Since he didn't really have anything to do, or anywhere else to be at the moment, other than wait for Beck to get to him, and a great deal of things that he didn't want to think about, at the moment, he tried to concentrate on deciphering why it was that Beck's voice sounded so different than it had the last time they'd talked. The last time they'd talked, one of the last conversations Mark had had, with a fellow human being, in fact, had been a year and a half ago. Sol 6. Beck had been in the Hab, while Mark and the others had done an EVA to collect soil samples. But the storm had blown in. Beck had been there at the airlock, helping the rest of the crew to quickly suit up for the MAV. Mark had replayed that sequence of events a hundred times in the year and half since then, he couldn't help it. It had been one of the last things he could remember seeing, the last time he'd actually seen any of his crewmates faces. Beck, their EVA specialist, had been helping Johanssen to hurriedly suit up, giving her a smile, his hands holding her helmet out to her, far more gently than they'd done for Mark, or Lewis, or anyone else for that mattered.
That moment had stuck with him, he supposed, because in the flurry of activity, Mark couldn't help but being aware, once again, that Beck had it bad for Johanssen. Everyone had noticed, of course. Beck didn't tend to hold his cards very close to his chest, after all. Commander Lewis had been more-or-less forced to declare that Johanssen was off-limits to all the men on the crew. Before they'd even left Earth. Mark could remember every moment of that embarrassing conversation as well. He had been worried that Beck would lose his place on the crew over his unprofessionalism when it came to Beth. They all had. Once the dust had settled, though, and the crew was on their way towards Mars… how many times had Mark had to listen to Chris drone on about Beth, in confidence, when it was just the two of them? By the time Hermes was orbiting the red planet, four months later, it had gotten pretty fucking tiresome. Mark had no doubt whatsoever that as soon as they were all safely back on Earth, if he even decided to wait that long, Chris was going to try his damndest to break his way out of the friendzone, and turn his attraction to Beth into something real.
Honestly, Mark had had no idea if that would even work; how often do guys really make it out of the friendzone, anyway? He had had his doubts. And then… and then, Iris had suffered that RUD at launch. That had changed things a bit. In the aftermath of that terrible event, Mark had made the choice, the decision, to try and nudge things Beck's way a little bit, if he could.
Had it worked? He had no idea. Now was hardly the time to ask.
But Beck's voice had sounded a little different, on the com. Cold. He wasn't just imagining it, was he?
And then, there he was, floating towards the MAV at a pretty good clip. Mark couldn't see Beck's face, of course, hidden behind his helmet's bright gold reflective coating. Beck didn't greet him, though. Not really. He called out on the com for data on his relative velocity every few seconds, until he'd managed to get a handful of Hab canvas. The first human Mark had seen in a year and a half had closed hands on the wrecked remainder of the MAV, and Mark held his breath.
Without comment, Beck linked a carabiner to Mark's suit, and once latched, he quickly unfastened the straps holding Mark into place on the acceleration couch, and shoved off, his MMU thrusters silent in the vacuum of space.
The sudden motion had Mark's broken ribs grinding in his chest, so he shut off his microphone, lest any embarrassing noises reach the ears of his crewmates. Hermes began to draw closer and closer, as Vogel reeled them in, unseen, and Mark tried to stay calm. And failed, hard.
His broken ribs made it feel as though he couldn't breathe. He was lightheaded from the pain and adrenaline. And he was finally-fucking finally-almost back to the relative safety of the Hermes. His vision was blurry from broken blood vessels, but Airlock 2 was visible now. And maybe some tears, too, were blurring his vision, if he were being totally honest. The end result was that by the time they actually reached Airlock 2, the combination of chest pain, and low blood pressure had made it impossible for him to respond, when Commander Lewis addressed him on the com.
"Watney? Are you still with us?" Beck's voice sounded in his ears, sounding tinny and really far away.
"Uh huh," he mumbled, though Beck didn't hear him. Mark was just this side of conscious.
"Just go limp," Beck advised, floating Mark down the corridor towards Beck's quarters that also served as the ship's sick bay. "Watney? Do you read?"
Mark managed to turn his microphone back on, a short while after Beck had secured him on the exam table.
"Been having a pretty boring day," Mark joked, weakly, not much above a whisper, and then he drew in his breath sharply, hissing. "And I think I broke some ribs. Sorry." Beck was silent, as he listened to the com chatter between Vogel and Martinez, as Hermes executed a minor course correction.
Having failed at breaking the ice, apparently, they waited, in what seemed like an interminable awkward silence, for the ship to pressurize.
Where is everyone, he wondered. He wanted out of this EVA suit, he wanted to see some human faces, get some high fives. He wanted something that wasn't a potato, to eat. Mark watched as Beck prepared medical supplies, somewhat clumsily in his EVA suit. Everything was taking so long, moving so slowly. Mark was tired. Exhaustion was settling over him.
"Pressure normal," came Johanssen's voice over the com, finally. Beck started to de-suit, helmet first. It struck Mark again then, how odd it was, that Beck was both the last human he'd seen, and now the first. He looked tired and drawn, Mark thought. As though he hadn't been sleeping well. He shucked off the rest of his EVA suit and secured it, before he rounded on Mark, unlatching his helmet.
Beck's nose wrinkled, brow furrowed. He looked kind of horrified. The brow furrow turned into a frown, as he pulled Mark's helmet away.
"Do I have a head wound or something?" Mark whispered, eyes wide, voice worried and quiet against the noisy backdrop of the ship.
Beck gave a brief shake of his head. Thanks to the microgravity, it wasn't too much of an ordeal to slide the top half of Mark's EVA suit over his head, after Mark pulled his arms into the center, careful to avoid his ribs. It didn't feel good, though. Beck's frown deepened. He seemed to breathing through his mouth, and Mark wondered why, for a moment.
Oh. It was the smell, wasn't it? He hadn't had a proper bath in, well, a long time. Cleaning up with only a limited amount of water, when you didn't even have a clean towel, let alone soap, didn't get you very far, Mark thought, wryly. He'd gotten used to it, apparently. "Sorry," he apologized with a self-disparaging grin, hoping to make light of the situation, but Beck never acknowledged that he'd spoken, or made eye contact with him at all. Awkward. That was weird, Mark thought. What's his problem, he wondered.
After the bottom half of the suit was removed, Beck passed over a handful of painkillers and a bottle of water with a drinking valve on top to wash them down, and matter-of-factly began to slice open the seams of Mark's flight suit with some shears. Then, he swung the x-ray machine over to confirm that Mark had, indeed, broken two ribs. It took a while. Mark winced when he saw the fresh bruises, dark red and angry looking, welling up on his lower chest. His skin hadn't been in the best shape to begin with, what with the pressure sores, poor nutrition, and general lack of hygiene. A sustained period of 12Gs during the launch hadn't done him any favors.
It had been a really long sol, Mark thought, sleepily, as Beck continued to work him over, checking his vitals again and drawing a fresh blood sample. Mark was starting to drift. The painkillers were starting to take effect. It felt like the longest sol he'd ever lived, in his entire life.
No, he corrected himself. It was Mission Day 687. No more sols. Fuck Mars, and the horse it rode in on. But why was Beck not talking to him? That was kind of strange, but he didn't have the strength to worry about it anymore just now. It would have to wait. He closed his eyes, utterly exhausted. All the jittery adrenaline from earlier events had faded away, taking his energy with it.
Beck had finished with the examination, and commenced with taping up Mark's ribs. By the time he was finished, the painkillers had kicked in, apparently, and Mark had fallen fast asleep, less than two hours after they'd pulled him aboard. Not too surprising.
He continued on, methodically cleaning and disinfecting each of the painful-looking pressure wounds, and covering them with waterproof bandaging. Watney slept right through all of it, not even wincing at the touch of antiseptic on his broken skin. Beck noted the size and placement of the antenna scar on his abdomen for the charts, and checked it for adhesions. It had been a clumsy job, but Watney had managed to pull the edges of the wound together, with only a small amount of adhesion and scar tissue. The whole thing was less than the size of a quarter. He was lucky it hadn't killed him. A quick examination of Watney's eyes was one of the last things he needed, and he pulled back one eyelid and then the other, noting the pupillary response and the broken blood vessels. He added that data to his chart, too. The skin on Watney's face was in better condition than the rest of him, but the skunky smell was overpowering when Beck had to lean in close to check his ears, and he almost gagged.
Finally, satisfied that he had done all that he could do, for the meantime, he scooped Mark up, and settled him onto his own bunk, recoiling again, a little, at the smell of him. He secured a telemetry strap around Mark's middle, to monitor him as well as hold him in place until the centripetal gravity resumed, and then covered him with one of the navy blue, NASA-issue blankets, tucking it around the edge of the mattress, military style, for the best heat distribution. Disposing of the ruined flight suit came next, as Beck crammed it into a collapsible specimen bag, forcing the air from it, before he transferred it over to the recycler. It was kind of a shame, he thought; the flight suit had been relatively clean and in decent condition, in striking comparison to the man that had been wearing it.
He'd hastily secured Watney's EVA suit, and his own, to the bulkhead earlier, so that they wouldn't be floating around and getting in his way while he worked. But now, they needed to be returned to Airlock 2, so he began to unclip them, one at a time.
And frankly, it wouldn't be a terrible idea, Beck thought, if he went ahead and latched Mark's helmet into place, to help contain that horrible stench a little bit. He reached for it, and something fell out, floating into his hands.
What the...
Watney had brought himself a little souvenir back from Mars, then? Beck examined it a little more closely, and then, recoiling suddenly as he recognized what it was, he turned it over in his hands, and shot a suspicious look back at Mark, asleep in his bunk.