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Raymond let out a sigh, fingers fumbling around the “open here” line of a bag of peanuts. “Christ sake!” he’d curse under his breath as the instructions repeatedly failed him. “Alice, your nails are longer can you open this bloody thing?”

“I don’t like this,” hissed Alice for the thousandth time this flight. As a first time flyer, the girl was doing remarkably well at keeping her composure and took the entire ordeal at her own pace. That said, there was a modicum of trust that had to be set in place for anyone to tolerate flying, and it was this trust that Alice had difficulty scrounging up whilst they soared thousands of feet high in the air. She gently took the bag of peanuts and tore the top off with one deft movement, handing the bag back to her guardian mechanically before turning away from him to peer at the rolling landscapes of cloud-tops below her.

“Calm down, sweetheart. Just think of what I told you, it’s like flyin’ with ‘em angels.” he let out a sigh of relief and started picking nuts out of the packet, eyes wandering around the heads poking over their seats.

“I don’t see any angels from up here,” Alice muttered bitterly as she peered over at the clouds, squinting into the distance as if she was close to spotting one. She thumbed her rosary. She sighed. She fidgeted with the threads poking out of the edge of the armrest, then started flicking idly through her copy of [i]Ulysses[/i] without really taking in the words on the page. Another sigh, and then her bony fingers dipped into Raymond’s peanut packet uninvited. She chewed on her prize despondently and went back to fidgeting, this time with the flight’s safety manual.

With a smirk, Raymond replied: “They must have gotten sucked into the turbines then.” and stuffed another salted peanut in his maw, leaning over and giving her a friendly nudge with the packet of peanuts extended.

Alice pulled a face and shook her head. “Give it a few decades,” she intoned hollowly, “We’ll get you in that confession booth before you croak it just so God gives you a moment’s hesitation before he drop-kicks you into Hell…” Whilst wry humour was Alice’s new thing, her heart didn’t seem into it. She tipped her head back and clutched onto each arm-rest, taking a few deep breaths. 

Raymond gave Alice a couple of glances. He sighed, “Christ, Al, keep that up and I'll get a heart attack by proxy. I thought you said it wasn't scary?”

“The reality of the situation only dawned upon me once we broke the cloud barrier…” Alice murmured softly in response. Raymond slouched back in his chair and patiently munched on peanuts until he emptied the packet and then gave Alice a cursory glance. When he realised she hadn't moved from that position he sighed yet again and started tugging at the neck of his tie. He gave Alice another nudge, prompting the young girl to glance over in his direction as he draped the undone tie around her neck. “Wh…?”

“Gonna teach you something new to pass the time. Maybe then you’ll stop putting dents in the armrests,” quipped Raymond lazily as Alice became aware of how stiff she was and instantly relinquished her grasp on the seat. “The big bit always sits on the right, the small bit on the left. I mean, usually you can tell ‘cause there’s a front and back to these things, but still…”

Alice watched Raymond’s movements with a halfhearted intrigue. She was still bitterly aware of how high up they were for a while, but Raymond’s constantly laid-back demeanour and his gruff, lazy tone of voice had a knack for calming down her rapidly-beating heart. Alice was an overthinker, a worry-wart; she was constantly suspended in a state of anxiety or stasis as her mind flitted incessantly from one thing to the next. With Raymond she could focus; her guardian never showed fear, never worried, even when money was tight or his job security was at risk. He never exaggerated any problems, nor did he tell her off unless it really meant something. Compared to her mother, Raymond was a saint...though she used the term loosely, especially considering that his breath currently stank of cigarette ash, peanuts and scotch from the departure lounge. Perhaps the better way to describe it was that Raymond was [i]sane[/i], and in a world such as Alice’s, sane people were hard to come by. She was snapped out of her reveries by Raymond promptly tugging the tie loose and going “Alright princess, your turn.”

Alice hadn’t been listening but it did not matter, because she had been watching and focusing on the movements of his hands. She could remember them with precise accuracy - looping from underneath, then towards the left, through the back...using the template in her mind’s eye, Alice mimicked Raymond’s movements to tie a windsor knot. “Heh, not bad! Looks a bit wonky but we’ll work on it. By the time we step off this thing, you’ll be one step closer to gettin’ that suit.”

Alice smirked. “Is that still a thing?” she asked amusedly.

“Course it is. You look like a sheet of paper - pale as shit and flatter than a pancake. You’d look [i]pretty damn good[/i] in a suit. Besides, I’d love to see the look on your mother’s face when she catches her little angel we-”

They hadn’t noticed the turbulence, too busy toying around with the tie. All of a sudden the plane made an abominable groan and the overhead compartments split open, spilling their contents down the aisle. Alice didn’t scream; she just grabbed a hold of Raymond’s forearm and his calloused palm wrapped around hers and gave it a tight squeeze. He was saying something over and over to her, but she was too panicked to hear him. The explosion sent her body sideways sharply, tethered in place by the seatbelt. Her lips were moving on their own accord; she was praying. She could feel the sounds of “most merciful Jesus, I pray Thee-” on her lips but couldn’t hear her words. They caught in her throat as her guardian lurched over and gave her a tight hug. She could hear him shushing her, trying to calm her even as the plane took a steep downward angle.

Then the plane split and Alice was flung into darkness.