Come Fly With Me

Aviate

My thanks again to Ehcimocs, for her help and feedback.

Mitch goes back to work after a week, but it's a far longer process for Scott. First, there are his immediate injuries. He obviously can't fly with a broken ankle or a banged-up back.

Then there's the psychological fallout. It turns out that having your coworker die, immediately having to take his place, and then desperately trying not to fuck up the toughest challenge of your career while almost 300 lives hang in the balance isn't great for your mental health. Scott's whole world seems to tunnel in whenever he even thinks about getting in a 787 simulator, and his sleep is so bad he's relying on FAA-prohibited meds to stay sane. So he can't fly, and that's a hell of a mindfuck because he's never done anything but fly.

Not that a cockpit is on offer right now anyway. The official investigation is just beginning and the FAA and the airline need some idea of what happened on that flight before Scott can return to duty, even if he gets his shit together.

And finally, there's the ongoing public interest. Scott's not thrilled with the idea of being the center of media attention, but the airline has a vested interest in spinning their pilot as a hero rather than their plane as a failure, and Scott has a vested interest in his bank balance staying above zero while the future of his career is, heh, up in the air. So, after some encouragement from the airline's PR department in the form of extra compensation for media appearances to replace his lost flight hours, he starts to accept some of the offers.

And there are a lot of offers. Everyone wants to talk to Scott. NBC DFW, Good Morning America, Trevor Noah, Seth Meyers, Graham Norton. A bunch of international networks, some Scott's heard of and more he hasn't, including a series of Japanese network video-interviews, where thankfully Aiko does most of the talking. It's bewildering and scary and, if he doesn't think about it too much, just the tiniest bit awesome.

He does put his foot down about appearing on Fox & Friends, although he allows AA to rewrite his refusal so it doesn't start and end with the words 'go fuck yourselves'.

Some of the interviews go well, with intelligent questions and thoughtful interviewers who've done at least minimal amounts of research on the accident, aviation, and/or Scott himself. But even with the good ones, he still has to answer the same questions again and again, describe the same events over and over, and feel the same emotions, whether he wants to or not. His therapist keeps an eye on him, helps him work through his emotions after each show to the point where it almost becomes desensitization therapy. It's a weird process, yet helpful overall. At least, he thinks it is.

But some interviews are trainwrecks from the start. This current guy is particularly vapid, having looked at Scott exactly once in the six on-air minutes the interview has already taken, spending the rest of his time smirking into a camera like he's sharing an inside joke, or finding the prettiest woman in the audience and doing the same to her.

Scott's not sure what American was thinking when they requested he appear on this show, but it's a struggle to get through it without becoming shady as fuck, something the airline has also expressed its preference for him not doing as much as possible.

"If you'd started out in the cockpit that fateful evening--" The Talking Head, er, host says, and if one more person calls it 'that fateful evening', Scott may scream, "--would things have turned out better?"

"Not for me," Scott says dryly, and the audience laughs, which is what he intended but is also not a joke. "Look, Captain Moore and relief First Officer Kwon appear to have done everything right. They donned their oxygen masks, they initiated contact with ATC--" Scott's voice catches like it always does when he thinks about Roger and Jeff getting hurt just doing their fucking jobs. He clears his throat and reaches for the water in front of him.