Mixed feelings about this, undergone many incarnations and could still be much better.

 Her father collected her from the station; an unwritten rule.  Mother was always frantically preparing a nice meal at home as she ‘never eats properly.’ A myth Lucy had long ago tired of trying to disprove.
 
She saw the familiar black fields trundle by in darkness, gradually passing more slowly, then a few warehouses - slower still; a dense hedge obscuring any other view - the feel of a tighter squeeze on the brakes; the controller’s tower, above the crossing and, agonisingly, the halt.  Lucy collected her modest luggage from an overhead holder, almost dropped it on a fellow passenger, apologised, then quickly bundled her way up the aisle to the door. 

She was the kid in the playground who wandered about dreamily, quite happy to be left on her own.  She wasn’t especially sad, not autistic, neither particularly bright nor dumb, Lucy just didn’t desperately seek the attention of anyone.  Mrs Cooper had once told Lucy’s Mum she was worried she’d become too insular and asked some of the other kids to involve her more. 

Seeing her father waiting, neither in the car park or on the platform: in the gateway between where there was only space enough for one person to lean, she snorted in mild amusement.  She didn’t know why he did that.  Lucy recognised his tall, bulky shape but was too far away to engage eye contact.  
 
The only person alighting the train at the remote station, she hovered at the doorway, waiting for the button to light, allowing her to open the doors.  It lit, she impatiently pressed the button three times: the door clunked and slid open.
 It was dark, bitingly cold, and late.  Nobody else got off or on the train and apart from Lucy and her father the platform was empty.  It wasn’t a station so much as one platform and a stone shelter documenting the love lives of the area’s youths.  The lack of lighting would give a stranger no assurance.

Lucy has friends, she’s not a hermit.  She just doesn’t have great friends, Sex in The City friends, or the one person who could be all she’d need.  She likes to think he'll arrive one day and he’ll be wonderful, beautiful, understanding, male.  Not a cat.  Her pessimism doesn’t convince her that this illusion will become reality though.  Lucy has never been very good at small talk.  She only got friends after becoming interested in / obsessive about Pop music.  They did try - Hayley and Gemma, in the  playground, after Mrs Cooper had a word.  But they were only seven or eight years old.

Lucy’s father tentatively followed his lurching shadow onto the platform.  She couldn't figure if it was his usual awkwardness at meeting her after such a long spell or if he was particularly self conscious of the other passengers watching from the train.
 “Hello Dad.”
 “Hiya Luce.”
 They embraced nervously, she thought her Dad unsure of how much pressure to exert.  He gently patted her back with his right hand while his left lay stunned on her ribs.  Lucy held his sides with her hands. 
 The train breathed out a long tsssssssst, revved up, and slowly trundled away.
 “How are you?”
 “Oh not bad, you know.  You?”
 “Yeah, I’m okay.  Same old stuff.”
 “Yeah.”
 “Mm.”
 They walked out into the car park, only one car was there.
 “New car?”
 “Had the old one ages, we could afford it okay and you know, why not?”
 “S’nice.”
 “She drives lovely too.”
 “I bet,” Lucy said, stepping inside, half wondering whether he’d only bought it to give them something to talk about.
 “How’s Mum?”
 “Oh you know Mum, same as ever.” 
 “Happy?”  Lucy was getting annoying at the style of conversation she could have with anyone.
 “Happy?” her father replied, taken aback, “um yeah, well I suppose so.  Only complains as much as normal, you know.  Heh.”  Lucy forced a smile. 
 The car’s engine sparked into life first time and pulled carefully away from the kerb.
 “Does sound nice.  Smooth.”  she commented.  Lucy knew nothing about cars and didn't drive. 
 “Mm, like that at any speed too.”
 “Really?” she feigned being impressed well.
 Blackness of more, different fields passed the window.   
 
Lucy found a stone.  Lovely and smooth it was, circular, a filled out coin, not quite spherical.  One toned all over, grey.  She bought it home from a trip to the seaside.  It was her stone and every break-time for about a month or so she would play with it.  The playground of her school was on a slope with guttering running down one side.  She’d roll her stone down as fast as she could, down the guttering and hope and pray it wouldn’t bounce away, lost.  Although she also enjoyed the danger of that potential.  Lucy marvelled at its pace, balance, hardness, confidence in motion.  It couldn’t fall down the drain at the bottom of the playground because the rungs of the grate were too close together. 
 
Lucy hated this point.  She knew she had things to say to her Dad.  Proper things not about cars or the weather or anything.  About herself.  Nothing major: small anecdotes about work, parent-friendly jokes, opinions on news, television programmes.  She’d even made a point of catching her dad's football team’s latest result, then looked at the league table.  Mental notes began about a week in advance, were completed on the train and saved in her Things To Say file for careful distribution over the weekend.
 
They sat in silence for a few seconds, occasionally glancing at the radio, wanting it on to fill the silence but not wanting to cause offence because they should have plenty to talk about.
 Lucy considered her list.  She didn’t want to waste the Things frivolously and didn’t want to repeat herself to her mother, in front of her father - who would have then heard the Thing twice.

Black fields, a winding road studied by headlights, a smattering of naked trees.
 “Was autumn pretty here?”
 “Yeah, lovely, always is.”
 “...”
 “Dog loved playing in the leaves,” Lucy’s father remembered, desperate not to forget the Thing that had leapt into his head.  “One time, he was running to get a stick, fell a couple of feet through sheets of leaves. Yelped really loud, like he’d broke something.  Me and your Mum jumped out our skins, thinking, shit - What’s he done to himself?  Next thing we know, he’s trotting back over to us waving his stick about, happy as larry.  Just scared himself.  Daft sod.”
 They smiled at each other.
 “How is he, generally?  The dog?”
 “Ah, still a daft sod,” her dad said, deadpan.
 They laughed.  It was as near to spontaneity that they were going to get.
 “No he’s alright.  Living a king’s life as ever.  Your Mum and me are slaves to the bloody mut.”
 Lucy smiled; it was going alright.  She decided to carry it on by using a Thing that was meant exclusively for her Dad.
 “See Rovers won at the weekend?”
 “Yeah, late winner.”
 “You go?”
 “Yeah.  Good buzz it is, to win late on.  Didn’t deserve to win either, in truth.”
 “Up to tenth now as well,” Lucy added, a clip in her voice implying mock punditry.
 “Doing your bloody homework aven’t ya!?” he laughed.
 “I might have looked in a paper,” she admitted, feeling relaxed.
 “Well, well good on ya.”
 Silence again, a more comfortable one. 

Hayley and Gemma did as Mrs Cooper asked.  They played with Lucy.  She was wary of  giving them a throw at first - it was hers, what if they lost it?  They soon set about making barriers for it to gloriously smash through with sticks, leaves, grass-cuttings.  And break-time litter if Mrs Jones wasn’t watching.  They loved seeing the cans go flying in the wake of the stone.  Lucy proudly enjoyed seeing her friends excited.  Boys looked on enviously.  Gavin Carmichael came over and they told him where to go, even though Lucy privately liked him.  Her stone smashed through everything.  It was invincible and they loved it.  And it was hers.

Yet more black fields, a series of trees arching over the road, ending with a distinctive Ash, half overhanging one side of the road.  The Ash which always signalled the final stretch and a steeper climb.
 “Doesn’t struggle with the hill, this new one.”  Lucy observed.
 “Nah, appy as larry with anything.”
 She looked around at the oddly dotted houses on the hill which counted for their neighbours.  Surprised to feel a pang of nostalgia, she sighed, “Nothing changes much around here does it?”
 “Why we like it.”
 The hill levelled out and overlooked the view. 
 The View.  

 Lucy saw The View of winking, sparkling suburbs surrounding the town, the life.  She’d spent much of her younger life staring plaintively at The View, wishing, bitter.

She figured a stone might be so alluring any more, enable her to do small talk.  Nor would Mrs Cooper. That had been her attention quota used up though.  She had nothing to draw people to her after the stone, which she eventually lost.  She must have been terribly upset but can recall no memory of it.

The car swung into a partially hidden turning.  Lucy felt the uneven, crumbly, pot-holed road even through the smoothness of the new car, but she said nothing.  The final even more miss-able right turn onto their driveway.  The stones crunched under the tyres as they slowed, a final rev to reach the garage door.  A light came on behind the thick patterned glass of the front door; a small blotch of black appeared and started wagging.  Then the small, frumpy shape of Lucy’s mother arrived behind it.  She was waiting for the engine to die before opening the door and letting the dog fly out.  A final squeeze on the brakes, and, not as agonisingly as Lucy had expected, the halt.