AN: The next chapter has been written and is longer than this one, but just needs to be checked.
At the Airport
When Chandler arrived at the airport, at first he couldn't see the flight number on the indicator boards. He knew that he had the right number, but he checked his piece of paper just to be sure. Then he noticed it, there with a blank next to it. What did a blank mean? Had it been cancelled? He saw the indicator board change over as a flight landed, its number and the word 'landed' appearing, scrolling the rest of the flights down one, except for Rachel's flight number, which stayed where it was, at the top.
Chandler stared at the board for ten minutes, as the arrivals continued in their orderly progression and as the tannoy system poured out its continuous stream of messages. Did that mean the flight had been cancelled, he thought, his mind grasping for the most innocent explanation. Later, he realised that he had worked it out straight away, but the news was so shocking that in his mind, firewalls had sprung up, preventing him from fully absorbing it. He walked over to the information desk.
'What's with AirExpress 567?' he asked. The information woman looked serious.
'Didn't you see the news sir?' Who watched the news when they were on holiday? He shook his head. Over the information woman's shoulder he could see other airport staff, doing their jobs, but now he recognised a look of seriousness. Oh yes, a part of him knew the answer without needing to be told. 'The plane crashed in the Atlantic four hours ago.' Four hours ago. Phoebe might only be getting up. She wouldn't have heard anything about it, unless she had had a premonition. He'd never believed in her premonitions and he wouldn't be surprised to learn that she hadn't had one about this.
'What? Why?' Chandler asked. He didn't remember what the answer was, and he didn't remember how he had walked away from the information desk.
A few minutes, consciousness of his surroundings returned, along with his mental functions. Standing in the middle of the arrivals hall, it occurred to him that if the plane crashed, it didn't mean that Rachel was on it. He returned to the information desk and asked where he could find the passenger list. He was not surprised to hear that he had been given this information already.
He then joined the queue leading to the passenger lists, trying to block out the sounds of people weeping.
'I wasn't going to,' said a harassed looking woman. 'He does this all the time, but I just…' The older woman next to her squeezed her hand. The snippet made no sense to him, but it was as much as he cared to hear. It was just too painful. A person ahead of him in the queue said,
'Typical,' but the sound was one of relief, returning from the desk. That inquirer was not one of the unlucky ones and had no business being there any more. Someone then, had not been on the plane. That person might not have been the only person on the plane. But she was there. Rachel K Green.
'Thanks,' Chandler said, on automatic pilot.
It would be his job to tell everyone, but first he had to sit quietly.