Mission Day 47

Mark hadn't even considered that the mission day's schedule was actually long over, when he'd accidentally barged in on Beck and Johanssen just now.

He'd just realized that one of his reports had accidentally gone out blank, whoops! He was going to ask Chris if he should send the completed form to the medical lab's database. Or where, exactly, it ought to go. Without even thinking twice about it, he'd absent-mindedly opened the door to Beck's room to ask him, expecting to find him there.

Which indeed he had, as it had turned out. Curled up on his bunk there with Johanssen, spooning her, for Christ's sake, as they watched a movie or something on the flip-down screen next to the door, in the dark. Chris had hurriedly untangled himself and, red-faced, walked with him across to the lab as though Mark had seen nothing out-of-the-ordinary; Mark had simply been too amused to say anything about it.

The Commander would not like this, though. Not at all, he'd thought. Beck had already earned himself a unwritten warning for allowing his relationship with Beth to become too close. He didn't think their 'movie snuggle-time' was going to go over well at all.

Maybe there was no reason to say anything about it.

It wasn't any of his business what they did, in their private time, right? He thought about it a bit more, and found that he wasn't inclined to tell Commander Lewis about it. Why rock the boat?

Watney really didn't want to get pulled in on any of their drama; and yet Beck had cornered him the next day and asked him what, if anything, Mark planned to say to Lewis.

"About what, exactly?" he'd grinned at Beck, who looked sheepish and grateful, and embarrassed, all over again.

After a long pause, though, Beck had just started talking; Mark wasn't even sure if he was the intended target of the words, Chris just seemed to feel the need to say them out loud, to somebody.

"It's a year; an entire year that we're supposed to go, with no physical contact. It doesn't make sense, and I don't even think it's a good idea. Medically speaking, people need to be connected. It's hard science! A solid year of nothing more than a couple of high-fives is bound to cause psychological issues, even for normal, healthy, adults. Why are they setting us up for ongoing problems, with these bullshit no-fraternization rules?"

Mark didn't know how to respond to that.

On some level, he agreed with him; but he could see the sound reasoning behind the rules, as well. He was pretty sure that Beck did, too, when he was thinking rationally.

"Anyway," Beck continued, still trying to justify things, "Nothing happened."

"Mm-kay," Mark was not at all sure how convinced he was of that. "If you say so."

"Really. Just watching a show together. She's just lonely, you know?" He trailed off. "Misses everyone back home. We're just friends."

"Friends. Okay." Mark agreed, smiling a bit, unwillingly. Fooling nobody, he thought.

"Seriously! Just friends!" he argued, and then added, "for now, anyway."

"Oh, and the truth comes out!" Mark laughed. "For now!"

"For now." Chris agreed.

"And does Johanssen know of these future nefarious plans of yours?"

"No!"

Sure she doesn't, Mark thought. Idiots.

"Well, if you want my advice," he said, "you'll wait until you're back home. Unless you want to be on the receiving end of the wrath of Lewis."

"I know," Chris shrugged. "It's hard. But it can wait. And anyway, I don't know if she'd even be interested."

"Or else you gotta be more stealthy-like about it," Mark grinned. "Cloak and dagger!"

Chris snorted.

Houston

Well, this sure escalated quickly, Mindy thought wryly.

Not even two months ago, she had been trying to think of a way to avoid her annual trip to visit her mother for the holidays. And now, here she was, sitting in a straight-backed chair at the title company, signing her life away.

She felt a little nauseated. More than a little, truthfully. This had all happened so fast! She'd toured the model home, which had been way cuter and more inviting than a model home had any right to be, and the next thing she knew, she'd been walking the streets of the future phase of the subdivision, examining a map of empty lots. One spot was particularly attractive to her, with a couple of shady old-growth pecan trees. It was available, of course. For a premium. They'd even broken ground on the property already. Six weeks away from completion. The neighborhood, so close to JSC, even had a astronomy-related street naming scheme.

Which space nerd could resist living on the corner of Warp Drive and Galaxy Way? Not her.

What the hell, she'd thought. She'd signed and put her deposit down, that very evening. And now it was hers. Hers, for the low, low, cost of her annual salary, times four, paid out over thirty years.

Thirty years was a long time, though. A really, really long time, she thought, as the room seemed to be spinning. Three hundred and sixty months. Three hundred and sixty times that she was going to have to do a little bit better than just pay her rent.

The twenty-percent down payment had been most of a full year's salary, the grand majority of her savings, in fact. If all hell broke loose in the next few months, she was going to have a really hard time of it. She felt light-headed just thinking about the possibility. What if she lost her job, for fuck's sake? Not that she was really worried about that happening; she actually really liked her new position in SatCon, despite the weird hours, and had no intentions of going anywhere.

Well, except for today. She'd taken today off from work, and her boss had jokingly asked if she was off to go practice her handwriting. Kapoor had been through the whole mortgage process himself, a time or two, she figured.

"Huh?" she'd asked him. But now she understood what he'd meant, as she signed her name on the final dotted line. Her wrist actually hurt from all the signatures, dates, and pages and pages of initials she'd jotted in the last two hours. The document packet they'd handed her on the way out the door was momentously heavy.

So were the four matching house keys that now jingled merrily from her keychain. She wasn't sure if she was dizzy from the hundred-degree heat, or if it was the stress, or maybe it was just that she hadn't actually eaten anything since early that morning; but she felt almost as though she were sleepwalking as she made her way outside, clutching the slippery folder, her keys, and her new garage door opener, wobbling a bit in her favorite strappy black heels that she'd chosen that morning.

It's okay, she reassured herself as she slid into the super-heated front seat of her car, and put her head down on the steering wheel for a moment. She took a deep breath. It's going to be okay. Absolutely normal to panic a little bit. Everyone freaks out a little bit when they make big, life-changing decisions on a mom-avoiding whim. Right? She would be fine. This was totally okay.

And then it wasn't okay at all; her stomach turned, and she quickly opened the car door and… oh my god, what the hell, she thought. She threw up, right there in the title company parking space.

I think I made a mistake, she thought, weakly, as a couple of tears streamed from her eyes. Can I please change my mind, now?

Her feet really, really hurt, but there was nowhere to sit.

Bad planning, she scolded herself, glancing around the empty living room. Her empty living room.

Her meager apartment furnishings would arrive the next morning, but she'd decided to camp out tonight in her new house anyway; her very first night under her own roof. She had come prepared, too. All the essentials. A bath towel, her toiletries, a sleeping bag, and a bottle of red wine. The rest could wait until tomorrow.

She settled for the bottom step of her very own staircase, sat down, and unstrapped her shoes, suddenly shocked at how swollen her ankles were.

"Jesus," she said, rubbing them gently. She'd been sitting down most of the day, what the fuck! It had been a long day, yes, but she'd never seen her ankles look like this, all puffed up and tender. These stupid shoes, she thought. They were cute, but they must have cut off her circulation somehow.

She surveyed her kitchen, happily. She liked everything about it. She'd picked out the cabinets, the countertops, the fixtures, every last detail.

And oh, the smell of fresh paint and plaster, and newly-lacquered wood! It had greeted her when she'd opened the door for the very first time. New-house smell. She loved it.

The sound of her phone ringing broke her out of her reverie; it was her mother calling.

"Hi, Mom," she grinned. "Guess where I am?" She paused for a moment, and then cheerfully announced, "My new house!"

"How wonderful! So it's all settled, then?" Her mother sounded like she was trying to be upbeat, for a change. "Congratulations. How do you like it?"

"I love it," she admitted, smiling. "I love it so much!"

"Well, that's good, sweetheart! I'm so happy for you."

"Thanks, Mom," she replied. "I just can't believe this all happened so… quickly!"

"You're telling me." Her mother fell easily into her usual tone. "Until you decided to buy that house, I was still holding out some hope that maybe you could do a job transfer, move closer to me. I mean, doesn't NASA have plenty of things that you could do in Florida?"

"Not really, Mom. I work in SatCon. I don't build things, or make things, or launch things. I'm just in orbital mechanics. The whole department is based in Houston."

"Is that right? Well, I'm sorry, I guess I really just don't even understand what it is that you do, do I, sweetheart?" She made a little laugh.

"Sorry, Mom," Mindy tried to make light of this fact, even though it kind of hurt her feelings. "Wish I could have turned out to be an executive chef, or a real-estate agent, or something you could easily compare notes about, with your friends there at the complex." It came out sounding more bitter than she'd intended.

"No need to be sarcastic about it," her mother sniffed. "I know that you worked hard to get where you are."

"I did." she agreed, as she fumbled with the cork on the wine bottle. She was going to need a glass, after she hung up.

"I guess I just worry about you, all alone out there in Texas," her mother admitted. "No husband, or boyfriend, or anything? I don't suppose you've met anyone new, lately?"

"Sorry, no." Mindy smirked, shaking her head. "Just the guys on the construction crews. Some of them were pretty good-looking," she teased. "The bricklayer guy had nice arms."

"Very funny. Don't you ever meet anyone nice at work? In your field, I'd think there would be more men than you could shake a stick at."

"That's the problem, Mom. I go around shaking sticks at all the single guys at work. And they all think I'm a nutcase." She sighed. "There are no single guys at work. Or, very few, anyway. None that I'd want to date. And I really don't think I'd want to date a co-worker, anyway."

Her mother sighed. "Well, sweetheart, maybe you're being too choosy." she said.

Mindy rolled her eyes.

Maybe she was too choosy, as her mother liked to remind her, at least once a month. But damn it, how was she supposed to pursue some random person she felt no real connection with? She needed to feel a spark. Like the way it had been with Mark, that night. Now there was a guy that she would date again, if she ever got the chance.

"Maybe so, Mom. Or maybe all that's just not in the cards for me," she summed up, sighing.

"Oh, honey, you're barely thirty-two," her mother said, trying to be reassuring. "There's still lots of time for you to meet someone."

Why was that her mother's worst-case-scenario, Mindy wondered, glancing skyward. That she might not ever get married? She felt like she would be fine with it, honestly. Why, in this day in age, did she even need a man, anyway. She was on the verge of saying so, when her mother continued.

"Don't worry, your Prince Charming is out there, somewhere." She said it soothingly.

Yeah, way out there, she thought, ruefully, thinking of Mars.

"At least I got my castle," she grinned, trying to change the subject.

"That's true," her mother agreed. "But you need to be careful not to decorate it too girly, in my opinion. No man is going to want to live in a house with purple carpet, you know. He'll think you're eccentric."

Mindy adored her deep midnight-purple carpet. It reminded her of the night sky. Fuck you, mom, she thought.

"Well, I like it," she countered, shocked at how quickly she'd lost her temper. "And it's my house. Home of Eccentric Old Maid Mindy Park."

"Really, there's no need for all of that," her mother replied, offended. "I was just trying to help."

"Thanks ever so much," Mindy replied, caustically. "I need to go."

She'd hung up, annoyed at herself for letting her mother get under her skin like that.

Now it's time to get this evening back on track, she thought, as she poured out a generous glass of wine, to toast her new house with.

There was something wrong with the wine, though. Damn it.

It smelled… off, she thought. Bleh. It must have turned, from being left in the hot car. Never mind. She poured it down the drain, and got herself a glass of water, instead. Houston tap water tasted notoriously bad, and this was no exception. It had that familiar brackish, coppery flavor to it, as she drank it down, anyway. She hadn't realized how thirsty she was. Maybe she'd install one of those reverse-osmosis filter systems for the house, she thought.