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Bridge Over Troubled Water (Infinity Train)
(aka: Bridge Over Troubled Water Trojan Teapot)

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Bridge Over Troubled Water is an Infinity Train AU fanfic series by TrojanTeapot that explores a universe where Simon spares Grace, and manages to exit the Train.

The first completed entry in the series is Raison d'Etre, which begins roughly four years after Grace and Simon arrive back on Earth. Grace randomly drops in on Simon out of the blue, and the two attempt to repair their friendship and perhaps explore a possible romance. Flashbacks throughout the fic explain what happened on the Train after Simon spares Grace and runs away. This fic was split into two parts in order to give the second half a different rating from the first due to the presence of mature content.

Semi-Automatic Lonely Boy functions as a prequel to Raison d'Etre. Every chapter is a vignette exploring Simon's continuing recovery and adjustment to life on Earth with his family members.

Initial State is a side story where Simon recalls an unexpected encounter on the Train with a denizen he wasn't prepared to meet again.

This series has a completed sequel from the same author, I'll Get It Right Sometime


Stories in this series include:


In General

  • Alternate Universe Fic: The premise is Simon undergoing a Heel–Face Turn and how he managed to get off the Train.
  • The Atoner: Simon, naturally. Grace to a lesser extent.
  • Cool Big Sis: Nathalie, despite being Simon's cousin and younger than him by three years, has to begrudgingly play this role for him. She plays this straight towards her own younger brother, Alex.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Nathalie, especially when it comes to Simon's antics.
    Nathalie: Okay, let me get this straight. You went to a party. An actual party, on your own, and then you brought home a drunk girl? Who are you and what have you done with Simon?
    Nathalie: You’re gonna have trouble reading Hugo in English, Simon. You might as well have said you were going to start reading Foucault, or Baudrillard.
    • Simon in turn, also snarks back at her.
    Nathalie: [regarding her date] she has a crippling addiction to Hozier, sadboys, and Tumblr sexymen.
    Simon: Those sure are words that you just typed in that order.
  • Expository Hairstyle Change: several times.
    • In Raison d'Etre, Grace is dressed in a more feminine manner compared to the past, wearing a sundress, sandals, and now has long box braids instead of locs.
    • In Raison d'Etre Part II, after getting her hair completely soaked, Grace takes out her braids, and ties her loose hair into an updo. She also wears various casual tops and shorts in stead of a dress, and Simon points out her clothing is more in line with how she used to dress on the Train.
    • In SALB, Simon gets a haircut for prom. Ultimately averted since he simply let his hair grow again until he ends up with a man-bun in Raison d'Etre.
  • I Hate Past Me: Simon is disgusted with his actions on the Train and is frequently haunted by his guilt.
  • Lipstick Lesbian: Nathalie is a downplayed example. While she doesn't have overtly feminine interests, she has to play the responsible older sister role for her family. Her room is lavender coloured, and she wears a dress and makeup to prom.
  • Loser Protagonist: Simon, arguably more than canon.
  • Moose and Maple Syrup: The non-flashback portions of the fanfic take place in Quebec, Canada. Specifically in Montreal and its surrounding countryside. Although the fics subvert this trope, depicting a more realistic Canadian setting.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Simon feels genuine remorse for everything he's done on the Train.
  • Parental Substitute: Isabelle, Simon's aunt, ends up being this for him since his mother can no longer properly care for him.
  • Redemption Earns Life: Simon spares Grace and thus avoids his gruesome canon death.
  • Sibling Yin-Yang: Aunt Isabelle and Simon's mother Louise are polar opposites in personality. Isabelle is kind and caring, Louise is cold and callous. Isabelle hides a lot of her worries and true feelings to keep the peace, while Louise is as stated below, brutally honest. Louise's marriage ended in divorce while Isabelle's loving marriage only ended because her husband passed away.
  • Spared By Adaptation: Simon isn't killed by a Ghom in this story.
  • Tarot Motifs: Each flashback to events that happened on the Train is preceded with a Major Arcana card, but in French.
    • Interestingly, the numbers for Strength and Justice are swapped, to match the numbering for the traditional French Tarot rather than the modern Rider-Waite-Smith numbering. So Strength is the eleventh arcana and Justice is the eighth.
  • “The Reason You Suck” Speech: Simon is frequently the target of these. From a drunk Grace in part one of Raison d'Etre, from Amelia in his flashback in part two, and from Nathalie in Semi-Automatic Lonely Boy.
  • Urban Legend: The Train is this to ordinary people, and most cases of disappearances are assumed to be for other, more mundane reasons.

Raison d'Être

  • Abusive Parents: Downplayed. Simon's mother views her son as a disappointment, and blames him for his eight year disappearance as a child.
    • Also semi-justified, since it is implied that she had a mental breakdown after his disappearance and is no longer of sound mind.
  • The Alcoholic: It's hinted that Grace has become this after she exited the Train, what with the considerable amount of alcohol she consumes during the tailgate party.
    • Grace's rapid-fire drinking is also an example of Drowning My Sorrows, since her life since getting back to Earth wasn't exactly great. She also slips into In Vino Veritas when she both confesses her romantic feelings towards Simon but also expresses rage and contempt for him for what he did to her on the Train.
  • Beard of Sorrow: Grace teases Simon about how he has grown a beard. He later shaves it off in Chapter 6.
  • Brutal Honesty: Simon's mother doesn't mince words about how much of a screw-up she thinks he is.
  • Driving Question: Why did Grace decide to visit Simon after all this time back on Earth? What exactly are Simon's scars and why does he insist on hiding them? Both answered in Part II.
  • Fish out of Water: Grace in rural Quebec, not just for being a City Mouse, but also due to racism.
  • Genius Burnout:
    • Downplayed with Simon. He used to be a gifted kid that skipped a grade before he boarded the Train. He currently only has a high school diploma and a minimum wage job. His family even notices he has good grades and asks him about college plans, but he feels too much guilt over his past to even consider a better life for himself.
    • Averted with Grace, who although is going to college later than her peers, managed to get into UC Berkeley.
  • Heroic Self-Deprecation: Not quite a hero, but a reformed Simon is painfully aware of his screw-ups, to the point that he has trouble seeing any good qualities in himself.
  • Mythology Gag: Simon's nightmare in chapter one is a reference to his canon Karmic Death.
  • The Voice: Nathalie doesn't appear except in phone calls and text message conversations since she moved out for college.

Raison d'Être Part II: Folie à Deux

  • Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: Simon and Grace go from being partners in crime with some Ship Tease to a genuine romantic couple.
  • Bittersweet Ending: In the epilogue, the new romance that Grace and Simon formed implodes. Grace is back with her problematic girlfriend, but it's implied she has learned to be more honest with herself and will confront her life issues head on. Simon is once again a depressed loner, but he has at least agreed to join a Dungeons & Dragons session with his townie friends. This hints towards him maybe finally leaving his past behind.
  • Bisexual Love Triangle: Turns out Grace's ex-girlfriend did not consider their argument a breakup, and views Grace's actions as cheating on her. This prompts her to message Simon, initiating the argument that ends Grace and Simon's relationship.
  • Bound and Gagged: In a flashback, the Cat does this to a mentally unstable Simon after he runs into her again after the fight with Grace. Amelia bears witness to it and finds it hilarious upon recognizing Simon.
  • Call-Back: When Simon was trapped in his own tape, a mental recreation of Hazel aids him in admitting his wrongs and how he truly feels about himself and Grace. This mirrors how Grace managed to escape her tape with the help of a mental recreation of Hazel.
  • Here We Go Again!: The story ends with Grace and Simon having an argument that destroys their relationship, repeating the same themes that ended their friendship in Book Three. Simon lets his insecurities warp his thoughts such that he again blames Grace for choosing someone else over him with flimsy evidence, and levels accusations at her that stretches the imagination. Grace has, for the entire fic, been running away from her problems by lying and hiding information, and this comes back to bite her in the end, though some of it was not necessarily her fault.
  • Hope Spot: Even after Simon revealed his big secret regarding how he exited the Train, he and Grace have a frank and insightful conversation which appears to mend their relationship. They even attend Ryan and Min-Gi's concert in good spirits. However, they still have a relationship-ending argument the next day.
  • Ironic Echo:
    • In Chapter 5:
    Simon: Samantha would say anything to have things her way. You know as well as I do.
    • In Chapter 12:
    Grace's girlfriend Claire: Grace would say anything to get what she wants. But you knew that already, didn’t you?
  • Laser-Guided Karma: The Cat and Amelia force Simon to watch his own tape as it's extracted from his head in order to get him to calm down enough for the number changing procedure, which is what he did to Grace during the events of Book Three.
  • Relationship Upgrade: Simon and Grace become a genuine couple in this story.
  • The Reveal: After a bout of heatstroke, Simon is forced to remove his shirt to reveal his scars: they are burn marks of his number being forcefully removed from him. The burns stretch across both arms and span his entire torso. He didn't earn his exit, he cheated his way off.
    • This then turns into The Reveal Prompts Romance. After Simon confessed how exactly he cheated the number system with the Cat and Amelia's help, Grace ends up initiating sex out of anger.
  • Unseen No More: Nathalie in the epilogue.

Initial State

  • Back from the Dead: When Train cars reset, their denizens reset with them. So not only is Tuba alive again, this version of Tuba doesn't remember Simon, Grace, or even Hazel. In addition, Tuba's daughter Bugle is also alive.
  • Bad Reason to Do Good: The Cat asks Simon whether he wants to prevent Bugle's death because he truly cares about her, or because he simply feels bad about killing Tuba and ruining Hazel's life. It's a question of whether Simon has finally learned to see denizens as people or if he still sees them only as tools to gain something from. In this case, lowering his number instead of raising it.
  • Whole Episode Flashback: The story consists of Simon mainly remembering the moment.

Semi-Automatic Lonely Boy

  • Call-Forward: In Chapter 2, we actually see the email that Simon tried to send to Grace, which is mentioned as one of the reasons that motivated Grace to visit him in Raison d'Etre. We also see Simon burning the novel he wrote.
  • Crazy Jealous Guy: Near the beginning of the fic, Simon spends an entire chapter being a recluse and cyberstalking Grace. When he finds out she has a boyfriend, he freaks out and obsesses over how the guy doesn't deserve Grace. He only stops cyberstalking her after Nathalie gives him a scolding regarding his habits.
  • Conspiracy Theorist: Kevin the "weird Anglophone kid" is obsessed with the supernatural, such as disappearances related to the Train.
  • Cool Big Bro: Simon tries to be this to his younger cousin Alex as part of his atonement for leading the kids of the Apex astray.
  • Karmic Nod: Simon admits that Nathalie has every right to refer to him as a “connard” after all the terrible things he did.
  • The Nicknamer: Christine gives Simon the nickname of "Radiohead" as soon as they meet because of his vibe.
  • Oblivious to Love: Simon is too stuck in his self-hatred to realize that Anne-Marie has a crush on him.
  • Parents as People: When Simon tries to reconnect with his mother in a later chapter by making her breakfast, it is revealed exactly how difficult it was for her to move her life to the US, how alone she felt after her divorce, and exactly why she couldn't face Simon after his return. Even though she had been cruel to him both in the past and present, it too came from abandonment trauma.
  • Perky Goth: Christine prefers to dress in all black and listens to metal. However, she is extremely excited to discuss her interests with her friends and her exuberance has made Nathalie develop a barely hidden crush on her.
  • Shrinking Violet: Anne-Marie, who, despite being alert to tension, always shrinks down and tries to feel small in any social setting.
  • Sir Swears-a-Lot: Nathalie peppers her speech with French and Quebec French curses, especially sacres.
  • Stranger in a Familiar Land: Played with. Simon is an American with Quebecois roots, so Quebec is not necessarily a "familiar land" to him. However, the focus of this fic is his adjustment to life on Earth in general after eight years on the Train.
  • Straw Loser: Marc's only role is to remind Simon of his past self, and all of his worst qualities.

Alternative Title(s): Bridge Over Troubled Water Trojan Teapot, Raison D Etre, Semi Automatic Lonely Boy

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