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You don't remember falling asleep. You remember typing numbers to him at midnight with your thumbs, and him answering in two- and three-word lines, and the conversation ending without a winner, and lying in the dark afterward with your heart going too fast for a woman who only wanted to be right.

At 0545 he's in the lobby with two coffees. He hands you one without a word.

You take a sip. It's exactly how you take it. Black, one sugar.

"Chidi," he says, before you can ask. "I don't do surveillance."

"Thank you, Captain."

"Don't thank me. It's a bribe. I'm flying the next three legs."

Day three is Jackson to Denver to Bozeman. Day four is Bozeman to Denver to Rapid City and back. It is the longest two days of your life, and the strangest, because something has shifted between you and you can't tell which direction.

He still corrects your flow. He still narrates. But on the climb out of Jackson he asks, almost casually, what you'd have done if the shear had hit at three hundred feet instead of six, and he listens to the whole answer without interrupting. In Bozeman he lets you brief the departure off the ridgeline without amending a single word. On the walkaround in Denver he points at a small dent in the leading edge of the left wing and says, "What do you think?" like he actually wants to know.

You think it's within limits. You say so. He nods once.

It's not friendship. It's not even respect. It's attention, which in your experience is the most dangerous thing a check airman can give you, because attention finds things.

On the leg into Rapid City a man in 9C drinks four tiny bottles of vodka he brought in his carry-on and decides he'd like to talk to the pilots. Chidi calls forward on the interphone in a voice that is still pleasant, which is how you know it's bad.

"Gentleman in 9C is trying to get to the front," Chidi says. "He says he has a right to meet the captain. I disagree."

Zane is flying. You pick up the interphone.

"Chidi, is he near the door?"

"He's in the aisle at row six with his shirt untucked and his feelings hurt."

"Do you need us?"

"I need you to say the magic words."

You key the PA. You've done this voice before, on worse days, in front of worse crowds. Calm, flat, a little bored, as if there were no possible world in which anyone would disobey you.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is the first officer. We're beginning our descent into Rapid City. At this time all passengers need to return to their seats and fasten their seat belts. The gentleman standing in the aisle near row six, that includes you, sir. Please take your seat now. Federal regulations require it, and so do I."

You release the button. There's a pause.

Then Chidi's voice on the interphone, delighted. "He sat down. He said 'yes ma'am' to the ceiling. Ms. Kilgallen from yesterday would be so proud of you."

When you hang up, Zane is looking at you.

"'And so do I,'" he says.

"It works."

"It shouldn't." He turns back to the windscreen. You'd swear his ears are pink.

In Rapid City the APU won't start for the turnaround, and the gate has no ground power, and the jet starts getting warm. You find the reset in the maintenance manual on your tablet before the mechanic answers the radio. Zane watches you do it and doesn't say anything at all.

By the time you block in at Denver on the last afternoon, your whole body hums with tiredness. Zane finishes his paperwork on the tablet while the passengers trickle out. You collect your things. You wait.

"Done," he says finally. "You're released to the line."

The relief is so strong your knees go a little soft. "Thank you."

"Don't." He's still typing. "I'm not finished."

He stands up to get his bag from the closet behind the cockpit, and he leaves the tablet on the glareshield, screen up. You don't mean to read it. You tell yourself that later. But the evaluation form is right there in the company's blue template, and your own name is at the top, and your eyes do what they were trained to do, which is read every instrument in a single sweep.

TECHNICAL: Adequate stick-and-rudder. Sound procedural knowledge.

JUDGMENT: Inclined to deviate from published standards (approach additive, JAC). Defensible but unproven.

BACKGROUND: Undisclosed. Military record substantially withheld. Unable to verify experience claims.

RECOMMENDATION: Release to line with extended observation. Recommend review of hiring basis.

Review of hiring basis.

You read it twice. The words don't change.

You think of Beck Riordan saying Pathways hire to a room full of pilots, and nobody laughing very hard, and nobody saying no.

When Zane comes back with his bag, the tablet is exactly where he left it, and you are sitting in your seat with your hands folded in your lap, very still.

"Something wrong?" he asks.

"No, Captain."

He looks at you. He looks at the tablet. He doesn't apologize. You didn't expect him to.

There's a man waiting at the top of the jet bridge.

He's in his fifties, silver-haired and tanned, wearing a navy suit and the kind of smile you see on brochures for retirement communities. His ID badge says BRIGHAM HARKER, VP FLIGHT OPERATIONS.

"Captain Trevelyan," he says warmly, shaking Zane's hand. "And this must be First Officer Truett. Welcome to the line, Ava. May I call you Ava?"

"Of course," you say. He's already done it.

"Good news," Harker says. "We've finalized summer bids. Probationary pilots fly with an assigned captain for their first year, as you know, and I've had a special request." He beams at Zane. "You'll be flying Captain Trevelyan's line through August. He'll write your monthly reports. Our best, keeping an eye on our newest. I can't think of a better arrangement."

"I can think of several," you want to say. You smile instead. "Thank you, sir."

"Wonderful." Harker claps Zane on the shoulder and walks away down the concourse, already on his phone.

You and Zane stand at the top of the jet bridge while passengers stream around you.

"A special request," you say. "From who?"

He shoulders his flight bag. For once he doesn't look like a poster. He looks like a man who has just decided to tell you the truth because it will cost him less than lying.

"Don't thank Harker," he says. "I asked for you."

"Why?"

His ice-gray eyes hold yours.

"Because I want to know what you're hiding, Truett."