When they got back to Hotel Richmond, they were bracing themselves from the barrage of questions that would come from Martin, when they saw him with Ardee and Adam waiting for them at the hotel lobby. But it turned out to be an incident involving one of Ardee's FA.
Giselle have apparently not learned her lesson when Maine told her off. Martin, whose room was opposite to Richard and Maine's room, caught a drunk Giselle in her underwear sneaking into their room. Needless to say, Martin was fuming. He not only made a complaint to the hotel management for providing a spare key to someone not authorized but also privately gave Ardee a lecture on properly managing her FAs.
Ardee was upset about the whole situation but she took Martin's lessons to heart. Adam was with her through the whole ordeal. The whole event that morning was a blessing to Richard and Maine though, since they were spared the interrogation from the senior head FA. It was a somber morning when the group left the hotel as Martin was still a bit upset about the incident.
It was a different story once they were airborne, enroute back to Manila. Once the plane was on a steady course and the usual checks were done, Richard's co-pilots began their interrogation. It started when Sam noticed the silver chain peeking around Richard's neck that Richard ignored. He stood up so that Jerald could take his place for the short leg of their journey.
"There's something different about you," Jerald said as he looked at his captain sternly.
Richard also ignored him as he settled himself to take a few hours of sleep before he took over the longer haul. Suddenly, Jerald gasped and shot his captain a nasty look.
"I don't believe this!" He exclaimed. "You couldn't wait 'til Christmas to do it? I thought we were friends?"
"How would you like to be transferred to Marc's team after this experiment? I'd ask Marc to switch First Officers with me."
"Harsh Jase," Jerald remarked. "I can't believe you'd rather have Manuel than me. He's boring."
"At least he doesn't place bets on my sex life."
"Actually," Sam interjected. "He placed a bet for March."
"See?" Jerald said. "I'm still the better First Officer. I know you well enough to be just a month over. Who won anyway?"
"I have to double check my list," said Sam. "But I think Martin was the only one who said Paris."
"What about me being the only one saying Paris?" Martin said suddenly as he came in the cockpit.
"Martin!" Jerald exclaimed. "Have you noticed anything different about our dear Captain?"
"Different?" Martin said as he looked at Richard curiously. "Except for that silver chain around his neck and his very pink ears I don't - OH MY CHUCK!!! DID IT FINALLY HAPPEN?!? Has my hard work paid off? How was it? Were you satisfied? Wait. That look on your face says it all. I'm sure Maine enjoyed it too. You were gentle with Maine, right? It was her first time after all."
"Can we not talk about this?" Richard retorted but his face and ears were so red with embarrassment.
"Oh no!" Martin remarked. "I had a bad morning. You need to give me something to alleviate the bad vibes."
"How could talking about what happened last night alleviate bad vibes?"
"It just will," Martin said. "It would give me assurance that whatever Giselle had planned that night wouldn't have worked anyway."
Richard just looked at him blankly and began to get settled. But Martin was persistent.
"What happened that night would remain between Maine and me," Richard insisted. "I don't kiss and tell."
Martin gave him an exaggerated pout and said, "well, whatever happened between the two of you must have been really great. Maine seems fine. Although she was walking a bit slowly today. Like she's sore down there."
Sam and Jerald were about to make a comment but they saw Richard's glare, daring them to say something. They wisely stayed silent.
"You didn't assign her to Economy today, did you?" Richard asked, a worried look was etched on his face when he turned to Martin.
"I assigned her to First Class," he replied. "It's a sort of 6th month gift for you guys. Good thing too. After what I found out, she would need to take it easy."
The conversation continued but Richard just shook his head and ignored them. He settled himself at the back while Sam and Jerald continued talking about what could have happened that night with Martin adding some insights of his own. But Richard just drowned them out, as he closed his eyes and went back to that moment.