I kind of wanted to do more with this chapter, but I think it turned out alright. I also meant to update this yesterday (apparently Mondays are my Martian days) and that didn't work out so well. It's that kind of a week. My schedule is all thrown off because of the end of the semester. For anyone who is also reading my Man from Uncle story, I hope to have that updated in the next day or two. Thanks for your patience!
Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the Martian. I only love it so, so much.
I blamed the book club.
No really, it had to have been them. It's not like there weren't other possibilities, but the weekly event of older-women-invading-my-house seemed most likely. Ok, so it wasn't my house, and it was also entirely possible that the germs had come from somewhere else, but I still hadn't completely forgiven Margaret for trying to hug me last week. Less trying-more succeeding. Mostly because I couldn't roundhouse kick a seventy-five year old woman.
In any case, I could feel a cold coming on. I hadn't actually been sick in a while. Malnourished? Sure. But any germs not my own were absent on Mars, and after that the NASA docs had kept me so loaded with antibiotics and vitamins that I hadn't really had a chance to get sick.
Now that they had been assured that I was not going to drop dead of the plague, NASA had backed off. That was when the germs had struck. Right now it was only a headache lurking just out of reach and an irritating scratchiness in my throat, but I had no doubt that it would soon turn into a full blown cold, complete with blocked sinuses and general misery.
That left me to, very sullenly, be working on my second glass of powdered vitamin C water in a vain attempt to head the coming illness off at the pass. I was also trying to re-read Robinson Crusoe, but I was thirty pages in and had just remembered why I abandoned the book in the first place. It was really freaking boring.
I had just started page thirty-one over for the third time (because nothing had made it past my brain filter the first two) when my mom walked into the sunroom. She took in my nest of blankets, orange-ish water, and disgruntled appearance and made some deductions that her mom-ness had honed over the course of my lifetime.
"Not feeling well?" she asked as she came further into the room.
"I think I'm getting sick," I told her. As much as I wanted to be a drama queen about it, there was no point in worrying her more than she already would be. And I had no doubt she had already started-moms do that, so I've been told. By her. A lot. It was no use trying to lie to her either. I had never been accused of being subtle.
"Well, it happens this time of year," she said, but with a frown.
"Yeah, 'tis the season."
"Why don't you go take a nap before dinner?" She suggested. In true motherly fashion, she believed that rest and fluids would cure just about anything. I was inclined to agree, especially if it meant that I got to sleep.
"Sure. I just want to finish this first." I brandished my glass of water that tasted nothing like a real orange. I'd had worse though (I still refused to discuss potato skin tea) and at least I could pretend that this was useful.
My mom left the room again. I could hear her puttering around in the kitchen, getting dinner ready to throw together. She was a big fan of easy and hot dishes, especially in the winter, and had told me and Dad earlier that we were having tuna casserole for dinner.
I managed to choke down the rest of my drink and abandoned my book on the coffee table. I made it to my room and burrowed under the blankets-because it was cold, ok? Not because they were really, really soft-and fell asleep
I woke up an indeterminate time later because I was hot. I wish I could say that I meant the wildly attractive hot, but it was more like my brains were boiling hot. I threw off the cover that had been so nice earlier and sat up on the edge of my bed, head pounding.
The light had definitely faded, but since it was winter that could mean it was 6 p.m. or 6 a.m. I wasn't sure where my phone had wandered off to, and since I used it as an alarm clock I also had no way of knowing what time it was. I decided to make my way downstairs to see if anyone else was alive or if I was the last man on Earth. I'd rather that not be the case-being the last man anywhere wasn't as fun as it might sound.
My parents were in the livingroom watching one of the original Star Wars movies.
"Have you seen my phone?" I asked them. Woah. Voice sounded a lot worse than earlier. This dang cold was moving in faster than expected.
"I think it's on the counter," my mom told me, glancing away from the screen to look at me, all concerned like. "And there's a plate for you in the oven."
"Thanks," I said, padding into the kitchen.
My phone was, indeed, on the kitchen counter, where I had probably left it earlier while trying to drink the equivalent of twenty oranges. Or something. Martinez had sent me a picture of grumpy cat in a santa hat with the caption "dashing through the NO," but other than that nothing new. My laugh at the cat caused the scratchiness in my throat to become a tickle and I started coughing. Ugh. I hated being sick.
I opened the oven and stared at the plate of tuna casserole. It stared back. I closed the oven again-better not. I wasn't really that hungry anyway. Grabbing a glass of water, I went back upstairs to bemoan my fate.
Over the next two days, the cold did not get better. In fact, by Saturday it was in full swing and I was fully miserable. As well as having a headache and stuffy nose from blocked sinuses, the drainage was giving me a nasty cough and nausea.
Mom had exiled me to my room and sprayed every surface I had touched downstairs with lysol until I could smell the "fresh mountain breeze" from my bedroom, upstairs. I could tell she was getting worried, especially after I had been up half the night puking my guts out, so I wasn't especially surprised when Beck showed up.
I had been unsuccessfully trying to nap (again) when there was a knock on my door.
"Come in," I called. The door creaked open and Beck's head appeared around it.
"Hey Mark," he said. After that he seemed a little unsure as to what he should do. I would have laughed at him, except laughing set off the coughing, and that hurt.
"You can come all the way in. It's ok," I finally said after a weird couple of seconds. He took that as his cue that I wasn't going to bite his head off. I sat up, with a little effort. "My mom called you, didn't she?"
"Yes," he nodded, setting what I liked to call his doctor bag down beside the bed. I sighed.
"Look, it's just a cold," I told him, "there's really no reason to freak out."
"I completely agree," Beck said, "which is why I'm going to check you out and inform your mother that there is absolutely no need to freak out."
"Huh?" I said, eloquently. I wasn't following. Beck raised one eyebrow. He had the I'm-a-doctor-so-you-have-to-listen-to-me thing down pat.
"It probably is nothing. But after everything" he waved his hand, apparently to encompass my entire life, "it's better to go through the motions to reassure your parents than to brush it off. Besides, if it turns out to actually be serious Lewis would have my head if I let it get by me."
Oh. I guess that made sense. I said as much, and was rewarded with a rare Beck smile.
"Of course it does. Now sit up straight."
It only took like ten minutes for Beck to do his doctor thing and decided that it really was just a bad cold.
"It was kind of inevitable, you know," he said as he put away his stethoscope. I was distracted trying to figure out how to steal said stethoscope, but I knew what he meant.
"I know," I sighed, "but I was hoping that I could put getting reaquainted with germs. They were not what I missed about Earth." Beck snorted.
"No kidding. Anyway, rest and fluids. You know the drill. If the cough doesn't go away after awhile I'll have to check and make sure it's not turning into a sinus infection, but I think you should be fine."
"Thanks," I said, sincerely. He nodded and left.
Beck couldn't keep anything on the down low, though. At least that explained the Get Well Soon card that showed up the next day, signed by the whole crew. Accompanied by a balloon.
Eh, what the hell. I like balloons.