Here's one more chapter in this bunch before I devote a little more of my time to more legitimate things - eg, revision, novel, etc

Thank you so much to Ashtrees and WikketKrikket for reviewing and giving me that extra boost to get writing so much in so short a time

Cremona

It was late enough in the evening that they had needed to switch on GERTI's interior lights; as a result, the flight-deck was bathed in sharp orange light that cast juxtaposed shadows on the unhappy mechanisms. The juddering purr of the engines had been silenced almost an hour before, and Arthur had bumbled from the plane to go about his own chores shortly after.

At the end of most flights that impeded upon their nights, Deborah would vacate the airfield as quickly as possible, with Martin close on her heels until he headed towards his own presumably humble abode.

Unlike most flights, Deborah found herself, to her own partial surprise, slouched comfortably sideways in her pilot's seat, legs hanging through the gap in the fraying arm, spending her first few minutes free from work in Martin's company.

Martin too was slouched, in as much as Martin could slouch while buttoned to the nines, with his hat resting proudly on the control pane, an easy going smile tugging at his lips while a pale blush spread across his cheeks.

This was as close to spending time together outside of work that they had ever got, and it was enough to reassure Deborah that the flickers of faith that she had begun to feel in regards to Martin as a colleague were not baseless.

She could probably have headed home to see Harry, but the man made her wait often enough; it was his turn to be patient.

It was a far better use of her time to play games with Martin; it was actually enjoyable, and Deborah found that it made it just a little easier to get to know him. Working together would get difficult soon if they didn't find some way to communicate that wasn't forced and restrained.

She had just concluded slipping Sinatra songs into a fake cabin address, topping her effort off with a trilling flutter of her hand in the air, and a saucy wink as her voice dropped into a smooth octave that even she felt moved by. She felt a certain degree of pride at the chuckle that escaped Martin's throat, the way it made his chest stutter ever so slightly as he nodded and traced his eyes over her face appraisingly.

"Very good, very good." Martin acknowledged, shifting in his seat and relaxing his arms so that he could intertwine his fingers loosely together over his lap, "Okay, my turn."

"All right." Deborah agreed; she pursed her lips in thought, "Er, do 'Come fly with me'."

Martin grinned smugly, extending his arms to crack his knuckles before leaning over and pressing the intercom, which reacted with a tuneful 'bing bong'.

"Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen." Martin said in his most professional tone of voice; he snuck a sideways glance at Deborah, and she nodded for him to continue, "On behalf of MJN Air, I'd like to invite you to – come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away…"

He has a lovely voice; that was the first thing to run through Deborah's mind as Martin's voice dropped at least two octaves and filled the porta-cabin with a smooth sound. He even made the head and hand movements to emphasise his tune.

Deborah pressed sideways into her seat, head resting forcefully on the padding as she bit her bottom lip momentarily and held her arms stiffly to prevent herself from bringing them together across her chest; she was entertained briefly by an image of herself as a teenager shrinking in on herself at a dashing celebrity, but dispelled it quickly. She was too old to coo over anyone.

Though he did have a lovely voice…she inhaled sharply.

"You know Martin, you have a lovely voice." Deborah told him, eyes following his expression closely; she hadn't meant to say that, she just hadn't been able to not say it. Damn, he wasn't going to let the compliment lie, was he?

Martin straightened his posture, shoulders rising, and he looked at Deborah with a wide eyed expression of pleasurable surprise. His long fingers clasped anxiously around the ends of his seat's arms.

"Oh, do you think so." He replied, smiling shyly. Deborah supposed that it wasn't too bad; he wasn't gloating, or preening as she had suspected he might, as his normal prissiness would recommend. Instead, he seemed genuinely flattered by the idea…did he really think so much of her opinion?

"Well, you're not bad." Deborah amended, shrugging the shoulder that wasn't still pressed into the back of her seat. She mused that her current position was quite comfortable, all things considered, and it made it far easier to face Martin during a discussion.

Martin quirked his eyebrows and rolled his eyes, nodding in resigned acceptance; the smile didn't quite fade from his lips, and Deborah noticed that once or twice his eyes flickered towards her, as if waiting for her to whip the metaphorical carpet from beneath his feet. It was hard not to be a little bit insulted at the lack of faith he had in her.

Before Deborah could comment, the radio buzzed, and Carolyn's voice filtered through, an unwelcome reminder of what they had initially decided to avoid.

"Martin, Martin, what on earth are you doing?" Carolyn demanded; Martin winced and shot Deborah a sheepish look, dragging his bottom lip through his teeth.

"Carolyn! I … hel… yes, nothing." He spluttered, cheeks flushing; typical, Deborah thought, that certain things were fine to do at rest, but should your employer call up, it became crippling to admit to singing.

Or perhaps he was embarrassed to have stayed to spend time with her; now that would be ironic, she thought bitterly.

"What's going on in there? You've been on stand for half an hour. I've been waiting for you in the porta-cabin." Carolyn continued to push for information; for someone who claimed not to care what her crew for up to, she wasn't half nosy.

"Yes. We saw your light was on and we thought you might still be there." Deborah drawled; she swivelled in her seat and rolled her shoulders, shaking away the comfort of the last ten minutes with a shake of her head that let a few loose strands of hair fall over her face.

"But you didn't come in!" Carolyn insisted.

"No. We saw your light was on and we thought you might still be there." Deborah repeated; Martin sent her one of his 'is that necessary' glares, with a ghost of his smile behind it. She merely shrugged and looked away, hearing him sigh in response.

"Well, come in now. I want to talk to you. Well, heaven knows that's not true, but I have things to tell you." Carolyn explained; Deborah exhaled an almost groan as the radio clicked off.

With only the minimal amount of chatter, too miffed by the loss of whatever companionable air that they had created, Deborah followed Martin reluctantly from the flight-deck.

oOoOoOo

Hester Macauley was a bitch. Deborah wasn't usually quick to make that kind of snap judgement, but Hester Macauley, was a bitch. There was just something about the woman that made her hackles rise.

Deborah wouldn't react, she wouldn't be anything other than pleasant; that didn't mean that she couldn't stew inwardly at the audacity of the woman. The audacity; she thought that she could just stride onto her plane and act as if she owned the place, ordering around her crew.

She had had no choice but to step in when the dreadful woman had begun to turn on Arthur; he may be a clot, but he was a good natured clot, and no film star got to treat him like dirt because they didn't bother to find that out. The fact that she hadn't been grateful, or courteous, was one thing, but it would be a dark day when Deborah allowed Arthur to quiver under the glares of an unsavoury passenger; he had returned the favour plenty times enough when her physique attracted unwanted attention.

But the worst thing, the worst thing, was the way Martin had turned from an upstanding, proud (but prissy and pernicious) man who was firm in his sense of superiority, into a slobbering, toadying, idiot.

Anyone would think he had never seen a woman before.

He had seen a woman before; he worked next to a woman every day, Deborah thought furiously. She wasn't sure why she was so angry; maybe it was just that her colleague was stooping so low from his normally lofty heights. True, they were fictitious heights, but he wouldn't be Martin without them.

There was nothing special about Hester; it couldn't be her personality. Martin seemed so enamoured that he couldn't have been hearing her personality as she subtly insulted him; which meant that it must be purely physical.

In which case, Deborah wondered, what was wrong with her? Martin had no problem talking to her…he didn't splutter or toady or try and win her over with ridiculous lines and a falsely suave intonation. Wasn't she pretty enough to prompt a little stutter, or pleasant enough to achieve the slightest implication of attention.

It didn't matter.

Not at all.

None of it would matter if Martin wasn't currently sat beside her, with Hester Macauley perched on the arm of his pilot's seat, letting her poke and prod at their control panel. If it had been anyone else, Martin would have thrown the book at them, quoted the CAA, anything to enforce the correct order; hell, if Deborah had allowed an attractive man to fiddle with GERTI, Martin would throw a fit.

But when Martin wanted to get his leg over with a gorgeous film star, then the rules didn't apply.

Deborah clenched her hands surreptitiously around the controls that hadn't been commandeered; it took all her energy to maintain a stiff smile and nod in the correct intervals.

"What does it do?" Hester inquired, pointing a manicured finger at the artificial horizon, smudging the menial gloss; her interest sounded too excessive. Deborah supposed that she was an actress; a good one if the filmography that Deborah had looked up in a moment alone was to be believed.

Martin had never looked so ecstatic; his cheeks were flaming red, although Deborah knew she had made him flush darker than that. A small victory perhaps, but the rude woman couldn't have it. His arms moved erratically as he moved between demonstrating and preparing to fly.

"Well, it just tells you if you're flying level, or … or … or … or not level; and if you're not flying level, you can correct it on the basis of that, and fly more … more …" Martin explained, stumbling over his words.

"… levelly?" Deborah offered, barely louder than a mutter; she knew she was being petulant, but she couldn't help it. It wasn't like anyone was paying attention to what she was doing anyway.

"Levelly!" Martin agreed, glancing thankfully at Deborah for a fraction of a second before turning his attentions back onto Hester, who had lost interest in the horizon and moved onto the rest of the control panel; he even pushed his hat down onto his head as if the feel of it through his hair gave him a sense of fragile security.

"Loverly." Deborah sighed; she slumped in her seat and let her eyes drop to her nail buds, which she picked at violently, anything to avoid having to watch the sickening display.

She stopped listening when they began swapping terribly mundane jokes about altimeters, groaning, keeping an ear on them just in case a chance might appear for her to interject with something wittier.

"Why do you need two?" Hester asked, looking to Martin expectantly. His eyes shot quickly from here to there, avoiding hers in his nervousness; it was painful, actually painful for Deborah to watch her usually confident Captain miss the fact that Hester was barely paying attention to his answers, merely filling her time.

"Um, just in case one goes wrong." Martin answered eventually, a wavering smile suggesting that he was proud of himself for thinking of the words, but worried about how they might come across.

"That's the theory, anyway, isn't it Martin?" Deborah cut in, in her most charming voice; it wouldn't hurt to rescue Martin from himself, even if he was ignoring her, "In practice, it's like Confucius says: Man with one altimeter always know height; man with two, never certain."

Hester let out the only genuine laugh that Deborah had heard her release in the entire time she had been on board, placing a hand lightly over her chest as if to hold in the well contained hilarity.

"Oh-oh, I know loads like that. Um …" Martin said indignantly, scowling at Deborah and sitting forward in his seat as if to appear to fill more space, shoulders squaring as his hands pressed down on the arms; Deborah rolled her eyes and glared down at the control panel, away from him; of course he had to try and one up her – what did he think she was trying to do? He was always so suspicious, even when she wasn't doing anything; Deborah briefly considered actually going out to get him, just to prove a point, then decided against it.

Martin let out a nervous laugh as he tried to make his brain work, and though she pointedly avoided looking at him, she heard his sharp intake of breath as he adopted a terrible accent.

"Confucius, he say …" he joked, and then dropping into his normal edged accent, more drearily, "Oh, they've, um, they've all gone out of my head."

Deborah pressed a hand against her eyes, shaking her head; bloody, bloody, Martin. How he managed to be so pathetically offensive without even trying was beyond her.

She listened half-heartedly to Martin try and flirt unsuccessfully, and Hester turn him down in her own way, with a clipped tone that held no promises whatsoever. She peered through her fingers at the control column, sighing heavily.

Martin must have realised that Hester was slipping away as she moved from the arm of his seat and into the space behind them, as he blurted out the first thing that came into his head; then again, Deborah thought, he could have been thinking of it for a while, that would seem just about right as well.

"Never eat yellow snow!" Martin blurted; the desperation was clear in his voice.

Deborah let her hand slip from her forehead to her lips, hiding the unwilling smirk that tugged at the corner of her lips. She wouldn't laugh; another day, maybe she would have. Martin delivered the lines of fools with such an arrogant gracelessness that it was funny. Not today though, she wouldn't give him that when he was fawning over such a horrible woman in her flight-deck.

"What?" Deborah heard Hester reply cautiously from by the door.

"Confucius. He … well, tha-tha-that's not one of the best ones." Martin explained sheepishly; Deborah imagined he was rubbing the back of his neck with one hand and pressing his hat down with the other.

"Okay." Was Hester's only response, and a moment later the flight-deck door scraped open and clicked closed, masking the clip-clopping of heels of the floor.

Deborah only looked up when she heard Martin sigh blissfully. She knew that her nose was scrunched as she took in Martin's relaxed form, one arm over the back of his seat, still turned as if he had just finished watching the woman leave.

"What a lovely woman." Martin remarked; he didn't grace Deborah with his gaze, looking instead through the front window, but the comment was obviously expecting a response.

"Oh, did you like her?" Deborah inquired sarcastically, aware that she sounded far too annoyed for someone who hadn't been paying attention, "You seemed rather cool and distant, I don't think she noticed, I certainly didn't."

"Oh, no! Did I? Really?" Martin regained his tucked in posture and turned wide eyed to stare into Deborah's eyes, as if relying upon her for reassurance.

"No." Deborah replied shortly, folding her arms over her chest and sneering fleetingly, "Everyone within a five mile radius is aware that you fancy Ms Hester Macauley."

Martin huffed, and Deborah glanced sideways at him just in time to see a twisted smirk intersect his red cheeks and a funny glint enter his eyes.

"Oh, I see…jealous are you?" he inquired, with all the confidence of someone who thought that they had stumbled upon a treasure trove; no stuttering or awkwardness, none at all.

"What have I to be jealous of?" Deborah retorted, keeping herself facing forward and wrapped securely around herself while maintaining a degree of elegance; she knew she shouldn't rise to the bait, but she couldn't help it, "The fact that I don't have a film star at my heels? I'm afraid you might be mistaken Martin, I don't quite swing that way."

"Quite?" Martin asked, looking momentarily confused and interested at the same time, peering at her; Deborah smirked, knowing that he would kill to hear what she had got up to at university, even as his expression snapped back into self-righteous place, "No – that's irrelevant…I meant jealous that someone else is getting all the attention and you aren't."

Deborah scoffed, unable at first to formulate a reply as she kept herself stiff and glancing only infrequently at Martin, who was staring her down; he had hit too close to home. Then the underlying suggestion behind his words sunk in, and she opened her mouth in an almost gasp of indignant shock.

"You think I'm jealous because you fancy her and not me?" she demanded, staring at Martin with such heat that his head drooped and his eyes dropped to inspect his knuckles on the arms of his chair; good, he deserved to be guilty, "Forgetting the fact that I am…happily married, do you really think that's true?"

"No." Martin replied sheepishly, shaking his head; he really did look as if he were regretting his outburst, dragging his bottom lip through his teeth, "No, I don't-"

"Then why say it?" Deborah pushed; she was going to get the upper hand if it killed her, it was no more than what he deserved, "Do you want it to be true?"

"No, of course I don't!" Martin snapped, finally looking up with his typical stubbornness firmly back in place; he rubbed a hand over his chin and shook his head, ignoring Deborah's eyes that were still on him, "Look, can we just do the pre-flight checks?"

"Certainly, Captain." Deborah replied in a clipped tone; she rolled her shoulders back and closed her eyes briefly to refocus herself.

Martin remained mercifully quiet, although it wasn't the sort of quiet that usually accompanied a cheerful flight.

oOoOoOo

Deborah leant back against the interior of the lift. Of course it was her responsibility to tidy up after Martin's mess. Of course she had accepted such a charge with merely a salacious smirk that promised she would be reimbursed later.

Of course Martin had had the self-righteousness to beg for her help after being so needlessly vindictive; she didn't even know what she had done to deserve his distemper. Apart from their initial disagreement, she had been on her best behaviour.

She had even had to stifle a laugh into a muted smile when Martin had made the faux pas at the reception desk; naughty, naughty, Captain Crieff would pick the most sexual cartoon character in the book. And he hadn't even been flirting then, that was purely and simply Martin being Martin. Surely that bought some of his trust back?

But no, Deborah had paid close attention as first he shafted her from her pleasant room, then lied to her face about all staying together in the grotty hotel; she had kept an eye on him as he tried to escape back to the Excelsior with Arthur, leaving her to suffer in filth on her own.

That was hurtful. She had tried not to acknowledge it, but it was.

She had observed from afar as Martin had schemed with Arthur (who she had no doubt was innocent), then as his face had fallen first at the hoard of middle aged knights, then at the furious phone call from Hester.

Throughout it all, Deborah still couldn't work out why Martin seemed so set upon leaving her in the horrible hotel. There were simpler options that included keeping together and suffering as one, to putting up with each other's company for the sake of a nicer room.

But no…Martin clearly despised her still as much as he had when they had first met. And Deborah couldn't for the life of her recall what she might have done to provoke that.

Arthur had been no help. Sure, he had been uncertain about the two of them going to the horrible hotel when Martin got to stay at the Excelsior, and he had tried his best to cheer her up using anything that had worked in the past. It hadn't worked, but Deborah hadn't at that point been too put out by having to move; she had been content to chat with Arthur about this and that.

It was just Martin that had made it sour.

There was no time to waste however, as a steely ding reverberated around the lift interior, and a moment later the door swished open to reveal Hester Macauley.

Nothing but manners; Deborah could be pleasant when the moment called for it.

"Come in, Ms Macauley; do make yourself comfortable." She greeted the woman; Hester smiled gratefully and nodded, peering down her nose as she did so.

For some reason, Hester had taken to Deborah in a way that hadn't been reciprocated. It was as if she had spotted a woman of her own age range, and decided that they were allies. Deborah supposed that that point of view held its merits; she had yet to fall victim to the star's scorching rage.

"Ms Macauley. On behalf of us all at MJN Air, allow me to say how sorry we are for all the trouble and inconvenience you've suffered." Deborah reeled off the speech that she had prepared, keeping her hands linked at her front, just like she had been taught at school, and a dim but resistant smile on her face.

"Well, so you bloody well should be." Hester huffed, shaking her head and adjusting stray strands of hair.

"Indeed we bloody well should be, and so we bloody well are." Deborah replied smoothly, holding her tongue; just a few more minutes, and she could go.

"You know, that Captain of yours is a bit pathetic." Hester remarked, carelessly, as if their shared gender meant that companionship was a given, "Honestly, I didn't tell him to leave me alone, and a I endured his stuttering and gasping; the least he could do is make sure m stay is comfortable, and he couldn't even do that right. I don't know how you put up with him being so irritating all the time."

Deborah froze, almost holding her breath as her eyes narrowed and she looked away from Hester's uncaring face and at the greasy corner of the lift. Acutely aware of the flaw in her timing that answering would cause, she slipped a hand behind her back to push the button to hold the doors closed.

She tried to think of something dry and witty to say, but all that came to mind was brutal honesty.

"I think he's funny." Deborah muttered just loudly enough for Hester to hear, keeping her eyes down.

Beside her, Deborah heard Hester clear her throat, and make a noncommittal sound.

"Well." Hester said curtly; she lifted a hand to her hair, as if to pretend that it had caught her interest.

"Well…let's move on." Deborah suggested; she had no desire to discuss that particular subject any further; she didn't even know why she was defending the man, "Firstly, let me assure you that the medieval contingent have now been entirely vanquished; and furthermore, in recompense for your suffering, I have been authorised to secure for you perhaps the most luxurious accommodation in Italy not already bagsied by the Pope. Behold …"

With that, Deborah took her finger from the button behind her back, and the doors to the lift swished open, dragging a line of cold air in their wake.

"… your State Rooms." Deborah concluded with a flourish.

Hester clearly hadn't realised that the lift hadn't been moving for a while.

"How did you time your speech so that it ended precisely on the ding?" she inquired, peering into the rooms with a wondrous expression on her face as she tread lightly into the space

"I rode up and down in the lift a few times, practising." It wasn't entirely the truth, but it was as much as she deserved; it was nearly true.

oOoOoOo

They were at the Garibaldi. Carolyn, before flying home herself, had ordered the refunding of the expensive room that Hester Macauley would have stayed at in the Excelsior. She had then booked two rooms at the Garibaldi, and decreed that as Arthur was the only one that hadn't tried to deceive her that day, he would be getting the single, and Martin and Deborah would have to share the twin.

After the day she had had, Deborah couldn't think of a single thing she wanted less. She still wasn't entirely sure why she was so bothered, but the end result was – she was unhappy, and the last person she wanted to share a room with was the root cause of that.

She had considered calling Harry to vent to him; she had even sat on the edge of the grimy bath, the bathroom door pushed shut, and held her phone in her hand, turning it over and over thinking about calling her husband.

In the end, she had decided not to; she didn't want to bother him with it. She didn't want him to know…she didn't want him to think that the wife he had married wasn't as immovable as she pretended to be. She was under no illusions that he thought that, she saw the sympathetic nods when she complained to him, but it helped to pretend.

So now she lay in the bed by the window, covers pulled up to her neck, arms curled around the duvet, paying only slight attention to where Martin tapped away on his old laptop, sat atop the covers of his own bed.

"Martin?"

"Yes?" Martin replied, not looking up from what he was doing; he was dragging his lips through his teeth in thought, over and over again.

"Why is it that you were going to let me stay here on my own while the two of you enjoyed the luxury of the Excelsior?" Deborah asked; she was tired, too tired to manage her usual drawl or sardonic jesting. She brushed the hair from her face as Martin replied.

"You would have done the same to me." Martin stated plainly. He had stopped typing, a sure sign that his attention was on her despite the stony stiffness of his face and the way his eyes bored into the screen of his computer.

A dull ache surged in Deborah's chest, and she found herself caught part way between affronted and hurt; she still couldn't decipher why he thought so badly of her. Sure, she prodded and poked and japed about him, sometimes choosing the company of Arthur over him…but she was trying to push past her initial misgivings and get to know him.

She had thought that she was succeeding. Apparently not.

"No I wouldn't." was all that she could make herself say.

"Wouldn't you?" Martin retorted harshly, keeping his voice down, the edge to it coming through loud and clear regardless; he was tense, and all Deborah could think about was how strange it was to be looking at him horizontally.

"No…I wouldn't." Deborah repeated quietly, eyes still tracing the lines of his distemper.

Slowly but surely, the tension in Martin's limbs eased, and his face fell; it seemed that in the semi-darkness, Martin wasn't quite so guarded, as his lips fell into a frown, and his eyes flittered about.

He turned his head to meet Deborah's gaze, and she was struck by the openness in his eyes.

"I'm sorry." He said softly, even quieter than her previous statement.

Deborah nodded, the side of her head brushing against the mattress. She didn't attempt a smile, but didn't break Martin's gaze.

"Thank you." She replied; without another word, Deborah rolled over so that she was facing the window, pulling the covers higher over her head so that she was cocooned in as reasonable a warmth as such a shoddy hotel could provide.

And that's it for now - as before, more is coming, but it might be a little while - I don't know how long, but I have exams in 3 weeks or so, so it might be sooner or later depending on whether I stress write, as I am now

Hope you enjoyed it

Comments and criticisms are always welcome