Accusations d'amour
A/N: Thank you all for the positive reviews! They do brighten my days :) This ish is kinda short; just a scene from the flight.
Airplanes and tarmac
That Monday, the Mode brigade delegated to Fashion Week trooped onto the Paris flight. Daniel sat down, fastened his seat belt, and began to leaf through an old Paris Mode magazine.
After a few minutes, he noticed a strange stiffness about Betty beside him. It looked as though she was bracing for a blow.
"Betty?"
"Oh, er, hi," she said, nervously. "Just…relaxing!" She gripped the airplane armrests and flashed him a bright smile.
"You're scared of flying." He closed his magazine.
"No, I'm not."
A grin began to break on Daniel's face. "You so are."
"Okay, I am," Betty snapped. "Stop gloating."
Daniel pouted slightly. "Sorry."
He snuck several surreptitious sideways glances at her from behind his magazine as he pretended to read again. But then again, with Betty, it seemed nothing he did could be overlooked.
"Stop it," she hissed, after his fourth or fifth glance.
"Sorry," he said again, meekly. Then, dropping all pretense, he turned to her and said, comfortingly, "You know, statistically speaking, flying is the safest way to travel."
"Thank you, Superman," Betty said, sarcastically, but she relaxed slightly despite her skepticism.
"You're welcome." He patted her hand. "Need me to hold your hand, too?"
"Shut up," Betty snarled (most uncharacteristically).
"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Thank you for choosing to fly with us…"
"…please fasten your seat belts as we are now preparing for take off."
At the last two words, Betty tensed again, sitting straight up in her seat and pressing the back of her head to the cushion, as she had once read in the instructions of a roller coaster ride (her first and last).
The taxiing was a long wait, and when the plane began to lift off –
Betty's fingers skimmed Daniel's knuckles, and he raised his eyebrows at her.
She looked away defiantly, jerking her hand away, and grit her teeth as the plane rose off the ground entirely.
During the flight, she managed to relax, commenting with barely repressed relief how smooth the ride was.
"Yep," Daniel said. "No air turbulence yet."
"Turbulence?" Betty repeated. "Yet? What do you mean?"
"Oh, there's always a bit of bumpiness later in the flight," Daniel said, casually.
"Dan-" her voice was pitched at about the height of the plane.
"Okay, just kidding," Daniel said. "Sorry." He apologized for the third time.
It was the landing that waited ominously. Betty anticipated it with a mixture of dread and longing to get her feet on solid ground again.
The plane jerked as it descended, bumped, jolted – a barrage of jarring adjectives flew through Betty's mind, and the largest jerk came when the wheels hit the tarmac.
"Phew," she sighed as they finally began to roll, and looked down from a gaze that had been fixed directly in front of her. It was only then that she noticed her hand, relaxed now, in Daniel's.
Betty looked at him swiftly, expecting to see a smirk on his face, but there was a strange serious look in his blue eyes. She felt a gentle pressure on her hand.
She drew her hand away and unfastened her seatbelt, turning aside.