Pre-Zurich, and pretty much pre-series four.
Martin was so deep in concentration that he wasn't registering the sound of the airport. He wasn't looking at the planes. He certainly wasn't watching where he was going.
It was unlike him; the combination of being short and unlucky had taught him to keep an eye out, as people tended not to get out of the way for him, no matter how resolutely he walked towards them.
But he was distracted, trying to untangle the headphones of the dirt-cheap MP3 player he'd inherited from Caitlyn – 'take a look through and see if there's anything you fancy, I'm chucking it anyway' – and they were being stubborn about it. He'd unplugged and re-plugged them, tugged and wrestled and used his fingernails, and still they refused to budge. After his old MP3 had broken about four months ago, he hadn't found the money to get a new one. He was looking forward to the experience of having something to listen to in the van, if he could just get the blasted things to lie flat…
The sounds of the airport had merged into a low rumble his ears had ceased to register, and he didn't hear the fresh roar until it was too late. As he whipped the last loop out of the headphones he finally looked up, only to find he'd strayed from his path and was on the road.
In front of a bus.
The headphones dangled limply in his hands as he stared, frozen like a rabbit – one of the ones he'd been forced to run over in the past to avoid causing a pile-up. Everything was blank; everything was gone from him, apart from the bizarre, fluttering sense of relief at the back of his mind that at last he'd got the bloody headphones untangled. He didn't think to move back, or sideways. He didn't even think to bring up his arms to protect his face. His feet were stuck to the ground, and his brain hadn't caught up with them fast enough for him to get out of the way before the bus ploughed into him into him in three…two…
Something jerked at his neck with enough force to snap his head back, teeth clacking together as his jaw worked under the sudden pressure, and he found himself reeling backwards. He would have fallen if there hadn't been a hand clutching at the collar of his uniform. The bus rattled by, beeping its horn by way of reprimand.
"Watch it!"
Martin blinked and turned, trailing the MP3 headphones behind him, to see a man of medium height and build, with greyish-brown hair and large, round glasses. Although he recognised his voice it took him a couple of seconds to work out who it was; he'd never met the man in person, after all.
"Karl!"
Karl adjusted his glasses. He was sweating profusely and breathing heavily; there was a spilled plastic cup oozing over the ground a few feet away, and coffee drenching the sleeve of Karl's white shirt. He'd obviously run to get a hold of Martin's collar and drag him out of the path of the bus in time.
"Captain Crieff, right? Golf-Echo-Romeo-Tango-India?"
Martin nodded. In the distance the bus sounded its horn, making both of them jump. It hit Martin then, what he'd just so narrowly avoided; his heart finally began to slow enough for him to form more than monosyllables, and his hands started to tremble.
"God…I…thank you…I…thank you…"
"No problem." Karl adjusted his glasses. "Just watch where you're going in future, Captain."
"Yes…" Martin murmured. If he had any colour left in his face he got the feeling it was lingering somewhere in his ears, leaving the rest of him pale and pinched. He felt drained. "Yes, of course. I'm…I'm sorry."
Karl shuffled over to the spilled coffee and picked up the polystyrene cup, slowly, as if he had a bad back. Martin hesitated, and then stepped forward.
"Karl?"
Karl straightened. "Captain Crieff?"
"Will you…call me Martin?"
Just a short chapter to start off with – the instalments are going to vary in length a little in this one.
Thanks for reading, feedback welcome!
To be continued.