It seemed sort of appropriate, in a way, that it should be in autumn that he'd died. My father had always loved the season, loved the way the leaves on the trees turned a multitude of colours, had loved the way the weather turned from the balmy warmth of summer, to the crisp, biting cold of winter. He'd loved the way that people retreated inside as the season wore on; 'Fall', he'd said, in that crisp, clear voice of his, tinged with just a slight hint of the burr of the accent of his youth, 'Fall, my boy, is the most beautiful season of all. Of course, I prefer calling it Autumn, but Fall's beautiful, too. Leaves fall. Temperature falls. Everything falls, sooner or later'. I often thought he was where I'd gotten my love of language and literature from; my father, a most wonderful man.

He'd died, they told me, peacefully in his sleep, just minutes into his eighty-third birthday. It seemed somehow right that he'd departed the world the same day he'd been brought into it, like Shakespeare had; and that seemed right, too, for an English teacher to follow one of his idols in the most final way possible. It had become winter by the time the funeral had been arranged- by one of my sisters, no doubt, both of whom had taken after the no-nonsense ways of my mother- and that seemed right, too. For wasn't the world a little colder and crueller without his presence? Without his smile, his laughter, his energy, and his warmth?

My brother had told me he'd take me to the funeral himself, in his car, to give us time to talk, to give us both some dregs of company that we so desperately both needed. We'd driven down in his motor car- something that was still relatively new, in its childhood rather than its infancy- though, I must confess, I still didn't entirely trust the things. Especially not the way Reg drove; pushing the thing as fast as it could go, shouting and whooping as we reached speeds that turned my stomach and filled my heart with a sort of dread. Still, it had given us the opportunity to talk- or bellow, rather, above the roaring of the wind and the rattling of the thing, and the thrum and drone of the engine- and we'd both come away from it just that little bit closer. The funeral had been a sombre, sober affair, with all the pomp and circumstance of a truly religious ceremony; both my parents had been religious, though my father had lapsed somewhat by the time I'd been born, and it was obviously felt by my sisters- who, again, had followed in the staid, stolid steps of my mother- that a Truly Religious Ceremony was what was needed. I'd struggled through the thing, sitting silently at the end of the pew, the youngest and most favoured child, waiting until it was over. I'd been determined to remain strong for my family, though I'd had to decline any offers of remaining there after, begging off, telling them I really did have to get home. The truth was, I knew if I spent any more time around them, I'd have broken down- and though my father had raised me to have no shame in sobbing in front of others, I'd still wanted, partly, slightly, to do it in secrecy, in the comfort of my own home.

I longed for my home; for the cosy comfort of that little house, with the ginger tabby tomcat that had somehow adopted me; for the crackle and hiss of the wood fire; for the soft, soothing sounds of the wireless. It wasn't much, my home, but it was all mine, and it was just how I liked it. And, at that moment, I'd missed it terribly.

I'd chosen to travel home by train, and not just because my nerves and heart could not have managed another session of Reg-driving. My father, born in the heyday of steam, had instilled in me a love of those engines, as he'd instilled in me a love for a lot of things. As a child, we'd often spent afternoons stood on the platform of the local train station, waving and cheering and watching with awe and wonder these great titans thundering by, steaming and hissing and whistling. I'd often saved up what little money I could, just to ride to the next town over, and back, just so I could lay my head back against the seat and listen to the 'thchunkthchunkthchunk' of the wheels on the track.

As an adult, that love for them had only blossomed, and whilst the awe and wonder had lessened slightly, it had very much not disappeared; I still adored the sound of the train in motion, the smell of the smuts and the steam, the buzz of anticipation before stepping onto the train proper.

I'd decided, almost on a whim, to buy myself a first class ticket; to treat myself, of a sort, in the time when I felt I needed it the most. It had proved a wise decision, and yet an unwise one too- whilst I found the comfort and the luxury of the carriage much more to my suiting, I knew that I would both be unable to afford to do it as often as I'd liked, and forever find myself comparing and contrasting my usual seat to the one I found myself in.

My good fortune- if fortune it could be called- continued when my seatmate arrived, in the form of a young woman carrying what could only be described as a bag fit to carry a house in. I had eyed her warily as she walked along, and when she slowed and then stopped by where I was sitting, I felt my heart both wrench and soar; I wanted nothing more than to be alone with my thoughts, but if I was to suffer company, better it was the company of a lovely young lady than a bullish young man, or a crotchety elder.

Her smile, when she slowed to a halt, was polite and tight; the sort of smile an unaccompanied young lady ought to give a complete stranger of a man, and mine was equally as polite, even as I shuffled across the seat to sit next to the window, sacrificing a little legroom for a marginally better view, and the presence of her next to me. We barely touched, in the way people often do when forced next to sit next to each other, and yet I was incredibly aware of her there, of the sensation of her body- her hip, especially- just barely any distance from mine.

We sat in silence, she and I, as the train began its preparations; though the silence was broken as the carriage lurched, and in what I supposed was her shock, she let go of her purse; I reached for it as she did, more out of reflex than any conscious decision- and was vastly, infinitely, acutely aware of the touch of her hand against mine. I tensed, and rather than draw my hand back, I found myself smiling at her- a warmer smile than the previous one- and spoke, in a voice hoarse and rough with the emotion I'd been holding in.

"Pardon me", I cleared my throat, though it cleared nothing of the thickness of the emotion from my voice, "I believe that's my hand, miss".

So this'll be vanilla, heavily romance-based, that sort of thing. I'm thinking set in the first half of the twentieth century; maybe the forties, maybe the early 1900s.

I don't really have any strict ideas for plot or anything, so I'm fully open to ideas, pretty much.

As usual, if this is still up, I'm still interested.