Chapter Text
Welcome to Air France nonstop service, New York to Paris. Our flying time today is an estimated 7 hours 20 minutes. Please check that your seat belt is fastened and that your chair back is in the upright position. We'll be taking off shortly.
Adam gripped the handrests on either side of his seat. His engagement ring dug uncomfortably into his skin from the pressure, but try as he might he couldn’t make himself let go. He’d strapped the seatbelt as tightly as it could go and then tighter still, to the point where he couldn’t make out whether the tightness in his lungs was because of anxiety or constriction.
Who was he kidding, it was anxiety.
Adam? A female robotic voice echoed through the speakers in the airplane cabin.
“Yes?” Adam whispered.
Are you prepared to have a pleasant flight?
“Y-yes…” Adam shook his head vigorously, as if trying to dislodge all the catastrophic images from his brain. He couldn’t.
Tell me, Adam, what are you thinking about?
“Engine failure due to lax safety protocols and human negligence. Uncontrolled descent at speeds of about 250 to 300 knots, depending on aircraft weight and whether conditions. Twisted steel. Ball of fire. Screaming.”
Adam, what happened to your little planetarium? Picture it now.
“Okay,” Adam murmured, breathing heavily. “Okay.”
The plane lurched. Something made a thudding sound that definitely wasn’t supposed to make a thudding sound.
“Oh, my god!” Adam gasped, trying to jump out of his seat only to get trapped by the unforgiving belt. He clawed at it blindly, too panicked to even unbuckle it properly.
And don't forget your takeoff mantra. What are the words you chant softly in your head?
“Okay,” he said shakily. “Um. I will love France in the springtime. Paris is… P-Paris will be romantic, and—” Adam cut himself off. His lungs felt too tight, his sweater vest was too itchy, and the he was trapped in a metal tube that was closing in on him.
Adam? Adam. Your mantra.
Adam clenched his eyes shut and slapped his hands over his ears. “WE'RE GOING DOWN!” he yelled, rocking back and forth. “WE'RE GOING DOWN! WE’RE GOING DOWN!”
Adam, you can do this.
His hands drummed a frantic rhythm on his thighs, then came up to paw at his chest, and then, as if he didn’t quite know what to do with all the panic flooding his small body but had been told he shouldn’t take up too much space, he crossed his arms and dug his nails into the meat of them, latching on so roughly it hurt.
“Let me out,” he whispered.
Adam?
“I HATE Paris!” he yelled, rocking even more wildly, achieving an impressive amplitude of oscillation considering the limited legroom. “I don’t like the French, I don’t want to go on this trip!” He finally managed to unbuckle his seatbelt and sprang from his seat, running towards the emergency exit.
“Let me out!” he screamed, banging on the locked door. “I don’t belong here, I want to go!”
The pressurised door gave under his barrage. It broke off its hinges, and Adam fell out of the plane.
* * *
Adam landed hard on his ass on the ramp outside the flight simulator.
“Ow,” he said, rubbing his elbow.
He squinted as Harlan’s face appeared above him, haloed by the fluorescent lights of the phobia clinic.
“Well, that didn’t work,” he said, extending a hand to help Adam sit up. “What are you gonna tell Beth?”
Adam slumped back on the ground with a groan.
* * *
“You could get the money back on my ticket?” Adam suggested.
Beth sighed, pulling out dresses from her closet and throwing them into the open suitcase on their bed. “Money's not the issue, Adam. What I wanted was for you to come with me so we could have a family trip. Daddy took time off work for this, you know.”
Adam flexed his fingers nervously. “I-I’m sorry, Beth. I’ve just never been on a plane before.”
Beth huffed again. “You know, even before we booked the tickets, Daddy said he didn’t think you were going to follow through. But I told him, you don’t know Adam like I do. I was so proud of you for trying exposure therapy, too.”
Adam rubbed his sweaty palms over his thighs and looked at his shoes. “I tried.”
“Don’t you want to prove to my parents that we can be a normal couple?” She snatched her new bikini, still on its hanger, and held it in front of herself. “Don’t you wanna see me in this?”
Adam’s cheeks heated. “Of course I do. Y-you could wear it tonight?”
Beth rolled her eyes and threw it into the suitcase, where it joined the growing pile of cocktail dresses and heeled boots. “No. Only boyfriends who come to Paris get to see me in bikinis.”
“Fiancés,” Adam corrected.
“Yeah, exactly. A week in Paris with the woman you love? Just imagine how romantic it would be. Fancy restaurants, French cuisine, wine tastings—”
“I’d still eat Mac & Cheese.”
“Picnics under the Eiffel Tower—”
“I don’t know, it’s a touristy area, it will probably be uncomfortably crowded. And loud.”
“Well, shit, I don’t know, okay? There must be something of your interest there too. It’s a big city, you could go see some space thing.”
Adam perked up. “Oh, there is! The Haute-Pyrénées is one of the best International Dark Sky Reserves in Europe. It houses the 19th-century Pic du Midi observatory, which features a dome telescope that was installed by NASA in the Sixties—”
Beth laid a stilling hand on his arm. “Yeah, see? You could go visit that.”
“But I'm not supposed to leave the country until my immigration interview anyway.”
Adam’s stomach felt sick whenever he thought about the upcoming interview. Even though she was currently living and working in New York, Beth was actually Canadian. Her father’s work had temporarily brought the family to America, but their extended relatives all lived in Canada. It had been decided that after getting married, Adam and Beth would move to Canada to be closer to her family.
Theirs was an unconventional love story. Beth moving into apartment 3A was one of the best things that had ever happened to Adam. Their friendship had been painfully awkward at first, but once he had explained everything about his Asperger’s and mind-blindness, Beth had been sweet and understanding of his social difficulties. After he’d gotten fired from his job as an electrical engineer at the toy manufacturing company, she helped him prepare for job interviews, went with him to buy new suits, and rehearsed and re-rehearsed every single question likely to get asked until they were both tired and sleepy.
Things had only gotten complicated from there. Beth’s father’s indictment resulted in a lot of fights, as did their arguments regarding Adam’s behaviour around her friends, which fluctuated between reclusive silence and excessive monologuing about space facts.
But even after Beth’s deception at the theatre and one of Adam’s particularly awful meltdowns — even when it seemed like they were broken up forever — they never really stopped loving each other. It helped that Beth’s mom orchestrated a reconciliation, and despite Mr. Buchwald’s vehement protests, Beth chose to get back together with Adam.
Adam received a job offer in California and asked if Beth would come with him, but Beth said she couldn’t. Harlan encouraged him to take the job anyway, but Adam didn’t want to leave Harlan, and his father’s house, and the only person he had ever fallen in love with. So he declined and applied to 87 more jobs until finally, miraculously, one of them accepted him: Halloran Industries, Department of Research & Engineering for Space Communication & Exploration.
They moved in together shortly after Mr Buchwald went to jail. It wasn’t all smooth sailing from there — Adam was Adam and it had seemed Beth wanted someone… more, but Harlan had said often enough that relationships were a lot of work, so Adam assumed this was what everyone dealt with in their lives — the price one paid for love.
Somehow, they made it through the rocky months after Beth’s father’s trial and sentencing, and then through the next winter, and the next. Somewhere in the interim Adam had proposed, Beth had said yes, and applications for citizenship had been filed.
Now it had been three years, and Mr Buchwald had been released last autumn, and Beth was anxious to have a family summer vacation like they used to do every year since she was a kid.
Adam knew he should feel lucky, really, that he had managed to acquire not just a girlfriend, but a whole family for himself. Mrs. Buchwald called him every so often, and not just to talk about Beth, while Mr. Buchwald had been kind enough to arrange for this entire trip.
Which brought them to their current dilemma.
“Come on, Adam. We could make something up. Tell them it’s an emergency.”
“But it’s not an emergency. It’s a vacation.”
Beth laughed. “Yeah, silly, it would be a small lie.”
Adam shifted from foot to foot, tapping a rhythm on his collarbone with his right hand. He thought back to high school, and what had happened the first time he had broken a rule. It had been a disaster, and Adam had vowed never to risk breaking one of his rules again.
Seeing his agitation, Beth sighed and walked around the bed to where Adam stood. She kissed his cheek and held his face between soft, warm hands. “Look, I’m sorry for pushing you. But just— just think about it, okay? There’s a few days still left — enough time for you to change your mind.”
Adam’s shoulders relaxed a little under her touch. He was grateful to have someone who put up with him.
* * *
Beth’s mobile rang early the next morning. Her hands were occupied cutting up fruit and making pancakes, so Adam pressed accept and put it on speakerphone.
“Hey, Bethy. How’s the little buzzkill doing?”
“Good morning, Mr. Buchwald,” Adam said.
“Dad,” Beth chided with a laugh. “Leave him alone. He’s not going, alright?”
“Adam, honey, you’re not coming with us?” Beth’s mom asked.
“Hello, Mrs. Buchwald. I-I’m not supposed to leave until my Canadian citizenship comes through.”
“And he’s afraid of flying.” Mr Buchwald butted in. They could hear when Beth’s mom clicked her tongue and punched his arm. “What? Am I wrong?”
“No, you are correct,” Adam replied. “The plane tilts when it starts ascending, it is a very discomfiting feeling.”
“It needs to do that in order to fly — thought you of all people would know that, Mr. Genius Science Guy.”
“That’s enough sarcasm from you, Daddy. Is there a reason you called?”
Sounds of shuffling on the other end of the line, Beth’s mother taking the phone. “Adam had requested I keep an eye out for any “For Sale” signs within a ten-mile radius of where we live, and to let him know ASAP if any went up in our neighbourhood. Well, one just went up, so here I am, letting him know. What did you want to do with this, son?”
Beth turned to Adam warily. “Why are we looking at houses we can’t afford?”
“W-well, you know how I finally took care of my father’s assets and all the pending paperwork last year? Harlan had been dealing with it before, because I-I’d been too overwhelmed after he’d died.” Adam took a deep breath and looked down as he ticked things off on his fingers. “So there is the retirement plan, the death benefit, and a couple investments, which in total means we now have a pretty good nest egg.”
Beth looked spooked, as if she couldn’t decide between hugging him tight and running very far away. She washed her hands and moved to the dining table; she suspected this was a conversation she needed to sit down for. “Adam, what are you saying?”
“You said you wanted time to write without— And that you missed—” Adam wrung his hands in his lap. “If I sell this house, and use the money fro-from the inheritance, we could buy a home close to your parents. We would have to take a mortgage, but it wouldn’t be too much, and— and you know engineers get paid well enough that you wouldn’t really have to teach if you didn’t want to, so…”
“I thought you said you never wanted to sell this house,” Beth said, almost accusingly.
“Yes, but— but I thought I never wanted to move either, and now I’m moving to Canada, and I wouldn’t have been able to do any of it without you. Also Harlan is moving out of New York too to go live with his old sweetheart, so everything is changing e-even though I hate change. Harlan said it doesn’t make sense to keep this house if we’re getting married and moving, the mortgage in New York is too high.”
“Mommy, daddy, I’ll call you back,” Beth said curtly.
“Alright Bethy.”
“Bye honey!”
Hanging up the phone plunged them into silence, the kind that experience had taught Adam he wasn’t supposed to break. He just watched Beth stare out the window, apparently lost in thought. She crossed and uncrossed her legs, then leaned back in her chair and stared up at the ceiling. Sitting opposite her, Adam mirrored her movements. He tried to sit still to avoid annoying her, but couldn’t help his knee bouncing.
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?” Beth finally asked, and she sounded a little angry now, even to Adam’s ears.
“I was trying to do one of those — big romantic gestures that you like? From your romcom movies. And I didn’t really know how much my father’s inheritance was until a few months ago, Harlan was taking care of most of it, and…”
Beth put her head in her hands and didn’t reply. Adam deflated a little. “Should I not have? Beth? You look upset. I’m sorr—”
“No— no, don’t apologise, Adam.” She sighed and reached out, taking Adam’s hand between both of hers. “It’s just— I guess I hadn’t thought that far ahead. And it suddenly feels like my entire life is flashing in front of my eyes, and I’d never imagined this is what it would look like.”
“O-oh.” Adam didn’t quite understand what she meant. He waited for her to tell him if she wanted a hug.
She leaned forward and kissed him, a soft peck on the lips. “Okay, I’m gonna go finish packing now. Whew, boy. Big things are happening, huh? You sure you still don’t wanna come to Paris, even after all this?”
* * *
The seven-hour flight from John F Kennedy Airport to Charles de Gaulle took off at 2 PM the next day. Adam looked skyward as the plane flew overhead, both feet planted firmly on the ground.