Suddenly, the ever changing sky felt overwhelmingly empty and expansive. Now that she was free... what was she supposed to do now?
Lake's New Normal
is an ongoing Infinity Train continuation fic written by MayDayGirl_Save_Our_Ships, starting immediately after the end of Book 2 and following the struggles faced by Lake now that she's on Earth.
After Lake escapes the train, she's suddenly struck with a sobering realization: she doesn't know what to do now that she got this far. With few options (and with Jesse assuming that she'd do so anyway), she finds herself the honored guest of the Cosay family until she can piece together a more long-term plan for her future. But after escaping the mirror world, traveling through a supernatural train, and fighting for her life, will Lake really be able to live like a normal teenager? She’s not sure, but she’s willing to fight every day to make this life her new normal.
This fanfic has examples of:
- Batman in My Basement: Lake's situation with the Cosays.
- Cassandra Truth:
- Stephen and Whittney Cosay naturally aren't exactly trusting of their son's account of the past few weeks. They initially believe he and Lake are playing a cruel prank, but confirming that she has metal skin a few minutes later convinces them real quick.
- Played straight all the way through when Jesse tells the same story to a police officer, minus Lake's involvement. He notes that the cop worriedly looked his parents the entire time, and that he probably left thinking Jesse "was either lying or crazy."
- Catapult Nightmare: Lake has one on her first night sleeping at Jesse's house, where Sieve calls her out for murdering him in addition to Mace, and taunts her for believing she deserves any level of affection after what she's done.
- Dirty Business: While she doesn't completely regret her actions, Lake feels incredibly guilty about murdering Mace and Sieve, as well as attempting to trap Tulip in the Mirror World. She also hides the fact she did these things from the Cosays, which only make Jesse's constant assertions that she's a good person hurt all the more.
- Entertainingly Wrong: The morning after Jesse comes home, his father admits that he feels Lake is omitting serious pieces of her backstory. He's absolutely correct on that (she's hiding having killed the cops chasing her), but he assumes that Tulip is trapped in the Mirror World and now serves as Lake's reflection instead. Lake corrects him on this (she's safe back in Minnesota), but privately and sadly notes that his assumption wasn't completely wrong, as trapping Tulip was her original plan and she would have happily done so if the Train didn't prevent it.
- First-Name Basis: Mrs. Cosay insists that Lake call her Whittney.
- Fish out of Water: Downplayed. As Tulip's former reflection, Lake is certainly familiar with everything in the human world, but has never had a chance to actually craft an identity or any interests. She's never experienced anything outside whatever Tulip did, and even then, she notes that it was a pale imitation of the real thing, such as food having very little taste.
- I Was Just Passing Through: How Lake attempts to play off her role in Jesse safely getting off the train and returning home when his mother tearfully thanks her.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Downplayed. Jesse's father certainly isn't a jerk, but he is incredibly blunt with his thoughts about Lake's nature, intentions, and the viability of her living a normal life on Earth. In every case, Lake is mildly hurt by the uneasy trust between them, but always admits to herself in a following scene that he's right to be worried about her taking advantage of Jesse or being a target of hate/fear by other humans.
- Just Friends: Lake and Jesse. The former is mortified when Nate asks if they're dating, stuttering out an embarrassed "no" in response.
- Living Emotional Crutch: When calming down Lake from a nightmare, Jesse reveals that she served as this for him, as he suffered from nightmares every night during his time on the train until he met her.
- Properly Paranoid: When Whittney starts talking about taking Lake to the mall and enrolling her in school, Stephen is the only one concerned that a metal person from a parallel world would probably garner serious attention not only from the locals, but from government agencies. The rest of the family blows off his concerns, but he commits himself to finding some manner of safeguard for her regardless, and Lake privately admits that he's right about the danger.
- Shout-Out: Jesse is a fan of the band "Dumpty Humpty."
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: In Chapter 6, Lake takes on an emo look with a fake leather jacket and torn skinny jeans. Everyone agrees she pulls it off better than Jesse did.
- Stating the Simple Solution: When the family panics about what to do about Lake when the police show up in Chapter 5, Jesse's dad points that she can just stay upstairs, since they're just there to close out Jesse's missing person case and don't even know that Lake exists.
- Trauma Button: Lake has mirrors, since they served as active portals to the Mirror World back on the train, and thus getting reflecting in one put her at risk of getting killed by the Flecs. In Chapter 4, waking up from a nightmare and seeing herself in a mirror causes a disoriented Lake to panic and break down crying.
