Log Entry
Mission Day 707
I think I got addicted to Vicodin.
I've got cold sweats, I'm losing my appetite, my pain gets worse every day, and now I'm getting pain in places where I shouldn't be getting pain. Also, I was taking a shitload of Vicodin when I was doing the MAV modifications, and it briefly crossed my mind that this might become a problem. I didn't care at the time, because if I lived long enough for this to be a problem, then I'd take it.
I don't regret it. Like I told Lewis, I did a lot of things that were stupid because I had no alternative. If I was in too much pain to work, I was going to die, so if an opiate addition got me to the end then it was all right with me. Except that it's not all right with me anymore, because I'm getting worse.
The crew is getting worried. They've noticed I'm waking up early, and usually in the rec room before anyone else is, and if they're clever cookies they've also noticed the dead way I'm staring out the window, the way I've lost my enthusiasm about eating (which is considered a 'worrying sign' in a known starvation victim), and the way I aimlessly drift around the Hermes.
It's not like I'm 'sad,' or anything, it's just this damn weight in my chest. It's making it impossible to drag myself around the Hermes or will myself to do anything. I have plenty of stuff to do. I know that my martian potatoes are going to make a mad botany paper, but I have months to write it before we return. I've got experiments to finish, but I don't want to finish them. NASA's got a million people they want me to talk to about Mars, but I don't want to do that either.
I was Mark Watney, Astronaut. Astronauts are kickass. Let alone astronaut, I'm actually a Space Pirate. But I don't feel kickass right now, or like a space pirate. I just feel like a heavy weight drifting around the Hermes. I can't summon excitement about my flowers, or about being in space. When did the coolness of being in space wear off?
Well, I know exactly that wore off. It wore off on Sol 6.
I'll be happy when I never see space again. And seeing space was a huge part of Mark Watney, so I guess the old Mark Watney really is gone and not coming back. Guess their funeral wasn't in vain after all.
I don't know, maybe I'll want to go to the ISS again. But I'd have to get in a rocket to do that, and that last rocket ride I took was enough for me not to want to ever get in a rocket again. Then again, on the grounds of 'traumatic experience' or some shit, NASA might never clear me to fly again. And most disturbing of all, I'm fine with that.
I bet I'll get excited about my flowers again, eventually. I don't really like flowers, actually, my favorites are the ferns that NASA sent along to test martian soil growth. Ferns are such a warm, friendly shade of green. But that part of Mark Watney is hiding too, for now, sick of having to spend his entire botany existence on potatoes.
Without botany and space, I'm not really sure what there is to be excited about on a ship where the only thing for me to do is space-botany. They are keeping me away from the engineering, worried that the crazy guy will do something crazy, I guess. I don't want to consume any entertainment, because I'm not really interested in my own and I suspect that consuming to what I had access to on Mars won't be good for me.
That's probably why it's so easy for me to drift around with nothing but this hole in my chest. Yes, I've officially decided it's a hole, not lead. It's creating pressure, but the way the martian atmosphere creates negative pressure. It's my own little piece of Mars, wrapped up inside me in a to-go container.
Beck's most likely noticed all this by now, since he's the one checking up on me thirty times a day. He's stopped bringing me food now, though, because I spend half my time sitting around in the Rec room eating all the snacks instead of real meals. Nobody has the heart to tell the victim of starvation to stop eating all the food. We have double-rations on the ship for unexpected situations, so it's not like anyone is going hungry.
I stopped telling Beck about the nightmares, though, and I didn't tell Beck about the hole in my chest. He probably just thinks I'm bored and am too tired to work, or that after working for 18 months nonstop I'm taking a vacation. Well, that's fine with me. I would like a vacation, but you can't get a vacation from crazy.
—
Mark Watney
Mission Day 707
Hours pass, but I don't notice. I'm laying in bed, staring at the ceiling.
The darkness in my chest is consuming me, it's all I can feel. It's coated over my skin like death, anxiety is making my heart patter in the empty cavern of my chest. It's physically painful, my skin feels like it's burning all over my body, but there's nothing I can do. Moving only hurts it more, and I can't make it stop. It will stop when it wants, and not a moment sooner.
I remember this feeling, from Mars. But there are people now, people who could hug me but they won't, they aren't, they're less than ten feet away but I can't do it because fuck, if they wanted that they'd come bother me but they don't, they've forgotten about me in here like I'm luggage, and maybe that's all I ever was, forgotten luggage, forgotten on Mars and now that they're remembered to pick me up I'm thrown into the cargo, forgotten again.
—
Crew
Mission Day 707
It was lunch, and Watney was not present for today. The rest of the crew sat in the rec room, eating bland rehydrated food and discussing issues on board the ship. As had become somewhat regular, the conversation turned to Watney.
"Status report," Lewis said, looking at Beck.
The schedule was for everyone to provide a midday progress report (to get everyone talking to each other and help each other think problems through), but since he'd stopped showing up, it had turned into a Watney pow-wow. Normally Watney's condition would be strictly Beck's business, and to a certain extent it was, but the crew member were necessarily deeply involved in his care given their situation, so they were routinely appraised of his progress.
"He was up early today," Beck started, "For the usual reasons. Continuing to be reclusive. I'm concerned there's another issue developing. He's becoming less enthusiastic about eating, which is concerning for obvious reasons. As time passes he is withdrawing more, not less. All of these things indicate depression. I don't think letting him take his own time is working."
"What do you suggest?"
"I hate to make the poor guy do anything, but I suggest we make him do something. Get him out of the lab, give him some kind of work to do that forces him to be around us. I know that people need time to themselves to recover, but I'm not sure personal space is the best thing for a patient with trauma related to solitary isolation."
Lewis nodded. "I've been thinking the same thing. I'll bring it up with him at the next opportunity."
—
Crew
Mission Day 707
Vogel and Johanssen were sitting in their lab, which resembled an office more than a lab due to the fact that their skills were almost entirely computer-based, except for Chemistry. They were both on their computers today, running simulations.
"I feel bad for the guy," Vogel said into the silence. "We're always nosing into his business now, you know?"
Johanssen looked down, and despite her silent nature she was the most nosy on the ship. "It's just… it's just the six of us on this ship, and all we've done for a year is worry about him. Finally we can do something for him, even if it's just to help him get better."
Johanssen wears computer glasses to protect her eyes from the damage looking at screens can cause, and she takes them off to rub her eyes. "I hated sitting around uselessly."
Vogel stopped typing. "I hate that too. Whenever anyone is in pain, all you can do is wait for them to ask for help."
"You ever had to help anyone out like this before?" Johanssen asked. "I've never been depressed, or had depressed friends, or any of that."
Vogel laughed. "No. But I was the one in pain once."
"What?" Johanssen asked, nonplussed at the casual way he said it.
Vogel shrugged, looking at the table. "I don't mention it because it makes people feel bad, but my parents were not good parents. They mistreated me greatly, and I ran away from home the second I turned 18."
Johanssen's eyes were wide. "You were abused?"
"I wouldn't put it in such harsh terms, but yes," Vogel said. "Not that I'm saying what I suffered is the same as Mark, but I do know about what it's like to feel alone and to have no way to escape. Don't worry," he assured her, "I am fine now, but for a long time I was not."
"I'm sorry, Alex," she said sincerely.
"It's in the past. But it taught me what being in pain and feeling alone feels like. I know from experience that when people feel alone, they usually hide from others. It makes no sense to people who haven't gone through it, but..." Vogel shrugged. "It is what it is."
"What do you think we should do?" Johanssen asked.
Vogel frowned. "That is the part I never figured out. What do you do when someone else is suffering? My own experience… only makes me more confused about what to do. Not less."
Johanssen laughed humorlessly. "Of course. That would be the way these things work, wouldn't it?"
Vogel smiled wanly. "Indeed."
—
Crew
Mission Day 707
"I'm about to barge in there, and drag him out," Martinez said. "It's been a solid month, he's not just sitting around sleeping anymore."
"We can't just drag him out," Beck insisted. "So you burst in to get him out of bed, then what? We can't watch any of our movies, because that's what he had on Mars, and he won't watch his own stuff."
"We can play cards -"
"You know he won't agree, Rick," Beck says tiredly. "He'll just come up with some bullshit excuse."
Martinez rubbed his face, defeated.
—
Log Entry
Mission Day 708
I definitely got addicted to Vicodin, and now I'm going through withdrawal. I can tell, because all I did yesterday was lay around moaning in bed and being alternately anxious and irritated with everything. A quick jaunt through Beck's medical crap told me these were symptomatic of withdrawal.
I don't want to tell Beck, or anyone. The entire crew will flip out and treat me like an addict on a medical drama, when I haven't done anything like steal entire bottles of Vicodin or whatever those addicts do. It would be stupidly easy, too, given that nothing on this ship has locks. But I haven't even entertained the thought, and I know I'm not going to. I have entertained the thought of asking for some, but then I'd have to explain myself, and that won't work. Plus, if I take some, I'm just going to draw out the suffering of withdrawal. It's not really that bad. I just feel sort of sick to my stomach, and am in quite a bit of pain. Hey, what's new about that?
Actually, this shit is really painful. In the past I might have demanded to be taken to a hospital over this level of pain, but one thing that was always a part of my life on Mars is pain, such as 'the pain of long term starvation' or 'the pain of a back that just can't lift this shit' or 'the pain of a back that doesn't want to sleep in the rover again.' This is just more of the same.
I don't want to tell anyone because I don't want anyone to know, either. If the crew knows, then NASA will know, and then I'm definitely going to be locked up like a crazy person. I don't want to be 5150'd.
I already know that 18 months of isolation on Mars is going to make me a psych study candidate in a huge way, and this will only be like icing on the cake for the quack doctors. Nothing against quack doctors, I like Dr. Shields, I just don't want to become a spectacle for the psychiatric community.
And besides, there are lots of real-life practical concerns, like my ability to get a job or do other things they don't let drug addicts do. Basically the healthier I appear, the less I'm bothered.
—
Chris Beck
Mission Day 708
Beck knocked at the composite doorframe of Watney's lab. "Watney, time for your daily checkup."
Watney was laying in the bed, covers piled up around him. "Mean doctor tryna bother me," he groaned, rolling over and away from Beck.
Beck thought it was a little ridiculous, how much time he spent laying on that bed. But between sleep cycle degredation and nightmares, it made sense, so Beck let it slide. It had only been 16 days since he was picked up, and god knows Beck spent more time than that sitting on his ass in college and he didn't even have a decent excuse back then.
"Yeah, yeah," Beck said. "I brought food." He offered a plate of reconstituted mac and cheese. The one mercy in all this is that the NASA food is so digestible that it served as Watney's transition diet all on it's own. They didn't want to discover a crew member has a sensitive space stomach after they're shot into space, so they thought ultra-digestible food would solve the issue.
"Trying to bribe me into compliance?" Watney said in response, sitting up and rubbing his eyes, waking quickly. At least Watney was being religious about showering every day and eating at mealtimes, which is also more than college Beck could say.
Today's checkup was like most daily checkups; take Watney's BP (too low, from Martian gravity), take his heart rate (too low, from starvation), guess his weight from body mass (far, far too low), ask diagnostic questions about sleep and hunger patterns (all fucked up).
Watney's responses to questions were curt. "They're the same as always, okay?" he griped sourly, rubbing his arm from where the blood pressure monitor was. Beck frowned, but didn't comment. This wasn't the first time Watney acted put out by normal checkups, and his temper was getting shorter as the days passed.
'Don't psychoanalyze everything he does,' Beck reasoned with himself. 'Nobody likes doctor's visits. It's perfectly normal.'
"You should consider joining us for lunch today," Beck said. Watney normally joined them for breakfast and dinner, but not for lunch. "I know you probably won't eat anything since you're on a different meal schedule, but we'd like to see you."
Watney frowned at him, looked like he'd consider doing it. He ran his hand through his bedhead. "I'll consider it."
Beck frowned, but figured that was the best he's gonna get. "I'll drop by later," he said, walking away.
—
Chris Beck
Mission Day 708
Later, when Beck returned for the food, it hadn't been fully eaten and Watney was asleep facing the other way on the floor. The sight made Beck's stomach sink.
Beck brought the plate of half eaten food back to the rec room, and Lewis was sitting at the table going over papers.
"Didn't finish his food again," he said lowly, cleaning the uneaten food off of it.
Lewis frowned. "You sound like there's more."
Beck shook his head. "The guy is acting sick and he's not eating, but all his vitals check out. Classic depression. Space ships already cause depression, and I'm not equipped to adequately treat it when, frankly, we're all suffering.
Lewis looked stressed, and leaned into her papers further. "We'll just have to do the best we can."
—
Mark Watney
Mission Day 710
My day started early, as per usual, around 4:23 this time as I woke to find myself freezing despite the heat lamps. A nightmare, my hands are shaking, the bacteria in my potatoes weren't growing right and I was going to die of starvation before the Hermes could come save me.
But look, I'm on the Hermes. Waking up thinking I'm on Mars sucks, but the realization that I'm on the Hermes is awesome every day. Almost makes up for the time I woke up in the Hab thinking I was in Chicago.
Used to this routine, it doesn't take me long to reconnect with reality and pull the covers up over my shoulders. I know damn well I'm shaky and awake now, but I don't want to get out of bed and take a shower or do anything else. I don't even want to think, and I perfected the art of laying in bed and studiously avoiding thinking months ago.
I roll over, look at the ceiling, and step out of my body for a while.
—
Mark Watney
Mission Day 710
Everyone else had intelligent answers for Commander Lewis's breakfast 'what the fuck are you gonna do with yourself' every morning. My answers typically ranged from "lay in bed" to "how the fuck should I know."
My answer today was "fuck around."
Normally, Lewis gives me a pitying sort of look, and I drift off to go stare out a window or stare at a wall or cry or something. But today Lewis folded her hands, and I knew I was about to receive a scolding.
"I know you've just been through something traumatic…" she started. Her voice was warm and compassionate, and it made my chest feel drenched in ice.
"…and far be it from me to tell you how to cope. But you've been shut inside your lab for 17 days now, except for when you come out to eat and sort of drift around, not really talking to anyone…"
Have I been that bad? I haven't been thinking about it.
"…it might be better for you to occupy yourself," she finished, in the most gentle voice I'd ever heard anyone take.
Well, I thought I was skating by. Not unnoticed, but not bad enough to warrant comment. Then again, they probably came to the same conclusion I did, that if Mark Watney loves space botany, and he isn't doing space and isn't doing botany, then he isn't okay.
"We're worried about you," Johanssen bravely stated, joining the conversation. Clearly, they'd been conspiring about this, but I couldn't draw attention to the fact that I know, or that would be awkward. See, I'm already getting better, I know what makes things awkward!
My answer was quick. "You shouldn't be. I'm not on Mars anymore!" I said. Man, that always made me smile. "I'm safely on the Hermes." I spread my arms out, as if to say 'what's to worry about?'
Beck furrowed his eyebrows. "You just went through a serious trauma."
Frustration licked at my heart. What a fucking inane statement. "Don't you think I know that?"
Beck recoils slightly, and immediately I feel bad for snapping at him.
I'm exhausted. I put my head in my hands, kneading. These are my crewmates, they are just trying to help, they are trained to help. Don't get mad at them for trying.
I groaned, to add flavor to my sob story. "For 549 days I lived in a Hab with a dirt floor, freaking out about potato growth and thinking about it 24.75 hours a Sol. I just don't want to be responsible for a plant right now."
"Surely there's something on this ship that needs done," Lewis said instead.
That suggestion gave me two feelings. The first was 'great, because I've been having a lot of anxiety about the life support on the Hermes and now I can creep on it,' and the second is 'oh God I don't want to be responsible for any life support anymore, please god no.'
"Preferably something sitting, because I still hurt all over," I say instead, tamping down on my anxiety.
"You're still in pain every day?" Beck asked clinically. Yeah, I am, and I'm not a doctor, but I saw a medical drama once with a doctor recovering from opiate addiction, and he was in a lot of pain, so I assumed it was part of the profile and didn't mention it.
I shrugged Beck off, careful not to put too much effort into the gesture so he doesn't read into it.
Martinez stuck a finger in the sky. "Reports," he said, grinning wickedly.
Martinez was suggesting I have the dubious honor of sitting at the computer for hours a day, and write up the report of what everyone did that day. Normally Lewis took those logs at dinner and wrote them, but it didn't really matter who did.
Sitting down? Check. Mindless? Check. Not space botany? Check.
I waved them off, digging into the reconstituted whatever-it-was. "Fine, fine, I'll write the reports."
—
Mark Watney
Mission Day 710
I hate these damn reports. It's been six hours and I've done jack shit.
The reason I've done jack shit is not (just) because I'm a terminally lazy asshole. It's because every time I look at this screen, I lose my train of thought. It doesn't go anywhere in particular, it just derails and I find myself uselessly staring at the computer screen. Then my chest hurts, then my skin hurts, and then something in me makes me realize that I've been sitting here for five solid minutes not doing anything, then I lift my hand to type, then the cycle starts all over again.
A part of me wants to go run up to someone and cry about how I thought I escaped Mars but Mars is still torturing me even when I'm not there, but I'm not going to do that. Because, again, I'm not suffering that much. I'm not starving, I can eat whenever I want, I'm comfortable, and I don't have to always be on high alert in case something goes wrong and explodes. I am on high alert, all the time, but I don't have to be.
I assume I'll adjust. I assume that since I'm not alone, the loneliness will correct itself too. I've been assuming I'll adjust for two weeks now, and I haven't, and something tells me it won't be that easy. But I ignore them, because two weeks isn't that long. These things take time.
I hope nobody notices how slowly I'm doing these reports, because every movement is making pain shoot up my arm. Damn withdrawal. Between the losing my train of thought and the speed I'm typing, it really wouldn't be beyond the crew to ask what's fucking taking me. I don't want to deal with it, so I send a wayward prayer to whatever God saved me just to say 'I know that you already saved me and I know this is asking a lot, but can I just be left alone?'
—
Mark Watney
Mission Day 712
I didn't eat breakfast today, because my stomach felt disgusting. Starvation always made me feel sick because of the acid in my stomach, but today it's performing triple duty and my stomach feels like it's nothing but acid. Instead of eating breakfast, I got dry cereal and picked at it, much to the disapproval of Beck and Lewis, my self-appointed mother and father. Anything more than a bit of dry cereal is going to make my stomach do cirque de soleil quality acrobatics, so they can shove their concern where the sun don't shine.
Watching me fail to eat breakfast, someone found the strength to ask what I suspect has been on all their minds for days.
"Are you doing okay?" Lewis asked, not unkindly. And that was not a 'medical diagnostic' question, I could hear it in her voice. This was a question about my feelings.
Yes, okay, I've faced the music, the hole in my chest is clinical depression and is a perfectly natural response to trauma. Well, it's probably PTSD if we're all being accurate, but whatever.
We were told when we sighed up, as part of a risk assessment, that something like one in five astronauts get depression from a standard trip to the ISS. Something about the extended isolation, and lack of personal space, and 24/7 focus on science. The rates of depression are, of course, higher on Ares missions. That's why we got favorite foods to come along, personal media sticks, and can request lots of frivolous and unimportant things through the data dump even though there's limited data space.
I know the rest of the crew is already at higher risk, given that I died and then un-died and then they had to stay away from their families even longer. Their mental health outlook is already pretty bleak. For this reason, I specifically decline to think about my own.
Okay, she's still looking at me, I need to produce some sort of response. "Yeah, I'm fine." Yeah Watney, that'll convince them.
Lewis's obviously unconvinced eyes stared back at me.
"What do you want me to say?" I'm glad my ability to deflect has not entirely left me.
"The truth," she responded, a little sharply.
There's that Commander voice. I was wondering when I would use up all of her sympathy.
We were put through a battery of exercises so that we'd be truthful with one another. Miscommunications create crew friction, and crew friction can get you killed. She's not wrong to be frustrated if I'm not telling the truth.
I don't want to get anyone killed, but what I'm hiding won't fucking kill anyone. I've hidden my nightmares, for the most part, because what am I supposed to say? What am I supposed to tell them? 'Yeah, you left me alone on an entire planet, and it dissolved my entire sense of identity and now I don't know who I am.' I was one of those people who defined themselves by their work, and then work went and fucked me.
I defined myself by them, and they left me.
"I'll be fine," I grumble instead, unconvincing even to my own ears.
I guess they got the message that I didn't want to have a feelings-fest, since Lewis let it go and everyone just looked between themselves. There was a specific pattern of facial expressions, as if people even had their own little predetermined positions on the issue.
Lewis looks guilty. 'I wish it was me,' her face says.
Johanssen looked sad, and a bit determined. She wants to get to the bottom of this.
Martinez and Vogel look reserved. Let the man deal with things how he likes.
Beck's eyebrow is raised, a little harder to determine. Probably something doctorly, like 'the patient has to come to terms with his experience and begin recovery.'
I'm not the only one capable of drawn-out silences, it seems, because their little silent conversation stretches on.
After a couple of minutes, it gets downright ridiculous.
"I'm done with my food, I'll go somewhere else so you can talk about me," I say irritably, getting up and throwing my dishes in the bin.
Their faces are shocked as I climb up the ladder, as if I'm not capable of reading atmospheres.
—
Crew
Mission Day 712
"I'm done with my food, I'll go somewhere else so you can talk about me," Watney bites, throwing his dishes in the bin so hard the bin moves. He's up the ladder and out of the room in an instant.
The crew looked among themselves, ashamed.
"You are all being obnoxious," Vogel says. "It is no wonder he is frustrated."
"Obnoxious?" Johanssen asked. "What are we supposed to be doing?"
Vogel shrugs. "You are following him around, ambushing him with questions. No one would enjoy being treated like that. You two are the worst," he says, pointing to Lewis and Johanssen. "He cannot get three feet onto the deck without being cornered by you."
"What are we supposed to do, leave him to suffer?" Johanssen retorts, somewhat defensively.
"Look, we're all just worried," Beck says, offering a placating hand. "It's fair to think we might be, uh…"
"Smothering him?" Martinez offered, laughing.
Beck smiled. "Yeah."
"It's like we've all forgotten how to behave around him," Martinez says.
Beck shrugged. "Guess what, that was in a NASA report. 'Personality changes in the patient may lead to crew conflict.'"
Beck and Martinez say the next thing in sync. "Thanks NASA."
Lewis smiled, asking "Did the fine folks at NASA have any recommendations for overcoming this?"
Beck shook his head. "I mean, they suggested the equivalent of group therapy, but I don't think that's the right call right now."
Lewis sat up. "You're right, it's not." She smiled. "This is probably the weirdest order I've ever given, but crew, I order you to make an effort to talk to Watney about banal goings-on. No questions about anything sensitive."
Everyone nodded their assent, smiling slightly, and left the rec room.
—
Mark Watney
Mission Day 712
I march back up to my lab. I'm going to sit there until they leave the rec room, and then me and my laptop can claim the squishy window chair.
Suddenly, I hear a knocking at my door. Shock darts into my heart and I jerk, spinning around in the lab chair. Vogel is standing there, looking a bit uncertain, hand rubbing his bald head.
I look down at the table, still frustrated with them. "Yeah, come in," I grumble.
"I'm not here to corner you," Vogel said, stepping in the door.
I quirk a smile. "I wouldn't expect you of all people to corner me anyways," I say.
"Well…" Vogel trailed. "I just wanted to say… I'm sorry. Sorry you are being treated like something broken that needs fixed."
I snort. Vogel is the only person treating me like I'm not broken. He's been keeping his distance, I suspect to make up for the fact that everyone else is flocking around me like upset birds.
"I appreciate it, Alex," I say quietly, because I do.
I appreciate that he's the only one still treating me like a person in all of this. Beck is constantly annoying me on NASA's behalf, Johanssen is trying to stage an intervention, Lewis is guilt-riddled, and Martinez's jokes just aren't that funny to me anymore. Vogel is just hanging back, making conversation when it's called for, waiting for me to come around on my own time.
"I'll be in my lab, where I always am." Vogel says, rapping the doorframe with his knuckles. "I am not going to annoy you, but I too am here if you need anyone."
Suddenly the urge to say something, anything, grips me.
I look up urgently, but he's already gone. I do my best to ignore the sinking feeling in my heart.
—
Mark Watney
Mission Day 712
They all cleared out of the rec room soon enough, which meant I could return to the rec room to work on reports,in the squishy chair in front of the window. Everyone bickered about who got to sit in this chair because it's the most comfy chair on the ship, but ever since I got back everyone leaves it for me. Sitting in here and staring at Mars out the giant window was becoming some sort of masochistic past time for me.
It's hard to get through these reports, because my fucking feelings keep distracting me. One of the most distracting ones is a crushing sense of guilt. Guilt over the fact that thousands of man hours and three billion and some dollars were spent saving me. Me. That money and time could have saved thousands of people starving in Africa, and yet it was spent saving one single wreck of a man on Mars, a man who, might I add, is an asshole.
I'm not saying that just to be self-deprecating. Mars gave me a lot of time to reflect. I was rude to people, minimized their problems, and mocked them for not doing as well in school or in life as me. I didn't have a single fucking clue what it felt like to be depressed, or to struggle just to take another breath. The fact that anyone could feel this way and be expected to manage a life is astonishing.
So, the world shouldn't have wasted money saving me. But lets think closer to home. The crew, the people I love most in this world (outside of my mom and dad), had to double their trip time and multiply their risk unimaginably to come save me, in addition to contracting clinical depression and, in Martinez and Lewis's case, marital problems.
Lewis in particular is a wreck. I'm going to be a reminder of what she perceives as a failure, forever. She lost a friend, and in exchange she gained a walking guilt complex.
It would have been better if I just knelt into the dirt Sol 6. For everyone.
Another feeling distracting me from work is this… hot, ball of anger,right in my chest. I almost like the feeling, it chases away the anxiety and depression, even if just for a moment.
For a long time, I thought the entirety of human existence had summarily wiped me from it's pages. Mark Watney was forgotten on Mars; the most meaningful part of my life, unknown in it's entirety. I was going to be the first man to do so many things, and I was going to die before anyone would know. It's not that I want to be famous… I just don't want to be forgotten.
My attitude during that time ranged from "they're right, I am worthless, it's good they left me here" to "fuck them for making me train for years just to send me out here to die."
Then, NASA didn't approve the motion to let the Hermes save me. I agree with them, because I'm not fucking worth it, but fuck them for abandoning me anyways. And fuck me, for feeling angry that they didn't approve it when they were in the right to do so.
This brings me around to feeling guilty for feeling guilty. I know in my head the crew wanted to save me, because if it was them who was stuck on Mars I know I would have done whatever it took to get them back. I would have hauled ass, more ass than I hauled trying to save myself, which is an impressive thing. By feeling like I should have died, I'm invalidating what they and Houston and JPL and NASA did to save me.
I'm also feeling guilty because if even one single thing went wrong, they would have all died trying to save me. My feelings on my self-worth may vary, but I know I'm not worth that.
But NASA didn't fuck up the probe, they didn't fuck up rescuing me, and I'm not dead on Mars. Hermes is in good health and except for one awkward cooling issue, everything is fine.
I'm sick to my stomach.
I'm always sick to my stomach.
Although shit, this time it's real. I'm really going to vomit.
I launch my aching body out of the chair and stumble over to the counter, where I rip out a Medium Sized Flexible Container and empty the contents of my stomach into it. The force of my body vomiting is huge, my stomach curling over where I swear to God I can feel my newly healed ribs trying to open my intestines, and it's at moments like this that I think that it would have just been better if that fucking antenna had just killed me.
But it's over in a second, and afterwards I feel better.
My first reaction is frustration. I didn't throw up a single damn time on Mars, and of course I do within a month on board the Hermes, the place that is supposed to be my safety and rescue. Just figures.
Beck's going to be upset when he finds out I'm going through withdrawal. I could squirrel this away into the trash, if I really wanted to hide it, but I don't really want to. I'm a victim of starvation, and if Beck doesn't keep a close eye on my health I could die on the Earth Descent Vehicle (EDV) or I could die before we even make it there. I'm not going to protect my dignity at the cost of my health, especially not given what the entire world went through to keep me alive.
I hit a button on the wall, to activate the Hermes local radio. "Beck, help," I rasp, throat scratchy from stomach acid.
Beck flew into the rec room soon at top fucking speed (I kept my eyes on the door so no one startled me), and the entire crew was hot on his heels. Perhaps I should have been a little more illustrative, I think, as they literally all bump into each other on the way in.
I held up my little bag of sick, already sealed. "I threw up, sorry, should have explained further," I rasp, still catching my breath.
"Jesus, Watney, what happened?" Beck said, panting.
I sank into the chair, and put my head in my hands. "Don't get wound up, I know what's wrong with me."
"So what's wrong?" he asks, still breathing hard.
I now realize I wasn't hiding this because NASA was going to punish me, or I wasn't going to be able to get a job, or whatever excuse I cooked up.
No, I was hiding this because I was ashamed, because I don't want anyone else to think of me differently. I don't want the crew to really realize how fucked up I am, how fucked up Mars made me, the fucked up shit Mars made me do, don't want them to realize they left Mark Watney on Mars and picked up a stranger in his place.
I realize that now, because the idea of telling them feels like swallowing stones.
"I wanted to come back and have things be the same as they were," I say to myself, because I hadn't kicked the habit of talking to myself yet and hadn't really even applied any energy toward it.
I also don't want to tell them because they're going to ask why. I don't want them to know how close I was to giving up, how often I was going to give up. It's all going to come out, too. Because they'll ask why, and I'll have to explain, and the answers will lead to more questions and answers with more questions. And once they know the truth, the full truth, my dreams of everything going back to normal are going to shatter like glass.
I don't want them to realize that the guy they picked up wasn't fucking worth it.
"What?" Lewis said blankly.
I rubbed my face harder. Now or never, Watney.
A rattling sigh. "I'm going through opiate withdrawal."
I didn't look at their faces, kept my head in my hands, because I'm a fucking coward.
"Because you were addicted to opiates?" Beck was already whirring into doctor mode, I could hear it in his voice, feel it in the air.
Why else would someone go through opiate withdrawal, Beck?"What kind?" was his follow-up after a beat.
"Vicodin," I supplied.
"Oh thank God," his relief was audible. "Morphine withdrawal can kill you."
Morphine can kill you too, that's why I was saving it.
"Why?" came Johanssen's voice. Compassionate, or she's disappointed in me. I can't tell, don't want to tell.
This is really the part I didn't want to explain. I'm slumped in a chair, still looking down, because I'm still a fucking coward.
New Mark Watney Personality Trait: A Fucking Coward.
"It started because of my back. I hurt my back hauling dirt into the Hab for the potatoes, and I didn't have time to heal. I needed to get them growing or I was going to die. And then I had to haul gigantic boulders as ramps or ballast for rover modifications more than a few times, and each time my back just got worse. Eventually, it got to a point where it was hurting even when I was just laying down. But there was nothing I could do. And then I had to hunch down in my fucked-up rover for hundreds of Sols, and I had to lift the solar panels every day. And then the rover flipped, and I had to put it right. The pain was really bad, but it had to be done. Then I had to modify the MAV, and lift those god-awful hull panels that were 400kg, and everything hurt so fucking bad, but it had to be done."
Part of me wanted to leave it at that, and another part of me wanted them to dig further and find out it was just as much because of -
"Was that the only reason?" Beck's voice, clearly compassionate. I bet he was chosen for this mission because of his Open and Honest attitude or whatever his fucking MBTI quiz revealed.
"No," the word was out of my mouth before I could stop it. Fuck my loose tongue.
He thrust his hand out, clearly satisfied, silencing the conversation. "Okay, we can and will have this discussion in the lab, I want to get some non-opiate painkillers in him and get him on an IV."
Beck started helping me up. I grit my teeth against the pain, the hissing noise of my breath drawing Beck's attention.
"You're in agony, Watney, why didn't you say anything?" he asked, half admonishment, half concern.
"I'm used to it," I panted, as he pushed me up the ladder. I mean, this was worse than usual, but by the end everything on my body hurt so much that it just didn't fucking matter. None of it fucking matters.
Everyone else was behind me at this point, so when Beck lifted me, I couldn't see the horrified faces I'm sure they made.
Beck's professional voice was a miracle. "Well, I wish you would have told me sooner, I could have made this easier for you. For instance, giving you anti nausea medication. That's why you haven't been eating, isn't it?"
Yes, it was, and really, I am starving underneath this acidic stomach. "I'd love that."
"I anticipated a lot of health problems based on what NASA told me, but I gotta hand it to you Watney, you surprised me with this," he laughed, laying me down on my bed. "All right, the rest of you lot, get out."
Martinez was the first to protest. "But -"
"I'll talk to him alone about the more sensitive aspects of this."
"No, no," I found myself saying again. Fuck this attention seeking, loose tongue that says whatever it fucking wants. "Stay, they'll just hear it secondhand from you anyways."
Beck looked at me with sympathy. "You know I wouldn't breach your confidence."
"Yeah, but…" You're my family, I love you all so much. I want you to know. But you don't feel the same way, I don't want to tell my story, and you definitely fucking won't after I tell you my story. "It's fine, Beck."
God, I just don't want to suffer anymore. Maybe once I'm on earth it will be easier to put it all behind me.
Beck busied himself with the IV, while they all looked at me, trying with various success to keep the pity off of their faces. Except for Lewis, who every time something happened to me, looked like she wished it was happening to her instead.
"This is not your fault," I repeated tiredly, and Lewis shifted her stance guiltily, weight moving from one foot to the other.
"Okay," Beck said, sighing. "From what you've said, it sounds like you were taking a lot. How much is that, exactly?"
I flinched as he stuck the IV in my arm. I'm surprised he found a vein at all. "I don't know. I don't remember how many bottles there were at the beginning, but I was down to the last one at the end."
"We can look that up," Beck supplied.
"So, uh… I developed a resistance. I used to just take half a pill every once and a while, but once and a while turned to frequently, then to a pill a sol… I was up to three or four a sol by the end, I think."
Everyone else is failing to keep the horror off their faces to varying degrees, except Beck, who is a doctor and can keep a straight face during the apocalypse. "Do you happen to know what those dosages were?"
I don't remember, but I hold up my fingers to indicate a size, and the fact that my fingers are a few millimeters apart seems to shock Beck for a moment before his doctorly mask snaps into place.
"I'll just look it up later," he mumbles tiredly, scratching notes into his tablet. He gets up and starts digging through drawers, not bothering to explain what he's doing. I think I disturbed him.
"Have you had any desires or acted on any desires to get more, either by asking me or taking them from the medicine?" His voice is completely different, stiff and formal, keeping it together.
"Not to steal, no. I would never do that. I did consider asking, but I decided against it." I looked down. "Honestly, my plan was just to try and weather this out without letting you guys know. It's not like I'm gonna die or anything."
Beck shook his head despairingly. "Opiate withdrawal can kill you, Mark, and you're not in good condition." He seemed like he wanted to lecture me more, but something held him back.
"I order you to let us know of any other medical issues, Mark, no matter how minor you think they are," Lewis said, voice harsh. "Your judgment is compromised."
Something in me flares with irritation. "I survived 549 sols alone, Commander. I'm not incapable."
"But you are on this ship now, and I'm your Commander again," she said, growing more frustrated. "Follow my orders."
I roll my eyes, but say "Yes, commander."
She continues to stare me down.
"I will!" I say, holding my hands up. "I told you yes, and I will." What the hell is she accusing me of? Lying?
On second thought, maybe that's a fair accusation, given that I hid this in the first place.
That seemed to be enough, and her gaze lightened up.
A few seconds pass in awkward silence. The rest of them are just looking at me, eyes wide. Martinez is speechless, and part of me thinks that's funny, but I don't comment on it.
"I'm not like, some drug addict," I say, defensively. "I didn't do this for fun."
"We're not judging you," Beck said easily, still digging around. He looks at the crew and I can't see his face because his back to me, but after a glance at him they work to adjust their faces to something less alarming.
"We're concerned," Johanssen says slowly. "You… you said you didn't do this just because of your back." Martinez and Vogel stand behind her uncertainly. Or rather, Martinez looks uncertain and strained, and Vogel is just watching the scene unfold, eyebrows pinched slightly.
Yeah, I did say there was more to it, but the moment passed and now they're standing there judging me and so I'm in no mood. "We don't need to talk about it."
"We actually do, at least with me," Beck said, turning to me and hooking up lines to my IV. "I need to asses your mental condition."
I roll my eyes. "This is exactly why I didn't want to say anything. I don't want to be treated like I'm going to crack up." Nevermind that I already have cracked up, but they don't know that yet and I'd like to hold on to that. If I can put myself together before they notice, then all the better.
"But you're not doing well, either," Beck said. "Your sleep is disturbed, your eating is irregular, and you spend great swaths of time avoiding speaking to us or being in the same room as us. You…." He sighed, and his doctor attitude fell. "Dude, you just… leer, outside our doorways, and if we try and invite you in, you awkwardly brush us off and run away. You can barely even hold a conversation. I'm not saying you're crazy, but you're not doing all right. Don't lie to us and pretend you are."
All my delicately built walls come apart, and suddenly I can't fake it anymore. I lean back into the bed, and the pain is searing through my muscles right now. I'm just so fucking tired. "No, I'm not okay."
They all look at me, waiting patiently for me to continue. Oh look, Watney's finally opening up,I think, voice a sneer. I can't fake it anymore, but I'm not in the mood to 'open up,' either.
"I don't want to talk about it, but you're right, I'm not okay," I reiterate.
"Mark," Johanssen says, and she has the fucking gall to look hurt.
"Don't 'Mark' me," I snap. "I don't owe you an explanation." The rational part of me says that since they came and rescued me, they are, but I ignore it.
Johanssen opens her mouth again, eyebrows pinched, but Lewis says "Johanssen!" and she closes it quickly.
There's a couple minutes of tense silence, where everyone looks between everyone else.
I sigh, exhausted. "I wanted everything to be the same when I got back, and it's not," I say, some sort of paltry explanation. "For 543 sols I dreamed of nothing but getting back to the Hermes, Earth, and everything just going back to normal. But it's been 18 sols - days, sorry," I rub my face. "It's been 18 days and it's not, and it's not going to."
"What's wrong?" Johanssen asked. "Tell us what's wrong, and we can fix it."
"You can't," I say, sitting up and ignoring my searing back. Man, Mars did wonders for my pain tolerance. "You can't fix it because I'm what's wrong. You…" I gestured around at nothing in particular. "I'm not the Mark Watney you left behind. The Mark Watney you left behind died Sol 6. I'm some other guy. I have the same face and the same name, but…" I shake my head. "I'm a different guy."
"I wouldn't say that," Johanssen said, sitting down next to me. "One of the first things you did was give Martinez shit about his piloting, and that sounds like Mark Watney to me."
I smile a little. "That was habitual."
"But what is more Mark Watney then habitually making annoying comments?" Vogel supplied.
"You have a point," I chuckled. "But… I'm really not the same guy. I'm not. I'm me, I would know." I sigh, rubbing my face. "Guys, I don't want to do this" I wave my hands between all of us "right now. I just want Beck to give me some meds and make me fall asleep and wake up after this is over."
"That, I can help you with," Beck said. "Did you take any benzodiazepines while on Mars?"
"What?" I ask blankly. I imagine that means 'no.'
"Good," he responded. "They're a completely different class of addictive medications, make anxiety go away and make you fall asleep."
"I could have used that," I said. "Wait, I did take sleeping pills, they were called… Hold on, it was months ago… something with a t… t-r-e? T-r-a?"
"Trazedone," he supplied. "Not the same thing, but it wouldn't matter since it was months ago. I'm glad, because being asleep for three days will do you some good. I know you've already been sleeping a lot, but you need to relax."
"You can do that?" I asked.
Beck smiled. "Most people going through opiate withdrawal suffer through it awake, but the Hermes is a well-stocked pharmacy, so I can sedate you, and anyone who can stop me is 120 million miles away. I'll keep you so knocked out you won't even dream."
I lean back into the puffy pillow that someone produced for my lab-bedroom. "Thank God."
He pressed the vial into the IV, and I fell asleep almost instantly.
—
Crew
Mission Day 712
Watney fell asleep almost instantly, eyelids drooping and falling shut. Beck poked him a couple times to check that he was really out.
"Okay gang," Beck said. "I'd like someone to be sitting with him around the clock, so that there's always an eye on him in case something goes wrong. Who wants to take first watch?"
Everyone stands silently and stares at his battered body.
"I can," Vogel murmurs, after a moment.
"Addicted to Vicodin," Lewis repeats, voice empty.
"Hey, hey," Beck said, now a little frustrated. "Settle down. You heard the man; he didn't steal any from me, he hasn't used any since he got on board. It's not like he's Dr. House."
"And even if he was," Vogel said, "We left him on Mars. It's a miracle he didn't kill himself."
"It's not a miracle," Lewis said. "It's because he's strong." She turned on her heel and marched out of the lab.
Stronger than any of us.
—
Mark Watney
Mission Day 713
I drift in and out of consciousness, aware of nothing but burning, searing pain.
—
Chris Beck
Mission Day 713
Beck and Johanssen found themselves in Watney's lab, standing over his broken body. It was still too obvious, how starved he was, how damaged he was after a 12g launch in an already beaten and starved body.
"I'm so fucking glad we can sedate him," Beck said.
Watney was sweating bullets, skin flushed. He was tossing and turning in the bed, flinching and groaning with every movement. It didn't even look like he was unconscious, because his face was twisted in pain and his hands tore at the blanket in his grip.
"Why wouldn't you have been able to?" Johanssen asked.
"Sedatives are addictive, and no one wants to give an addictive substance to an addict," Beck said. "Also, usually people go through withdrawal in outpatient, so they don't have the money to be sedated for the whole thing."
Every few minutes he would jerk, pulling the covers farther around him as his knuckles almost turned white from the strain.
"I thought he wasn't supposed to dream," Johanssen said quietly, staring at him.
Beck's chest hurt. "He's not."
—
Alex Vogel
Mission Day 714
Vogel didn't publicize his grief the way the rest of the crew did. He did not wander around, teary eyed, gazing after Watney like a lost sheep. But Alex Vogel was grieving.
Watney was still asleep and flushed, arms visibly shaking every so often under the covers. Watney's sleep was not peaceful, punctuated with moans of pain.
Vogel watched him, and felt his own heart breaking in his chest. There was nothing, absolutely nothing they could do for him. Vogel wished Watney hadn't made it come to this, wished he'd gotten help from Beck sooner.
Suddenly, Watney's moaning ratcheted up into a scream of pain, curling tightly into a ball where he lay, shaking hard.
"Beck?" Vogel says, hitting the wall radio. "Something's changed." Vogel can see Watney's eyes moving back and forth, can see his lids moving. "He's waking up." Watney begins to thrash, writhing and turning over to the other side.
Beck is in the lab in seconds, rushing over to the bed to look at the IV and vitals monitors attached to his fingertips.
As soon as he gets near the bed Watney jerks forward, eyes open and staring at nothing.
"Mark?" Beck asks. "Mark!"
For one terrifying instant, Watney's eyes are open and staring right at Beck. Then they slam shut as his scream doubles in intensity, hands clutching at his legs as he falls back into bed.
Beck pulls a syringe from the drawer, frantically empties it's contents into the IV. Soon Watney's screaming falls back into moans of pain, and his thrashing quiets down into jerking, then to nothing.
Beck's standing over Watney, eyes wide, panting hard, looking devastated.
"Dr. Beck?" Vogel asks, his own heart beating wildly. "Did he wake up?"
"I sure fucking hope not," Beck says. "The guy's suffered enough."
He stares at Watney for a moment, then trudges from the room, leaving Vogel with Watney's broken body once more.
Vogel wished there was something, anything, they could do.
—
Mark Watney
Mission Day 714
I can't claw my way to the surface.
Everything on my body is burning, I can feel myself screaming but I can't see anything. My hands grip the blanket, I can feel my hands twisting it. I can feel my mouth is open, I can feel myself screaming. Everything is burning.
For a moment I open my eyes, see Beck standing over me and I open my mouth to ask for help but all that happens is a noise tears through my throat as I fall backward into unconsciousness.
—
Mark Watney
Mission Day 715
For the first time in a couple days, I wake up conscious enough to consider opening my eyes and talking to people. But I find that my limbs are too heavy to move, so I'm stuck laying here in the dark. My limbs are still burning, burning less.
Fear tugs at my heart, my heart starts beating wildly in my chest. I can't move my limbs, I've been drugged, I'm trapped. I have been drugged, by Beck, and I can't make it stop.
Before my panic unfolds, I'm dragged into sleep again.
—
A couple hours later, I return to consciousness, pain less burning and more aching soreness. I can't quite get up, not yet, but I manage to stay awake long enough to clumsily roll over. My arms thank me for the relief.
—
Another couple hours, I can wake up long enough to move my arms under the pillow in a way that I can prop myself up on top of it. My muscles are aching with soreness, and it's a satisfying feeling.
You know, I don't feel very rested. I wonder if I actually slept. Probably not, because opiate withdrawal is awful. I have blurred memories of screaming in pain and feeling like I'm on fire, but they're only a couple seconds long. Thank God for that.
Before I can think on it too much, I'm asleep again.
—
Beth Johanssen
Mission Day 715
Johanssen was sitting in the lab chair, typing furiously on her laptop as she always was. Watney was asleep next to her, lying still and quietly on the cot. His sleep quieted down about 12 hours ago, and Beck had stopped giving him the sedatives and was allowing him to wake up on his own.
Johanssen was keeping an eye out for when he began to wake up, wanting him to wake up alone so that he didn't feel smothered by the crew.
Watney mumbled in his sleep, clumsily moving the pillow underneath himself, and Johanssen took that as her cue. She snapped her laptop shut and bounced quietly out of his lab.
"Knock knock," she said at the door to the rec room. "Watney's waking up."
"Good," Beck said. "He should finally be feeling better." He snapped his laptop shut and bounced away. "Gonna go tell Lewis, and everyone else."
—
Mark Watney
Mission Day 715
It's 14:00 before I'm finally able to pry myself up off of the floor. What the hell was in those meds? Doctors are psycho, man.
I feel sort of euphoric, too. I don't have any anxiety right now, which is fucking insane. I didn't think I was that anxious, but in it's absence my entire body feels light and relaxed like I'm laying on a cloud. No, it feels like I'm laying in a summer field on a perfect summer day, the cool air against my face. I haven't felt this good in a decade, let alone since I got to Mars.
Beck did say this medication treats anxiety; I suppose it's still in my system. Although, these meds make me feel stupid and sleepy, so they're not all upside.
I sort of float-skip to the rec room to find Johanssen sitting there alone on her laptop, doing some sort of computer-science work I'm sure is very important.
"Allow me to distract you, lady Beth," I say with a flourish, bending down as I enter the room. Yeah, these meds have me in a good mood.
"Mark!" She exclaimed, smiling. "Feeling better already?"
"Beck put me on some wild meds," I admit, grinning foolishly. "Everything still hurts but that's fine, I guess. I guess he's taking pity on me, because he keeps getting me high."
Johanssen laughed, already looking back at her computer screen.
"Whatcha doin'?" I sauntered over to sit down.
She sighed, an aggravated sigh. "NASA crap. We're engaging in unplanned space travel, so they want updates on everything every ten seconds."
I nod sagely, sitting down across from her and resting my head in my arms. "I'm familiar with that. "Mark, how's the water reclaimer?" "Fine." Forty three minutes later, "Mark, how's the water reclaimer?" "It's been an hour. It's still fine." "What about the Hab?" "Still inflated, obviously." "How about the Oxygenator?"" I shake my head. "NASA folks get their panties in a bunch really easily."
"They were up your ass too?" she laughed. "They keep making me running tests on the tarnished cooling vanes. We have literally no way to fix them, but they keep having me test them two or three times a day. They're holding a steady rate of decay, a rate that we can get home easily within, I might add."
I shrug. "I know what it's like. I had to take apart the water reclaimer once every hundred sols to clean minerals out of the piping, because the soil added minerals to the air. They always told me not to do it, but never really provided a viable alternative."
"To be fair," Johanssen said, "I've seen some of that communication. You were not being easy to work with."
I rolled my eyes. "They were the ones being difficult. I'd survived 200 sols on my own, and by that point I'd gotten blown up and made 600L of water. I felt equipped to service a machine."
""Your mothers are prostitutes, and your sisters too?"" she quoted at me.
I grinned widely. "They were micromanaging my plants. My plants! I'll have you know I was the planet's best botanist!" I'm flourishing a pointed finger at her.
She rolled her eyes at me this time."Okay, Watney. You should get that on a t shirt."
"It won't make much sense if I say it on Earth," I said. "And I can't say Mars' best botanist, 'cause that's not funny."
"I'm sure you'll think of something," she said idily, clicking around on her computer.
I look around the rec room, kicking my legs. "I'm bored."
She looked at me blankly. "You're on a billion dollar spaceship. I'm sure you can find something useful to do."
I'm being a big whiny baby, so I groan in her direction. I'm actually not that bored, I'm thoroughly enjoying the fact that everything is okay right now.
Well, I'm starving, my arms are sore, my back still hurts, everything hurts, but the dark hole in my chest is gone for right now and the anxiety that twists me inside out is gone too and that's fucking amazing.
"I need food!" I declare, getting up. "And I want meat." I pull open a drawer that has meat-based foods, and steal one of Vogel's sausage breakfast packs.
"He won't like that you're taking those," Johanssen says as I prep the food.
"I don't care," I say, already on the way to shoving the food in my face.
Beck wanders into the room. "Well, look whose already feeling better!"
"You got me high, that's why I feel better," I said in between mouthfuls of food. I never even sit down to eat, just standing near the food drawers eating at the counter, like my dad did whenever the game was on.
"You won't be high long. If you're awake then the drugs will be gone inside the hour."
The idea of being without this feeling unsettles me. "Can I have more?" The words are out of my mouth before I censor them. "No, wait, I guess not, because I'm a filthy addict, huh," I say gamely, trying to recover.
I didn't mean it in a bad way, but Beck's eyebrows pull together in a sort-of sad way anyways. "I bet NASA wouldn't object to some sort of medication."
Well, NASA ain't gonna approve any more medication tonight. I'll have to create an excuse to hide as they wear off. I don't want to be around anyone when the misery closes down on me again.
But for now, for right now, I feel good. I'm going to cherish that. "Whatcha doin?" I ask him.
"Trotting around after you," he says, sitting down with a stack of papers.
"What are those?" I ask nosily.
Beck sighs, waves the folder. "Reports on you, actually."
"Me?" I ask. "Is it that medical team Dr. Keller had micromanaging me on Mars?"
"The same," Beck says. "This time it's a report on all the scary things withdrawal can do."
"Can I read it?"
Beck shakes his head. "No. It won't do you any good. It'll probably just make you anxious."
"I'm always anxious, who cares."
Beck tilts his head at me, exasperated. "Mark."
"Can I read any of the reports about me?"
His response is curt, like an annoyed parent. "No."
I make a whiny sound in response.
"Mark, they're just filled with disaster scenarios. We are just going to handle problems as they come up, not spend time worrying about all that could go wrong."
"But wouldn't it be better for me to be prepared?"
Beck rolls his eyes. "You know how NASA reports are, dude. If it could technically happen, they list it as a risk. They're not, like, really likely."
I frown. "Yeah, but really unlikely risks tend to happen to me."
"You haven't hallucinated anything yet, and that was considered within the realm of likely."
I open my mouth to tell him that I did, a lot, but the words die in my throat. That stopped for the most part after they picked me up. Or maybe it didn't, I don't remember. I pop a bite of food into my mouth instead.
"Mark?" Beck asks, and I shrug.
"What?"
"You zoned out," Johanssen supplies.
Haha, little do they know that this time I didn't. "I do that, like, every ten seconds. I only really hear every third sentence someone says to me."
"We should get you high more often, you're being far more helpful than you usually are," Beck comments. "Any other insights into your mental health you'd like to share?"
I put more food in my mouth, before I say something stupid.
The moment passes, and Beck and Johanssen look back down at what they're doing.
I get up and bounce to my lab, before the drugs wear off and before they can ask me any nosy questions.
—
The come down from these drugs is awful. A long, slow, horrible side backward out of peace and relaxation back into chest crushing pain.
I spend the next hour laying in bed alone, staring at the ceiling. I wonder if it will ever stop.
—
Mark Watney
Mission Day 717
So, post withdrawal, Beck made me do Dr. Shield's psych assessment. It was less bad than I thought it would be.
—
Earlier That Day
The Ares III team got a psychiatrist assigned to them. Every leaving trip did. The psychiatrist analyzes all the candidates, paired us for our group, trained us on how to work together, and did near-constant assessments on everything they could think of. We were all required to take an entry psychology course, where we were briefed on the major categories of psychiatric conditions and how likely it was that we'd get them from space, and how to cope if anyone on the crew did.
Our psychiatrist, Dr. Shields, was nice. I appreciated her pragmatism when she was working with us, and how frank she was in explaining the risk factors of space travel on mental health. She laid it out honestly: we were probably gonna have depression and anxiety and existential terror after space, even if everything went perfectly well. We're astronauts, we're stupid, we agreed to the trip anyways.
It was a miracle she could be warded off for a month, but I knew that eventually her assessment would find it's way to me, which is how I found myself in front of my laptop with a chat to Dr. Shields.
"Don't worry, be fully honest with her," Beck told me earlier. "All they can do is make recommendations. We're in space, what are they going to do?"
"Institutionalize me when I'm back?" I remember retorting snippily.
The first message from Dr. Shields arrived.
SHIELDS: Dr. Watney. It's good to talk, we haven't spoken in a while.
SHIELDS: I know you don't want to do this, so I'll get through it quickly. Answer all questions with a yes or a no, with as much information as you feel comfortable providing. If I need more detail, I'll ask follow-up questions. There's a whole hospital full of doctors who want to study you, but my job is just to make sure you make it to Earth in one piece.
I let out the breath I didn't know I'd been holding. I wasn't eager to have my experiences be part of the public domain just yet, a fate I knew was headed my way whether or not I wanted that.
HRM: I'd like to get to Earth in one piece too.
SHIELDS: Let's just dive in. Dr. Beck said you were suffering from anxiety, having trouble sleeping from your anxiety, having recurring nightmares from your anxiety. Correct?
Ugh, this was going to take a while.
HRM: Yes. Well, sort of - the nightmares are not from anxiety.
SHIELDS: Noted. Are you having any worries about your body or personal health?
HRM: Not really, Beck is taking great care of me.
SHIELDS: Have you had any anxiety about talking to your crewmates?
I'm ashamed of this, but I know it's in my best interest to be honest. She's here to help. She gave me assignments on Mars, but she never asked me questions like this. Guess they didn't want to get me down when I was ten seconds away from killing myself.
HRM: Yes.
SHIELDS: What do you fear from talking to your crewmates?
My hands type out my response slowly.
HRM: That they will take my feelings personally. That they will make me talk about Mars.
SHIELDS: Has this caused you to be nervous in their presence?
HRM: Only a little. When Mars comes up.
SHIELDS: Do you find yourself suffering repetitive thoughts?
Ha ha, oh boy.
HRM: Do I ever.
SHIELDS: Do you take action on them?
I know what OCD is, I've seen television, and I think obsessively checking Hermes performance logs every half an hour probably counts, and that's just for starters.
HRM: Yes. I check and recheck the Hermes condition reports at least fifteen times a day.
SHIELDS: Are you having short term memory problems? For instance, do you sometimes find yourself talking to the crew, completely unable to remember what you were talking about?"
Am I? Yeah, definitely.
HRM: Yes.
SHIELDS: Please elaborate.
HRM: When I'm working, I lose focus really quickly. I catch myself just staring at the computer screen a lot, and I totally forgot what I was doing. I can't keep calculations in my head, or can't remember what I'm reading while I'm reading it.
SHIELDS: Do you sometimes have the experience that your body is not your own, or that you're outside of your own body watching yourself?
The question is weird, I know the question is weird, but it strikes me right in my heart.
HRM: Yes.
She doesn't respond for twenty minutes.
I'm getting nervous. I want to tell someone, so I tell her.
HRM: Sometimes I feel like I'm trapped in my body, and can't move. That I'm just watching it move, like a spectator.
Her response comes exactly 14 minutes later, swift.
SHIELDS: Do you ever feel disconnected from your own thoughts, or disturbed, as if they aren't your own?
Sometimes my thoughts echo in my head, loudly, intrusively. It's my voice, my thoughts, but dark, like… Hearing it always makes me shiver.
HRM: Yes.
It's a solid twenty minutes again before she sends her response. I'm beginning to get worried, who is she going to share this with? What is she going to tell Beck to do based on this?
SHIELDS: Are you more agitated and frustrated than usual?
HRM: Usual for Mars? Or usual for two years ago? Because honestly both are useless.
SHIELDS: Point taken. Are you suffering from guilt?
That panged hard in my chest.
HRM: Yes.
SHIELDS: Does this guilt cause you frustration and affect your behavior?"
HRM: Yes.
SHIELDS: Do you find yourself taking more risks? Or acting recklessly?
HRM: There hasn't been any opportunity on Hermes, but if Mars is anything to go by, then yes.
SHIELDS: Can you elaborate?
HRM: I used the RTG to make a bath.
I wonder if she knows the significance of that, because she doesn't comment on it.
SHIELDS: Are you sad a majority of days?
Understatement of the century.
HRM: Yes.
SHIELDS: Do you fantasize about hurting yourself?
Oh, now we're getting into dangerous territory. This is something they'd lock me in the restraint chair over, and that's not how I want to spend this flight back.
But equally much, I do not want to lie to the doctor who prepped us all for this trip, is nice, and is currently my only line of defense against NASA.
HRM: Yes. But I would never act on it.
SHIELDS: Why? How do you know?
I struggle with how to word this.
HRM: Because it's… leftover. From Mars. Not related to my situation now.
It's the blackness in my chest, it makes me want to claw my own skin off my arms. Depression's a bitch, makes me feel like I'm actually already dead and that actually killing myself would just be correcting what amounts to a mistake. I woke up every sol and went to bed every sol fighting the temptation to stab a knife into the Hab canvas and just explode, get it all over with. But I haven't had any urges to destroy the Hermes, and I assume that I'm going to stop wanting to tear the skin off of my own face soon enough.
Thank god, that answer satisfied her.
SHIELDS: Dr. Beck tells me you recently went through opiate withdrawal. Have you felt an urge to use any sort of drug since then?
Like, a little, some, but not enough that I feel I should mention it.
HRM: No.
SHIELDS: Has it been hard for you to enjoy what once made you happy?
That one panged against my hollow chest.
HRM: Yes.
SHIELDS: What are these self injurious impulses?
Okay, so we're back to that. I look down at my hands and wind them together. Transitory, is what they are, because I'm saved and I'm literally not going to act on them.
HRM: Irene, I promise, it doesn't matter. I'm not going to act on them, really. I promise not to hurt myself.
SHIELDS: Don't worry, Mark, you're in no danger of the chair. Just looking for ways to make your time on the Hermes easier, so that you're not riddled with intrusive thoughts or self-injurious impulses all day.
But a message comes in a moment later, and thankfully she's dropped the subject.
SHIELDS: All right Mark, the fun ones. Are you seeing or hearing things that aren't there?
Well, here we go.
HRM: Yes.
SHIELDS: When?
HRM: All the time, on Mars. Sounds of people moving in another room, like the crew was right around the corner. Now, sometimes - just for like, a few seconds - I'll see something from Mars before it's gone again.
SHIELDS: Do you know anything about flashbacks?
HRM: Uh, no. That soldiers get them after war. Part of PTSD, I guess, so what it says on the tin.
SHIELDS: Flashbacks range from intrusive thoughts and feelings about the trauma all the way to losing touch with reality and believing that you are reliving the trauma. The difference between that and a hallucination is that you believe you're in the actual trauma, not a made up experience. Would you say what you're experiencing are flashbacks?
HRM: I don't feel qualified to make a judgment call, but sometimes I hear the wind from Mars or ringing from explosions when I know nothing is there, or sometimes I feel like I'm on Mars even though I know I'm not.
SHIELDS: Sounds like a flashback. Flashbacks present in a variety of different ways. At first, people may not even know they're experiencing one, because it just feels like a vivid or intrusive memory, not an entire sensory disconnect.
HRM: Well then yeah, that's happening to me.
SHIELDS: Any other sights or sounds that aren't there?
I like it when I can give the good answers to NASA questions.
HRM: Nope.
SHIELDS: Do you find yourself afraid that the crew is going to abandon you, emotionally or otherwise?
I've been over this one a thousand times in my head. Where would they leave me? Where would they even go? Nevertheless, I know my answer.
HRM: Yes.
SHIELDS: Does this affect your behavior around them?
HRM: Not a lot.
SHIELDS: Does it affect your mood on a regular basis?
HRM: Yes. I'm overanalyzing everything they say these days.
SHIELDS: That's to be expected.
SHIELDS: That was all, Dr. Watney. You're free to go.
I know she's probably walked away from the computer now, but I send my last email.
HRM: Wait, so what's my crazy?
SHIELDS: You have a fairly standard case of PTSD, as I know you know. Your full diagnosis is 'PTSD with dissociative features.' You can read more in Beck's copy of the DSM if you'd like. I'm sure NASA is going to try and micromanage your mental health like they do everything else, but I'll try and keep them off of you.
HRM: Thanks. What could NASA even do?
SHIELDS: Make Beck drug you to stay asleep? I don't know. Honestly, Mark, everyone's really concerned that you're going to get off the EDV in a state of psychosis, and that you're going to throw things at reporters or do something else equally bad for press.
HRM: I don't need to be psychotic to throw things at vulture reporters. They're already sending me emails chock full of really invasive interview questions. Although I'm flattered that NASA's so worried about the health of the press.
SHIELDS: Well, I have to go tell NASA that you're snarking, so you're doing as well as could be hoped. Safe flight, Dr. Watney.
