A dark birthmark stretched across his face.
Time fractured. Engines faded. My pulse thundered.
Training took over. I repositioned him, delivered precise thrusts. On the third attempt, the obstruction cleared. He gasped, collapsed, and the cabin erupted in applause. I barely noticed.
He turned toward me, eyes wide and unsteady.
“Dad?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head slowly. “I’m not your father. But I know who you are, Robert.”
He explained that he’d flown with my real parents before their fatal crash. He’d watched me grow from afar, unable to claim a role he felt unworthy of.
“You left me to the system,” I said.
“I thought it was kinder than failing you,” he admitted.
It stung—but clarity emerged.
“Why are you here now?” I asked.
“They grounded me last year. Heard about you. I wanted to see the man you’d become,” he said quietly.
I held the photograph between us. “I built my life on this image,” I said.
“It gave you a dream,” he replied.
I shook my head. “No. I became a pilot because I wanted to fly. Because I worked, studied, and earned it. You don’t get to claim this.”
He looked down, defeated but grateful. “I just wanted one last moment in a cockpit.”
I stood. “Then sit. But remember—you’re a passenger in my story now.”
I placed the photo on his tray table and returned to the cockpit. Mark glanced up.
“All good?”
I gripped the controls, eyes on the endless horizon.
“Yeah,” I said. “Everything’s clear.”
For the first time, I realized it fully: I hadn’t inherited this life. I had earned it.
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