinglyblessed]

Reigen told himself that he'd celebrate every good thing that came his way from now on--no matter how small. He wouldn't celebrate it in want of something but for it's own sake. After all, there was no higher power to bargain with. It was just him.

Him and two kids.

Him and two kids and a giant VW Bus he was 60% comfortable handling. And a magical piece of paper that kept their entire lives packed neatly and lightly.

He kept reminding himself of how far he'd come in just a few weeks whenever he started really missing a nice matcha. He had Doppio on a strict assignment to look out for even the instant stuff. Every day was a new lesson in unpredictability but they'd found that there were clusters of stability. Some towns had mostly escaped the rupture unscathed and others were like patchwork from a monkey's hands. You just took what you got, hustled, and hoped for the best.

Today--today wasn't bad. They'd lucked out with a highway cutting through a sprawling plain with small patches of life in the distance. There was no telling how long the road would last, but word had spread across the town they'd just left that it went on for awhile. The street signs weren't in a language he recognized but it's not like they'd serve their purpose even if they did. Reigen spared a thought for all the taxpayer dollars gone to waste.

"Quartermaster," he snapped his fingers and adjusted the thick technicolor shades on his nose, "coffee me."

Comments

[espresso_doppio]

~~

"Tuesday: €8,400... Wednesday: €7,900..." Doppio murmured softly to himself as he tapped his pen on the margins of his notebook. He was at a cafe table for two all by himself, but it meant more room to spread his things out a little. It was a beautiful day in Naples, and he was outside and nestled comfortably under the shade of the table's umbrella. He even had his favorite drink when he was down this way, the cafe's special--Brazilian Coffee. On one hand, he should have been enjoying his time outside to decompress. On the other, he had spent several hours already reviewing ledger statements and he was really bored of doing it bent over yet another hotel desk.

"Tuesday: €8,400... Wednesday: €7,900..." Doppio made a face. The numbers clearly clashed with the reports from the dealers. The sloppy handwriting from the capo's ledger only irritated him further. It made the likely skimming even more of an insult.

Doppio glanced at his suitcase where his phone was, but decided against calling him. He didn't need to bug him about this--yet. He could handle this himself. This new capo hadn't been around long and they had already lost so many. Maybe a scare was all he needed to sort himself out.

"...Oh." He deflated when he saw that the milk foam had gone flat. He had gotten so distracted he had forgotten he'd ordered it at all. He stirred everything together with a mopey sigh.

[throughthelookingmax]

Okay.

Max was definitely not in wherever-that-place-was, but she definitely wasn't home, either. She wiped the oh-so-familiar trail of blood from her upper lip.

She looked around, taking in her surroundings more thoroughly, then caught sight of a familiar figure.

"Donatella!" Relief flooded over Max as she rushed to the table where Doppio sat, pouring over a notebook. "Hey. What happened?"

[espresso_doppio]

Doppio had only just set his cup down when a stranger was filling his field of view. He jerked from surprise and the table jerked with him—clash! The glass tipped and shattered onto the warm pavement.

“Ah!” Doppio stood and held his head. “Oh, man…” He had barely had a sip of it. This kind of stuff always happened. ‘I should’ve stayed in the hotel.’

Doppio looked up. The stranger was still there. He looked behind himself and then back at her.

[throughthelookingmax]

"Shit, sorry." Max wasn't directly responsible for what happened, but it didn't stop her from feeling guilty anyway. "How long have you been here?" It looked longer than she had been, judging by the notebook in front of her.

[espresso_doppio]

She was definitely addressing him. People didn’t come up to him on the street, especially not women. And especially not women dressed like they were ready to go skiing. ‘Seriously…isn’t she dying?’ Still, she was a civilian, so he would do his best to be polite.

“…Um. Sorry, Signora. Are you looking for someone?”

[throughthelookingmax]

"Yeah, you," Max said. "You're Donatella, right?"

[espresso_doppio]

He just stared and then scoffed in laughter. “That’s a woman’s name. Sorry, you must be really confused. I’m a guy.”

‘Is…she making fun of me?’ If so, she was really lucky she was a girl.

“Are you feeling okay? Did you hit your head or something?”

[throughthelookingmax]

Max felt embarrassed. "Do you have a sister? I swear, you look just like my friend."

[espresso_doppio]

“Um…no. Were you supposed to meet your friend around here or something? This is a pretty popular cafe, so…” Doppio started to feel a little bad for this woman, but before she could answer the waitress was outside and trying to sweep up the broken glass.

“Ah! I’m so sorry about this…it was an accident. I’ll pay for it! How much?” Doppio turned to her and fished around in his pocket for his loose bills.

[throughthelookingmax]

While Doppio was distracted, Max tried her best to get a good look at the open notebook page while his attention was still on the waitress.

[espresso_doppio]

“Again, I’m really sorry…” Doppio patted down his other pocket for more as the waitress gave him a tired glare.

The notebook, left wide open, was a mix of stapled documents to the left and Doppio’s own handwriting to the right.

To the right, the pages were dog-eared and the ink was smudged in a few places. It was clear he attempted to keep everything straight but the legible writing was broken up by notes to himself that had nothing to do with the rest and the same doodle of an eerie-looking Venetian mask flowing over from the margins or even woven into the text itself.

To the left was a ledger of some kind. It was in handwriting that wasn’t Doppio’s, but his own notes were jotted down in a few places. The biggest one was “Way too low. Taking matters into my own hands.”

[throughthelookingmax]

That was weird. And kind of creepy. Before Doppio could object to it, Max sat down at the other side of the table and waited for him to finish paying off the waitress.

[espresso_doppio]

When Doppio turned back around, he was visibly uneasy at the sight of Max still there and so close to his things. "Wait. Were you...reading it?"

[throughthelookingmax]

"I glanced at it," Max said hesitatingly.

[espresso_doppio]

Doppio slammed it close. "What's with you? I was trying to be nice here! Who the hell taught you it was okay to look through people's things!?"

[throughthelookingmax]

"Whoa," Max said, hopping up with her hands lifted in surrender. "I didn't think it was a big deal."

[espresso_doppio]

"Damn it..." Doppio hissed as he stuffed his things back into his briefcase. "You're lucky you're a girl, you know that--"

Torurururu!

"Eh?"

Torurururu!

[throughthelookingmax]

What in the world was going on?

Max had jumped up before, but now she jumped back, struggling to process what was going on in front of her.

[espresso_doppio]

Doppio's face rapidly snapped between dazed and sharply focused, his lips somehow forming strange chirps and perfectly normal speech in quick succession of each other.

"And I just buried it all the way at the bottom...!" Torururu! He tugged out a phone--or rather, the head of the receiver of one. When it was fully revealed, the end of a wire was dangling from it and attached to absolutely nothing.

"Hello? Yes, Doppio speaking...ah, Boss. Sorry, I haven't finished my report yet...huh? No, sorry, just give me a little more time and I'll catch a taxi. I got sidetracked. ...By what? Well..." He glanced sideways at Max. "No, it's not important. I'm sorry."

[throughthelookingmax]

What. The. Fuck.

[espresso_doppio]

"...Right away?" Doppio sighed, glancing at the remnants of his spilled coffee. "Understood."

Beep.

Packing the head of the receiver, Doppio regarded Max placidly, his outburst earlier apparently forgotten. "Sorry, Signora, I have to go. The owners here are really nice. If you need to, you can tell them what your friend looks like and they'll help you."

[throughthelookingmax]

"Um. Thanks," Max managed, letting him walk away.

Him. He was a perfect 1:1 to Donatella. Unless this was her twin (which according to him, didn't even exist), this had to be her.

Right?

[mp_strikinglyblessed]

~~

It was past midnight and the moon had disappeared from the sky. The kids were bundled up in the back of the van and Reigen--he had set up camp around their unfortunate new passenger. He had been hesitant to move her too much (she'd showed up out of nowhere after disappearing and then promptly collapsed), so he'd summon the last of his coordination to set up cover and keep the fire going while he took first watch.

When Max groaned around began stirring Reigen might have cried a little. Just from the smoke, of course. "Oh, thank god. Hey. Can you hear me?"

[throughthelookingmax]

"Yeah," Max said groggily as she sat up. "But I've got a killer headache. Do you have any aspirin?"

[mp_strikinglyblessed]

Reigen immediately handed her a bottle of bufferin (something he never left home without in his old age) and a bottle of water. “Here. The good stuff.”