Warnings: Mild language.

Martin was thankful he knew the control panel of a plane inside out. Absolutely inside out – over his lifetime he'd spent hours poring over manuals and scanning instruction sheets. Sometimes he even sketched them out; could do so with his eyes closed. Now and then, if no-one else was there, he might allow himself to just stare at GERTI's control panel and dare to believe that he was the one allowed to use it. Not that anyone would ever find out about that.

He knew his stuff. It was a damn good job.

His inner ear was perfectly airworthy, ninety-nine percent of the time. On a professional airline he might have been worried about it, but MJN air was not a professional airline. No matter how much he tried to convince himself that he was a proper captain – he had the hat, after all – he knew that proper airlines did not drop sugar blocks on fish, or fire missiles at BMWs.

MJN, for want of a better word, was a unique airdot. Therefore, he was a unique captain. Which was better than being no captain at all.

It was the fear of being 'no captain at all' which stopped him from saying anything to Douglas when he felt the creeping nausea and soft buzz in his left ear which indicated A Problem. It was alright, he told himself. It was just a blip; something to do with the turn of the plane, the angle of the cockpit, a little, momentary lapse that was causing absolutely no trouble…

The buzz turned into a whine, high pitched and irritating. Martin got to his feet as quickly as he could manage and all but ran for the bathroom, ignoring Douglas's shout after him. As soon as he'd locked it he tilted his head to one side, keeping his breathing steady. He'd not had this problem in years. It would go. In just a few seconds, if he kept still, it would go.

It took only a couple of minutes for the whining to fade, and for a moment he held out hope. And then he raised his head and realised, with a sinking heart, that half his vision was covered with white spots.

Shit.

For the first time in his life, he wished he'd just passed out. Then he could have blamed it on turning his head or chair too quickly, made it into a freak accident they could all laugh off at a later date. This…this would probably get him fired.

He couldn't be fired. The first thing he knew, with a burning realisation, was that he did not want to be fired. He might not be paid, he might not get the good cheese and Douglas might be an annoying arse, but Martin was practically born with the urge to fly and he was not giving it up for a faulty inner ear.

He swallowed, straightened properly, and took in a deep breath. Most of his vision was covered in white now, blurred into wiggling lines of vague shadow that were no use to him at all. He couldn't see a thing. But it didn't matter – there wasn't much of the journey left, it was only a cargo flight. There was no chance of having to meet passengers, and he knew the instruments off by heart.

Douglas would have to take the landing, but Martin knew he could keep up the pretence for the remaining hour, less than an hour, and then he could go to his van and sit in it until his vision cleared, and everything would be just fine. It would be entirely worth pretending. He might have been a cheap pilot, but if Carolyn found out she would fire him – he was practically useless already. He didn't need to be defective as well.

He found his way back to the cockpit easily, having walked it enough times to know the way by heart, and lowered himself into his chair without even a stumble. It was hard appearing normal, but Douglas and the others were used to him being clumsy. If he tripped he could blame it on bad luck.

"Where the hell did you go?" Douglas sounded irritated. Martin turned towards him and prayed he was looking in the right place, using his memory to estimate the height of Douglas's head.

"Must have been Arthur's cooking," he muttered vaguely, acting embarrassed – not hard for him – to avoid as much eye contact as possible. It seemed that, under the threat of losing his job, his acting skills had picked up from 'appalling' to 'passable'. Douglas had control, and he wasn't handing it over, yet. That was good. Martin would fail to mention the fact for as long as possible. He turned his eyes back to the control panel – he knew exactly where every switch, every screen was, even blind. Keeping up the pretence of being able to read them was easy.

"You hardly ate any of Arthur's cooking!"

Martin grimaced, not acting this time; he wouldn't be going within ten metres of any lamb hotpot cooked by Arthur again. "I didn't need to."

There was a scuffling sound as Douglas settled back in his chair. He sounded decidedly unimpressed. "You're not going to vomit on me, are you?"

"No." Martin took another breath and looked at the spot he usually looked at, the position of his neck settling easily, memorised. The whirring of the GERTI's engines, for the first time in his life, seemed sinister rather than comforting. "I'm fine now. Fine."

"Hm. If the mighty captain says so. Twice." A pause. "Real people who sound like fictional characters."

Douglas didn't realise anything was wrong until Martin let him take the landing.

He'd maintained control for the rest of the flight, seeing as Martin looked pale as paper, and hadn't bothered to ask for it back. He must have been feeling dire, if he'd forgotten Douglas was the one flying – that Douglas had usurped him at the controls. Martin disliked being bettered.

The weather was fine and the light conditions good, and landing looked like it would be simple – the reason he asked if Martin wanted to take it. Better to have him take an easy one and be proud of himself.

"Do you want to take the landing, or shall I?"

Douglas already had his hands halfway off the controls, expecting Martin to accept with both zeal and the irritating pride that always showed when he was reminded he was the captain.

"You do it."

Douglas slammed his hands back onto the controls with a jerk. Martin didn't even flinch at the sudden movement. His eyes flicked from the radio to the window and back again.

"Are you feeling alright?"

Martin turned toward him. For a second Douglas has a bizarre sensation somewhere in the pit of his stomach that Martin was looking through him, rather than at him, but he dismissed it quickly as Martin's eyes found his.

"Bit queasy still. Best not."

It was a reasonable explanation. Or it would have been a reasonable explanation from anyone but Martin. Martin had his pride; his admitting to something as trifling as being queasy was unusual.

Which could only mean one thing – he was covering something up.

Douglas would have to take the landing. He didn't panic – never had been the sort to – but he worried. He nodded. Martin didn't respond as turned back to the controls with a pensive, blank sort of glance at them. He seemed very calm. Too calm.

"Radio ATC and tell them we're good to land," Douglas murmured, settling back in his chair and getting ready to do what he'd done thousands of times before. He was not sweating, he told himself. Definitely not. His luck was far too plentiful to run out at a crucial moment.

Martin reached for the radio, fumbled, found the button and pressed it. The rest of the flight went perfectly; the landing was textbook. Martin even had a little more colour in his cheeks as they ground to a halt.

But Douglas couldn't forget the first pangs of uncertainty, which had settled at the back of his mind and made his armpits sting uncomfortably.

The fact Martin knew his way around GERTI inside out helped him to actually get off the plane, but from there things became tricky. He got to their office by discreetly walking behind what he reckoned to be Carolyn, and hoping she watched where she was going. At the same time, he kept up normal conversation and, he hoped, normal eye contact. Spending time locked inside a metal box with the same three people proved to be a wonderful incentive for learning exactly where each person's head was.

He spent half an hour pretending to fill in forms, using his fingertips to seek out the edges of the paper, and then fumbled for his drawer, hoping to lock the lot away before anyone could realise he'd not actually had the pen nib clicked out of the plastic, and his paperwork was blank. As he scrabbled, his hand knocked away the key he usually had resting in the lock. He heard it hit the floor with a soft thud, but his vision was still white, almost entirely white; he couldn't find it again.

Shit, again.

He wondered how long he had before Carolyn and Douglas – both still present, he could hear them breathing a little way behind him – worked out something was wrong. How long would one usually take to look for a small, dropped item? A minute? Less? His fingers found nothing. Every second that passed his airways seemed to tighten; he was going to be fired, he was going to end up hulking people's boxes around for ever, all because of a stupid inner-ear condition and a dropped key, shit, shit, shit…

"Skip?"

He jerked his head up with a start, disorientated. Arthur. Arthur would be looking at him, he'd be looking down. Martin hastily found the place he thought Arthur's face would be and attempted to look casual.

"Yes?"

"Is this what you're looking for?"

Martin hazarded a guess and said yes. It had to be the key; Arthur might be a little slow sometimes, but even he couldn't have failed to notice Martin was trying to lock his papers away. A second later Martin's guess was rewarded, the key pressed into his palm.

"Thank you."

"No problem, Skip."

Even blind, Martin could see Arthur's smile perfectly in his mind's eye. Pleased. Optimistic. Always so bloody optimistic. It was infuriating, and it was cheering, even if Martin didn't particularly want to be cheered. He wanted to go to his van and sleep until he could see again.

"Er, Skip?"

Martin, midway through scraping what he thought was all his papers into the desk drawer, paused. "Yes?"

"It's just…I mean, this might just be me being wrong again…but you do know there isn't anything written on your forms?"

Bloody Arthur.

"Y-yes," Martin replied, too quickly – even he knew it was too quickly. He coughed, and tried to smooth it over. "I couldn't…concentrate. I wasn't feeling very well earlier. I'm going to leave it for tomorrow."

"You? Leave paperwork?" Martin could have drowned in Carolyn's sarcasm, it was so thick and dripping. "This must be the start of the next world war."

"Eager to get home?" Douglas drawled. Martin, to avoid trying to pinpoint the exact location of either of them, stared at his desk and pretended he could see it. "Got a date lined up for the evening?"

Carolyn giggled. "Now that really would be the apocalypse."

"Shut up."

"My, he is defensive," Carolyn said. "Pretty girl?"

Martin got to his feet with a little too much vigour, forgot where his desk was, and ended up smacking his knees into it. He bit back a curse, alongside tears; he was tired, so tired, and he hated not having his eyes. He knew nothing would come of it – he would wake up in a few hours with his vision back again – but it still scared him. He was living now, and he had to live with the fuzzy whiteness like a film over his face. Like he was suffocating.

"I'm going home."

"Please yourself," Carolyn muttered. Douglas said nothing, although Arthur did murmur something along the lines of 'have a nice evening' – Martin, stepping out of the door and having his heart and stomach lurch unpleasantly as he forgot the bottom step, didn't catch the whole phrase. He stumbled, righted himself, and hoped everyone was too busy with their own lives to have noticed.

He had to feel his way back to the van. It was an airfield; unlike the plane and, to some extent, the office, it didn't stay constant. There were vehicles, people, objects that could be anywhere, ready to trip him, and he'd have no idea until he'd fallen on his arse, or worse. His hearing was passable, and thankfully most of the machinery driven on an airfield was loud and slow, but it was touch and go. He got out of the way of a car only just in time, and that involved bumping into someone who told him, gruffly, to watch where he was going.

By the time he reached the car park he was exhausted, and even then it wasn't over. For the life of him he couldn't remember the exact spot his van was in – somewhere to the left, perhaps? He felt his way along rows of cars, stumbling and stubbing his toes, praying no-one was watching him, praying that none of the cars were sensitive enough for him to set off the alarm when he touched them. He found a van after about ten minutes, but it wasn't his own; it was too dirty, leaving grit under his nails, and it was missing the small dent by the number plate he knew his own van had picked up weeks ago.

He carried on searching. Every step was a hazard, every turn of his head made him feel sick and disorientated. His hands were filthy, his uniform was probably just as bad, and he was beginning to get the buzzing whine in his ear that indicated he was in for a spell of dizziness. He knew he was panicking, and he couldn't stop himself.

And then…yes! A van. Tall, clean, dent by the number plate. His van. He breathed a sigh of relief that almost came out as a hysterical whistle, got his key out and ran his fingers along it until he found the lock. The door sprang open obediently, and he was half in the act of scrambling into the seat, giddy with relief, when something brought him up short.

"Having trouble?"

Even without seeing him, he knew it was Douglas; the man had a voice that was unmistakable, like a very contented and superior cat. How long had he been watching? How long had he been standing next to the very thing Martin had spent fifteen minutes searching for, gloating? Martin didn't want to ask. He didn't want to admit he was 'having trouble'. So he opted for the simplest reply.

"Go away, Douglas."

He made a second attempt at getting into the van, but a hand like a heavy, fleshy vice around his arm brought him to an abrupt halt.

"You'd better not be thinking of driving."

Martin didn't even try to deny he that couldn't see; he knew Douglas had figured it out. It was stupid thinking he wouldn't. Douglas, the Sky God, knew everything. He tried to imagine his First Officer as a god, one of the Roman ones, perhaps, and then decided he must be getting light-headed, because the image was bizarre, and he couldn't see enough reality to get rid of it. Only white.

"Of course not."

The hand relaxed its grip. "Good. Because if you were, I would have had to stop you."

Martin slid into his seat with a sigh, closing his eyes out of habit. "I'm just having a nap."

"Do you think you should?"

There was a click as what could only be the passenger door opened and a heavy mass settled on the other seat. Martin resisted the urge to throw something, partially because he didn't quite remember where everything was, and partially because he didn't need to look any more of a fool.

"It's not a concussion; just my ear. It'll be fine in a couple of hours."

"You're not getting away with this. Words are in order."

Martin, head already lolling, groaned. "Go away Douglas."

Douglas did not go away. He'd made a habit, over the years, of doing what Martin told him to only if an imminent crisis involving GERTI'S engines threatened all of their lives, and even then he might bend the rules a little.

Martin slept like a dead thing; Douglas had noticed it when they'd been forced to share hotel rooms, but the impression had never been so profound before. Martin didn't shuffle in his sleep; he didn't snore. He didn't turn over, mumble nonsense, or even breathe all that heavily. He just existed. If Douglas didn't know better he'd have thought he'd gone into a coma.

There wasn't much to do in the van; Martin didn't splash out on extravagances such as magazines or mp3 players, and turning on the radio might wake him. There was a flight manual, which Douglas resolutely refused to even glance at. He couldn't get an internet signal on his phone, so he ended up playing Snake over and over again, until his eyes were watering from the strain. He was almost an expert by the time Martin jerked his head up with a snuffle, rubbed his eyes and looked around.

"Ah, the commander awakes. And does the commander find himself able to see now?"

Martin glowered at him, but it was a watery, paltry glower even by Martin's standards. He looked less tired, but he was still pale and pinched. Douglas didn't blame him; going spontaneously blind couldn't be a pleasant experience when you were thousands of feet in the air, in a metal box you were supposed to be able to fly.

"I can see fine, not that you care."

"On the contrary, I care a great deal. That's why I'm still here."

Martin went, if possible, even paler. "Oh god, please don't tell Carolyn. Even she'd be forced to fire me then. It's only temporary, it only lasts a couple of hours; I can handle it. Please."

Douglas had always known flying was important to Martin, but it was only when he sacrificed, almost instantaneously, his pride to Douglas of all people, the realisation hit him. He knew, in that instant, he couldn't tell Carolyn. Martin's face, white, strained, desperate, stopped him.

"I won't."

Martin relaxed, slumping against his seat with a huff. "Thank you."

"On one condition."

Martin tensed again and swivelled to look at Douglas, who could see a little of the old pride returning. He was almost grateful for it.

"The cheese tray?"

"No, I-"

"You get to take all the landings?"

"Martin, the-"

"You get first dibs on whatever substance Arthur brings us for lunch?"

"For god's sake, shut up Martin!"

Martin shut up, although his lips were trembling.

"The condition is that next time this happens you tell me, instead of pretending to be able to fly a plane!" He put a hand to his face. "What would you have done if I'd needed to go to the loo?"

"The plane was level; we were going in a straight line…"

"That's not an excuse! Martin, you can't let this happen again."

"It's the ear; I don't have any control-"

"Not that!" God, this was like pulling teeth. Douglas was one more Martin sentence away from banging his own head against the van doors, and even then he wasn't sure the doors would hold up under it. "I mean you can't let me fly without knowing you're incapacitated." Martin opened his mouth, but Douglas cut over him. "I won't tell Carolyn. But I have to know."

Martin nodded, albeit grudgingly, and Douglas began to slide out of his seat, satisfied that next time Martin ended up not being able to fly the plane he was supposed to be flying, he would actually let someone in on the fact. He was about to close the door when Martin spoke.

"Douglas?"

"Yes?"

"When did you guess?"

Douglas smirked. "I knew you were hiding something when you let me take the landing. And then, in the office, Arthur said you hadn't written anything on your papers. Carolyn was right; that really is an indicator something's wrong."

"But not the next apocalypse."

"No. Not quite that bad."

Another go at the Cabin Pressure universe. I don't know whether Martin's inner ear would really affect his vision, but this was pretty much practice at the characters, and I didn't have the time to fully research it. I apologise once again to anyone with medical knowledge!

Thanks for reading, reviews welcome!

The End.