I Win, Mars

by chuck-is-god

The end of the book leaves us with a lot of questions. How does he cope with Mars? How does he reconnect with the crew on the way home? How does he return to normalcy? No slash. No sex at all. PTSD, anxiety, and lots of wiseass remarks.

6. Chapter 6

A/N: This is written from the perspective of the US being in a cold war with China during the events of the novel. Because NASA can't get funding from Congress in the best of times. What would get NASA so much funding? What gets the most funding? The military. The only thing that would get NASA so much funding is a pissing contest with another nation. China is the only nation getting more developed and that we have a problem, with, so we must be in a cold war with China. So, the Taiyang Shen cooperation represented the end of that cold war. So Mark Watney was responsible for the end of the cold war with China - on top of all his other accomplishments.

—

Mark Watney
Mission Day 751

The next morning, I didn't really want to face the crew. At some point I woke up hunched in the corner and crawled back into bed. The bed was a fucking gift, because passing out in a corner on a hard floor really makes you hurt all over.

Beck should really do something about this sleep deprivation. I need to be in top shape to survive the descent, as he keeps saying.

Now, we're all eating breakfast in the rec room. The awkwardness saturating the air is keeping everyone from saying anything, and thank god, because anything I have to say about it isn't nice.

I kept my head low as I finished my breakfast, intent on consuming it as quickly as possible and getting back to hiding. I want Vogel to babysit me today because he was the only one not gawking at me last night, but if I keep requesting him it's going to look like favoritism and I don't want to deal with it.

Lewis looked up at me through her eyebrows, put her silverware down, and I knew today I wasn't going to be able to skate by. "Are you doing all right?" She asked in the same not-unkind voice.

I don't have the energy for this today. "Yeah, fine," I say, because that's a universal way to say 'no, but let's not talk about it.'

Lewis chooses to ignore this request, though, still staring at me like she can see into my soul. God damn it, why does everyone look at me like that now?

You know, on the trip there, we all learned what the other people were like when they were stressed. Johanssen cries, Martinez gripes and whines, Beck sulks, Lewis hangs her head in shame, Vogel… is Vogel. I joke. Rather, I joked, past tense. Mark Watney joked when stressed. I don't know who I am or what I do anymore.

I was gone for a year and a half, but they had each other. They got to know each other better than I ever did. They're a group now, and that group doesn't include me.

My anger drains into depression instantly, water through a sieve.

"Do you think it would be of benefit to institute Family Time?" Lewis asked over my head.

Family Time was an old American space thing, where everyone on the ISS, and the Ares I, would gather at the end of the day and talk about their emotions that day. It was required, even if those emotions were just 'I was bored all day.' People were allowed to decline to share, but they had to publicly decline to share. It ensured that everyone had a chance to communicate with everyone else, and that nobody's feelings went unaddressed because they never got a chance to address them.

But I don't want Family Time. I'm not a part of this family anymore, and it's just being used as a vehicle to pry.

"Fine, but I'm going to decline comment," I say icily, and everyone does a great job not reacting.

"I think it would be good for the rest of us, in any case," Johanssen said, her voice thick.

Suddenly the guilt scoops out my heart. They're having a tough time, too, and they need this. Surely the least I can do is sit here and be present while they work through what's going on with them.

"I think it would be of benefit for all of us," Vogel's voice is tired, too, and now I feel fucking awful.

Lewis nodded. Her voice is low. "I do too. Let's reinstate Family Time, starting tonight."

I get up immediately, throw my dishes in the bin, and I know it looks to them like I'm angry but actually I feel so guilty I can't look at their faces. They're destroyed, all because they came back to save me.

For what feels like the millionth time, I wish that antenna had just killed me. I wish I had the decency to just die when I should have.

—

Mark Watney
Mission Day 751

I spend the rest of the day anxious about this evening. I'd like to pretend that no, I don't care, I won't say anything, I'll just sit through it and listen to them, but a large part of me wants them to comfort me like I'm some scared child afraid of the dark. It's practically screaming for them to come help me, all the time.

I'm surprised that they can't hear it. I've never been one for getting 'vibes' from people, but it's so loud that it's reverberating inside my head and threatening to deafen me. I'll sit at family time and cry for help, as usual, and no one will hear me. Lets remember, though, that they already have done so fucking much to come save me, and they're perfectly within their rights not to help me now. I'm practically the king of neediness these days.

At least I can hear and help them, what little help I can fucking offer them.

—

Mark Watney
Mission Day 751

Dinner is an awkward affair, no one wanting to chit chat knowing that we were going to intentionally have a heart-to-heart right after. They all looked tense, as if they had things they wanted to say and no one wanted to say it.

Johanssen is the first to finish her food, so she uncertainly begins the conversation. "I know I'm the most ready to do this, so I'm willing to start. I…" she sighs. "I know I have the least right to feel this way, because my significant other is here on this ship with me, but I'm so tired. I just want to go home where everything will be easy. Make my mom and dad cook for me, and watch tv for weeks."

She shrugs, looking down at her lap and declining to say anything more.

Beck looks over at her. "I don't have my parents to go home to," Beck begins, "But I have my sister. I cannot wait to see her, and tell her how everything is. Tell her how much I missed her."

After a beat, Lewis says "I miss Robert. He is constantly collecting things for me. I know he agreed that we should rescue Mark, but I can't help but worry that he's resenting me, right now."

"Marissa absolutely resents me," Martinez joined in. "She's not mad at Mark, but she's angry about the whole situation. I keep trying to tell her we had to do it, and she knows, but she can't overlook the fact that my son is three and doesn't know his father."

I am tempted to say 'nobody remembers being three,' but that quip wouldn't drown out the guilt seeping into my stomach. There is a son out there with no fucking father because of me. I wish I just had the decency to die Sol 6.

Vogel nods, making a noise in agreement. He's got a wife too, waiting at home for him, children who miss him too.

"Marissa, Helena and Robert can form a club," Lewis said, looking at her hands twisted together. "I feel ashamed for doing this to them."

Lewis meets my eye accidentally, and the sentence reverberates inside of me. Lewis feels ashamed for doing this to me. But she's got it ass-backwards; it's I who should feel ashamed of doing this to everyone else. I do.

"I want to go back to space, but there's no way Marissa would be okay with that," Martinez mumbled. "I know it sounds crazy; who'd want to go back after this?"

"And you probably won't anyways, because of the court marshalling," Lewis said, guilt in her tone.

"I, personally, am glad that space will be over forever," Vogel said. "I will work close to home, spend all my time with my kids."

"Here here," Beck said, holding up a mock wine glass. Vogel clinked imaginary glasses with him.

I could agree with that sentiment. Never again would be too soon. Pass the explorer torch to someone else. Then again, why explore at all? Who wants to go to to Mars! There's nothing there!

"What else happened today…" Martinez clicked his tongue. He looked at me for a split second, and I knew it was going to be about me. We are supposed to be sharing today's feelings, so let's hear it.

I feel like I'm choking.

"I worried about you today, Mark" he said. "I saw him staring out the window again at Mars," explaining to the rest of them, "and I just can't think that that's good for him."

He's talking about me as if I'm not here, to put distance in the situation. I'm supposed to be offended - it seems offensive - but honestly I'm just relieved. The idea of being unobserved appeals to me. Maybe it will be easier to hide the shame that is suffocating me inside out.

"It bothers me too," Johanssen admitted, twisting her hands. "Why would you want to do that? I don't want to stare at the Hermes. I just want to be gone." She laughed smally, and added "It's not anyone's fault, by the way. You're all great -"

"We know," Martinez said, quietly but cocky all the same.

Don't presume that Mars is the same as the Hermes, I think angrily to myself. You were not suffering; you were all here together, without me. You didn't have your spouses, but I didn't have anyone.

"Today I was thinking that it is unfortunate that Mark has not given us a way to help him," Vogel said, and is that thickness I detect in his tone? "We just want to help."

My hands are shaking on top of the table, so I hide them. My chest feels tense, like the hole inside of it has locked up. I'm hanging on every word they say, every syllable, and hate myself for it. I have no right to seek comfort from them; they are dragged themselves through another year and a half of space to come save me. Space seems easy, just sitting on the Hermes, but I know it's not.

"I feel purposeless on this ship," Beck was saying. "We went on this rescue mission for Mark, and now we can't help you, and there isn't even any more science or things to do. Just endless time, every day."

That, I can identify with. My whole existence was just one perverse quest to make it to that MAV. Now what?

"It's bad for us, all this time on our hands," Vogel said. "Leaves too much time to think. Space is not the place for thinking." Vogel's right about that one. It's bad when you get philosophical sitting in the middle of an endless void, very bad.

I'm selfish, and against my own will I start pleading with someone to help me internally. Can't they feel how hurt I am? Doesn't it saturate the air, make it unbreathable with how strong it is?

I couldn't detect Vogel's experience until I'd been through it myself. I look at everyone else in turn. Who else didn't I see?

Commander Lewis. Her eyes are too heavy too. But it was not as bad as mine, whatever it was. Then again, not much could be worse than my trauma of choice.

"I… I don't want to share all of my thoughts. I'm worried they'd be weird for Mark to hear," Johanssen offered, lamely.

She's waiting for some sort of a response from me, but I feel as if I'm turning to stone. My voice is lifeless. "Go on." I'm staring resolutely at the table.

She looks at me, hesitant, and speaks. "Sometimes, before we found out you were alive, I would think of something and think you would like it. Then, of course, I'd cry, and wish you were here for me to show you. But it's still happening, because you don't seem like yourself," her voice is tremulous again. "You don't like the things you used to like anymore."

The empty feeling is sinking into my gut like ice. I drift around here lifelessly, like I'm no one anymore, like I'm empty inside. I don't care about dogs or the cubs or Mars or botany or rock music or any of it. The empty feeling is the only thing I can feel. I'm certain I've died sitting here at the table, limbs turning to stone in front of these people.

"I feel so useless," Beck starts, and I can't take it anymore. I don't know if what he was going to say about me, probably not judging by his tone, but I can't handle the saccharine emotion-laden atmosphere.

I push away violently from the table, and stand up on wobbly legs. I half-walk half-run to the ladder and practically throw myself into 0g. Half of me wants someone to call out and yell "Wait!"

But no one does.

Ten seconds, and I'm back in my quarters. I have to bounce off the walls of the bunk hallway, because my shaking legs refuse to hold me up. I shut the door and turn the knob, and collapse onto my bed.

I expected the shaking to continue, but instead it stills into something so complete I can barely breathe. Why didn't anyone try and stop me? I know that's a stupid thing to dwell on, that they probably want to give me space, but I don't want space anymore. I want someone to come be with me without me fighting for it; I had to fight for so long. Can't I be done fighting?

I just want it to be over.

—

Crew
Mission Day 751

There was a few seconds of silence after Watney left.

"Now I feel bad that it was just about him," Martinez admitted.

"It wasn't just about him," Beck said. "Really, it was barely about him."

Lewis shrugged, her finger tracing a pattern on the table. "His rescue was not only our mission, it was everyone's mission. Our mission now is to fix him up and get him home healthy. We're just focusing on the mission."

"He feels singled out." Martinez said.

Beck raised his hands. It had been almost three months, and he was flat out of ideas. "He's going to do what he wants to do. We can't spend our lives walking on eggshells around him," he said flatly.

"We're talking about our feelings, right?" Johanssen raised her voice. "My feelings are frustration that he's putting us in this position."

"What do you expect to do?" Vogel raised his voice. "Sit him down, force him to confide in you? That is not how these things work."

"What do you suggest?" Beck shot back.

"Stop treating him like he is the sum of his damage. Don't pretend it didn't happen, but when it comes up, don't treat him like a wounded animal." Vogel crosses his arms.

"So, what, act like it was a bad day?" Lewis asked, a little irritated. "Shrug and laugh along?"

"Yes." Irritated, Vogel got up and left the room.

"I'm just not of the opinion that minimizing damage is the right thing to do in the long run," Lewis said crossly, watching him leave.

"Vogel might have a point. He's going to have the entirety of NASA up his ass once we get back; it might be good to just back the hell off completely. It's not as if he's going to fall through the system," Beck said.

"You know how badly the system sucks," Lewis said. "He may be the famous Mark Watney now, but he can still damn well fall through the system."

"This is ridiculous," Martinez shook his head. "I'm with Vogel. He's a person, not a project." Martinez got up and left, too.

Lewis looked between Beck and Johanssen, and stood. "We've all got to get to bed, it's lights out soon." She marched up and out of the room.

Beck and Johanssen looked at each other, now empty in the rec room.

"This ship sucks," Johanssen said.

Beck nodded. "Yeah."

Johanssen sighed and looked down, scooting closer to Beck. "I thought after we rescued him, things would get better. They're getting worse."

"Not from his point of view," Beck gently reminded her. "From his point of view, things are way better. I think we just all pictured it going back to how it was before, even though we knew that wasn't going to happen."

"I just don't know anything about this stuff," Johanssen said crossly. "Sure, I had depression in high school, but every intelligent girl did. Not like this."

Beck shrugged. "I'm supposed to be the doctor here, and I know even less. But Martinez is right, he's a person. We should do what we do whenever someone's dad dies, or anything else bad happens; just be here and if he decides to talk, he will." Beck gave a soft smile. "The both of us, we have a bit of a habit of cornering him."

Johanssen laughed. "You're the one who wanted to be nosy when he got back."

Beck shrugged. "NASA had me worried he was going to fling himself out the airlock or something. And… he's my friend. I'm worried."

"He did just sit there, weirdly, silently, the whole time," Johanssen said. "That's what he does like, all the time."

"Well, at least tonight, I can't blame him. We're talking about our feelings being stuck on the Hermes, but he was in a totally different situation. His feelings won't be like ours at all."

Johanssen looked up at him. "What do you think he's feeling?"

Beck thinks about it for a moment. "Honestly, I have no idea. I mean, I can tell you symptoms. Flashbacks, nightmares, but…"

"That doesn't tell us anything," Johanssen finished. "I know."

"Lets just go to bed," Beck offers, rubbing Johanssen's shoulder with one arm. "One way or another, we'll find out the truth in the end."

—

Mark Watney
Mission Day 752

I was doing fuck-all in the rec room when Beck entered, again startling the shit out of me. It's like it's a game, Startle the Shit out of Watney.

They all hadn't really talked to me since I stormed out last night, but Beck was brandishing his tablet so I assume this is work related and not him cornering me.

"So NASA emailed me," Beck declared.

"I don't like that tone, that's a bad tone," I said.

"They want to keep you in three-week observation when you get back to earth. In a hospital."

I knew it. "Fuck No," I said, shaking my head. "To observe what? I'm practically healthy. Look, I'm even getting some muscle back." I flex my nonexistant biceps, grinning.

Beck deadpanned. "Mark, you're probably still over 50 pounds underweight."

I rolled my eyes. "We have another 100 days to correct that!"

"That's not enough time to correct starvation."

"I don't need to be locked in a hospital to eat food, Beck. There's something more."

He turned to face the wall, looking down. "They want to put you through a battery of therapy and psych evaluations."

I don't know what Beck looks so down about. This isn't surprising. "Of course they do, I'm surprised I haven't had more already," I said, stirring the cereal in front of me without eating it.

"To them, the moment you step off the ship, you represent amazing, unprecedented behavioral science. NASA has been telling me to encourage your cooperation."

"Well can I not cooperate?" I ask, hopefully. "Can I just ignore them?"

"Unfortunately, no. It's in our contract that they can keep us as long as they like should they deem us unhealthy, and they have deemed you unhealthy."

"Isn't that why we have things like 'medical proxy' and, I don't know, 'freedom and liberty?'" My voice is whiny, and as per usual I don't care.

"You signed that away when you signed up for Ares III. We all did. We would have been held a couple days anyways, it's standard procedure. Hell, we'll all probably be held weeks."

"Is there a reason NASA's stopped delivering me orders, and delivers them all through you?" I grumbled. "I followed their orders perfectly reasonably on Mars."

"One, you did not," Beck said, "And two, they think you've had enough of being ordered around through a computer. Venkat, actually. He's trying to give you a break by making me deal with all of your shit."

"Thank you Venkat," I said, leaning back in my chair. I knew I liked that guy.

Beck looked around, and realizing that no one was with me, sat down next to me.

Oh Jesus, what am I going to say to Venkat when I see him? I haven't really talked to him outside of business since Iris failed. Didn't want to talk about it when I knew it could all end. But I'm on the Hermes now, and I haven't emailed him, have barely thought about him. Barely have thought about anyone or anything outside of myself since getting here.

The realization drops more shame into my gut like sinking stones. Pain hits my chest hard, and I close my eyes.

—

Mark Watney
Mission Day 752

It's family time again. I don't want to go, I want to call the whole thing off, but explaining myself to Lewis would probably take more than just attending the damn meetings will, so I decide to just go and sit there quietly. Besides, the part of me that wants help hopes eternally, and I can't quite bring myself to take that hope away.

Dinner is again a quiet affair, but not nearly as awkward as it was the first night. I'm glad that this is working for them. It's good to know that they, at least, won't have to collect all their marbles again once they get back to Earth.

"I assume the conversation continued after I left the other night?" I say, in between bites of food.

Lewis purses her lips. "Not for long. We just decided to go to bed after. It… I know everyone needs their privacy, but we're selfish." She gave a thin smile. "I know I'm supposed to say 'do whatever you need to,' but it stung that you felt the need to run away instead of talk to us about it."

In my head I was saying you have no idea, all I want to do is talk about what's bothering me, it's all I think about but what came out was "Can't a guy have some space sometimes?" My cocky grin completed it too, and my heart sank because I knew it was so characteristic of me that they wouldn't look any deeper.

They sort of looked at me blankly. "No, Mark, you can't," Beck said slowly. "I mean, you can, but you were never a privacy sort of guy before."

There was some silence where everyone looked at me, and the part of me that wants help was drinking it in. I wish they could know how I was feeling and say what I wanted them to say without me having to explain it. But what was it I wanted them to say?

You're a part of this crew. You're a part of this family. We're glad we rescued you.

Because for some reason, I couldn't believe they were glad they did it. I can only believe that they did it because everyone else did, because it was the thing to do. Because they just didn't want to be the assholes that didn't. It wasn't about me, it was about it just being the right thing to do.

"I suppose I changed," I mumbled, mouth dry.

"We all have," Lewis added quietly. She smiled wanly. "NASA warned us this might happen."

I feel a bit frustrated, and curl my fingers. I'm defensive over being the victim. I don't want to be the victim, but it irritates me whenever they imply that this has hurt them too, because it's not the same. Not at all.

It clashes with my sense of shame, because it did hurt them too, and they wouldn't be hurting like this if I'd just died. If I'd just died, they'd already be halfway over it by now - probably more.

No one is trying to say it's the same, though, I know that, so I'm not going to correct them, instead letting the hurt vibrate through me.

"Yeah, like for instance, I'm thrilled I'm never going to space again," Beck joked. "The view is cool, but it isn't worth it."

The martian landscape flashed across my vision. The endless expanse of another world, orange sky, flatter horizon and silent tornadoes in the distance. Utterly inhospitable.

"I was thinking today that I'd like to do more traveling, but maybe just on earth," Johanssen said. "The way normal people do; the kind that won't kill us." That sounds amazing; going and seeing green, hot, wet jungles. Everything that Mars isn't. I smile in her direction, agreeing.

I can't get that alien landscape out of my head, and I don't think I'll ever be able to. It's seared onto my mind. I'm turning around, taking in every inch of the landscape outside Marth Crater, untouched in every direction except for my footsteps into the distance. The emptiness hurts in the pit of my stomach, emptiness crawling through my body, the same emptiness I felt staring over the horizon.

"I'm not traveling for a long time," Lewis supplied. "Maybe ever. My kids will be lucky if I take them on vacations."

"You still want kids?" Johanssen asked.

Lewis dipped her head. "If Robert is still there when we get back. He's given me no indication of leaving, but…" She laughed. "This is what scares me. Not being in a nuclear submarine during the cold war, of course not."

"Of course he will be," Martinez said. "What kind of an asshole divorces an astronaut?" His joke worked, because Lewis smiled in response.

In that moment, a different sort of loneliness started to bother me. I had no one I was coming home to. Everyone was married (or dating, in the case of Beck and Johanssen) but I was coming home to an empty house.

The absolute normalcy of the feeling startled me; this is something that bothered me before I got stranded on a foreign planet. But as with everything from then, it didn't bother me long.

The way I am now, I doubt anyone will have me anyways.

"Keeping busy helps," Vogel said. "Makes the time pass faster, gets us home sooner. I have taken up writing in my spare time, although I'm confident the work is bad."

"Can we see?" Johanssen asked, grinning.

Vogel laughed. "It is in German."

Johanssen made a face as if to say 'come on, man.'

"There's only so much to do with 6 people and 1200 sq. meters of space," Lewis said.

I wasn't going to movie nights anymore; after we finished Johanssen's terrible show, we just went back to playing cards or hanging out after dinner. Sometimes they'd want to watch a movie from their media, but for obvious reasons I opted out of those. Mostly it was just endless rounds of cards, with me unable to focus for long enough to make it through a game without retreating to my bunkroom.

I mean, they could always do what I do in my free time, which is sit in my room and have a fucking breakdown.

"I'm glad we're having these conversations though," Johanssen said. "Why did NASA stop them?"

"I honestly don't know. Probably just thought it was a waste of time, that other things were more effective," Lewis said. "Obviously, they did not anticipate our present situation."

Wasn't that the fucking truth. I scoffed at the comment.

"Watney?" Lewis said.

My response is snide. "NASA didn't anticipate a single fucking thing about this entire mission."

Martinez laughed, but the sound was sort of deranged. I suppose that's the only thing we can do; laugh and pretend it's not horrible. I joined him.

Lewis smiled thinly. "We can all sit around this table and laugh, but none of us are doing okay."

Our laughter died, Lewis's serious tone dragging our feelings to the forefront.

"This heat problem is really bothering me," Beck admitted. "I know it's just the Hermes compensating for the tarnished cooling vanes, but I keep thinking about what might happen if it keeps getting hotter. I know it isn't, that it's increasing at a linear and safe rate, but…"

You don't need to talk to me about worrying, Beck.

"This ship is meant to last until Ares V," Lewis supplied comfortingly. "We are going to get home fine."

"As a professional at this sort of thing, I recommend not thinking about the alternative," I say dryly. "Don't try and solve problems which don't exist." Granted, I only did that because there were so many problems that did exist that worrying about them filled my entire attention.

Everyone is silent for a moment.

"Is that how you got through?" Beck asked quietly.

How did I get through?

"You can kill yourself tomorrow," I said, feeling the searing pain in my back as I shoveled dirt around the Hab.

"You can kill yourself tomorrow," I said, falling asleep in the rover after all my potatoes died.

"You can kill yourself tomorrow," I said, trying to flip the rover back onto it's nose in the martian desert.

"You can kill yourself tomorrow," I said, falling asleep in the MAV, sleeping on Mars for the last time.

"I'd rather not say," I force through my dry throat, blackness pooling in my chest. Beck backs off, finally someone hearing the strain in my voice.

"The time will pass, whether or not you do anything," Vogel said. "So at least it doesn't depend on you."

Beck laughed. "I'm thanking God for that." Vogel is right, the time will pass whether or not we want it to; we don't need to make it pass. It's a fact I sought a lot of refuge in. One way or another, my time on Mars would eventually come to an end.

The blackness took hold of my chest at Beck's question, choking me, and it won't leave. It never really does.

Martinez began talking, a new line of thought. "We only got 6 days of Mars, and Mark got a year and a half. I know the circumstances aren't exactly something to be jealous of, but that must have been so cool."

No, it wasn't so cool. Okay, it was, on some level, but day to day my feelings were not 'so cool I'm on Mars.' Sol 1, it was cool. Sol 2, it was cool. Sol 3, 4, 5, it was cool. Sol 6, it was a waking nightmare. The nightmare settles into my chest, empty and painful.

Martinez knows that it wasn't cool, and this is feelings-share-share time, so I don't respond.

"We all got to be on Mars," Lewis said. Man, she was like the ship mom, with that 'be reasonable' tone. "But… yeah, it does seem cool."

It wasn't cool. The entire planet is desolate, and freezing, and empty, so empty it doesn't even have air. The sight left me breathless, breathless because it stole the air from my lungs and left me suffocating in it's freezing inhospitable vacuum.

"Weren't you supposed to be the last one, man, the one with no records?" Martinez laughed.

I know, I know it's just an innocent joke. Any other day, I would respond 'yeah, but at least I do something on this ship!' I tried to, I really did.

But today, right now, I can't. The blackness is pooling in my chest and they're all whining about being away from home for a while or whatever while they sat here on this ship, alive, together, while I was trapped in that empty and desolate hell, the blackness reaching up into my throat and drowning me alive.

"I didn't ask for this," I spit. I didn't want to be some famous astronaut record-setter. I just wanted to learn how to grow plants on Mars, so that other people could live there one day, so that we could grow plants in harsh environments and help poor people and further humanity. I volunteered to be the last to egress, I never wanted the fame.

Though, if you asked me before launch, 'hey Mark, want to be the first Martian colonist?' I would have answered yes. Because I was stupid.

"We know -" Martinez began to say.

"No, you don't," comes my short response. Apparently my brain has decided things are going to my mouth now, whether I want that or not. "You have all moped around for days with 'I miss my wife' and 'I miss homecooked food' and 'I'm tired of space,' like it's the same fucking thing -"

"We weren't trying to say -" Beck says.

"I don't care! A year and a half on the Hermes sounds like absolute heaven, a fucking vacation! The Hermes isn't trying to kill you literally every single day, the Hermes has food, the Hermes has showers and the Hermes has redundant life support and the Hermes doesn't have a floor made of tuber roots and human shit!" My next words die in my mouth. And you left me there.

I notice my voice is at quite a decibel now. At some point I stood up and now I'm yelling at them.

There's shame, in the back of my chest, suffocating shame, how can you yell at them like this, they came back for you, and something inside me curls and tightens so painfully that I almost bend over with the pain.

"Jesus Mark," Beck said. "We weren't thinking about it like that."

"Yeah you weren't," I sneer. "NASA makes it all sound so far away, 'Mark Watney is cultivating potatoes,' like I'm some quaint farmer who showers under the wellwater every day and goes to sleep next to their basset hound. I had to grow thousands of days worth of food in the fucking Hab, every damn surface became farmland, and it all had to be fertilized with rehydrated shit. The Hab doesn't exactly have a backhoe, so I had to do everything by hand, with the human shit piling up under my fingernails and between my toes. I had to light hydrazine on fire just to get water, so I got to spend ten hours a day for weeks just casually burning rocket fuel, on a NASA ship, in the middle of this farmland made of human waste, with human shit everywhere, knowing that literally any single second something could go wrong and I'd explode," I finish, snapping my fingers.

On my next breath, my voice turns desperate. "And to top it all off, I was dead. You were all on your way home, without me. You told everyone I was dead. On Sol 13, I realized you were probably holding my funeral, and that since everyone thought I was dead, nobody would be coming for me. Humanity had wiped me from it's fucking pages, like I never mattered at all. I didn't exist."

I can't bring myself to say it what's on my mind. All that was left for me was to die. My mouth, furiously hiding the things that matter most.

I immediately wish I hadn't said any of that, wish I didn't respond to Martinez's comment. I wish I'd just let it slide, I wish was hiding in my room right now instead of telling them all that. I wish it never happened. The tight, curled thing in my chest is my sense of self worth and I swear to god it's turning into a black hole, telling me to die, and I want nothing more than to close my eyes and surrender.

But at the same time I don't, I don't regret saying any of it, because something inside me is sick and twisted and I want them to know just how much I hurt, want them to feel it too, right down to their very core, just for a moment.

"That's not -" Beck tried again.

"Don't tell me that's not how it was!" I snap. "You weren't there, you don't get to say how it was!" Something primal in me is satisfied in the way that they shrink back, imperceptibly.

Martinez spoke up. "Then tell us how it was."

I wanted there to be insult in his words, but there weren't; just a perfect acceptance. Everyone around the table looked at me with perfect acceptance, and I cursed the day we all took fucking sensitivity training.

"Fuck this," I spit again. I can't, I can't tell them I want to die, the harsh words spill from my mouth before I can stop them.

"What?" Lewis asked.

"Fuck this sensitivity bullshit. I don't want to fucking think about this." The part of me that wants help is screaming, please, god, I need help, just tell me I was worth all this, but I can't even open my mouth to form the words.

"Are you saying you don't want to talk to us?" Lewis said.

"No! No." Jesus Christ, fuck this, fuck this.

"Then what, Mark?" She pressed, a little urgently.

"I -" I start, not even knowing what I want to say. I want to die, or I want help, I want help even though you guys already turned around to come save me and I know I have no room to ask but I can't help but ask anyways.

There was silence for a moment as everyone waited on me.

"Mark?" The patient quality of her voice was just too fucking much.

"You fucking LEFT ME THERE!" I yelled, standing again. "You can't sit here and talk about how you fucking want to help me when you and all of fucking humanity left me on that talcum powder hellhole to die!"

It's true, what I'm saying is true, but it's not what I want to say. It's the closest I can get to saying I feel worthless, but it's all accusation, so cruel and callous and horrible and I can practically feel myself losing them like water through my hands.

"We came back for you!" Martinez said, matching my volume but so much calmer. "We all came back for you. We didn't leave you there." He's on his feet now, level with me.

"I know! I know, but that doesn't make it any better!"

"Why?" Martinez responded, loudly, not yelling.

Because fuck, it still happened. I don't know why you did. "I don't know. Fuck this." I'm standing, turning to leave the table.

"Mark!" Lewis snapped.

"What, am I disrespecting Family Time?"

"If this is what he needs, we should give it to him," Vogel sagely said. Oh yes, Alex Vogel, great knower of things. I sneer in his direction.

I have no idea what's come over me, like the anger has taken control of my body. The part of me that needs help is trapped and can't get out.

"No, don't worry, I'm done," I spit, bouncing away and flinging myself into 0g up the ladder before anyone can stop me.

—

Crew
Mission Day 752

"No, don't worry, I'm done," Watney spits, practically flinging himself up the ladder.

They all watched him float away. "Jesus," Johanssen said.

"Jesus," Martinez agreed. "So… who else feels like an asshole?"

Beck hesitantly raised his hand, and one by one, everyone else followed suit.

"We can't stop doing this, though," Johanssen says smally. "It's helping us."

"We can't just not include him though, talk about destroying crew unity," Lewis said.

"I've gotta believe that this is helping him," Beck said. "That's the most he's said about any of this since we got him back, and that was months ago."

"All he said is that we're insensitive assholes," Martinez said.

"No. Were you listening?" Beck said. "He said a lot more than he knows, I think. He said that he feels isolated from the rest of humanity, even now that we've saved him. He said that he doesn't even want to think about it, so he's not hiding from us, he's hiding it from himself. And he clearly, in some part, blames all of us for leaving him."

There was silence after he finished his speech.

"I don't think he really blames us," Beck continued. "But, I mean… imagine if it were you. How would you feel about us?"

Lewis leans back in her chair. "Oh God."

"We just have to show him that he's still a part of the team," Martinez said solidly. "Because he is."

"Probably would help if he didn't just stomp out of rooms all the time," Johanssen said. "That seems to be his favorite way of ending a conversation."

Beck shrugged. "We can't force him not to."

"This was supposed to be the thing that increased crew cohesion," Lewis said forlornly.

"I think it's working," Martinez said, "for all of us. I mean, do you remember how screwed up we all were after he got back, and he just hid in his room for weeks and there was nothing we could do?"

They had all sulked in their bunkrooms, alone.

"Mark's not the only one who needs to be reminded that we're a team."

—

Mark Watney
Mission Day 752

As soon as I'm up the ladder the anger morphs, no longer angry with them but angry with myself.

"So fucking selfish," I say to myself, pushing myself to the bunk hall. "So fucking selfish." What the fuck is wrong me? They turn around and sacrifice so much to save me and of course I go and fucking yell at them.

I told Dr. Shields that I was fine, that it was all leftover from Mars and that it would fade on it's own, but it's not. The feeling like I shouldn't have been saved is solidifying into something horrible and familiar, something I lived with every day on Mars. But I don't want to say it to myself, don't want to acknowledge it, because that would be more fucked up than even I'm willing to accept.

Flashbacks? Fine! Dissociation? Fine! Nightmares? Fine! All stuff you'd expect. Not this.

My arms are pushing me through the 0g hallway but they slow up next to the VAL door attached to the central quarters. My eyes turn, lingering on the window and red handle.

I want to throw myself out of it.

I can picture it so clearly in my mind. I'd just float in, latch the door. The alarms would go off, but by the time the crew came running I'd already have released the emergency lever for the outer door, blowing me and all the air in the VAL clear into space. There'd be no pain. I'd be gone in an instant. No body to cry over.

"What the fuck, Mark," I say to myself, bending over. "What the fuck. You fought for hundreds of sols to get out of the nightmare and you're free, you're free, why are you thinking like this?" I'm pulling my own hair again, bending over, still staring at the VAL window. "What the fuck?"

Because I'm completely fucking fucked up. I'm miserable every day, fucking yelling at everyone around me and freaking out all the fucking time. I'm fucking miserable, and on top of that, I'm not fucking adding anything to humanity right now by being here. If I'm fucking miserable and I make the planet worse by being here, then there's really no fucking point. I know everyone spent all that time and money saving me, but it's a god damn sunk cost. Yeah, I should have died Sol 6, but once you've realized you fucked up you gotta man up and fix it.

I push away from the VAL, discoordinated, fling myself into the bunk ladder tube so hard I don't grab the ladder and instead fall flat on my ass into the bunk room hallway. The impact is hard because it's a 5ft fall but I don't really notice because the image of me activating the airlock is seared into my mind like a perverse movie.

I lay there for a minute, on the floor of the hallway, letting the pain of the impact reverberate through my already broken body. "Dr. Shields warned us space would fuck us up," I say to the empty hallway. God, if only I could go back to that conversation, say 'I don't want to go anymore,' back out, go home.

Think positive, I say to myself. It's not all bad. Your presence there did an immeasurable amount for science. Even if you die now, it was still worth it, because of the immeasurable amount you progressed science. You probably set martian colonization forward ten years, maybe twenty. And it's like NASA said, you're the cheapest martian asset they've ever had. Yeah, it's not the same, but it wasn't pointless

Now that I've acknowledged in myself what the black feeling of depression wants me to do, the urge to swallow one or two or three Vicodin is back in full force. But I won't, not tonight, because I know that the feeling will pass if I can just make it to my bed and fall asleep, so I half-stumble half-crawl into my bunk room and lay in my bed, doing my damndest to forget I exist.

—

Log Entry
Mission Day 753

I showed up for Family Time the next night. They assumed I was mad at them still, I didn't correct them, just sat there and let everyone else talk about whatever it is they were talking about. The theme of that discussion was that it was a boring day, everyone wanted more purpose on this ship, hating that there was nothing for them to do except sit and wait. The world's greatest talents, lazing about with their thumbs up their butts.

I may not have said anything, but I agree. It's $100,000 an hour up here, and we're just hanging around with nothing to do. There's only so much science we can do with the materials we have. Everyone else has resorted to writing up the scientific papers, which we would normally save for after we arrive safe and whole on earth. They're strong, capable people, and stuck here in space they're useless.

—

Mark Watney
Mission Day 757

I've wanted to kill myself every day for years now. This isn't some kind of new feeling. But I thought it would go away on the Hermes, you know? I hung on for the Hermes, built the Hermes up in my mind to be some kind of portal back in time, to the way things were supposed to be. I just thought it would just somehow magically go away once I got on board the Hermes. Because I'm stupid.

Maybe I had to think of it that way, or else I was really gonna lose my mind and kill myself. Maybe I just told myself what I needed to hear to keep going, because we're animals and animals have a drive to live. Whatever the case, I successfully fooled myself into thinking that the Hermes would somehow fix all the fucked up shit going on in my head.

And of course, I'm really fucking alone now. I absolutely cannot, cannot tell anyone on board, because the chair. And after the chair, I can't tell anyone alive, because NASA will put me in a fucking straight jacket and I'll never see anything that isn't four puffy walls ever again.

You know, it occurs to me - how do they expect crazy people to get better if they lock them in a straight jacket in a puffy room to die? That would make even the most sane of people crazy. I was the most sane of people once, and look what being alone did to me.

In any case, I'm fucking alone. There's no Hermes coming to save me. I have food now, and people, but I can never connect with those people in a real way ever again because those people will turn on me and leave me in a hospital to rot.

God damnit I want to yell, and hit things, but I'm on the Hermes so they'll hear me if I yell and they'll hear if I throw things. Guess I just have to be content with sitting in my bunk room, shaking.

How did it get this bad? It feels like I fell apart overnight. Last week I was all right, I guess, talking to people sometimes and spending more than 50% of my time not sulking in bed. Now I'm a total fucking wreck.

But it didn't just happen overnight. I still feel the same way, pain in my chest, just dragging myself out of bed every day requiring a Herculean effort. Really, I feel exactly the same way I did last week. It's just that I realized it isn't getting better, I realized that there's no savior coming for me this time. I realized I didn't know what I was holding on for anymore.

I'm sitting in my bunkroom on my bed, with my back against the wall. I lean back and sigh, and the endless weight settles onto my chest. What am I holding on for?

—

Mark Watney
Mission Day 761

I've been up all night. It's early morning, probably should go downstairs for breakfast. They already did their glare-at-Mark routine for my outburst the other night. Here's how it went: they glared at me, Johanssen tried to pry a comment out of me, I ignored them childishly, and after about five horribly awkward moments, they gave it up. If they don't try again, we should be able to make pointless conversation this morning without too much difficulty.

Luckily, they didn't. We are able to kick off a hilarious conversation after I think to tell Johanssen how much I touched the Chem Cam.

"You what?" She boggled.

"I touched the Chem Cham. A lot." I grinned, looking at her.

"You didn't."

"I did. NASA wanted me to do your experiments. I picked it up, I carried it around, I even changed the settings."

She put her head in her hands. "You don't even know how those settings work."

"Not a clue. NASA tried to tell me how to do it."

Her head sinks to the table. "You don't listen to NASA."

I'm grinning widely at this point. "It's still there, on Mars, the way I left it."

We were able to have an easy conversation all day in the rec room too, everyone else typing away at a desktop computer while I sat in the squishy chair in front of the big window. Mars isn't visible anymore, but Earth isn't either, and we're just a forlorn ship in the cosmic distance.

It was a good day, sitting around chit-chatting. Oh, the huge weight on my chest was still dragging me around and every time I looked out the window I wanted to throw myself into space, but today it wasn't so bad that I couldn't make conversation with the crew. It was almost like going to a coffee shop with your friends, except that we were in a tiny room in space. Basically the same thing, right?

—

Because it has been such a good day, I find myself willing to participate at tonight's Family Time. They were avoiding topics that included me, and I couldn't tell if that was intentional or just how it worked out.

Listening to them, I find no anger today. They're talking about the strain of being away from home, and God I wish more than anything in my entire heart that I could just go home, back to the way things were.

"Today has been a good day," I find myself saying. "Being able to just sit around and talk to someone without an axe hanging over my head is something I missed."

"If you think that sitting around on the Hermes is peaceful, we're having different life experiences," Martinez said. "Being on a mission that went this completely sideways feels like having an axe hanging over my head."

"It's not like…" I trailed off.

I don't think they expected me to actually continue, because when I did, they all leaned in, shocked. "I knew damn well that the Hab was only meant to last 31 days. That the rover was only meant to last 31 days. That the airlocks were only meant to last 31 days. Everything, only 31 days. The water reclaimer, the oxygenator… At any point in time, I was seconds away from certain death. It's not like that."

I feel detached from the words, and it's only because they're so rote and mechanic that I can get them past the emptiness in my chest.

"On reflection, the fact that it was the water reclaimer and the airlock which broke was a damn miracle. The water reclaimer was fixable, and the airlocks were redundant. But if the oxygenator broke, I would have suffocated. If the Hab tore, I'd have exploded. If the rover broke, I'd be stranded." I shook my head. "The point is, a broken cooling vane and an unusable airlock door are so minor so as to be insignificant."

Martinez frowned."That sounds stressful."

I know it's not a joke, but I laugh at the level of understatement happening here. "That sounds stressful, he says."

"NASA and you guys keep thinking that specific things bother me, like the airlock ripping or the rover being upturned," I mumble. I look down at the table. "The tough part was every day, just waking up every day and dealing with the fact that I would probably die that day from something fucking stupid. Going to bed every day, knowing there was a serious chance I was going to die in my sleep, because something would fuck up while I was sleeping…"

I shook my head. "Even the good days, when I had pathfinder and living potato plants, I still knew that at any moment something could fuck up and I'd be dead the next second."

The words felt empty in my mouth, and I'm glad I said them, but instead of feeling better there was just sort of a hollow empty space in my chest.

They all stared at me wordlessly. They probably had no words. What words were there? 'That's fucked, man.' Or 'I'm sorry, Mark' just didn't cut it.

"When you were walking around in our shit and texting NASA astrophysicists about potato plants were the good days," Beck said, disbelievingly.

"Yeah. Solid 2/10, those days," I say, with half a smile.

"What were the bad days?" Was his follow-up.

A syringe, held over my right thigh.

Kneeling in the dirt over dead potato plants, leaves crisp with ice.

Staring at a blinking screen. "Iris decayed in atmo."

Sitting in the MAV, hearing Lewis say "45 kilometers a second."

"Very bad," is what I chose to say.

They looked at me, silently, and I wondered when this became about me. But no, it's always been about me, it's been about me since Sol 6.

I wanted to talk to them about that sol. They came back for me, they thought I died, and we haven't spoken a single word about what happened that sol. I don't know what happened to them, they don't know what happened to me. We are completely in the dark. It's been months and we haven't talked about when I was gone. God, I just want to fucking know if I matter, if I was even worth it all.

"What did you guys do sol 6?" I ask quietly. "After…"

Everyone looks somber, and it's Martinez who answers. "We got on the ship, all went to our bunkrooms, and stared at the wall. We spent the entire next day in our bunk rooms, crying. None of us said anything, but we knew."

"Why?" Beck asked. After a beat, he said "What did you do?"

I want to tell them. Someone knowing about what happened that day would… make it real. I want Sol 6 to have mattered, I want my suffering and pain to matter.

The empty landing struts flash across my vision. They don't leave. They're stuck there, the beginning of my story. My chest explodes with pain, with emptiness, swallowing me whole.

Things flash through my vision. I'm standing on the hill, holding the antenna to my side, the empty MAV landing struts are all I can see. My knees buckle, I want to fall into the dirt.

Now I'm inside, I feel the uncapped syringe in my right hand, I'm still staring at the landing struts. I'm looking up at the window to the empty MAV base, but my eyes are taking in the entire picture. The empty MAV base against the martian landscape, sand gusting the sand around the equipment, eventually burying it and me with it.

My hand grips the syringe of morphine.

In a split second, the vision is gone, and Johanssen is leaning forward in her seat. Everyone is staring at me, I think Johanssen said something but I didn't hear it, all I can see is the wind blowing sand against the Hab and burying me inside, the flashback threatening to overtake me.

"Mark?" She asked compassionately.

There was nothing for it, I can't play that off. "Sorry, I just…" I rub my face.

"You don't have to tell us," she says.

I shake my head. "No, I want to, just…" I clench my fist, fingernails digging into my palms. "I didn't realize you guys weren't there at first, you know?" I say. "Didn't realize my biomonitor was broke. Figured if I was alive, then you'd obviously know. I realized that if you were there you would have already gotten me back to the Hab, but I just hoped…" I shake my head. "Because it was so far fetched, you know? You'd never…"

I'm alone on that hill again. The MAV landing struts are empty. There is no one here. They are gone. I am dead. I'm the living dead. I'm trying to focus on them in front of me, I want to tell them.

My nails are hurting my hand, I feel like I'm suffocating, I can barely breathe. "I'm sorry guys, I can't do this."

"Don't apologize to us," Lewis says, in that hard way because she's mad at herself, not at me.

I've stopped talking, but the feeling isn't stopping, my chest even hurts where the antenna went right through me but what hurts worse is the hole in my chest, so large and so dark. I know they can see but it doesn't matter now, I dig my nails into my palm and it doesn't help at all.

The landing struts are empty. I'm alone here. I'm dead.

"Mark, what's wrong?" Beck asks. Yeah, I know I'm having a flashback now, because Beck's voice is too far away, I can't respond, I can't make my mouth say what I need to say. They're getting farther, and that cavern is opening up, that cavern that says you should fall over and just die.

I bring my other hand to my side, the antenna isn't there but the hot sticky feeling of blood is, the searing pain as I walked back to the Hab.

I launch myself up from the table, want to get away from them, want to go back to the bunkroom and curl up on the bed and shake until I fall asleep.

"Oh no," Beck says, standing. "Not this time." He grabs my arm and the warmth shoots through me like sunlight. "What's going on?" he says, pulling me back into the seat.

My hand finds Beck's arm, too, he's so warm but my chest is so cold and empty and the antenna in my side is threatening to turn me inside out. I look up at him, my mouth isn't working, but he seems to get the picture.

I'm standing on that hill, the antenna in my side, the MAV landing struts empty. This time I want to die, I want to kneel into the dirt but I can't, I just keep walking through the dirt. Why am I doing that? I want to just fall down and let it be over.

"Hey, what's going on?" he's asking, but I can't get a hold of his voice, can't focus on what he's saying.

I can't find the words. I'm not there, I know I'm not there, but the empty landing struts are stuck in my head all the same. I reach up to my head, pull my hair like I always do. "God Jesus," I grit out.

"Mark, it's okay," Beck switches to comfort, leaning closer to me, the rec room table is small enough that he can lean over and grab my arm.

"Oh god, Jesus," I say instead, hunching over the table. My chest feels like it's crushing, I close my eyes and hide my head in my hands, pulling my hair, trying to make the world dark and quiet. It doesn't matter, because my chest is crushing in on itself because I am dead, do you hear me? Dead. I just want it to be over.

They're talking now, trying to talk to me, and I don't understand what they're saying anymore and I need it to stop. "Stop, stop please," I say, and it works, the noises get quieter, still confusing and fraying, God I just want it to be over please can something just make it over.

The images have stopped, and now it's just the crushing blackness, crushing panic. I must be having a heart attack, because my chest feels like it's being shredded, everything hurts, and I don't understand why I chose life, why anyone chose to come save me if this is all that was waiting for me.

Beck puts his hand on my shoulder again and I hear my own breath catch as I feel how warm his hand is. Please don't take your hand away.

What's so pathetic about this flashback is that this isn't even a bad one, but of course it had to happen here, right in front of all of them like it's a damn parade. This is what I get for thinking about it, trying to talk about it. I should know better by now.

The crushing feeling backs off, just for a second, and I know it comes in waves. I stand quickly, before anyone can stop me, stumbling through the rec room and somehow hauling myself up that ladder despite the excruciating feeling of my skin touching the composite.

It comes in waves, and by the time I'm into the bunk room hallway I'm leaning against the wall, sinking to my knees, wrapping my arms around my head. It comes in waves, and for a second I completely forget where I am, I'm standing on Mars and those landing struts are empty and I've been abandoned here, alone, to die.

—

Chris Beck
Mission Day 761

"Today has been a good day," Watney says. "Being able to just sit around and talk to someone without an axe hanging over my head is something I missed."

"If you think that sitting around on the Hermes is peaceful, we're having different life experiences," Martinez said. "Being on a mission that went this completely sideways feels like having an axe hanging over my head."

"It's not like…" Watney falls silent for a moment.

Everyone expects him to not say anything more, so when he does, they swivel their heads to focus.

"I knew damn well that the Hab was only meant to last 31 days. That the rover was only meant to last 31 days. That the airlocks were only meant to last 31 days. Everything, only 31 days. The water reclaimer, the oxygenator… At any point in time, I was seconds away from certain death. It's not like that."

"On reflection, the fact that it was the water reclaimer and the airlock which broke was a damn miracle. The water reclaimer was fixable, and the airlocks were redundant. But if the oxygenator broke, I would have suffocated. If the Hab tore, I'd have exploded. If the rover broke, I'd be stranded." I shook my head. "The point is, a broken cooling vane and an unusable airlock door are so minor so as to be insignificant."

Martinez frowned."That sounds stressful."

Watney laughs hollowly. "That sounds stressful," he says. His face falls. "NASA and you guys keep thinking that specific things bother me, like the airlock ripping or the rover being upturned… The tough part was every day, just waking up every day and dealing with the fact that I would probably die that day from something fucking stupid. Going to bed every day, knowing there was a serious chance I was going to die in my sleep, because something would fuck up while I was sleeping…"

Watney shook his head tiredly. "Even the good days, when I had pathfinder and living potato plants, I still knew that at any moment something could fuck up and I'd be dead the next second."

The rest of the crew stared back at him. "When you were walking around in our shit and texting NASA astrophysicists about potato plants were the good days," Beck said, disbelievingly.

"Yeah. Solid 2/10, those days," Watney responded with half a laugh.

"What were the bad days?"

Watney's face immediately falls "Very bad."

Everyone is silent for a moment.

"What did you guys do sol 6? After…" Watney asks quietly, looking at his hands.

Martinez is the first to work up the courage to answer. "We got on the ship, all went to our bunkrooms, and stared at the wall. We spent the entire next day in our bunk rooms, crying. None of us said anything, but we knew."

"Why?" Beck asked. After a pregnant pause, he asks, "What did you do?"

Watney doesn't say anything, just hunches over in his chair slightly. In an instant he ages a million years, eyes crinkling and eyebrows drawing together just slightly, enough to remind them of exactly what happened to him.

The crew looks at him softly, but he doesn't respond. His eyes start darting back and forth at the table, unnerving Beck.

"Mark?" Johanssen asks, leaning forward.

He startles in his seat, he always does. "Sorry, I just…"

"You don't have to tell us," she says.

Watney shakes his head, looking determined. "No, I want to, just…" His hand tightens further, Beck can see the grip is white but doesn't say anything.

"I didn't realize you guys weren't there at first, you know?" he says, voice harsh. "Didn't realize my biomonitor was broke. Figured if I was alive, then you'd obviously know. I realized that if you were there you would have already gotten me back to the Hab, but I just hoped… Because it was so far fetched, you know? You'd never…"

He gasps for a moment, almost so quiet it can't be heard, but everyone can see the way his nails are digging into his hands and Beck resists the urge to pry his fingers apart.

"I'm sorry guys, I can't do this," he struggles to say, but he sounds genuinely sorry.

"Don't apologize to us," Lewis says, and her eyes are on her own hands.

It's when Watney continues to breathe harshly, his grip only getting tighter, that Beck begins to worry.

"Mark, what's wrong?" Beck asks, leaning forward.

Watney tries to stand, hand on his abdomen, but Beck already abandoned him once and he sure as shit isn't going to do it again. "Oh no," Beck says, grabbing his arm and pulling him down. "Not this time. What's going on?"

Watney's hand finds Beck's arm but he doesn't say anything, now doubling over as if he's in pain. Beck shakes him slightly, heart twisting in his chest. "Hey, what's going on?"

Beck sees the way the rest of the crew is sitting stock still, not saying anything, but doesn't have the time to care.

Watney just retreats from the grip, tries to fold himself up at the table. "God Jesus," he says, and he starts to shake outright and pull at his hair.

He's having a panic attack. Remember NASA's advice. Maintain contact, be present. "Mark, it's okay," Beck leans in close, touching Watney on the shoulder.

"Oh god, Jesus," Watney's moaning, and Beck just rubs his back while everyone else at the rec table sits stock still and doesn't say anything while Watney's entire body shakes under his hand.

"Can we…" Johanssen starts, always the courageous one. "Can we help somehow?"

Vogel's head is in his hands, rubbing his face, and he looks like he's a million years old. Lewis is doing the same thing.

"There's gotta be something," Martinez says, eyes drawn.

"Panic attacks are something the body does," Beck said. "No amount of saying it's okay is going to make it stop."

Watney's pained voice comes from between his arms. "Stop, stop please," he pleads, and Beck makes a shushing motion as everyone falls silent.

Should we go? Johanssen mouths at Beck, thumbing toward the ladder.

As Beck opens his mouth to say yes, Watney shoots to his feet and runs up the ladder clumsily before anyone can stop him.

—

Chris Beck
Mission Day 761

The moment Watney throws himself from the table, Beck is on his feet following him.

"Mark!" he calls, but Mark ignores him as he bounces through the 0g hallway and into the bunkroom hall. Beck drops into the gravity just in time to see Mark collapse against the bunk room hallway, falling to his knees and curling up.

"Mark!" he says again, coming to sit in front of him. Mark's hands are in his hair and he's staring at the floor, unseeing, and he doesn't respond to Beck's hand shaking his shoulder.

Okay Chris, maybe it's a flashback. Makes sense, considering what you were just talking about. Remember NASA's training. Ground him in the here and now.

Beck grabs Mark's wrist, pries it from his head, crushes his hand with his own. "Mark, you're on the Hermes," Beck says loudly. "Feel my hand, I'm here with you. See the floor you're sitting on, feel how hard it is. You're just having a flashback. You're on the Hermes. Listen to my voice. Feel my hand…"

After a minute, Mark's eyes flick up to meet Beck's, and Mark's eyes are wide and blue and scared.

"Can you hear me?" Beck asks.

Mark's eyes flick down to the floor, but he gives a small nod. He's still shaking like a leaf on the floor, so Beck doesn't let go.

"What are you experiencing?" Beck asks. NASA training, figure out what he's experiencing so you can provide contradictory examples.

It doesn't work; Mark just shakes his head back and forth furiously, still staring at the floor.

"It's okay," Beck says instead. He puts Mark's hand on the composite floor. "Do you feel the Hermes?" He asks.

Mark doesn't say anything, doesn't do anything, just shakes harder. Beck can see he's pulling at his own hair. Beck stomps down his own sense of frustration, ignores his own choking feeling, we did this to him, you did this to him…

"Do you feel the Hermes?" Beck asks a little more urgently, a little more desperate.

Thank God, Mark finally nods, nods again, and pulls his hand away as he looks up at Beck.

"You with me?" Beck asks, a little out of breath.

"Yeah," Watney says hoarsely. "I'm just gonna…" he mumbles, pushing away from the wall and away from Beck.

"No, wait, Mark," Beck says, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Please, just let me sit with you."

Watney's blue eyes look at Beck, and Beck can't for the life of him tell what he's thinking. He eventually nods, settling back against the wall, and Beck sits against it too.

Beck reaches out, puts his hand on Watney's shoulder, feels his muscles relax beneath his hand.

Watney closes his eyes for a moment, and Beck is struck by how tired he looks. Lines wrinkle his face, and Beck knows they're the same age but for a moment Mark looks like he's a million years old.

"Don't keep doing this," Beck says. "Running from us. You don't have to talk to us, but you don't have to run from us either."

"I wanted to talk," Watney says with a dry humor, opening his eyes to look sideways at Beck.

Beck smiles at the joke, then says "Look, I'm not stupid. I know that this is happening more than you let on. I know you spend a lot of time just hiding. Please, just let me help you."

Watney opens his mouth, looks like he's going to give some sort of smart remark, but thinks better of it. "That would be nice," he hoarsely says instead.

"I even promise not to corner you for a heart to heart after," Beck quips.

Watney shrugs. "Right after is the only time I can talk about it," he says shakily. "Can't have a freakout right after you had a freakout, you know?"

Beck pauses, then takes his chance. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Hell no."

Beck smiled. "Somehow, that's what I thought."

Watney reaches up with his hand, places it on Beck's shoulder too. "The… the contact helps."

Beck laughs. "Doesn't take a genius." They sit there for a moment, hand on each other's shoulder.

On a whim Beck pulls Watney forward, turns him to the side, wrapping his own arms around him.

Watney freezes, but Beck doesn't let go.

Then he feels Watney breathe in, hears him choke back a sob, and Beck definitely doesn't let go. One by one, every tense part on Watney relaxes, and Beck can feel him pressing in to him. Soon, Watney's holding on to Beck for dear life, quiet keening noises coming from him, and Beck's thanking god that he's getting a chance to put right what he made wrong.

Of course, of course that's when Johanssen peeks her head through the hole, and Beck just starts mouthing Go Away Go Away and glaring at her. It takes her a second, but she gets the picture, and silently retreats.

Beck doesn't know how long they sit there holding each other on the floor, but it's long enough that his back begins to hurt and his hips begin to hurt, but he doesn't care. Watney's still holding onto him for everything that it's worth, and Beck thinks that given what he went through it would be a war crime for anyone to deny him a hug.

Eventually Watney falls still, but still holding on to Beck for dear life. Another ten minutes later he finally unlaces himself, and Beck figures Mark's just as sore as he is from this hard floor.

Beck knew the first thing he'd do is probably hide his face and run away, so when Watney lifts his hand to do just that, Beck darts out and grabs it.

"No, no feeling ashamed of yourself," Beck said. "Yeah, yeah, we're grown men in our forties and you just cried on my shoulder for a half hour, but it turns out it's okay to feel pain after all."

Watney looks down, smiling slightly. His face is flushed and Beck can see his red-rimmed eyes. "I'm not embarrassed because we're both grown men, I'm embarrassed because it's fucking stupid."

Beck groans, standing, helping Watney up with him. "I wouldn't categorize anything about this situation as 'fucking stupid.'"

"I'll do what I want," Watney says petulantly, and Beck wants to contest the issue but knows how to pick his fights.

"I'll do what I want, too, and that includes putting out the order for everyone to hug you more," Beck said. "If anyone needs a hug, Mark, it's you."

They arrive at the bunk rooms, and Watney just laughs. "See you tomorrow, Chris," he says, shutting the door abruptly.

Beck stands outside it for a moment, just looking at the door. He wasn't exactly sure what just happened for Watney, but he hopes it will happen again.

—

Mark Watney
Mission Day 761

The moment the door closed I turned around, took a rattling breath, and immediately start crying again. Why can't I just believe they're here for me, and that they care? Beck just sat on the fucking floor and let me cry on his fucking shoulder for like half an hour, and yet I'm still just so sure he did it because it was the thing to do.

I mean, he went in for the hug, right? But he didn't sign up for me crying all over him and he didn't sign up for any of this shit I'm putting him through. He's gotta take it, though, he's already on the ship.

Watney, you gotta knit this up, you can not wander around acting like you're about to fall apart all the damn time. I do keep it together, I'm under almost constant watch and I freak out silently, nobody even knows that I've left here or now or that the darkness has opened up in my chest again and swallowed me whole.

But as I lay down on the bed today, I don't feel quite so empty. I replay the memory in my head, letting Beck's warm embrace comfort me, just for tonight.

—

Chris Beck
Mission Day 761

Beck drags himself back to the rec room with his sore back.

"It's okay, it's safe now, we can all go to bed," Beck says, poking his head in the rec room.

"What happened?" Lewis asked.

Beck shook his head. "That's his business."

"Johanssen said he was crying," Vogel asked.

Beck looked indignant. "His business!"

Vogel nodded. "I just wanted to make sure he is okay."

Oh. Beck didn't know what to say to that. "He's better. Oh, and," he said, turning around to go to bed, "We all need to hug him more."

—

Beth Johanssen
Mission Day 762

The next morning, Johanssen took Beck's command seriously. The moment Watney climbed down the rec room ladder, she launched herself at Watney with a hug, not one to dither about.

His reaction was the same. He paused, looking shocked, but when Johanssen kept holding on he locked his arms around her and buried his face in her shoulder.

"Beck said you needed a hug,"

"Yeah," Watney said, artificially casually.

Johanssen lets go after a few long moments, and to be polite she ignores the way his entire face is flushed.

The rest of breakfast, he has a smile on his face.

—

Mark Watney
Mission Day 764

I've decided to sit in the rec room to do my daily dose of typing today, and Johanssen is again sitting silently with me on her computer. Johanssen is very silent and works on the laptop, which makes her ideal company for getting work done.

She types at the speed of light, hunched over her computer, eyes reflecting the LCD screen. She's only 27, and I'm 44, and at moments like this I can't help but think of her as a baby, seeing her unwrinkled face bent over the computer.

The pain in my chest isn't too bad right now, so fuck it.

"Wanna play chess?" I ask her, out of nowhere.

"You suck," she says blandly, still hunching over the computer. We tried to play on the way there, but no one was as good as her. She was on her school's league, in high school and all throughout college.

"You know," I say mildly, "Mars is really boring. There's not a lot to do."

She looked up at me, raising her eyebrow.

"There were only a handful of games I had. But all the computers had the chess game, stock."

Her other eyebrow raises, shocked, and she begins to get the picture.

"I had a lot of free time and I had to rest in bed a lot," I continued.

"No," She gasped, bringing her hand up to her mouth. "You actually learned to play chess?"

I grinned widely. "I beat the computer."

Johanssen rubbed her face. "You can't leave me one good thing in this world, Mark?"

"Wanna play chess?" I ask again, smiling.

She rolls her eyes, smiling, pulling out her tablet.

The game progresses quickly. Johanssen is rusty, since she doesn't play very often these days, and I had a year and a half of solid practice. I best her easily.

"Mark Watney beat me at chess," she said, staring at the screen blankly. "I can't believe it."

"It's okay," I reassure her. "I'm a lot better than I was."

"No, it's not, because you're Mark Watney and you suck at chess," she said, rubbing her face. "What has Mars done to you!? What else are you hiding?"

I shrug. "I can recite every line of That 70's Show? I can play card games against the computer?"

"Did you learn how to play Zork?" She asks.

"Uh, no." My boredom was impossible to bear, but that game was even more impossible. "I couldn't even make it out of the forest. I mean, I assume it was possible to escape the forest, but I never did."

"Oh my god, a year and a half with nothing to do and you still can't make it out of the forest," she's laughing at me now, and I'm frowning for effect, but I'm glad she's enjoying it.

I'm not able to break the oppressive hold that depression has on me, but seeing her able to laugh and enjoy herself makes me feel better about it all. At least there is goodness in the world, even if it's abandoned me.

God, I really hope that once this is all over, they are all okay.

—

Melissa Lewis
Mission Day 767

"Commander, we need your verbal —"

"Launch." Her heart was tearing in two; this was peacetime, a scientific mission. She shouldn't be losing men.

The ascent was silent despite the roaring of the engines, the empty seat where Mark wasn't filling the cabin.

Lewis jerked awake, hands fisted in the blanket. She hadn't had the nightmare but a few times, but every time it shook her.

She looked across her bunk, at a picture of Robert. She wished more than anything she could roll over into his arms.

As it was, she got up and shook herself off. A hot drink in the Rec room always made her feel better after that dream, better than wallowing in her bed unable to shake the feelings.

However, in the rec room she is greeted with the sight of Watney, slumped over the table with his head in his arms, asleep. It can't be comfortable to sleep like that, and Lewis guesses it's not, judging by the way he's twitching and making noise in his sleep.

She shakes his shoulder gently. "Watney, go to bed."

He jerks awake, eyes flying open, and sits up rigidly. She can see tear tracks on his face, but he quickly wipes them away as soon as she sees them.

"What time is it, Commander?" He asks blearily.

"The middle of the night."

Watney looks up at her as if he's going to say something, but instead he just nods, and drags his sorry ass up the rec room ladder.

She wishes that he would have talked to her about it.

Watney had made a few attempts to open up to them, but those attempts only happened because of flashbacks, because of situations forced upon him, because he lost his temper. Lewis wished that Watney could give them a chance, a real chance, to help him. Keeping him company and talking to him could help him, but it wasn't going to give him the peace he was looking for.

—

Log Entry
Mission Day 770

Had a great conversation today with Venkat about martian topography.

WATNEY: I named a couple of landmarks while I was there.

VENKAT: What?

WATNEY: You can read. I named geographical features of mars that didn't bear names on the maps. You need to update your maps.

VENKAT: I'm not sure whose in charge of those things.

WATNEY: You better find out, because I spent a lot of time driving through them, I want to see them named properly.

VENKAT: Can you send me your… updated map of mars, so I can get it to the right team?

WATNEY: Does this mean the names will stick?

VENKAT: Depends on if the names are good.

WATNEY: You know it will. Everyone loves me, they think I'm some sort of inspiration.

VENKAT: Yeah, I thought that too.

I named a lot of things and did a lot of science on Mars, and I want to make sure those are fixed up as soon as possible. I didn't record my cartography, so I'm making sure it's recorded and set straight now.

—

Mark Watney
Mission Day 773

When you're suicidal, you're not really suicidal all the time. I mean, all the time you think about doing it, but 90% of the time you wouldn't. You just think about it, like people in shitty jobs fantasize about quitting the entire time they're at work. It's just when the feelings catch you hard, in the middle of the night, or when someone says the wrong thing, that the fantasy becomes a possibility. It stays a possibility for a while, an hour or two, but then it fades back into a fantasy again. It's really only during those windows that you'll really, actually do it.

That's how I can still joke around with the crew, shower, get the work that Lewis wants me to do done. Because most of the time it's just a fantasy playing in the back of my mind, and just like on Mars I can ignore the pain for long enough to do what I need to.

But I know one of these days, when fantasy becomes possibility, it's going to become reality.

I've been… I've been fighting it for so long. I was holding out for the Hermes, but there's nothing I'm holding out for anymore. There's no tomorrow I can tell myself to hold on for. There's no rescue. There's no 'end.' The rescue didn't fix me, and everything is still all fucked

I'm just not sure how much longer I can go on. Every single time fantasy becomes possibility, I think, 'This is it. I've reached my limit.' But then I talk myself off the ledge, again, and soon enough possibility becomes fantasy again.

I've toyed with the idea of stealing Beck's Vicodin. I mean, I'm willing to kill myself, what's a little lying and drug abuse? But I haven't, because I don't want to deal with it, and when we are stacked on top of each other this way I doubt I could hide the fact that I'm high.

I need some fucking help. I don't mean that in the sad, someone please notice me way. I mean that I'm a literal suicide risk and if I don't get some intervention soon, one of these bad days it's really going to happen.

But you know what? If everything's fucked anyways, I can give myself permission to ask for help. Or do a bunch of drugs, I don't know. No, I can't, because that would be asking for fucking help from people who already gave so much and the point here is that I've already asked too god damn much from them in exchange for so little.

I'm getting through the days, aren't I? Putting up sufficiently convincing conversation for the crew, and sometimes I even forget that I'm a miserable bastard and enjoy myself. We play chess, we play cards, and in between fantasizing about dying I have funny conversations with them. Once I get back to earth I can rent an apartment and I can do whatever it is that I want, be that drugs or killing myself or who knows what.

But it's all hollow. It's all a lie, because they don't know I'm suffering, so it's all a lie. Everything about this is a lie. I look like Mark Watney, I'm wearing that guy's body, I'm hanging out with that guy's friends, I remember what it's like to be that guy, but I'm not that guy.

Right now, the way I picture it, even if I do manage to escape the hospital and get an apartment in Houston and go back to my life… what would I do? Sit around my apartment and drink all the time? What kind of life is that? What am I holding on for?

—

Rick Martinez
Mission Day 773

Martinez peered around the corner into the room.

Mark had Lewis's music - Lewis's - on, and he was singing along. Martinez's mouth was already open to give him shit, but just before the words came out of his mouth he heard what Watney was singing.

In a little while from now
If I'm not feeling any less sour
I promise myself to treat myself
And visit a nearby tower
And climbing to the top
Will throw myself off

Watney was singing quietly, back to Martinez where he could not see him, standing over a lab table working on something or other, mouth clearly forming every word in the song as if he'd sung it a thousand times. The thought made Martinez's heart drop into his stomach like stone. His mouth closed, and he remained where he stood.

In an effort to
Make it clear to whoever
Wants to know what it's like
When you're shattered

Left standing in the lurch at a church
Were people saying, My God, that's tough
She stood him up
No point in us remaining
We may as well go home

As I did on my own
Alone again, naturally

The lyrics paused for music, and Mark even tutted along quietly with the sound of the guitar. As soon as the lyrics started up again, though, Mark's voice was harder, and stronger, and there was a bitter edge to his quiet singing.

To think that only yesterday
I was cheerful, bright and gay
Looking forward to, who wouldn't do
The role I was about to play

But as if to knock me down
Reality came around
And without so much as a mere touch
Cut me into little pieces
Leaving me to doubt

Martinez was now sure the hard, angry edge to his singing was bitterness. Mark turned around in his work, looking down, and he could see the lines etched on his face.

Talk about, God in His mercy
Oh, if he really does exist
Why did he desert me
In my hour of need

I truly am indeed
Alone again, naturally

Mark hums along with the end of the song, quirking his eyebrow at 'alone again' bitterly, stirring a mixture of soil with a wooden stick.

Martinez clears his throat awkwardly, trying to insert himself in the room, and Mark startles.

"Lewis's music?" He laughs, trying to shake off the haunting feeling the song gave him.

"Yeah," Mark said quietly, not looking up. "Grew on me."

Martinez wonders whether or not he should mention the song, wonders whether or not he should mention how he saw the anger and bitterness on Mark's face.

—

Mark Watney
Mission Day 778

Possibility became reality again, like it keeps doing, this time in the middle of the night.

It's hard to resist, knowing that I could just walk through the door and all my suffering would finally be over.

It's becoming another fucked-up past time, staring at the door to the VAL attached to the main 0g hallway. Picturing what it would be like to throw myself out of it in excruciating clarity.

I tell myself 'don't leave your room, Mark,' and 'don't climb the ladder into the hall, Mark,' but my body just isn't interested in hearing what I have to say anymore.

I float there for I don't know how long, hours, just looking out the window with my hand on the door. A few simple motions, and this excruciating pain in the center of my chest would just be gone. They'd finally get to start moving on from me. This whole horrible fucking experience would finally be over.

—

Mark Watney
Mission Day 780

Fuck. It's late, I can't sleep, I'm just rolling around in bed uselessly, feeling knots of depression weave their way in and out of my body. I'm tired, but I keep having horrific thoughts like "What if the Hermes explodes in the night" or "What if the crew regrets saving me?" or "maybe I should go fling myself out the airlock."

Who needs sleep anyways. I'm getting out of bed, I'm going to watch a movie in the rec room or stare at Mars or do something other than roll around in bed.

When I get there, though, I find Beck and Johanssen sitting very close together, murmuring quietly. Beck looks upset, quite upset, and Johanssen's hand is on his face like this is a rom com.

I consider backing out of the room, giving them their space. Johanssen's the only one who could see me, and she hasn't yet thanks to my newfound powers of stealth. But no, all the food is in this room, and they're the ones who chose to canoodle in here.

I'm just going to be quick, grab the food, get out…

"Hey Watney," Johanssen said.

"Hi," I say, keeping my head down.

"You're allowed to be in the room," Johanssen says.

I gesture at her. "You guys looked like you were having feelings - gross - so I thought I'd just be in and out."

"Gross," Johanssen laughs quietly. "This from the guy who sulks every day."

I splutter. "I was left on a strange planet to die! I'm forever broken. You two," I said, pointing my fork at them. "You have no excuse."

Beck gives a thick laugh, wet from crying, and now I see why he hasn't said anything yet.

"Are you okay?" I find myself asking quietly. Why would I ask? Clearly he only wants to talk to Johanssen.

"I feel guilty… for leaving you there," Beck said quietly. Guess he doesn't just want to talk to Johanssen.

I shrug. "You know my position on that." I'm just stirring my cereal now.

I'd leave to give them their privacy, but Beck is turning towards me, like he doesn't quite want me to leave yet.

He turned his head away. "Lewis was out looking for you. I'm the one who told her to stop." His voice is quiet, heavy. "I was the first one to say you were dead."

I put the food down, walk over to where they're sitting. Constantly feeling guilty has taught me a thing or two about how to treat someone who feels it. "I don't blame you Chris, not a bit. You did the right thing. I'm glad you did." I'm sitting in front of Beck now, with Johanssen.

Beck looks down, but not to hide. Beck's always had a lot of feelings, even if he liked to pretend he didn't. "I'm having nightmares every night about that Sol."

"Hey, join the party," I laugh. "But seriously… do you want to talk about it?"

He shook his head. "No, but…" He's looking at me now, searching for some sort of acceptance. I want to give it to him, I will, but I can't help but think that anyone looking for support and stability from me is looking in the wrong fucking places.

"We came back for you, we didn't hesitate, but we were too late." He's gesturing to my entire body. "You're… We're the ones who did this to you, Mark. We're the ones who left you there. I'm the one who told her to do it."

I hate comforting people, it makes the dead emptiness in my chest grow and take over my whole body. But I'm glad to do it, glad that at least someone can be made to feel better in this entire fucked up situation.

Going off of what I'd be looking for in a situation like this, I grab his hand. "No, Chris. Mars is responsible for my condition, not you. You all did the very best you could. I've already told Lewis this, but… I'm glad it was me. I'm optimistic, I'm determined, and I had exactly the right skill set. Anyone else would have died there." I should have died there, but that's not the point. The point is that I'm glad it's me who was broken and not him.

Beck looks at me and I can guess at what he's thinking. It should have been me. None of this is his fault. It was a cruel, horrible act by a sadistic fucking God and that's all it is.

I thought God existed because he got me through Mars, but if I got off Mars just to suffer like this (and make everyone else suffer too) and now I think that there's a God and he's a dick. It was incredible luck that got me off that planet, but what was the point if I was just going to come back to this?

Because Chris Beck is here crying over me, when I'm the one who did this to him, to all of them. If I had just died, he wouldn't have any of this guilt. He would just be okay, already having moved on from me and living his life. He'd be long home.

He just shakes his head. "I'm sorry I'm even telling you this, you're the victim, I'm your doctor, I'm not supposed to pile on like this."

"Beck, uh, dude, you're also my friend, and last I heard friends don't just leave each other to suffer." They're leaving me, but I understand, really, I do. It's like I said; the real Mark Watney died Sol 6, and I'm not that guy. The guy sitting here really isn't fucking worth the food it takes to feed him.

Beck looks away. "Coulda' fooled me."

Okay, I know I'm supposed to be comforting, but I roll my eyes. This is unbelievably frustrating. "Oh my God, the lot of you," I'm looking at Johanssen now too, who isn't saying anything but I know is riddled with guilt like the rest of them. "You. Did. Not. Abandon. Me. You thought I was dead. I absolutely should have been dead. You made exactly the right call. If you guys didn't do anything wrong, whose fault is all of this? Mars. Maybe God's. Not Lewis's, Not Johanssen's," I look at her pointedly, "Not Vogel's, Not Martinez's, Not Yours. Okay?"

It feels like tearing my throat out, to comfort them when I so desperately want to be the one being comforted, but I do it. They're my friends and I'm not fucking leaving them. Unlike me, they actually are good people who don't deserve to suffer.

And the smile, the small smile on Chris's face makes it all worth it.

"Fine? Fine," I say, grabbing my food. "I'm gonna go eat in bed, so you two can keep having misplaced guilt where it isn't annoying the shit out of me." I'm up and leaving, but I see a smile crack both of their faces as I haul my ass up the rec room ladder.

My own words echo in my ears. I absolutely should have been dead.

—

Mark Watney
Mission Day 784

On the plus side, I'm getting flashbacks less. Something about being utterly fucking suicidal all the time isn't leaving me much room to freak out about other stuff. I think I prefer depression; depression lets me lay comfortably on my bunkroom cot in the heat, and I don't have to move or get up to do anything. Anxiety makes you run around like a chicken with your head cut off, and I much prefer just laying in bed and forgetting I exist.

—

Crew
Mission Day 786

Beck and Lewis are sitting in the rec room, and it's Johanssen whose sitting in Watney's lab with him today.

"So," Lewis starts. "There's something I wanted to talk about. About Mark."

"Let me guess," Beck said. "He's spending more and more time in his room again?"

Lewis nodded, hit the nail on the head.

Beck sighed. "I know. He seemed like he was doing better for a while, spending the evenings hanging out with us."

"It's that at Family Time, he hasn't said a word. He has spoken, what, twice? And now he's just silent."

Beck sighed, rubbing his face. "I don't know what to do, Lewis, I don't know."

Lewis pursed her lips. "We all are doing worse. Maybe it's just being on this ship. We're all anxious about a lot of things. Hell, even Martinez has been cracking less jokes lately." They had all been wandering around the Hermes, down, their work lackluster and their conversation unexciting.

"I know I'm anxious because I know Mark's having a hard time, and there's just nothing we can do about it." Beck sighed. "I've considered dragging him out of his room, but again, I don't think doing that would help anyone. I just don't know what to do."

Lewis looked down. "Sometimes there's just nothing to be done, I think."

"That can't be true," Beck says. "There's gotta be something he wants from us."

"I know," Lewis said. "But he won't tell us. And we don't know what it is. And we're doing the best we can, but we have to take care of ourselves too, and this ship. Not to mention that we're all stuck out here in space, which is not the best place for four depressed people and one PTSD patient to be." Lewis sighed. "We're all depressed. We're not the most well equipped to help him."

—

Mark Watney
Mission Day 788

Today is Vogel's music day. Vogel's music days are always weird, because his music is in all German and none of us can understand it.

I'm sitting in the rec room with everyone, and they're all finishing up their lunch, and even though it's Vogel's music week with his weird german music, they're all drifting around without smiles on their faces. They all look tired, drawn, and the sight breaks my heart.

"It's Vogel's weird music week and you guys are still…" I gesture at them. "How can you hear this and not cheer up?"

"This song is about WWII," Vogel says, confused.

I shrug. "Yeah, but the rest of them don't know that."

The rest of them look at me. "What are we supposed to do?" Johanssen asks.

"Neunundneunzig Luftballons," I start singing, quietly, raising my eyebrows. For a moment they just all look at me like I'm a freak.

"Neunundneunzig Luftballons…" I sing, louder, and finally someone gets it.

"Neunundneunzig Luftballons," Martinez joins in, a smile on his face.

"Neunundneunzig Luftballons!" Everyone but Vogel joins in, starts singing, louder and louder, and soon we're all singing Vogel's weird german music at the top of our lungs.

"Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont, Hielt man für Ufos aus dem All…" We yell. "Darum schickte ein General 'ne Fliegerstaffel hinterher, Alarm zu geben, wenn's so wär Dabei war'n dort am Horizont Nur neunundneunzig Luftballons…"

Vogel is squished into his chair, looking harassed by the rest of us.

"bitte für die Liebe Gottes machen es zu stoppen," Vogel mutters to himself. We don't ask what he means anymore, because he won't give us a decent response. After two years of being stuck on a spaceship with Vogel, though, we've got a pretty good idea of the meaning.

"We will never stop!" I yell.

Lewis laughs, and we all keep singing. After a minute, Vogel joins in.

The six of us are singing German music we don't understand at the top of our lungs, dancing in the rec room. We're together again. We're happy.

—

Mark Watney
Mission Day 790

Jesus, jesus fuck I can't do this.

I'm pacing around the ship, it's the middle of the night and I can't fucking sleep because I keep waking up from these damn nighmares crying and every time I do I dream of someone bursting into my room to help make me feel better but they don't. The fantasy became a possibility again, and it's taking everything I have not to climb the ladder to go stare at the VAL.

They wouldn't want me to feel this way. They wouldn't want me to be pacing outside the bunk rooms, five feet away from the ladder, imagining flinging myself up the ladder and out the airlock. They've all said it to me a million times, that they're there for me and I can't just throw this on them along with everything else but they told me they don't want me to suffer anymore.

I'm scratching at my arms but the marks are red, I don't care, there's no one here to see, there's no one here to see the way I pull at my hair and whisper to myself "Mark, it's okay, they love you, you don't have to die," but I do, I do, because I'm the one who kept those fucking fathers from their kids and I'm the Three Billion Dollar Man and I'm the one who accidentally fucking upstaged everyone and I'm the one who was supposed to be happy and healthy and sane when they picked me up but instead I'm a fucking wreck trying to talk myself out of throwing myself out of an airlock.

God, I just want someone to walk out their bunk doors and see me here half crazy, ask me what's going on and I want to tell them everything. I stare at the doors, trying to get someone to wake up and come out by sheer force of will.

Nobody does.

It's too much, I can't do it. I grab the ladder and fling myself up into 0g, away from the doors so I don't have to stare at them. But there's the VAL, and then I stare at that instead.

Through the windows, you can see the blackness of space. It's endless in every direction.

Why am I like this? I escaped Mars! I actually lived, and escaped! Why does my body want so badly for me to walk through that airlock and blow the door? I'm not even in as much pain! There are people, and food, and drugs for me here!

But just because it isn't as bad, doesn't mean it isn't suffering. It was my promise of salvation but it's a prison of it's own, walking on eggshells around people who want nothing more than to question me and having to spend every waking minute putting up a front. It's better, but it's not good.

Mark, for once in your life, stop thinking about everyone else, I hear in my head. Think about yourself. What do you want?

I want to step out of that airlock. I want that split second, the split second after you're doomed but before you're dead, where you can see everything clearly. I want the uninhibited, endless view of space it would give me. I want the peace it offers, the peace of knowing there's just me and space and nothing else.

I'm floating towards the VAL, and this time I don't put my hand on the door, I put my hand on the lever that opens it. It's not really a lever, just a lever shaped button, and nudging it hard enough makes the door open automatically.

I don't know how long I stand there, hand on the lever. Space is so beautiful. I could open the door, turn around, open the second door. If I'm standing close enough to the second door when it opens, for a split second there will be nothing I can see except the endless beauty of space laid out before me.

An alien feeling of peace settles in my bones, the same alien peace I felt whenever I held a syringe full of morphine above my body. Space isn't Mars, space is even more beautiful, and vast, and endless.

In that second, everything is different. I'm not just looking at the gun, I'm holding the gun, pointing it experimentally at my head, wondering what it would be like to pull the trigger. Sometimes I did this, on Mars, just held the gun and spent the entire night wondering if that night might be my last.

Out of nowhere Beck floats into the hallway, rubbing his eyes tiredly. It's 4:02, what the fuck is Beck doing up?

His eyes land on me, and I'm fucked. I'm floating in front of the VAL in the middle of the night, hand on the fucking door handle, and I'm totally fucking fucked.

"Mark?" Beck asks suddenly, eyes flying open. "Mark, what's going on?" He repeats carefully, too carefully. "Come here and talk to me."

Fuck, fuck, there's nothing I can do. I immediately let go of the handle like hot coals. "It's not what it looks like," I say, mouth dry.

There's no fucking way out of this. Either I throw myself out of that door, now, or I spend the rest of my life chained to a hospital bed.

"What is it, then?" Beck asks slowly, and I can see the way he's slowly floating toward the comm button.

Two emotions war inside me, no please don't please don't corner me just forget about it all, and please hit that button, I need help, I don't care if I'm locked in the god damn chair just as long as someone will talk to me.

"Well, for one," I laugh, the sound is horrid and wrong, "I know I can't walk in space without a space suit."

"Mark," Beck's reaching out with another hand. "Please, just this once, talk to me. I can help you." His voice is ragged and torn.

There's no way out, Mark. You have to make your decision. Stay or go.

If I stay, they're gonna lock me in a room, or worse, the chair, for the entire flight home. Then I'll be passed to a hospital where I'll be locked in a room or locked in a bed, and I'm going to be forced to live out the rest of my life now matter how horrible it is.

If I go, I'll finally be at peace.

"Mark," Beck says, eyes pleading, voice ragged. I can see his voice is on the comm button now, sending a message to the rest of the ship. "Don't. Don't do it." He's sincere, but I know he's filling the air with words to send a message to them.

I have maybe three split seconds before the rest of them come running in to restrain me. But they're not going to run at me, not when my hand is on the door and I can be on the other side in three seconds flat.

The temptation to flip that door open and get myself on the other side before they can stop me is overwhelming. I can be in the airlock, hand over the emergency release, and they'll be stuck on the other side of the door.

But if I stay, they might be there, just like they said.

But they left me there, they didn't give a fuck when I was on Mars, no one gave a fuck about me then.

Maybe they're right, a small voice says. That they wanted to help, but couldn't, and they're just as confused as you and don't know what to do. They love you, Mark, let them help. They can help. I know this voice, it's hope, the hope that got me through Mars.

But that hope let me down. I got home, and it wasn't fucking rescue. What would help look like now? What can they fucking do? They can't make me stop having flashbacks, they can't make the nightmares stop, they can't make any of it stop.

God, I'm so sick and fucking tired of listening to the small voice.

But the small voice was right. I held on, and look, a fucking miracle happened and I was off that rock in only 549 Sols.

Where there's life, there's hope.

They all shoot out of the bunk room ladder tunnel like pellets, one after another, practically bumping into themselves on the way up. But just like I thought, no one runs at me, not when I'm so fucking close to the door. Beck motions to keep them back, and they are confused until they're not, and I watch their eyes fly open.

"Mark, please," Beck saying, his voice sounds like it's tearing. "Just talk to us. You're just standing there, silently, please talk to us."

My hand is literally on the lever, there's no point in hiding anymore. They're going to find out how I feel either way.

"You say that now, huh?" My voice is shaking like hell. "You say that now, now that I'm a fucking suicide risk."

My voice hot and anger and resentment, I'm looking at the floor, everything in my body feels carved out and empty and painful but somehow I'm not screaming, just standing there with my muscles locked and my hand still on the lever. There's adrenaline thundering through my blood but this time there's no problem to solve, no problem to solve, just a fucking confession to make and a prayer that it will all work out. It's a kind of suicide I have no experience with.

"We've been saying that for months!" Martinez burst out, and I can hear his voice tearing. "Mark, we've been here for you the whole time."

"Not on Mars," I say harshly, staring anywhere but them. "Not on Mars. Oh, I got supplies, NASA talked to me, but it was all astrophysics, all survival, they didn't give a shit about me, they only gave a shit about the asset they left behind. Fuck, they even liked it, they said so, I'm the cheapest asset they've ever had -"

"Mark, it's not like that," Beck said, voice thick, "Please believe us."

"Oh yeah?" I say, looking up at them, tears in my eyes. They're all gathered around at the other end of the hall, and there are tears working their way down everyone's faces. I let mine go, but it turns out they won't come, the tearing feeling in my throat just redoubles.

"Really? Because you guys left me there," My voice is all spit and vile and I hate the noise because it's not anger that makes me want to die. "You left me there and didn't even know I died, nobody knew I died, I was wiped from the pages of history, completely gone. You were all mourning my death when you fucking left me there alive."

Their faces are pale, all pale, I'm numb, there's nothing inside of me but what comes out of my mouth is vitriol like poison, hysterical and loud and it's not what I'm feeling at all.

Lewis is crying, and my heart is scooped out by guilt, but then Johanssen puts her hand on her arm and it's replaced with a vicious jealousy because I'm the one who fucking lived it and Lewis is the one getting the comfort.

"You know what I did, Sol 6?" My voice is hollowing, getting calmer, and it sounds like the old me but all fucked up, hollow and bitter and wrong. "For a few minutes I didn't realize you were gone, so as I climbed the hill I got thrown behind I was talking to you like you were there. And then I climb the hill and I see…" Even now, in my rant, I can't vocalize it, I just gasp from the pain the sight always causes me. "And I just want to die, kneel into that sand dune and die right there."

"But I don't, because I decide that dying from oxygen oversaturation is a stupid way to die, so I go to the Hab and patch myself up like we practiced, trying in vain to ignore the fact that it should be Beck fixing me up, not myself. But you know what's in the same drawer as the topical pain reliever and the Vicodin and the Oxy?"

"The morphine," Beck says, and his face is white as a sheet.

"The morphine," I sneer. "The morphine, and I don't know what comes over me, but I grab it up right out of that drawer and pop the cap off. But before I stab it into my fucking leg, I go to the window and look out at Mars. And I'm looking at Mars, at the empty landing struts, and I realize I'm literally already dead." I'm looking at them, shrugging, voice casual and plain and cold. "No human was ever supposed to see those landing struts, and the fact that I can means I'm literally already dead. You're already telling NASA I'm dead, NASA's already telling the world I'm dead, my parents are already mourning me. All that's left is for me is to correct the fucking mistake."

"But that's all over," Johanssen says. "You escaped, you're here with us, we can help."

"No, no it's not fucking over!" I snap. Man, I'm really on a roll, and something about it being my last moments talking to them makes it all pour out of my mouth. "Listen to me! So I thought fuck it, I'll go to bed and kill myself tomorrow.' And then the next day I thought, fuck it, I'm still technically alive, and where there's life there's hope, right? But that wasn't the last time I considered it, oh no. I looked at that morphine every day, every fucking day, but said no, I can kill myself tomorrow. But then Pathfinder worked, and I put it away, forgot about it, things were looking up."

Finally, the tears start pouring, one after another so fast I can barely catch them and I don't move my arms to hide, I don't even try, I just want someone to know how badly I'm suffering. "But then the potatoes die, and everyone thinks the airlock exploded and I just went back to the rover and had a good cry but no, I wish that was what fucking happened. The airlock exploded, and my suit was pissing air, and the airlock was pissing air, and for a solid five minutes I just sat there and watched the air piss out and thought that this time, it was really over and I was relieved, because I was already in so much pain every day and I was so alone."

I'm hunching over where I'm floating but I haven't stepped away from the door yet, I can feel how red my face is and I can feel the tears pulling off my face and into the 0g but I don't care. "But I want to talk to someone before I die, so I fix the airlock, and fix the suit, and put the Hab back together, and that took days and days and days, but after the days of labor I said 'well the Hab works, fuck it, I'll go to bed and as I'm fond of telling myself at this point, I can always kill myself tomorrow."

"Mark," Beck says, face ashen.

"But then Iris failed, and I was really gonna fucking do it. You've probably seen the chat logs, no one ever mentions it to me but I know you've all seen them. I just didn't want to let JPL down. All those people worked so hard to keep me alive and I couldn't spit in their face by dying now, and I was still alive so technically there was hope, right? So I said I can always kill myself tomorrow," my voice is sing-song now.

"And that's when the real fucking suffering started, because that's when my rations were cut down, way down, that's when my sanity started to go. And you guys turned around to come get me, but of course we lose contact ten fucking seconds later so I spent that entire year completely fucking alone again. So I really start getting fucked up, I'm starving, I can't think straight, I keep forgetting where I am or who I am and after a while I start talking out loud, talking to my dead potatoes, talking to the equipment, talking just to hear the sound of a human voice again."

My voice is thick and wet and desperate and no one is daring to interrupt me anymore. "My depression starts to fade, but it's replaced by something worse, because now I can't feel anything, and even when I poke my fingers with the scalpel just to see if I'll feel it, I don't. Pain doesn't hurt anymore, it's just information on my skin."

"Oh my God," Beck says, and I don't know how much paler they can even get, they're not even crying anymore.

"But wait, it gets worse," I say, a perverse smile on my face. "Because I start talking to you guys, like you're there. I start calling your names, and then I remember you're not there, and it feels like Sol 6 all over again, every fucking time." My voice wobbles on that part, but I catch my breath. "And then…"

My eyes turn down, my voice is quiet. "I start to hear you. Not your voices, but sounds, like you're making coffee in the other room. I come running to see what it was but there's no one there, there's no one there every time. So I'm calling your names into the other room, and I can hear sounds coming back, and I pretend that we're having a conversation but you're just busy and can't come around the corner."

My voice strengthens. "That stops once I get in the rover, replaced by even weirder shit. I start forgetting who I am, where I am, I'm having memory loss problems so bad that half the time I don't even know where I am, I just know that I have to keep driving or else. I can barely read, or do math, or think, I only have enough brain to do one math problem a day and that's the navigational math to get me to Schiaparelli."

"I get there, all fucked up, and then I tear that MAV apart and I've totally lost hope at this point, I'm completely sure that I'm going to fucking die in the MAV but I'm so happy I don't care, because my suffering will finally be over."

I'm crying now, and somewhere along the line I connected to what I'm saying, the angry rant turning into a desperate story and I'm not sure where I am anymore, I just know that I'm finally telling someone what happened to me and I'm praying that they care.

"So when the MAV fucks up I'm not even that upset, I know I'm gonna blow past you guys and die and that's just fine with me. I consider venting nitrogen to kill myself, but I decide lets at least get past intercept and see how this plays out, and then somehow I'm saved! I'm fucking saved!" My voice is falsely cheery, alarming.

"But of course it's not that easy, no, turns out all the crazy I picked up with me on Mars followed me home, and I'm still dissociating so hard I don't know who I am, having flashbacks every fucking day, still having to convince myself not to kill myself. And sure, for a while I thought I'd adjust, right?"

I look up at them, finally, I'm crying, and all I want in this world is for someone to come over and hug me and tell me that it's all right that I feel this way, that I'm not a completely fucking fucked up for wanting to die even after I'm saved.

"But I'm not adjusting, it's not going away, it still hurts every day and that's just fucked up. I thought I wasn't worth saving since I was forgotten on Mars, but that's how I know I'm not worth saving, because anyone worth saving would be happy, would be overjoyed, wouldn't have spilled their marbles all over the floor. Being saved doesn't change the fact that I'm fucking forgotten luggage that you accidentally left behind and went back for, I'm just as fucking worthless as I ever was."

They all look like they're going to run at me, please do, please just tell me it's fucking okay. "It doesn't change the fact that there are children out there who don't know their fathers because of me, that marriages are being torn apart because of me, that you all have fucking depression from me, that Three Billion Dollars were wasted on me."

I gesture at Lewis. "Lewis, I can see it on your face, just being around me hurts you. You're all here now, only now, because you're fucking living on top of me and no matter how hard I try and insulate you from my fucking insanity every day it still spills over. I'm fucking horrible, I shout at you and bitch at you and act like you're the problem when it's me, it's always been me. And yeah, I tried to make it work because of what everyone did to save me, but I'm just fucking miserable and suffering and I just…"

I'm reaching the end of my rant, my voice breaks. "I just want it to be over. I kept saying I could kill myself tomorrow, but tomorrow came, rescue came, and it isn't stopping. Dying now wouldn't give Robert Melissa back, it wouldn't give JPL their time back, that's all gone. But I'm… I'm still in such fucking pain," I gasp, pressing my free hand to my chest.

"I hurt every day and I get it, I'm not worth that much, I do. It's okay. But if I'm not worth that much, can't I just let my pain end? I'm in so much fucking pain, everything hurts, I can't even stay connected to reality long enough to have a conversation, did you know that? When you guys think I'm just zoning out, I'm usually having a fucking flashback, or I've literally forgotten where I am or who I am, but those are the good times, because the bad times are when I remember who I am and the damage I caused just by fucking being alive."

And the end of my rant arrives, my voice quiets down. "If I were a decent fucking person, if I were worth it, I would have just knelt into the hill I woke up on and died, before I'd gone to the Hab, or stitched myself up, or NASA wasted billions on me, or any of it. I would have just died like I was supposed to."

It takes me by surprise when Martinez wraps his arms around me, all the way around me, doesn't even try to lift my hand off the door handle.

"God damnit Mark, that's not how it is, that's not how it is at all," his voice is thick and breaking, arms around me, slightly under me because I've floated upward in the 0g gravity. He pushes me down, envelops me further. "God, Mark, you're worth all of it."

I'm hollow inside, carved out, I don't know what to do. I can't even make my arms hug him back, can't do anything but float here and slam my eyes shut and wish to God that I just didn't fucking exist anymore.

I feel horrible that it came to this. This was supposed to be a good story, Mark is saved, Mark escaped, go team humanity! But it turns out Mark is too fucked up and wasn't worth saving anyways.

"I need you," Vogel said, stepping forward. "After you died, Mark, I cried for days. When we found out you were alive, I volunteered almost immediately to come save you. I knew the risks. And the whole time you were surviving, I admired you. I know you thought I was weird, and emotionless, but I always admired you for your endless optimism, you always inspired me to stay happy, look on the bright side. And on Mars, no matter what it kept throwing at you, you just… kept going. It inspired me every day. You could have killed yourself, a million times, but you didn't. I admire you above anyone else, even now."

His eyes are watering, and Martinez lets go of me but keeps his hand on my shoulder as Vogel walks closer. "I will still admire you even if you kill yourself today. But you don't have to, because you are important, and valued, and we are here for you," he's walking closer and closer to me. "I know you still feel alone, but you're not. Just give us a chance."

There's something empty in me, numb, but I'm shuddering and that tearing feeling is back again in my throat. I don't know what to feel, don't know how to feel, I just want to listen to them talk and talk and keep saying these things because it's all I've wanted to hear for years, all I've wanted anyone to say, because even though I know NASA and JPL spent three billion dollars to save me, it's hard to feel cared about when there's no one here to acknowledge that you're suffering.

My eyes lock on his, desperate. "I know you came for me, and I know NASA spent all that money to save me, but…" He's holding my gaze, staring back at me. "It wasn't because of me, you know? It was just because that's the thing you do, or because that's what NASA is supposed to do. It wasn't about me, Mark Watney."

"That guy wasn't worth saving, apparently he wasn't even worth a half-assed conversation from NASA about how he was doing. And I'm not even that guy anymore! And fuck, maybe I'm just fucked up," I keep saying. "Maybe not setting eyes on another human for that long just fucks up your brain, and I was gonna be this fucked up no matter what anyone did."

"I think you set a world record for f-bombs dropped in a sentence," Martinez says wanly, unable to stop himself even now. He's my best friend, and I love him for his endless lightheartedness.

Vogel's standing next to me now, gently setting his hand on mine where it's resting on the VAL handle. "Don't do it, Mark," he says quietly. "You've been fighting for so long. Don't give up now."

His eyes are boring into mine, strong and pleading. My grip on the VAL handle redoubles… and then it slackens.

I give in, turn my palm up, put my hand in his. His hands are strong and rough, gripping mine firmly, and I think that he's probably a great Dad.

"I'm sorry I took you from your kids," I say, trying to smile, voice wobbling.

"I'm the one who chose to stay, not you," Vogel assured me, his grip tight. "Come on. I think we all need to talk."

He leads me away from the door, and I just hang on to his hand, not knowing what to do with myself next.

I'm having that feeling all over again, I've decided to live, time to solve the problem. Except there's no problem, no problem for me to solve, nothing for me to do except pick up the pieces of myself that I left scattered all over the floor.

"Lets all go to the rec room," Beck suggests, and everyone follows him down the tunnel, me last, Vogel not letting go of my hand for anything.

We all sit down but we shuffle seats so that Vogel is sitting down next to me, and even after we've sat down he doesn't let go of my hand. Vogel pulls it forward around the small table and everyone reaches their own hand forward, and suddenly all their hands are covering both of mine, all of us holding hands in the center of this table.

I cast my eyes down, closing them, just feeling their hands on mine and wishing that I could just pause time to live in this moment, all of their hands on mine.

"You were telling us a story, Mark," Vogel says softly. "Why don't you keep telling it?"

I laugh hollowly. "That was it. Nothing more to tell."

"I highly doubt that," Lewis whispers.

"I really, I'm not…" I open my eyes out of habit, still looking down. "I wasn't gonna do it, you know? It just has been on my mind, and I couldn't sleep, so I… I just was gonna look, you know?" I say, knowing damn well that they don't know. "I wasn't gonna do it. It's not that important."

Johanssen and Martinez look confused, I imagine they have no fucking idea why suicide would cross my mind, but wisely they're just staying silent and listening.

"Mark, it's not just important because you might have died," Beck says slowly. "It's important because you're important. We don't want you to suffer. We thought we were doing the right thing, acting like everything was normal, giving you personal space to deal with things your own way. We started Family Time again because we didn't think it was working, yeah, but we didn't know you were hurting this much." He laughed. "We didn't think a guy who hadn't seem humanity in years could be such a good actor."

"I wasn't trying to fool you guys, I was trying to fool myself," I mumble. "I knew that I'd be fucked up when I got home, but I just… wasn't prepared."

"Stop saying you're fucked up," Beck says. "You're not."

"Yes, because it's perfectly normal to try to throw yourself from an airlock when you just spent 18 months trying to save your own ass," I say harshly.

"You know, NASA told me this might happen," Beck said. "Told me to keep an eye out, because you might be suffering in ways you aren't sharing, they said. Actually, they told me you're probably hallucinating up and down the ship. I knew you were suffering, but again, we didn't know…" he trails off, rubbing his forehead. "And that's on us," he says hollowly.

"We're not gonna make the same mistake twice," Martinez said, determined. "You're gonna have me around 24/7 now, whether or not you like it. I'm even gonna follow you to the bathroom."

"Not if I'm there first," Johanssen says, voice wet and hard and determined. "You're never getting out of my sight again, Watney."

The emptiness is blooming into something warm, not burning hot, just warm and uncomplicated and peaceful.

"What about the chair?" I ask.

Beck scoffs. "If you're under 24/7 watch, I don't think that will be necessary. The chair is there just in case you're physically fighting us. Haber was psychotic for a day and a half, swore to god that he'd be fine if he went out the airlock."

"I mean…" I say, eyes downcast. "I get pretty confused sometimes. I usually hide in my room for that." The shame at that admission hangs over me like a cloud.

"One, in the state you're in Johanssen can take you," Martinez said, "Two: dude, do you want to be restrained?"

I cock half a smile, taking his point, and shut up.

"Someone's gonna have to sleep next to him tonight," Beck said. "Those beds are tiny."

"I have an idea," Martinez said. "How about we move the beds to the gym? It can fit two mattresses in a row, and it's in 1g."

"It's a little far from the other bunk rooms," Lewis tutted. I'm watching the situation unfold, completely surreal. They're all sitting around planning, planning how they're gonna keep an eye on me and help me.

"I'll stay with him, sleep right in front of the door," Martinez said. "I know, that's not terrific security, but consider this."

He turns to me, eyes boring into mine. "Mark. Do you promise if you're upset or considering leaving the room, that you'll wake me up first? You don't even have to talk to me, just wake me up so I can make sure everything is okay."

I'm taken aback by the intensity in his gaze but I don't want to, I don't want to agree, I don't want to make myself obligated to ask for help.

"Mark," he says, hands squeezing mine.

The warm good thing in my chest is unfurling, and a "yes" escapes my mouth before I can resist it any more.

"See?" Martinez says, to Lewis and me. "It's gonna be okay."

Lewis frowns, but doesn't say anything.

"I'll stay up with him tonight," Vogel offered, "and we can find a solution tomorrow."

"Nah, I'll do it, I got a good book I'm reading anyways," Martinez offers. "Come on Watney, we gotta move the beds." He disentangles his hands and stands up, stretching.

I stand up, following him, everything surreal and confusing. I feel numb, and empty and torn, but there's something warm in my chest as I'm following Martinez to the bunk hallway. He throws open the door and throws my bedding in my hands, grabs his own, and in seconds we're awkwardly carrying our hammock cots to the gym.

He puts down my bedding, pushes me over to my bed, and then puts down his. I watch him do this wordlessly, the feelings swirling around my chest too confusing for me to handle. I think I've dissociated again, because everything feels so, so far away, so distant, like I'm watching a movie.

"Mark," Martinez is saying. We're sitting on the cots now, on the floor. "You're going to wake me up if it starts to hurt, right?" His hand is on my shoulder, and it's so warm. How did we get on cots on the gym floor? Right, the plan.

"Remember how I said sometimes I get confused, right?" I'm saying. "Did I say that?"

"Yeah, you mentioned it," he said quietly.

"It's happening again," I say, hearing my own voice from far away. "Beck says it's called dissociation."

Martinez's hand reaches up for the wall comm. "Beck, Mark says he's dissociating. What should I do?"

"You know that feeling when you space out and you don't know where you are?"

"Yeah"

"It's basically like that, but more, and you can't un-space-out no matter how hard you try. So just, uh, hold his hand or something."

"This can't be real science," Martinez says, shutting the comm off. "I always knew psychology wasn't actually science."

Per Beck's instructions, he grabs my hand and suddenly I feel warmth connecting me, warmth from the center of my chest reaching to his hand.

"It's been a really stressful day," I'm saying.

Martinez just looks at me warmly. "Just go to bed, Mark, all right?" he's saying. "It'll be better tomorrow."

I lay down per his instructions, don't fall asleep immediately, just stare at the wall while Martinez props up his pillows against it and starts flipping through his tablet.

Eventually my eyes fall shut, and eventually I fall asleep.