A Proper Pilot

Unless you were looking for it, you wouldn't see the little tuft of dark orange that was peeking out of the branches of a certain tree, in a certain park, on a certain street, in a certain little suburb of Fitton, at a certain point in time that was either quite a while after World War Two or a VERY long while before Intergalactic War Seventy-Six, depending entirely on who you are talking to and whether or not they own a TARDIS.

This little tuft of dark orange, in fact, was actually the hair of a little boy who went by the name of Martin Crieff. Martin, like many boys his age, quite often found himself in the tops of trees. However, unlike most other boys, Martin also had a tendency to suddenly find himself at the bottoms of trees, looking up into the sky and cursing an especially slippery patch of moss on a branch, at that point several meters above him.

On this particular day, Martin had chosen to ignore this dangerous habit of his, falling out of trees, and was attempting to climb higher than he had ever previously climbed. However, as any aspiring art student will tell you, ignoring an inability to do something does not make that something easier to do, it just makes it more obvious to all the people around you that you're rubbish at it.

So, unless you were looking for him, you wouldn't notice the angry little ginger boy from Fitton climbing dangerously high. You wouldn't see his uneven footing as the branches became narrower. You wouldn't realize that at any moment, Martin might come crashing to the ground.

Luckily, someone was looking for him.

"Hello up there!" A friendly voice called up into the tangled mess of tree and little boy.

The sudden noise startled clumsy Martin, causing him to slip a little, but luckily he was able to steady himself by grabbing two fistfuls of leaves from a nearby branch. The little boy looked down to see who had interrupted his grand adventure of attempting to climb higher than anyone else had ever climbed before. There, on the ground, he saw a silly looking man with floppy hair wearing a bowtie and braces.

"Hello!" the man called again, grinning.

"Hello…" Martin shouted back, rather unsure of what one was supposed to say in situations like this.

"If you don't mind me asking, what are you doing up there?"

"I'm climbing a tree."

"Ah, yes, climbing a tree, of course," the man paused and seemed to be thinking about something intently, "Why are you climbing a tree?"

"I just climb trees. Everyone climbs trees."

"You know, I'm actually not sure that I've ever climbed a tree before."

"Well everyone I know climbs trees."

"Do they? That's cool. You're climbing with your friends then? Where are they?"

Martin was, in fact, climbing the tree by himself, but it seemed a bad idea to tell this to a stranger.

"I'm by myself today."

And there went that plan.

"Ah, meeting up with your friends later, I expect."

"No."

"No?"

"No." Martin actually didn't have any friends to speak of at the moment. He did, however, have a girlfriend, but they were both in kindergarten, so their relationship consisted mostly (if not entirely) of Martin giving her his jammy dodgers at lunchtime.

The strange little man was still smiling up at Martin but he didn't say anything else, so Martin decided to continue climbing. As the boy began to search for his next foot-hold, the man suddenly became chatty again.

"Yes, climbing trees! Always loved it as a boy!"

Martin stopped. "You said you'd never climbed a tree before!"

"What? Why would I say a thing like that? Everyone climbs trees! It's only the best thing in the world! All the… er…" the man hesitated, as if searching for the right words. "…wood?" Martin just stared at the man. "Leaves? No? Not the leaves, obviously. Embracing nature? The er…" The man took a large step back, taking a good look at the tree, "The being very high up in the air?"

Martin grinned in spite of himself.

"Yes!" The man shouted, clearly proud of himself, "Being VERY high in the air, that's the best part of climbing trees. Everyone knows that."

"I'm going to climb higher than anyone else has ever climbed before." Martin informed the man.

"Really?" the man said, dramatically doubtful.

"Yes." Martin said firmly, "I can do it. I'm not a loser."

"A loser? Who called you a loser?"

Martin frowned and returned to his work plotting the next steps in his climb. "My dad."

"Your dad eh? Well, what do dads know? All grown up, can't remember what it was like to be a kid. They're just stupid."

"No. He's not stupid. I'm stupid."

The man stared at Martin for a long while. "I don't think you're stupid." He said, very seriously.

"I wanted to be an aeroplane."

"Sorry?"

"I told my dad that I wanted to be an aeroplane when I grow up."

"'Wanted'? You don't want to be one anymore?"

"My dad says a person can't be a plane."

"Well, technically, that's true, humans won't perfect cyborg technology for another thousand years or so. But that's only a technicality! You can be whatever you want to be! Be a plane! Be a car! Be a Dalek! Wait, no, don't be a Dalek. But be a plane!"

"A PERSON CAN'T BE A PLANE!" Martin snapped, his tiny voice carrying across the small park. The little man jumped back a bit, startled.

"Well… you could always be a pilot."

Martin stopped again to glare at the funny-looking stranger. "A what?"

"A pilot! The man who flies the plane! Your dad drives a car, right? Well, they need people to drive planes too!"

"Come off it."

"I will NOT come off it. After all, I'm a pilot too."

Little Martin's eyes grew wide with awe. "You fly in aeroplanes all day?"

The man seemed to hesitate. "Well… not really PLANES, plural. There's just the one…"

"But you get to fly through the air? You get to take off and land and do all that?"

"Oh, I'm getting really good at the landing bit! It takes a lot of practice, but I find if I cut the temporal thrusters right as I… what's the matter?"

Martin looked crestfallen. "It doesn't matter. You sound so smart. You know what you're talking about. I bet I'd be terrible at all that too."

"Well you don't have to be good at it right now! They have schools for that sort of thing."

"My dad would still think I'm rubbish." Martin hastily grabbed a branch above him and started trying to pull himself up.

"Now calm down! Didn't we already have the part of this conversation where we agreed your dad is an idiot?"

Martin let go and settled back on the branch he was on before, wrapping his arms around the trunk of the tree and looked at the man expectantly.

"All I'm saying is: your dad doesn't really matter! What does your dad know about flying? Nothing! You'd be a GREAT pilot. And, as a professional pilot myself, I can tell these sorts of things. Because I am one. A professional."

For reasons not entirely clear to him at the moment, Martin felt tears beginning to well up in his eyes. He bravely held back any sniffles. "Do you really think I'd be a great pilot? That I could fly some day?"

"'Course you will." The man said quietly. "Of course."

For several minutes the strange pair just stared at each other. A curly haired little boy clinging to the trunk of a tree and a gangly, poorly dressed man standing on the ground. A pair of proper loons. The man sighed.

"Alright. Well then, I'm very sorry to be the one to tell you this, but if you still plan on climbing as high as possible, I think you might need a bigger tree."

Martin, still tightly grasping the trunk, leaned out from the tree, first looking down to the ground and then up towards the top, surveying the situation.

"Do you think so?" he said.

"Most definitely." The man nodded. "You know, I think I saw some really MASSIVE trees on the other side of the park. Real record-setters. How about you climb down and we can go look together? Find you a proper tree."

"That sounds like a good idea."

Martin didn't move. The man smiled.

"Stuck then?"

"Yes, sir."

"Okay!" shouted the man excitedly, suddenly started sprinting towards the woods at the edge of the park. "I'll be right back, don't you move an inch!"

And so, Martin Crieff was left alone. Waiting. But, he thought, if he couldn't trust a pilot, who could he trust?

However, as he found out, several hours later, when the sun was setting and he was still in the tree, Martin could NOT completely trust this particular pilot.

He was tired after a long, stressful day and tried to snuggle against the tree and get some sleep, but snuggling with a large prickly hunk of wood is not especially comfortable, so he settled for just closing his eyes and praying someone might come along to rescue him from his predicament. He should have known better than to trust that stranger.

…

"Always the gingers. It's always the gingers I mess up. Why can I never get them right?"

Martin was jerked awake by the voice of the man. He was so startled; he fell from his perch, and most likely would have plummeted straight to the ground, had he not been immediately caught in a big bear hug from the strange man. As Martin rubbed his eyes and tried to figure out what was going on, he managed to piece together the fact that he was no longer in the tree, yet still very high off the ground. Upon further inspection, he discovered he was in the arms of the "pilot" who was standing on top of something tall and blue, using it as a makeshift ladder.

"I AM sorry. My spatial aim may be spot on, but the temporal's still a bit off. Always the landings. Always the gingers." The man set Martin down, so he could stand on top of the blue box as well, and then jumped down onto the ground.

"Okey dokey!" the man held out his hands to help Martin jump down. "Down you go!"

Martin did not take the man's hands but instead clung to the light at the top of the box. "You're late."

"Yes. Completely my fault! But here I am now! So if you just want to hop down…"

"You said you would be right back."

The man sighed deeply and closed his eyes. Suddenly he seemed much older to Martin. "Always the same. The curse of the gingers. Well, at least you haven't got a crack in your wall."

"Who are you?" Martin interrupted, growing impatient.

"I'm The Doctor."

"I thought you were a pilot!"

"I'm The Doctor AND a pilot. In fact, you're standing on my ship, so if you would just HOP. DOWN."

That had captured Martin's interest. He quickly shimmied off the top of the box and let the man help him to the ground.

"It doesn't look like much." Martin said, more than a little disappointed.

"No. No, I don't suppose she does. But she's served me well!"

"She?"

"Oh yes, all ships are girls. More than girls. LADIES. If you're nice to them, they'll take you anywhere in the universe… or hit you. I haven't worked out all the kinks in that metaphor yet." The man pulled open the door to his ship and started to step inside.

"Wait!" Little Martin grabbed the edge of the man's coat. "You can't just leave! Can I fly with you?"

The man gently took Martin's hand and knelt down next to him. "I'm sorry. You can't come right now. I have some business to take care of. But! Chin up! I have some wise words of wisdom for you! You want advice from a real pilot, don't you?"

Martin perked up at this.

"Alright, first and foremost: take care of your ship," the man said, patting his own blue vessel, "Without your ship, you aren't going anywhere. Second: play nice."

"Play nice?"

"Yes, you heard me, play nice! I can tell you, my job would be a lot simpler if everyone would just play nice and follow the rules." The man smiled and there was a twinkle in his eyes, "A lot less fun though. Next, and this one is very important: don't be late. You saw what can happen if a pilot makes a few perfectly honest miscalculations. Now, last, you can never EVER forget this one, alright?"

Martin nodded, taking this more seriously than he had taken anything in his young life.

"Keep trying. You'll get it eventually. You might not get it on the first go, or the second go, or even the ninth go… but you'll get it… Captain."

And with a mechanical whir and a slight breeze, the pilot was gone. Little Martin Crieff never told a soul.

AUTHOR'S NOTE- this was inspired by a Cabin Pressure headcannon I found on tumblr:

"Martin got a visit from the Doctor after he was told he couldn't be a plane and was told he could be anything if he really wanted to and that he would be proud of Martin. That's why he why he kept on wanting to be a pilot."

Cpheadcanons*tumblr*com

crieff*tumblr*com (the original poster)