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arch_calzenI've already said that at AO3, but I'll mention here as well: firstly, there's going to be a third part to the interlude before we are back to present, and secondly, the exams are thankfully over, but I was unlucky enough to injure myself (:D), and I guess it might affect the speed of updating. Meh.
Part 13: Interlude 2.2
* * *
Carolyn parked the car, unbuckled her seatbelt and got out of the vehicle as swiftly as possible, slamming the door quickly so that her son’s cheery voice would stay muffled for at least a couple of blessed seconds. Seriously, what was she thinking when she saw Arthur with that book about elephants and didn’t stop him? A warning bell sounded as an ill omen, but no-o, she thought that it was actually great that he was reading something; she thought it would do no harm.
No harm to Arthur, no, Carolyn did guess that bit correctly. Herself, however…
The overgrown child had spent most of the morning – except of those peaceful twenty minutes when she occupied the shower and barricaded the door from the inside – following his mother around and chattering endlessly about how brilliant elephants were. The most spectacular bit, however, was left for the ride to the airfield, when Arthur gesticulated wildly in repeated attempts to show how exactly elephants used their trunks.
Arthur bounced out of the car, and Carolyn groaned. She needed something to distract her son, and she needed it now, if she didn’t want to know why the animals’ soles were flat. And she really, really didn’t.
Carolyn looked around almost in desperation and was ready to glow with joy as she spotted something that could help.
“Arthur, so sorry to interrupt your downpour of useful knowledge, but isn’t that our new pilot’s transport standing over there?” She recognized it instantly, but it was as good distraction as any.
“…and they actually can’t run, though it might seem they can- Huh?” Arthur stopped gesticulating and twirled around, trying to see which direction Carolyn was pointing in. “Ah, yes. Looks like his van, doesn’t it? I wonder who else would own the same car as he does! This is curious, such a coincidence-”
Carolyn sighed with resignation. “Light of my life, it’s not even a quarter past eight in the morning, and you have already driven me crazy. Of course it’s his van, whose else this poor excuse of a transport would be?”
“Oh, right,” Arthur agreed quickly. “Oh hey, I could go and fetch him, should I? Or course, I should! I’ll fetch him, don’t you worry,” and he bounced off, heading to the van before Carolyn could say anything. Where was his logic? The man would surely be in the portakabin by then, there was no sense in staying in one’s car when one could actually go to his employer and announce his arrival.
On the other hand, if it would present her with another minute or two of elephants-free conversation, then by all means let Arthur go to the van. Carolyn nodded to herself contently, picked their bag from the boot and headed to the portakabin.
* * *
Douglas lifted his eyes as the door burst open and Carolyn walked in, placing the bag she and her son used when going on the same flight on Arthur’s desk. The man smirked as the CEO flicked the cooled-down kettle on and stayed in front of it, flexing her hands.
“Something terribly wrong so early in the morning?” he quipped inquiringly.
Carolyn rubbed her nosebridge. “Elephants.”
Douglas contemplated the remark, wondering if his hearing was alright. “Let me hazard a guess. A wild elephant stampede occurred across the airfield, and now we can’t leave. How enormously upsetting that is, I was so hoping to fly a plane today.”
Carolyn looked at him from under her hand suspiciously. “What’s bitten you? Whatever it was, I hope it was toothy and poisonous.”
Douglas leant back, watching Carolyn take her cup and put a teabag in it. “Alas, no. I’m simply dreadfully bored.”
The woman turned her back to him as she poured water in the mug, so he missed her facial expression. “Ah, but luckily this is amendable. I’ve brought a poor innocent being for you to torture, so raise your dark and evil spirits.”
This was just too good to be true; Douglas narrowed his eyes. “Are you telling me that you have finally employed someone dumb enough to work for an airdot, Carolyn?”
“Not telling you, no. Implying? Yes,” the woman stirred her tea and took a sip. “Actually, I thought he would already be here, but it looks like Arthur will bring him in a matter of minutes, hopefully. If the man doesn’t die on the way from elephants overload.”
“Then by all means let us pray he doesn’t,” Douglas replied absently, his mind already focusing at that nagging feeling. Was that really..?
But before he could ask the question aloud or even formulate it properly, the door opened again to let in an enthusiastic Arthur, who talked loudly and waved his arms in the air, almost turning around as the rules of his body language demanded to face the unfortunate listener. Who turned out to be…
Douglas stared at the sadly familiar ginger man with a blank expression, seriously considering that if God was thinking this was a wonderful thing for Douglas Richardson, then God was horribly misguided.
“There you are, a pair of idiots,” Carolyn dropped automatically, waving her hand at the man. “Come here, there are forms for you to fill in, and we are ready to go.”
Arthur halted his stream of words, grinning at the man’s back as he moved over to do as he was told. “This is brilliant, isn’t it! I mean, it would look like Martin has only just come here, and is already going to fly a plane in an hour, when in truth everything has been organized a week ago. It’s like in a movie, where things don’t get delayed! Like, you know, when a laptop boots in two seconds and stuff,” he rattled on excitedly, but Douglas has zoned out his chatter after the word ‘Martin’, letting his subconsciousness commit the rest of the speech to memory and examine for important bits later (he quickly learnt that Arthur often did have valuable information to share, one just had to develop the skill to fish it out of the nonsense he was talking).
Ah. So this, after all, was a proper – Douglas cringed inwardly at the word, but what could you do? – pilot, and, more importantly, this was their pilot. Namely, his new First Officer. How decidedly not intriguing. Douglas was always up to the challenge of getting obstinate co-pilots under, but this one didn’t look like he was able to put up even a token fight. How disappointingly dull.
Douglas frowned in dissatisfaction and crossed his arms. Alright, now was the time to mull over the rest of Arthur’s cheerful exclamation. There was something that definitely required Douglas’ attention, now all he had to do was locate it.
Ah, there’s the chap.
“Carolyn,” he started daringly. The woman’s gaze settled on him heavily, like she had been expecting him to eventually say something. Interesting. “How come you’ve known this – man,” Douglas whipped his head at the ginger, and suppressed a frown of disgust as he cowered pathetically, “for at least a week now and haven’t told me yet? Are we playing Secret Santa? Perhaps it’s so ‘secret’ that I wasn’t even aware we were playing it, but at any rate, I must confess that I am not so pleasantly surprised with your present.”
Carolyn stood up straight, facing him fully. Douglas eyed her with careful interest: that was a stance of ‘Carolyn-about-to-prove-something’, and it’s been a while since he’d been in a situation where this kind of stance was aimed at him. He responded automatically, placing his arms down on the table and slightly tilting his head forward and to a side.
“I see you haven’t been introduced to each other yet,” Carolyn began, and it was obvious she was sure that no one would be deceived by the neutral politeness of her tone. She gestured at the man, who hurriedly straightened his clothes and stood near her, facing Douglas. “This,” a brief pause, “is Martin Crieff, the Captain of Gerti from now on.”
Douglas’ eyes widened a fraction as he looked at the man, who refused to meet his gaze, staring resolutely down on the floor.
Temperature in the portakabin dropped, and even Arthur silently moved himself in his corner behind the desk, eyeing the others with a hint of concern.
“But Carolyn, this is ridiculous!” Douglas snapped, rising from his chair. “You are telling me that this poor excuse for a pilot – are you even an adult? – is going to be my superior?” Martin flinched at the harsh words, and Carolyn raised her chin defiantly.
“Yes, this is exactly what I am telling you, do you have problems with that?”
If Douglas had no self-control, he would gape. “Do I have problems? Roughly twenty, give or take a couple, where should I begin? Pray tell me, what exceptional,” he spat out the word with a hiss, “abilities does he have to display, for example?” Douglas felt rage starting to boil inside of him. To have this man as the Captain? He could think of nothing more humiliating.
“Chaps, I thought-” Arthur attempted to interject, but before any of them – most likely both – could yell at him to shut up, a mobile phone rang loudly, and the three of them stared at the ginger, who stood frozen for a second, then started and almost dived out of the portakabin, fishing his phone out of the pocket as he fled. Arthur carefully went to the door left ajar and closed it with a click, returning to his previous place. All this was a bit of a blur to Douglas as he and Carolyn continued to glare daggers at each other the whole time.
“Douglas,” Carolyn said firmly, “I know what you think – shut up,” she raised a hand to cut off his biting remark, “but this man really is a pilot. I’ve seen his documents, believe me. He is fit to fly, and he is going to be a decent Captain. For an airdot, anyway,” she sighed.
“But why the hell can’t he be the First Officer, for crying out loud? He doesn’t even look like a Captain!” Douglas felt his face distort in displeasure, but it was too late to school his expressions, and his features were for the first time since long allowed to reflect whatever was boiling under his skin.
“Aaah,” Carolyn tipped her head back, giving him a knowing smile, “so that’s what the problem is. You actually think that his rank might mean that he is a better man than you, don’t you?”
“I think nothing of the sort,” Douglas dismissed the idea sharply, cringing with disgust at the thought.
“But you do!” the woman continued. “And you loathe the idea of someone so small and insignificant dominating you in the flight deck.”
“Your choice of words greatly amuses me, Carolyn,” the man snapped. “Say it already, say that you hired him specifically to annoy me.”
“No, but that’s a nice bonus, don’t you agree?” Carolyn rubbed her hands together, her thoughts visibly shifting to the matters at hand. “Arthur?”
“Yes?” Arthur’s voice sounded as he rounded his desk a bit sheepishly.
“Go and pen this idiotic fool back inside, he still has- no, wait,” she glanced through the documents Crieff left and nodded her satisfaction. “In fact, no, better pen him to the flight deck instead, he’s all done here. And you,” she turned to Douglas as Arthur grabbed their bag and escaped. “You do the walk-round.”
Now Douglas indeed gaped. “I don’t do the walk-rounds,” he spoke slowly.
“Because you are a lazy arse, surely. But now, First Officer Douglas Richardson, you get this lazy arse of yours out of the portakabin and do the walk-round. You need to cool off, I don’t want you crashing my plane in the middle of some petty argument like who has the first go at the cheese tray.”
Douglas glared at her, deciding if it would be below his dignity to continue arguing, then pressed his lips tightly together in a thin line of disgust, picked up his bag and left the room.
Part 13: Interlude 2.2
* * *
Carolyn parked the car, unbuckled her seatbelt and got out of the vehicle as swiftly as possible, slamming the door quickly so that her son’s cheery voice would stay muffled for at least a couple of blessed seconds. Seriously, what was she thinking when she saw Arthur with that book about elephants and didn’t stop him? A warning bell sounded as an ill omen, but no-o, she thought that it was actually great that he was reading something; she thought it would do no harm.
No harm to Arthur, no, Carolyn did guess that bit correctly. Herself, however…
The overgrown child had spent most of the morning – except of those peaceful twenty minutes when she occupied the shower and barricaded the door from the inside – following his mother around and chattering endlessly about how brilliant elephants were. The most spectacular bit, however, was left for the ride to the airfield, when Arthur gesticulated wildly in repeated attempts to show how exactly elephants used their trunks.
Arthur bounced out of the car, and Carolyn groaned. She needed something to distract her son, and she needed it now, if she didn’t want to know why the animals’ soles were flat. And she really, really didn’t.
Carolyn looked around almost in desperation and was ready to glow with joy as she spotted something that could help.
“Arthur, so sorry to interrupt your downpour of useful knowledge, but isn’t that our new pilot’s transport standing over there?” She recognized it instantly, but it was as good distraction as any.
“…and they actually can’t run, though it might seem they can- Huh?” Arthur stopped gesticulating and twirled around, trying to see which direction Carolyn was pointing in. “Ah, yes. Looks like his van, doesn’t it? I wonder who else would own the same car as he does! This is curious, such a coincidence-”
Carolyn sighed with resignation. “Light of my life, it’s not even a quarter past eight in the morning, and you have already driven me crazy. Of course it’s his van, whose else this poor excuse of a transport would be?”
“Oh, right,” Arthur agreed quickly. “Oh hey, I could go and fetch him, should I? Or course, I should! I’ll fetch him, don’t you worry,” and he bounced off, heading to the van before Carolyn could say anything. Where was his logic? The man would surely be in the portakabin by then, there was no sense in staying in one’s car when one could actually go to his employer and announce his arrival.
On the other hand, if it would present her with another minute or two of elephants-free conversation, then by all means let Arthur go to the van. Carolyn nodded to herself contently, picked their bag from the boot and headed to the portakabin.
* * *
Douglas lifted his eyes as the door burst open and Carolyn walked in, placing the bag she and her son used when going on the same flight on Arthur’s desk. The man smirked as the CEO flicked the cooled-down kettle on and stayed in front of it, flexing her hands.
“Something terribly wrong so early in the morning?” he quipped inquiringly.
Carolyn rubbed her nosebridge. “Elephants.”
Douglas contemplated the remark, wondering if his hearing was alright. “Let me hazard a guess. A wild elephant stampede occurred across the airfield, and now we can’t leave. How enormously upsetting that is, I was so hoping to fly a plane today.”
Carolyn looked at him from under her hand suspiciously. “What’s bitten you? Whatever it was, I hope it was toothy and poisonous.”
Douglas leant back, watching Carolyn take her cup and put a teabag in it. “Alas, no. I’m simply dreadfully bored.”
The woman turned her back to him as she poured water in the mug, so he missed her facial expression. “Ah, but luckily this is amendable. I’ve brought a poor innocent being for you to torture, so raise your dark and evil spirits.”
This was just too good to be true; Douglas narrowed his eyes. “Are you telling me that you have finally employed someone dumb enough to work for an airdot, Carolyn?”
“Not telling you, no. Implying? Yes,” the woman stirred her tea and took a sip. “Actually, I thought he would already be here, but it looks like Arthur will bring him in a matter of minutes, hopefully. If the man doesn’t die on the way from elephants overload.”
“Then by all means let us pray he doesn’t,” Douglas replied absently, his mind already focusing at that nagging feeling. Was that really..?
But before he could ask the question aloud or even formulate it properly, the door opened again to let in an enthusiastic Arthur, who talked loudly and waved his arms in the air, almost turning around as the rules of his body language demanded to face the unfortunate listener. Who turned out to be…
Douglas stared at the sadly familiar ginger man with a blank expression, seriously considering that if God was thinking this was a wonderful thing for Douglas Richardson, then God was horribly misguided.
“There you are, a pair of idiots,” Carolyn dropped automatically, waving her hand at the man. “Come here, there are forms for you to fill in, and we are ready to go.”
Arthur halted his stream of words, grinning at the man’s back as he moved over to do as he was told. “This is brilliant, isn’t it! I mean, it would look like Martin has only just come here, and is already going to fly a plane in an hour, when in truth everything has been organized a week ago. It’s like in a movie, where things don’t get delayed! Like, you know, when a laptop boots in two seconds and stuff,” he rattled on excitedly, but Douglas has zoned out his chatter after the word ‘Martin’, letting his subconsciousness commit the rest of the speech to memory and examine for important bits later (he quickly learnt that Arthur often did have valuable information to share, one just had to develop the skill to fish it out of the nonsense he was talking).
Ah. So this, after all, was a proper – Douglas cringed inwardly at the word, but what could you do? – pilot, and, more importantly, this was their pilot. Namely, his new First Officer. How decidedly not intriguing. Douglas was always up to the challenge of getting obstinate co-pilots under, but this one didn’t look like he was able to put up even a token fight. How disappointingly dull.
Douglas frowned in dissatisfaction and crossed his arms. Alright, now was the time to mull over the rest of Arthur’s cheerful exclamation. There was something that definitely required Douglas’ attention, now all he had to do was locate it.
Ah, there’s the chap.
“Carolyn,” he started daringly. The woman’s gaze settled on him heavily, like she had been expecting him to eventually say something. Interesting. “How come you’ve known this – man,” Douglas whipped his head at the ginger, and suppressed a frown of disgust as he cowered pathetically, “for at least a week now and haven’t told me yet? Are we playing Secret Santa? Perhaps it’s so ‘secret’ that I wasn’t even aware we were playing it, but at any rate, I must confess that I am not so pleasantly surprised with your present.”
Carolyn stood up straight, facing him fully. Douglas eyed her with careful interest: that was a stance of ‘Carolyn-about-to-prove-something’, and it’s been a while since he’d been in a situation where this kind of stance was aimed at him. He responded automatically, placing his arms down on the table and slightly tilting his head forward and to a side.
“I see you haven’t been introduced to each other yet,” Carolyn began, and it was obvious she was sure that no one would be deceived by the neutral politeness of her tone. She gestured at the man, who hurriedly straightened his clothes and stood near her, facing Douglas. “This,” a brief pause, “is Martin Crieff, the Captain of Gerti from now on.”
Douglas’ eyes widened a fraction as he looked at the man, who refused to meet his gaze, staring resolutely down on the floor.
Temperature in the portakabin dropped, and even Arthur silently moved himself in his corner behind the desk, eyeing the others with a hint of concern.
“But Carolyn, this is ridiculous!” Douglas snapped, rising from his chair. “You are telling me that this poor excuse for a pilot – are you even an adult? – is going to be my superior?” Martin flinched at the harsh words, and Carolyn raised her chin defiantly.
“Yes, this is exactly what I am telling you, do you have problems with that?”
If Douglas had no self-control, he would gape. “Do I have problems? Roughly twenty, give or take a couple, where should I begin? Pray tell me, what exceptional,” he spat out the word with a hiss, “abilities does he have to display, for example?” Douglas felt rage starting to boil inside of him. To have this man as the Captain? He could think of nothing more humiliating.
“Chaps, I thought-” Arthur attempted to interject, but before any of them – most likely both – could yell at him to shut up, a mobile phone rang loudly, and the three of them stared at the ginger, who stood frozen for a second, then started and almost dived out of the portakabin, fishing his phone out of the pocket as he fled. Arthur carefully went to the door left ajar and closed it with a click, returning to his previous place. All this was a bit of a blur to Douglas as he and Carolyn continued to glare daggers at each other the whole time.
“Douglas,” Carolyn said firmly, “I know what you think – shut up,” she raised a hand to cut off his biting remark, “but this man really is a pilot. I’ve seen his documents, believe me. He is fit to fly, and he is going to be a decent Captain. For an airdot, anyway,” she sighed.
“But why the hell can’t he be the First Officer, for crying out loud? He doesn’t even look like a Captain!” Douglas felt his face distort in displeasure, but it was too late to school his expressions, and his features were for the first time since long allowed to reflect whatever was boiling under his skin.
“Aaah,” Carolyn tipped her head back, giving him a knowing smile, “so that’s what the problem is. You actually think that his rank might mean that he is a better man than you, don’t you?”
“I think nothing of the sort,” Douglas dismissed the idea sharply, cringing with disgust at the thought.
“But you do!” the woman continued. “And you loathe the idea of someone so small and insignificant dominating you in the flight deck.”
“Your choice of words greatly amuses me, Carolyn,” the man snapped. “Say it already, say that you hired him specifically to annoy me.”
“No, but that’s a nice bonus, don’t you agree?” Carolyn rubbed her hands together, her thoughts visibly shifting to the matters at hand. “Arthur?”
“Yes?” Arthur’s voice sounded as he rounded his desk a bit sheepishly.
“Go and pen this idiotic fool back inside, he still has- no, wait,” she glanced through the documents Crieff left and nodded her satisfaction. “In fact, no, better pen him to the flight deck instead, he’s all done here. And you,” she turned to Douglas as Arthur grabbed their bag and escaped. “You do the walk-round.”
Now Douglas indeed gaped. “I don’t do the walk-rounds,” he spoke slowly.
“Because you are a lazy arse, surely. But now, First Officer Douglas Richardson, you get this lazy arse of yours out of the portakabin and do the walk-round. You need to cool off, I don’t want you crashing my plane in the middle of some petty argument like who has the first go at the cheese tray.”
Douglas glared at her, deciding if it would be below his dignity to continue arguing, then pressed his lips tightly together in a thin line of disgust, picked up his bag and left the room.
