“Oh, now you’re awake.”

The man startled awake, grasping at his pack awkwardly while sneering beneath angled eyebrows. “You, you better not have—“

“—touched your things? Well, of course not,” the woman rolled back calmly, holding her hands up non-confrontationally. Even her palms were facing him, fingers splayed. “It’s natural to worry about your safety after you’ve discovered you fell asleep around a stranger.”

He continued to glare for several seconds before finally relaxing his grip on his bag, then laid back down against the wooden wall. He grimaced a dry swallow of air... he was parched. Hopefully soon they’d stop. “A little stranger like you.” He added a confident smirk. “I’m not worried about the likes of you. What are you doing here, anyway? You Roma?”

She couldn’t help but notice the quirk of the eyebrow that accompanied his words. “If I were Roma, do you think I’d be sitting here?”

“More likely here than anywhere else,” he countered with a shrug, “and if you were I’d probably just do the job myself.” A long pause. “French?”

“Now if I were French, would I be sitting here?” she repeated with a laugh. “What better way for an Italian girl to see the countryside?”

The man’s face uncreased a little. “I see.” He yanked his bag toward him, unlatching the clasp and retrieving a crudely-printed leaflet. “Lucky for you, I’m no dummy.” A woman’s face printed in black ink on the rough newsprint accompanied by large print beneath emblazoning:  ‘JUILLET, MANON:  DANGEREUSE’

“You’re no dummy... because a real dummy would think I look like this woman?” the stranger clarified aloud. The man nodded as he jabbed a finger at the page and reached his other hand into his bag to search for water. He opened his mouth to speak, but instead the woman reached into her own bag and retrieved a flask. “I’ll drink to that. Or, you can.”

He readily accepted the drink, happily draining down as much as his heart desired. “Schnapps!” he sighed gratefully. “Where did you... oh, nevermind.” He kicked more of the sweetened liquor back into his throat and happily sighed. “Anyway. You, Italian girl, who likes to ride rails and share mystery schnapps with strangers... seen anyone like her?” He hastily grabbed for another flyer from his bag. This one with the face of another woman, in a similar monochromatic fashion:  ‘HAGEN, ROWAN’

The woman’s eyes dragged upward thoughtfully as she apparently searched her mind for answers. “Gosh. The only other living being I’ve seen on trains, besides you... it was a pig.” She shrugged and offered a smile. “Wouldn’t let me share my schnapps with him. He was way more charming than you, though.”

The man couldn’t suppress the laugh that flew out of his mouth. “And you’re even less charming than I am!” She laughed good-naturedly with him for a long moment before the train’s whistle broke their noise along with the silence of the summer night. The woman reached to clutch her bag reflexively, causing the man to wave his hand. “Ahh, don’t worry. I’m getting off at this next stop and I’ll make sure you’re not seen.”

She raised an eyebrow. “‘Seen’?”

His eyes widened as he seemed to realize he’d said too much. “I... I’m not French.” He pointed his thumb to a nearby crate. “Hide in there if you plan on riding. Or join me and my colleagues for a drink?”

The woman stared at the man’s face for a long moment, then nodded. “Sure. If you swear you won’t get me into trouble.”

He shook his head. “Just stick by me and I’ll make sure you’re all right. Gerhard... and you?”

“Mona.”

The train pulled into the station slowly, and it wasn’t long until the big doors finally opened, letting in the cool air like a fantastic reward. “Stick me with me,” Gerhard instructed as he hopped from the car and offered his hand up to assist Mona, who was far more diminutive than he’d expected, “we’ll loop up with some folks and go to the bierhaus. Stick close.”

Mona nodded, eyeing Gerhard and his backpack carefully, but grateful to be off the railcar all the same.