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His eyes hurt.
He scrubbed his hands against his face, trying to erase the lasting remains of the tears that had been shed.
How pathetic.
Oh, he was tired. So tired.
He dropped his forehead against his knees again, hugging his legs close to him.
It wasn't a good day, was it?
It had started out all fine. He'd woken up, gotten a shower, gone into work. Arthur had been chipper, Douglas had been his usual snarky self, Carolyn had been demanding. The flight itself had gone alright...
... until the fire alarm had started beeping.
Something seemed to always be wrong with GERTI, so alarms weren't that surprising. However. He was a pilot. He had protocol. He had to follow the rules.
Especially when they couldn't find the source of the fire alarm.
So, in between St. Davids and London, Cardiff had been their immediate emergency landing spot.
Carolyn hadn't been pleased. Much less when Martin and Douglas found out that the fire alarm had been going off because Arthur had been trying to bake some biscuits without anyone knowing it.
No, Carolyn had not been pleased.
Nonetheless, they'd managed to get to Central London. It wasn't like Cardiff was that far from London. He hadn't seen exactly why it had been such a big deal. Apparently, it had been.
He sighed quietly, ducking his head further against his legs.
Once they had hit London, more tragedies. All four of them had gotten split up. It wasn't like Martin wasn't used to London; he'd been there more times than he could count on both hands. Most people who lived in the U.K. just had to visit London, right? London was the U.K.'s main attraction.
It was just... busy. Unusually so. Traffic jams. People crowding everyone else. So on, so forth.
It had been an utter mistake to decide to travel via the Underground. Just an... utter mistake.
He was an idiot. Carolyn was right; he was an idiot.
On top of having ramen noodles spilled on him via the Tube, he also managed to get crushed into the far corner. He left with a sopping shirt, smelling of ramen, and with a pounding headache. He had gone to the hotel and fallen asleep.
He'd woken not exactly refreshed, and gone to the rooftop. He always retreated to somewhere high when he was upset. Which was why he was always the happiest when he was flying.
Speaking of flying. He knew he should get back to the airport. It wasn't like he had been deaf to Douglas's phone call, while it had lasted. But, he just didn't... want to move. He didn't want to do anything. Removing himself from the rooftop put him back into the world, back where things were tangible. Getting in a cab meant more traffic jams, yelling cabbies, possibly even having to share a cab with some unfortunate sod. Walking meant it took longer, he'd been surrounded by people on all sides, Carolyn would yell at him for being late, and Douglas would joke about it later. The Underground was not even an option now.
And so, he didn't feel like facing anything.
Which was bad. Bad Martin. You are supposed to keep your chin up.
He raised his head, looking down at the people below him.
Flying. He was always at peace when he was flying. Falling was just like flying...
He stood up.
He looked down.
He closed his eyes.
He took a deep breath...
Readers, meet cliffhanger. Cliffhanger, meet the readers.
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