In which Douglas is confused.

A/N: Intended to be one chapter, seen from multiple POV, but I decided to split it into several smaller chunks.

As usual: all characters belong to John Finnemore, who I hope wouldn't mind the liberties I have taken with them. All/any reviews welcomed.

Douglas is confused. This is not a situation in which First Officer Douglas Richardson is used to find himself.

Could it possibly be, he muses to himself, that this is a situation of which he is not totally in control? Could it be that he is losing the ability to manipulate people? There have been situations before in which he has not been the Alpha Dog (although he must admit that it is remarkably easy to become the Alpha Dog, whilst allowing some poor deluded soul to believe that they are in fact the Alpha Dog - take that, Ms Knapp-Shappey!); but even though there have been a few times when things have not gone exactly to plan (the two ex-Mrs Richardsons; the current-but-soon-to-be-ex-Mrs-Richardson; Air Bloody England's inability to understand the principles of free trade as applied to Douglas Richardson; First Bloody Officer answerable to MJN's excuse for a Captain - working for MJN itself, come to that - ) damn, he's lost his train of thought. That doesn't happen very often, either.

Ah yes, there have been a few times when life has not taken its intended path - forgotten being thrown out of medical school, have we? - he pushes that thought away - but never before has Douglas been confused.

Douglas does not like being confused. And of all the people that he would not wish to be confused by, top of the list (and the most unlikely candidate) is - here Douglas takes a deep breath, because this is not something that he wishes to admit, even to himself - is so-called Captain Martin Bloody Crieff.

Feeling better for admitting that, Douglas?

It's not that Douglas doesn't enjoy working with Martin: far from it, one of the greatest joys of Douglas's life is teasing Martin until Martin becomes tongue-tied and red in the face. On a good day, Douglas can wind Martin up so much that he begins to stutter - on one joyous occasion, so much so that Martin managed to stutter and lisp at the same time. When Martin is particularly annoying, Douglas now only has to whisper 'Th-th-thathkathuan' to reduce Our Noble Captain to a snivelling, pathetic little excuse of a man.

But Martin has changed. He's still an annoying little prick some - most - of the time - and there are still times when Douglas could cheerfully throttle him, but the annoying little prick seems to have developed some backbone. He's now got a woman in his life, (and that in itself amazes Douglas, who has seen Martin's attempts to pull on several hilarious occasions), and Douglas has been unable to worm out of Martin exactly how he met her. Martin cheerfully admits that he'd tried speed-dating ('God, Douglas, I thought I was desperate until I saw some of the women there! I was out of there pretty quick, I can tell you!'), but he won't say where - or indeed how - he met his girlfriend. And the one thing that Douglas is certain of is that, wherever and however it was, it wasn't speed dating, because Martin is almost as bad at lying about his personal life as Arthur is at lying about anything.

Whoever this woman is, she's certainly had an effect on Martin. He's more ready to stand up for himself and less ready to apologise for things that aren't his fault. He doesn't colour up or stutter so easily, and the last time Douglas muttered 'Th-th-thathkathuan', Martin actually laughed and said that was pretty embarrassing, wasn't it, and started to tell Douglas about speech therapy. And he even managed to take the wind out of Douglas's sails by turning it into a joke and calling it 'Thpeech Thewapy' before Douglas could (and you didn't like that much, did you, Douglas?).

And something happened today which Douglas doesn't know the details of and he doesn't know how he is going to find out about it. All he knows is that Martin asked - no, actually, demanded - to see Carolyn in the Portacabin (which usually means that Martin is going to beg Carolyn to pay him, and Carolyn is going to refuse and Douglas would happily bet the entire cheese tray that Martin will burst into tears) but today it was Carolyn who left first, looking flustered and Martin - Martin - who looked as if he were in control of the situation. Martin? In control?

All very confusing.

For the first time in some years, First Office Douglas Richardson wishes that he could have a bloody drink.