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“You let Penny up?”
Jane always finds herself here when she’s not in control. There is something in the Driver’s demeanor - she can’t put her finger on it. Composure. Composure, maybe; she has a collected calmness that sparks only admiration in Jane, only fondness. Driver 8 rarely leaves the station, but she knows the rest of them rather intimately; knows Hammerhead’s locked-down softness, relaxes Penny’s anxiety, even manages to find neutrality with Karen.
With Jane, however, the intimacy runs a bit - cosmic. Vast.
“I let Penny up. Couldn’t exactly stop her; that’s not really how this works.”
Jane draws out her sigh, like a howl. “Yeah, I know, I’m just… surprised. That she’d want to go to the surface. That’s all.”
But Driver 8 doesn’t bother with formalities. She never has. “You’re not going up, I take it,” she says. “So why are you here? You know how vast this place is. You can go anywhere. Why do you always come back to my station?”
Jane shrugs. She takes a seat in the back of the train, spreads herself out, feels safe, feels safe. “I don’t know.”
She does know. This is the one part of the underground that remains static. Constant, unchanging. Jane can breathe here.
“Well,” says the Driver, her mouth curling into something near a smile, twisted. She moves closer to Jane - closer, sits herself down, her body resting against Jane’s. Driver 8’s arm against Jane’s arm, her knees brushing against Jane’s knees, safety. “ I don’t believe you. ”
“Oh,” Jane says, nodding. She gets it. “I get it. You think I come here for you.”
“You don’t? News to me.”
“I come here because… fuck. I guess I come here because it’s, I don’t know, peaceful or whatever.” She pauses, considers her next move, logic flowing. “And yeah, sure. You’re one of the only people down here that I can stand one hundred percent of the time. The rest of them can make me want to blow my fucking head off sometimes, but… not you. So yeah, maybe that is part of it, but… don’t make it a big deal.”
“I’m flattered.”
“Hey,” Jane says, giving her a soft push. “I said don’t make it a big deal.”
Driver 8 takes her hat off, sets it aside. Vulnerability.
“Well,” she says. “There’s no one here.”
“Yeah. I can see that.”
“No one to see us,” says Driver 8, a newly discovered whisper, falling close to amorous. “No one to judge. No gossip to spread. Complete solitude.”
“What are you doing?” Jane asks; it isn’t a question, none of this is unknown, and the Driver has her hand in Jane’s lap, against the outside of her thigh, pulling her in. The touch, Jane knows, is fabricated. They are in the shared mind, but it is, after all, a mind. She can still feel it, though. She can still feel the heat, can still feel the low electric tingle inside of her.
It’s real. It is more than real; it is safety.
“I think you know what I’m doing.”
When Driver 8 kisses her, it feels natural, a healing touch that Jane deepens, the bright light of passion between them.
Safety, Jane thinks, her hands running through the Driver’s soft hair, lined with divinity. Constants.