SOL 49

First person to celebrate Christmas on Mars.

Woo.

To celebrate this momentous occasion, he'd made himself some water. From scratch!

Mark barely took notice of the date anymore, honestly, and if his laptop hadn't reminded him that today was the 25th of December back home, it wasn't very likely that he'd have even thought about it on his own. He operated on Mars time, now. His new measurement of time was 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35 seconds long, and they were SOLs, not days. Acidalia Planitia had no passing seasons to take note of, and no holidays to celebrate. No such thing as taking the day off. Not for the foreseeable future.

Every waking hour was, more or less, spent working the plan. Packing dirt, making water. EVAs to keep the solar panels clean of sand and dust.

If he wasn't actually working on something, he was actively thinking about the problems he still hadn't figured out, instead. Now that he'd figured out how he wasn't going to starve, for a little while at least, he was working on the next phase of his plan. Modifying the rover.

Less of a concept, really, and more of a goal. A certain end result, he was aiming for.

Get NASA's attention somehow.

Mark had noticed a certain lack of satellites passing overhead; NASA had full or partial control of twelve of them, and the ESA and CNSA had another six between them. The fact that he had never seen a single one of them, not since SOL 6 (and the crew had seen several during their first days on the surface) was a pretty good indicator that they weren't going to look.

They must figure he wants his privacy out here, now that he's dead.

Damnit.

No matter, he had a plan to make them look. He'd go fetch Pathfinder, fix it up, and see if that got their attention. He'd use that onboard panoramic camera to send them an eyeful, if he could manage to get it linked up with Earth.

It could work. It could also totally not work.

If it didn't, then, by God, he'd get in the rover, after he modified the living shit out of it, with a couple of harvests worth of potatoes, and he'd drive it to the Ares II site and commandeer their communications system. And if that didn't work, he'd drag the their dish back here to the Hab and fix it. Along with their rovers and anything else that he might need. With four rovers, maybe he could bring the entire second Hab back here and set up a bigger farming operation, to wait it out until Ares IV got here, if he still couldn't get their attention.

There was no fucking way he was giving up.

Houston

"Um. Why does your house have a barn star on it?" Richard asked Mindy, amused, as she pulled into the driveway. "Were you hoping to make it look more like... a barn?"

"Is that what it is?" Mindy asked. "A barn star? They have a whole aisle of them at the Home Depot here. Installed it myself," she bragged, with a big grin, as Richard chuckled.

"It's a barn star," he affirmed, with a grin. "Saw them all the time when I was growing up."

"Oh, tell us again, honey, about how you grew up on a farm," Caroline said, smirking.

"She's jealous," Richard told Mindy. "City girl. What can I tell you?"

"Where did you grow up?" Mindy asked, curious.

"Zanesville, Ohio."

"They raised pigs." volunteered Caroline.

"We had a farm, with a great many different animals-"

"All of them were pigs," Caroline interrupted.

"And crops!" Richard continued, as though he hadn't heard. "We grew corn, and soybeans, and-"

"Pigs!" Caroline stage-whispered, as Mindy laughed at the way they played off one another, making a regular conversation sound like improv comedy.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Richard grinned, "Okay, she's right, it was a pig farm."

"You two crack me up," Mindy observed, as she unlocked the front door.

"Oh, Mindy, honey, this is just lovely," Caroline said, charitably, as she looked around the very sparsely furnished downstairs. Mindy had added a small Christmas tree in the front picture window, and two red stockings hung at the mantle; one big, one tiny. Other than that, no real concessions had been made for the fact that it was Christmas Eve.

The house looked largely as it had when she'd moved in, all blank white walls and awkward empty spots where furniture would go, someday.

"I haven't done very much decorating," Mindy said, sheepishly. "I only moved in a couple of months ago, and I've been a little... busy since then."

"I can't imagine what might have been keeping you occupied," Richard deadpanned, as he sat down. "But on a more serious note, Caroline and I have something we've been wanting to discuss with you." His voice was gravelly suddenly, and sad.

That didn't sound good, Mindy thought.

"What's up?" she asked.

"Well, after the first of the year, Caroline and I will have to go to court to file the petition to have, well…" he paused. "To have Mark declared legally dead," Richard said, hoarsely. "We'll have to do that here in Texas, by the way, since this was his legal state of residence before…" he trailed off.

Mindy patted his arm, as Caroline put her arms around him and hugged him, for support.

"You… you just don't know," he choked, "how hard it was for me to say that out loud." He was silent for a few moments, composing himself, before he continued. "Mark had a considerable amount of money invested, but NASA also owes hazard pay to his estate. Anyway. Caroline and I would like to use Mark's estate to establish a college fund for the baby."

They both looked at her, expectantly.

Mindy shook her head, automatically. She didn't want anything to do with this.

Trying to keep her face carefully neutral, she said, "I think it's more likely that Mark would have wanted you to have it."

Caroline scoffed. "Only because he didn't know," she said. "If he had known, he would have listed the baby as his next-of-kin."

"You don't know that," she said, tonelessly. "Maybe he wouldn't have wanted anything to do with this mess." Like he didn't want to have anything to do with me, she thought.

"Honestly, I don't mean any offense, Mindy, honey, but I think we knew him better than you did," Caroline smiled.

"No argument from me there," Mindy grinned. "It's just that…" she trailed off. But if Richard could put voice to the fact that Mark was dead, then she could voice the thing that she didn't like to think about, either. "Mark wasn't interested," she said. "In me, I mean. He didn't… I mean, he was nice to me and everything, but he made it clear that he wasn't going to keep in touch. It was just a casual sort of thing, for him."

Caroline frowned. "I don't believe that, for a minute."

"Well, it's true."

"Bad timing," Richard said, then. "He knew he'd be gone for a year."

Mindy didn't reply.

"Even if that were true," Caroline continued, "even if Mark would have been violently opposed to the notion," she quirked her eyebrows as if it were a ridiculous thought, "he's not exactly here to plead his case, is he?"

Mindy sighed.

"Okay, I'll think about it," she conceded.

"It's too bad that your mother couldn't make it," Caroline mentioned, as she helped clear the dishes from the table.

"It's weird," Mindy agreed. "It sure sounded like she was planning on being here." She shrugged.

"Maybe her flight got delayed?" Richard said.

"Doubt it," Mindy replied, "She'd have called to complain. Probably just changed her mind."

"Well, dinner was wonderful," Richard lied, gallantly.

It had been a disaster. Ordering a pizza would have been a better idea. Actually, she might suggest that they do just that. In a little while.

At the moment, she was exhausted. The baby had been sapping her energy more and more, lately, and then, the little guy had the nerve to keep her up when she tried to sleep, with all of his or her kicking and wiggling around. Mindy patted her future little football player, as they watched a game on TV. She wasn't a big fan of football. She found it boring, and her eyes were getting heavy as the game drifted into the second quarter. Caroline had one of Mindy's fuzzy, navy-blue NASA blankets draped across her lap, as she leaned against Richard and closed her eyes.

She supposed they'd had a really long day; so had she. It seemed as though she'd been on her feet all day, during the time she would normally have been sleeping. She wouldn't mind a quick nap, herself. It was comforting, soothing, even, having them there. Not having to spend the holidays alone.

She closed her eyes, just for a moment, and when she opened them again, it was dark, and there were voices in the front hall.

Richard's voice, saying something, and… was that her mother? Asking if she were in the right house?

Oh, shit…

She awoke with a start and stumbled into the kitchen where her mother was, apparently, getting acquainted with the Watneys.

"Mom!" Mindy hugged her mother, who was wide-eyed at the sight of her.

Mindy hadn't sent her any pictures of herself lately, she realized, grinning.

Her regular clothes had finally had to be retired, a few weeks ago, and she wasn't used to seeing herself in maternity clothes, either, yet.

"Sweetie," her mom hugged her, "Oh, it's good to see you again."

Richard and Caroline had politely left the room again, to give them privacy.

"Sorry," she apologized, sheepishly, as she tried to straighten her hair with her fingertips. "I guess I fell asleep."

"With strangers in the house." her mother replied, blinking at her in disapproval.

"Oh, Mom. Don't start. Really," Mindy said, annoyed. "They're not strangers, they're-"

"The baby's other grandparents," she finished. "Yes, they mentioned."

"They're very nice, Mom. Their son died, you know, so please try and-"

"What?!"

"Yes. In November. I invited them to come for Christmas, and, wait, so where were you, all day?" Mindy checked her phone; it was nearly midnight. She didn't see any missed calls.

"I missed my flight," she answered, obviously still annoyed about it, "and my phone wasn't working, and I get here and finally find this place, and…" she trailed off, looking at Mindy again. "The baby's father? He died?"

Mindy nodded. "Sit down," she said, "it's a long story."

Her mother sat down, shaking her head. "Oh, sweetie," she sighed. "I'm so sorry. What a terrible thing. I'm sorry… I didn't know. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Well, there's more to it," Mindy continued, wishing that she didn't have to have this conversation with Mark's parents in the next room. "See, um… the thing is, you've probably heard of their son. He was in the news a lot, in November, when he died."

Her mother looked at her, blankly.

"I didn't want to make a big deal about it," she kept soldiering along with it as her mother stared, "but that was Caroline and Richard Watney. Their son was Mark Watney, the-"

"I know who he is!" her mother burst out, shocked, and then, accusingly, "You said he drove a truck."

"You said that, not me. I said that he travelled a lot."

"Why the hell would you joke around about a thing like that!"

"Well, he wasn't dead, at the time…" Mindy trailed off, giggling, realizing that it sounded like she was still joking around about it. Spending time with Mark's parents must be warping her mind, she thought.

Her mother sat there, dazed, shaking her head.

"Oh, sweetie," she sighed. "I'm so sorry."

Caroline and Richard appeared in the doorway.

"Our ride is here. We're on our way back to the hotel, now," Caroline said, hugging her, "It's getting late. Thank you for having us."

"We'll see you again soon, kid," Richard squeezed her shoulder, affectionately. "Nice meeting you, Candace," he told her mother, who smiled politely and shook their hands.

Mindy had the strangest, fleeting, feeling that they made up a large part of her family now, and she didn't mind it at all. She liked it.