...
Martin didn't like doctors.
That isn't to say that he had always felt this way; oh no, back when he was alive he'd liked them well enough, and respected them, too. He still did. As long as he could do it from a distance.
Doctors, as was generally safe to assume, were good at figuring out whether or not someone was healthy, and if they weren't, then what was wrong with them.
Martin had, by now, been neither healthy - in the sense that he was not, in fact, alive - nor ill - for he had gone past the point of being able to, properly - for quite some time. He had become used to the idiosyncrasies of being a semi-solid ghost, of going through the motions of breathing when he actually didn't need to, of having breezes sometimes just waft through him instead of around him, of sometimes having to try twice to pick something up.
He could still eat, though. He'd found that out by accident. And, as he'd also realised, the eating actually helped people to think he was more 'there' than he actually was. He was certain there was a long-winded and complicated explanation for it, but he hadn't been curious enough or bored enough to look such a thing up yet.
But the core brunt of the problem was, Martin did not like doctors for the fact that, he was sure, if they took one good look at him they'd somehow be able to know instinctively - intuitively - that he was dead.
So while Martin had been trying to get the one man on the passenger list who had 'Dr.' in front of his name to come to the galley and see to the patient, he'd been trying just as hard to hide his anxiety regarding doctors of any sort.
And then. Oh, yes. And then-
Not a medical doctor at all. Engineering. Civic Engineering.
And how-
How could he have NOT noticed someone die? He'd been right there! And it wasn't that far away from the galley to the flight deck, for goodness' sake!
Martin let out a whining noise similar to a car tire letting out air. The doctor with a Ph.D in Civil Engineering went back to his seat - probably annoyed and likely to tell everyone back there how incompetent they all were, and have a right good laugh.
Suddenly, the smell of smoke wafted up his nostrils. It was the kind of thing that wouldn't ordinarily catch a person's attention quite the way it did Martin's just then, and not only because smoking was absolutely prohibited in aircraft, or because the person who had previously been smoking during the flight had died not too long ago. No, he could actually smell it, in a way that almost felt more real than the real world.
With a sinking feeling, he looked around. There, leaning against the drinks cabinet, was Mr. Lehman, who was looking highly amused, and very pleased with himself, for a dead man.
"Anything I can do for ya, kid?"
Martin breathed in deeply, and then let it out slowly. He didn't need to, and it made him cough from the smoke, which hadn't been the intention at all.
"Well for one thing," he said quietly, "you could stop that. I- it might not burn the plane down any more, but it's certainly distracting me."
"Oh yeah? And why d'you think I'm going to be listening to you?"
Martin deflated, and then he drew himself up to his full height, which wasn't very intimidating at the best of times, and now, when he was hurried from time (Douglas was expecting him back in the flight deck any moment now) and trying not to raise his voice too much (Douglas would wonder who he was talking to, when no one was actually there) was not, under any circumstances, the best of times.
"Because," he said, "because for one thing, if that smoke ends up in there, and I smell it, then I'm probably going to think that there is, yet again, something wrong with the aircraft, which is not an unheard of thing. For another thing, I don't think you have any room to call me that. I am theCaptain, and this is my plane, and you know what? I've been like," and he gestured to the general vicinity of himself, "this, for far longer as well. So- so just- don't."
Mr. Lehman just rolled his eyes, and continued smoking. Which, quite frankly, annoyed Martin to the point of plucking the cigarette out of the dead man's hand and dropped it unceremoniously into the sink, letting the ghostly fire sizzle out. Mr. Lehman stared, then, and continued staring as Martin went back into the flight deck to his seat.
...
AN: At first, I was thinking of having a more confrontational scene. But then I didn't know how to start it, and after that the idea about doctors making Martin nervous now struck me, and I realised - what I'd been thinking of wouldn't have been Martin.