Title:Rebuilding from rockets.
Author:Rodlox.
POV:Devon.
Summary:Devon's thoughts as she handles being a returnee.
Note:this is my 16th 4400 fanfic.
Spoilers:Pilot, Wake-Up Call.
I highly recommend the book 'The Mercury 13: the Untold Story of Thirteen American Women and the Dream of Spaceflight' by Martha Ackerman.
Author's notes:This is arranged into weeks since being returned on the lakeside.
Week 11:
I hear the one plane head off on its own into the heavens, its companions soaring on, left to continue the path they had begun together. And I can't break away from looking at the casket. One month. We had one month after I was brought back. He'd waited for me. He held me while I cried. He didn't envy my still being youthful.
Even now, even then I yearned for the time we missed. Forty-four years. We didn't have children early in our marriage, and we agreed to put it off while I was a canidate for the space program...and when I came back, it was too late. His cancer had seized him, and it refused to let him go.
Focused on the casket, the rest of me feels like I'm back in the sensory isolation tank. There's nothing outside of me, nothing affects me. Everything is a vague unreality, a hallucinagen I can't pull away from. My hands were numb when they handed me Pete's folded flag. Everyone's in uniform here, except me.
There's a hand on my shoulder now. "Devon," General Bob Roarke says, trying to comfort me in my hour of need, "if there's anything...me and Mim are just a phone call away." I force myself to nod. They used to be our neighbors, but that was a long time ago. Now they live a few minutes away by car. On hand for anything Pete needed. Fifty-five years of friendship.
"Thank you," I say. "Thank you for everything." For helping Pete through the years, for lending your support, for everything."
"You're welcome, though it was never an imposition. In fact, would you like to stay with us for a while? At least until you get everything sorted out?" Funeral costs, catching up on history, trying to figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. The planes I flew are antiques now. I'm an antique. I just don't look it. I wish I did, maybe then I wouldn't feel so miserable. I make myself nod; he deserves an answer. Bob's a friend, always been there for me and Pete.
We're the last ones to leave the plot. As we make our slow way to his minivan (will I become accustomed to names like that?), he mentions that, "I've made some connections at NASA since Webb retired. If you're interested, I could see about getting you a seat on the shuttle."
'A seat on the shuttle.' I want to cry at that. I know he means well, but the very fact he says it so casually...it eats at me. I tested for months to be a canidate, only to be ripped away from all opportunity. And when I come back, I find that all my efforts, all the work of Cobb, Cochrane, Lovelace and the others, were for naught. Nobody ever permitted them to go into space; kept telling them that space was a frontier exclusively for men. I hold back my tears, picturing myself in the deprivation tank. "I'll consider it," I tell him, grateful that I've finally gotten an offer regarding my going into space.
Women are in space, I'd learned while in quarantine, and it hadn't been any of the Mercury 13 who'd gotten to go. The Soviets'd sent up a woman, and still my government refused to allow us access to orbit. But in time, an American woman had reached the heavens. While I was in quarantine, I wrote a letter of congratulations to Sally Ride, praising her on her accomplishment. I signed it with my name, with 'Project Venus,' and the year I'd gone. I'd convinced the people in charge of the quarantine to please mail my letter. I got the reply two days before Pete passed away: Sally thanked me for my letter, and said it was thanks to the efforts of women like me, the early pioneers, who had made her spaceflight possible. I cried that day too, but I was happy.
I cried today, and I'll cry later today, and won't be happy. I doubt I'll have any happiness from here on out.
Devon Svensen, nee Wells.
2 December 1960.
Week 15:
"You're certain of that?" I ask, finding it difficult to keep disbelief from my voice.
"Absolutely," Mr. Collier tells me from behind his desk. "And not just because you're one of the 4400," aren't you one as well? "Your credentials alone make you more than qualified for the job."
"Thank you," I say, feeling not a small amount of awe at my luck. The last three employers I sat down for an interview with, they refused to hire any number of the 4400. Maybe that was their excuse, maybe they just didn't want someone whose registration number was 0000. "Thank you, Mr. Collier."
I can't keep staying with the Roarkes, much as I want to. I can't pay them rent: neither of them will stand for that, and I appreciate that. But there isn't anything I can do -- their maid already keeps the house neat and tidy, cooks for the children and grandchildren when they visit, and has always done everything for the Roarkes. I need something to do, something that lets me feel like I'm paying my own way. My vouchers from the people overseeing quarantine - NTAC, I believe the abbreviation was - allows me to buy the occasional dinner out for the three of us. But its just not enough, not for me. Maybe I'm just a creature of my times, a relic from the past, too set in many of my ways. I was flexible enough to learn to fly, adaptable enough to make it through astronaut canidacy...but deep down, I truly agreed that a woman should fix things, that a woman should cook dinner herself. And those just aren't really options in this modern time. I'm a stick in the mud to people nowadays.
"I'm happy I could help," Mr. Collier tells me, an honest smile on his face. "Though you do understand you'll need to re-train for more recent planes and helicopters. Air safety regulations, you understand."
I nod. "I'm no stranger to red tape, Mr. Collier."
"Then it's settled. You can start here whenever you like."
"Tomorrow?" I ask. One of my prospective employers tried such word game to weasel out of having to outright refuse my application.
"Whenever you like. There's no hurry." Well, that's a relief.
the end.