Douglas was the best friend he'd ever had, Martin decided as he drifted off that night – on his first officer's comfortable sofa, no less. The unexpected revelation about his real mother had quite upset him; his pessimistic side kept pointing out that he'd never been wanted in the first place, though his rational side reminded him that his adoptive family had welcomed him of their own free will.

Only now he understood how much MJN Air had acted as a surrogate family for him in the past few years. Carolyn's company was the living proof that everybody deserved a second chance, no matter what; that was why he eventually decided he would at least look the woman who'd given birth to him in the eye before she died.

Ms Tyler offered him a warm smile as he swallowed his nerves and walked into the hospital room. "Look at yourself, Martin. An airline captain. I've always known you'd make it."

"Did you?" he couldn't help but ask. Nobody had ever believed he would succeed, and there had been times when he'd hardly believed it himself.

"It's in your blood, after all. Your father wanted to fly too."

"Oh," Martin exhaled, realizing that he'd quite forgotten to take his unknown father into account. "Was he a pilot then?"

The woman shook her head. "Not when I met him, though he is now."

"I see," he replied slowly, unsure how he felt about that. Would a proper pilot be ashamed of a son that had taken seven goes to get his licence? Did he know he had a son in the first place?

"Be gentle to him, Martin. He's not the unsentimental bastard he pretends to be."

A strange sense of foreboding lurched in his stomach as he mustered the courage to ask the crucial question. "What's his name?"

xxx

Damn it, Douglas, he thought upon finding his – friend – lying in a drunken stupor, an empty bottle of whisky at his side. Martin himself had needed some time to process the full extent of the revelation, and yet he wasn't actually expecting the great Douglas Richardson to be so distraught.

For a terrible moment he debated whether he should drag his first officer to the nearest A & E, only to heave a sigh of relief when the other finally managed a somewhat coherent reply. In the end he settled for dragging the maudlin drunk to his bed and waiting for him to sleep it off.

Douglas looked utterly grateful for the large glass of water he was offered upon waking. "Serves me right," he muttered, clutching at his head, and Martin secretly prayed that meant he'd learnt his lesson.

"One would think you should know better than that, Dad," he murmured wryly, the corners of his mouth turning up in something close enough to a smirk.

The older man shot him a withering glare. "Don't you dare."

"What?" Martin shrugged somewhat defiantly. "You're the one who claimed you were old enough to be my father, remember? Turns out you were right, after all."

There was a pause as Douglas eyed him warily. "Do you mind?"

"I don't think I do," he replied slowly, meeting his friend's gaze. "Do you?"

"Not at all," the other said with conviction, and they both smiled.