Sunlight

Chapter 4: Big Jet Plane

Caroline jiggled her foot on the carpeted floor of the 747, ignoring the glares of the other first class passengers as the soft tak tak tak sounded through the cabin like persistent raindrops. Finally, after Klaus' pointed look, she halted her movements, resuming them through her fingers only moments later. The staccato drumming of her fingernails on the armrest between them prompted Klaus to stop her.

"Planning a routine for the cast of Stomp?" He asked, covering her small hand with his considerably larger one to cease the sound.

"Very clever, that was almost a mile off being funny. You're improving." She retorted sourly. He could feel under his hand how her entire body was thrumming with nervous energy.

"Would it help if I just compelled you?"

She finally turned her full attention to him sharply. "No. That's just cheating."

Klaus shrugged, turning his attention back to the newspaper.

Caroline bubbled like a pot on the stove for a moment more before snapping.

"Any help would be nice."

He exhaled through his nose, folding up the paper meticulously.

"Do you know how many airplanes crash a year?"

Caroline sent him a look that was caught somewhere between a glare and pure fear. He would have found it comical if they had been in any other situation.

"That's your idea of help?!"

"Patience, love." Klaus said levelly, and she scoffed, but was otherwise silent.

"Thirty-six. That's out of the nine million, seven hundred and forty-eight thousand, five hundred and fifty-one flights a year. That gives you a one in two hundred and seventy thousand, four hundred and seventeen chance of being in a plane crash. So there is a ninety-nine point nine nine nine six three percent probability that the plane wont crash. In all my years, I have only been in one. And planes used to be made out of wood and fabric. People used to get them started by pushing them and waiting for the wind to catch the wings correctly like a kite. It's only been in the last hundred years that they've perfected air travel to be what it is today."

The conversation was cut short by an invisible force pushing them back slightly into the soft first-class seats.

"What's that?" Caroline asked, the anxiety no longer present in her voice.

Klaus glanced out the window behind Caroline with a bored expression.

"The plane is taking off."

"Oh. Oh!" Caroline swooped towards the cabin window with the wide-eyed curiosity of a child, all fear forgotten. Klaus watched her as she watched the world fly out from beneath them. Her wonder was contagious.

Once they were above the clouds, she sat back with a sigh, loosening her gripped hands. She hadn't realised one of them had been wrapped around Klaus' but they let it pass by wordlessly. That seemed to be the new rule: not talking about any moments where Caroline actually seemed comfortable with him.

Klaus returned wordlessly to the paper, while Caroline settled herself in with all that the plane had to offer for the flight. Upon boarding, she had recognised that they were going to Russia, but that was about it. She was surprised to say the least, after Klaus' whole spiel about 'Rome, Paris, Toyko', but then again, he was full of surprises. Some serious, nasty surprises too, but still.

"You realise I'm never going to be able to travel any other way again after this." Caroline observed to an impassive Klaus. "I may not have been anywhere, but as far as I know, economy is nowhere near as nice as this." She gestured to the space and champagne-bearing air hostesses of the first class cabin.