"Ah, and here returns the gallant pilot, fresh from his night of scandalous Scandinavian romance."

Martin glared at Douglas' smirk. He should have expected it from the moment he begged to have a hotel room to himself during their stay over in Norway. But he had really needed the chance this trip, first officer be damned, so he had accepted Carolyn's deal to get a cheaper hotel across town and walk back and forth between the two. Everything with Atla had been going wonderfully for months now; they had met on a piloting forum online and promptly got into an argument about the merits of rotorcraft versus fixed wing. She was terribly stubborn in her defense of her helicopter, and unwilling to give an inch when he quite logically and clearly laid out exactly why she was wrong about jets.

It had been brilliant.

The months of arguing had gradually transitioned into polite conversation, which had somewhere along the way become flirting, much to Martin's confusion (but joy). So when a flight plan took GERTI through Norway, complete with a full night in Trondheim, he had felt it was only right to tell her he would be in the area. They could actually talk in person for once, have a nice (hopefully cheap) dinner, and…well, see what happened from there.

And now he was back from "there", and looking into Douglas' knowing smirk, wondering just how much his own face gave away.

"Ah, apparently not the wondrous night of passion you expected, then?"

Apparently quite a lot.

"No, it was quite a good time. A very good time. Atla is lovely, absolutely great. She managed to get the night off of stand-by for her search and rescue organization, so she didn't even have to wear her beeper. We had a great dinner, a nice walk through town, and it…somehow it turned out…well, I know it sounds strange coming from me, but it actually went quite well."

"…But?"

"Why do you just assume that there's a 'but'?"

"Because I am talking to you. There is always a 'but'."

"Well there wasn't. It was a perfect evening."

"Oh. Good for you, then, Martin. Good for you."

"Thank you."

"You are welcome."

"…Except, you see, there was this one thing that-"

"Knew it."

"We eventually decided that a good way to, uh, cap off the evening, might be to head back to, um, to my hotel room. So, we did that."

"And the real story comes out. But where exactly does the 'but' come in?"

"Well, you see, I had just had such a great time and felt so positive about how the evening had gone, that I thought it would be best to…show my appreciation. In a manner of speaking."

"Skills as a linguist less than cunning?"

"What? No, no, I-I-I-"

"Case in point."

"I'm actually quite good at that! …You come of age as a short ginger, you develop some skills. So that actually went really well. It was just when she, um, decided to return the favor, that some problems arose."

"Do tell."

"It was going rather well for a time. Very, uh, very well. But, um, it turned out that she still had her beeper in her purse. Quite a loud beeper, that. And one of the SAR coordinators had forgotten that she had the evening off. So her beeper went off, and I was taken by surprise, and I sort of…jerked, and she sort of…she sort of, accidently…"

"Yes?"

"Bit."

"…Good God, man. How did you even manage to walk here?"

"Not with great ease."

"Martin, do you need to go to a hospital?"

"No, no, not that bad, really. Atla was very apologetic, very helpful, and we had a pleasant rest of the evening, mostly just chatting… I wouldn't have mentioned it, not to you especially, but I was wondering, if perhaps…do you have any ice?"

"I'll see if I can find some before we need to be back at the airport."

"You're being surprisingly kind about this. Should I expect the jeers to start as soon as we're in front of Arthur and Carolyn?"

"Martin, you have Norwegian teeth marks on your cock. Not only is the situation funny enough without my commentary, but not even I am that heartless."