A/N: Wrote this during a huge sprint in NaNoWriMo, so I'm surprised it makes as much sense as it does.
Rated for Mark's severe potty-mouth.
The first night after being left on fucking Mars, Mark barely sleeps.
He knows he needs to. Fuck, he knows. But the complete silence around him, just hovering under the oxygenator working at full capacity, is unnerving. He can't hear any other signs of life, because there aren't any. He's the only one.
When he finally gets to sleep, he's driven right back out again by the feeling of the communications dish smashing into his helmet, the antenna driving deep and harrowing into his side. He rolls out of bed and tries not to vomit.
It doesn't really get better the nights after that.
He tries to keep himself busy. It's not really hard, considering every time he comes up with a new issue there's twenty thousand things he has to do in order to not die because of it.
He keeps the video and written logs going mostly out of a futile sense of leaving something behind before he dies, because he knows he's going to. There's really no questioning that. Did he mention he's been stranded on fucking Mars?
(He should get that put on a T-shirt. No one can question him, because he's the only one here. "Hey mom, I'm stranded on fucking Mars!")
(He never said his ideas were good ideas.)
He rarely sleeps soundly. Every night has its own kaleidoscope of colours and sounds that sometimes make sense and sometimes don't. He likes to think that maybe his brain is just trying to make up for the fact that everything on Mars is made of orangish-reddish-brown dust and not even the contents of the Hab can make the colour of the daylight stop bleaching everything orange.
He keeps talking even when the video log isn't recording, and doesn't really notice it until he's outside on Sol 45, dusting off the solar panels, and he suddenly hears feedback over the unused microphone that's part of the helmet. Then he realizes he's been shouting into it for god knows how long, cursing out the sand around him and the solar panels that just won't stay clean and the fact that having a fucking electrical socket that he can plug shit into and just pay someone else to make his energy for him is something he took for granted on Earth and how much would it cost to get a power line out to Mars anyway?
He doesn't stop, once he realizes. There's a lot worse things than talking to yourself. (Like going crazy.)
(He dreams about his mom. The day she told him she'd gotten a new job, and how she'd laughed during the barbeque that night, and how she likes to put lemons in her Sprite because there just isn't enough lemon to make it worth it, Mark.
He dreams about what it must be like on Earth. He dreams about Mitch going up to their front door, giving them the news, because NASA doesn't know he's alive, do they, and he has no chance to tell them, and he sees himself screaming over his mom as she collapses, as she sobs into his dad's shirt, because he's right here can't they see him he's trying to say something to them and they're just not listening I'M HERE—)
The day the potatoes sprout, he wants to cry.
(He does, once he turns off the video log. They've seen enough embarrassing things so far; they don't need to see him crying over a tiny little sprout, no matter how much it's going to save his life.)
He almost blew himself up for this stupid little plant, almost roasted his face off and turned his Martian home into the second Hindenburg, but damn if he isn't proud of the stupid little plant. And every stupid little plant that comes after.
He's even proud of them on Sol 147 when he's run out of ketchup and feels like crying because potatoes are bad enough with it.
(He dreams of his high school chemistry teacher. He doesn't know why. He hears the man speaking, but can't quite make out the words. The entire class is laughing at him, but he can't really work up the nerve to try and stop them. It feels nice, hearing someone else's laughter, and it only stops feeling nice when they start all sounding like him and he wakes up giggling without being able to remember why.)
The day the Hab blows, he knows he's going to die.
Doesn't matter that he found Pathfinder. Doesn't matter that he has potatoes up the wazoo and a working rover. Doesn't fucking matter.
He's not gonna make it to Ares IV and he's starting to accept that, no matter how much he was starting to hope.
(He dreams about hope, sometimes. A stream of instances that he barely remembers, barely thought were significant.
Hoping for his acceptance letter to the University of Chicago.
Hoping for the results of the experiments he'd been doing for his thesis, because most of his academic career hinges on them.
Hoping for the Ares III team to like him, to get under Commander Lewis' skin and see the awesome person he knows is there, to find a kindred spirit in Martinez even if there's really nothing in common between them other than a fondness for lewd jokes, to meet Vogel's kids eventually, to see Beck and Johannsen finally fucking kiss because come on—
Those dreams always end in a wash of red sand and orange-hued light and cold, and those are the days he finds himself moving more slowly, unable to really rush because what's the point—)
Modifying the rover feels like an exercise in futility.
He's always been into DIY projects, always had a huge fondness for building and fixing and changing, but this is something else.
This is using a drill that can only do a limited number of holes a day in 0.4 gravity in a massive fucking space suit and saying that you're making progress.
He gets frustrated, and he tries not to. He never says it on the logs, because if he dies he doesn't want people thinking he died while whining about his life (but he would fucking deserve to, thank you very much. He's stranded on fucking Mars). But when the evenings come, he punches his pillow and screams just a little bit and feels like he's never ever going to finish any of this shit on time.
He does, and he doesn't really know how—especially when he ruined Pathfinder by being an idiot and lost his only communication with anyone but himself again—but it takes so many days that he longs for home. (It's not unusual.)
(He dreams about fixing his car. He likes to change the oil himself, tinker with the belts, work on the brake mechanisms. In the dream he's usually pulling apart the engine, showing his mom all the different bits inside and explaining everything. Then he puts it back together and goes to sleep, and the next morning all the pieces are on the floor again. So he explains them again and puts it back together and then it's apart again, and it doesn't stop until he wakes up and stares at the bottom of the bunk above him and tries not to cry because that's what life is now, isn't it?)
On the way to the Schiaparelli crater, he's pretty sure he goes crazy.
And not like, in the good crazy kind of way. Or the way he's already gone crazy, all things considered.
He's never been claustrophobic in his life (one of the things they vet pretty thoroughly in astronaut training, because you can't really go to space in a tin can with five other people and not be a little stuffed together. It's just math). But, when he hits the fifty-Sol mark in the rover, he very seriously considers taking a walk outside without the suit on.
Don't get him wrong, the inflatable bedroom idea was brilliant and he appreciates every moment he gets to stretch out without being crammed into the rover. But sometimes, he just needs to be out of the suit.
Out of the rover.
(He only manages to stop himself when he remembers that they know he's alive now. And it won't make a very good photo on the front page news if he's frozen to death in his tighty-whities on Mars.)
(He tells himself that's the only reason.)
(He dreams about sitting on the edge of a lake, looking out at a sunset.
The sun doesn't move. The water ripples slightly in the breeze. There's a few little noises, like a bird singing its last song before sleep and the plunk of a fish coming up for air.
He sits. And watches.
It's quiet.)
The day he reaches the MAV (after rolling the fucking rovers and being sure that he was about to die and it just wasn't fucking fair to get that far and then fail—) is the day he realizes that maybe, he might actually live.
He doesn't manage to stop the tears while logging this time, but thankfully it's a written log in the end.
And then he has to stop himself from crying all over again when he gets a message from NASA and learns that he's going to have to DIY the shit out of the MAV, too.
Maybe he won't survive after all.
Oh well.
(There's a dream he has every few nights, one that's been coming back more and more often as he waffles between knowing he's going to live and knowing he's going to die.
He's floating in blackness. The Hermes is just out of reach, and Mars is just behind him. He can see Beck's face looking out one of the living area windows as it rotates around, can see Martinez at the helm even though it's not facing him because that's how dreams work. He can hear Lewis and Johanssen and Vogel over his comms, chatting as if nothing is wrong.
He screams, because the Hermes is right fucking there and they aren't stopping. It's moving away inch by ragged inch (even though he knows that nothing in space moves that slowly, fuck it) and no matter how loudly he yells, he can't reach them. They don't even know he's there.
And eventually the Hermes is a tiny speck in the distance and he's falling back to Mars, the air punched from his lungs, and he lands in a pile of red sand and stares up into an orange sky and knows he's alone.)
The moment he's inside the Hermes airlock, Beck's arms still around him, the voices of his crew—his friends, holy fuck they came back for him—all around him, every bit of strength—every bit of adrenaline and oh-shit-I'm-gonna-die and need to go on—just drains out, and he barely hears Beck asking if he's alright as he sags.
It takes a few of them to get him to medical, and he barely hears what they say and what he says in return. Their voices feel too loud in his head, too echoing because he hasn't heard anyone's voice but his own in so long and recordings and comms don't count and holy shit Beck's right there—
He gets through the preliminary medical exam, barely. Then he passes the fuck out.
(He dreams of the Hab, of waking up in the bunk again and again and again and knowing that today is the same as the last and there's nothing he can do about it because no one's coming and no one even knows he's here and he might as well just not wake up at all—)
Johanssen's face greets him when he wakes up, and he startles so badly that he falls off of the cot he's on.
She's apologizing before he even has a chance to process that he's on the Hermes, he's safe, and that's Beck speaking to him from afar, holy shit there's people—
He tries not to flinch when someone touches him, when he can barely see anything and why is it all so loud?
(He dreams about nothing.)
Beck greets him with a smile when he wakes up again. "Hey Mark. You're on the Hermes. You're safe."
He reaches up to rub his eye, feeling like he's been hit by a truck. "Whazzat?"
Beck reaches out and pats his arm. "We had to sedate you. I don't think you remembered where you were."
"Hermes. Not fuckin' Mars," Mark manages to get out, and he suddenly finds that he's grabbed Beck's hand and won't let it go.
Huh.
Beck just smiles again. "Yeah. Not fucking Mars. Never again."
He doesn't take his hand away.
(He dreams about skiing in western Canada. He went once, with his college buddies, and it was so goddamn cold he was sure he was gonna freeze his balls off. They made a good weekend of it, went down enough runs to leave them all aching and feeling like they were gonna die. He dreams about the chill thinness of the air that high up, how it had taken longer to catch his breath.
The snow is white and the sky is such a clear blue that he can barely look at it. Every once in awhile he'll blink and it'll almost look like it's orange, a redshift he can't explain, and then it goes back to blue-white and cold and stabbing and he shrugs and follows his friends down the next run.)
It takes a few days for him to realize that they're humouring him. They have to be.
Johanssen spends most of her evening with him, humming quietly and reading while he leans against her side and dozes. (He tries not to let the lethargy get to him, because he doesn't need to do anything to survive right now, he doesn't, and if he can just convince his brain of that maybe he'll be okay.) Vogel hovers, muttering in German, while Mark does the short and easy (for someone not half-dead) maintenance routine in the gym to try and get his muscles back into shape. Lewis tends to let her foot trail over his calf as they're sitting across from each other during meals, and she's so much chattier than he would have expected before. Martinez makes so many lewd jokes you'd think they were going out of style, and punches Mark's arm or ruffles his hair (which has finally been cut, thank god) whenever he's within arm's reach.
Beck is his doctor. There's really nowhere safe from him, and nothing the man hasn't touched.
They're coddling him. Touching him. Helping him remember where he is.
(He thinks it should insult him, because he's never really been a touchy-feely kind of guy, but it feels so fucking good that he honestly can't ask them to stop. Can't even start to get the words out.)
(He dreams about the Hab alarm going off. He's in his bunk, sleeping soundly, and he jerks awake to hear it blaring overhead. He tries to get up, tries to go find out what's wrong, and it just keeps sounding. He can't get up. His sheets are stretched tight over him, holding him down, and no matter how much he struggles he can't get them to move. The alarm gets louder, sounding like it's inside his head, and the sheets get tighter and there's nothing he can do to fix what's happening, he's going to die—)
Lewis finds him wandering the ship in the middle of the sleep cycle.
"Hey," she says, and he startles so badly he smacks his hand against the handhold he was reaching for and swears.
Lewis reaches forward, letting herself drift slightly until she can grab the handhold next to his. "You okay? It's the middle of the night."
"Always night in space," he mutters mutinously.
She gives him that captain look he's always hated but she pulls off so very, very well.
He sighs. "Couldn't sleep."
"So you thought wandering around would help?"
He doesn't say anything for a minute, just staring down at his hand and thinking. What is he supposed to say? That he spends every night imagining what might be going wrong with the ship? That he has to check every airlock, every window, every goddamn statistic about oxygen and water and pressure and gravity before he feels like he can sleep, because if he didn't do any of those things he'd have suffocated and died and probably blown up (again) on fucking Mars and he wouldn't be here now and maybe he's not here at all—
"Hey, hey. It's okay." Lewis' hand in on his face, her legs pressed against his to stop him from floating away as he loses his grip on the wall. "I get it. It's okay."
He just lets himself nod, closing his eyes. Maybe she does.
(He dreams about the first step on Earth again, the way the gravity pulls him down and he doesn't stop himself from sinking to his knees and letting his fingers tangle in the grass (because he definitely lands on grass, it's allowed in dreams) and just feeling the wind rustle through his hair as he breathes.)
When they're only a month out from Earth, they have a sit down meeting about how it's going to go when they're back.
"There's a lot of press to deal with," Lewis says, and the crew looks at each other uneasily. "A lot of what happened isn't supposed to go public, but anything can happen. One way or another, we're the people who've spent the record length of time in space, and one of us lived on Mars for almost two years."
"Really? Who could have done that?" Mark says with wide eyes and a shocked expression. No one else seems to think it's funny. Oh well.
Lewis passes out briefing packets, and they're all sent to do their homework and come back with potential responses to all the questions therein.
Mark hates most of his questions.
"Were there any times where you gave up hope of rescue?" Of course, what the fuck do they think happens when you're abandoned on fucking Mars?
"What was the best moment of your experience?" If they have to ask they obviously don't understand what Mars is like.
They continue in that vein, and eventually he just throws the whole data packet into the trash and doesn't say anything when Lewis asks for his input.
(He dreams about stepping out of his house and the air suddenly leaving his lungs, being ripped out of him by phantom limbs. He sees the road in front of him crumble into dust, sees the blue sky bleach into orange, and realizes that he's not wearing his suit. He turns around to the door and sees his parents standing there, looking through the glass that shouldn't be able to keep the air in, and they look so sad that he can barely move even as the last of the air leaves his lungs and the cold reaches its fingers up his body and he's frozen solid.
His mom just stares, shaking her head with tears on her face.)
When he gets to Earth, it's a gongshow. There's no other word for it. The entire world wants a piece of his story, won't stop until they've gotten to hear it from his mouth, and he barely has time to think, let alone remember that HOLY FUCK HE'S BACK ON EARTH.
Maybe that's the point, in the end.
(He dreams about going back on the Hermes, of the trip back to Mars, of being told he's actually not good enough and would he kindly get off here because Mars wants him back. He dreams of waking up in the Hab over and over and over again and it just never stops.)
It's a year after getting back, of taking his first breath of fresh air in three years, and he can barely contain himself.
Martinez is smirking. The fucker.
"What did I say, Martinez?" Mark hisses.
"You said you wanted a Happy Meal," he says with an ever-widening smirk.
Mark narrows his eyes. "And what did I ask to go with that Happy Meal?"
Martinez shrugs, as if he didn't just betray every ounce of friendship they ever had. "I figured you might have had enough of being healthy."
"When I say apple slices, I mean fucking apple slices!" Mark pulls the little container of hatred out of the box. "Not these... these... abominations!"
"That's just mean," Martinez whines as he snatches the container of fries out of Mark's hand before he can throw them on the ground (and yes, he can be petty, he's allowed to take advantage of the ability to litter, fuck you) and holding them to his chest. "What did they ever do to you?"
Mark is contemplating murder. "You want to try living off of potatoes for the rest of your life? Because I can arrange that. Nice, bland mashed potatoes every day, easy to chew with no teeth."
Martinez gives a little eep and turns to flee.
Mark's faster.
(It's been a year. He's got some muscle back, thank you very much, and Beck can shove his rhetoric about taking it easy and slow and letting his body work itself out because it feels so fucking good when he catches Martinez's sweater and dumps him into the pond.)
(He dreams about his class. His students sitting and waiting patiently for him to arrive, with smiles on their faces and hope in their hearts, and he dreams about them never going to Mars in their lifetimes because no one should go there, fuck Mars.
He dreams about sitting on his mom's couch, drinking coffee and chatting for the first time in a long time. There's a dog at his feet, his dad's in the kitchen making dinner, and he just got a text from Vogel asking if he's free for bowling that Saturday.
Except it's not a dream anymore.
He's home.)
FIN.