You Are Sam Puckett.
The smell of B. F. Wang's wakes you from your comatose sleep. The hotel room is bright with sunlight. A softly playing TV underlines the sounds of someone rooting through plastic bags. You take your precious time to fully wake, and by that time you have remembered what put you to sleep, and who had sat with you. You roll over stiffly, and squint at the table situated under the bright window.
"Hi sleepy." He says, stepping into your line of sight as he opens the plastic-wrapped sporks. "Hungry?"
You nod but don't move. He opens a carton and stirs the hot noodles around, trying to tempt you to get up. When you don't move he comes to you, sits in the very same spot where he rocked you to sleep. You've felt lost many times in your life, just like last night, but it was the first time someone made you feel safe at the same time.
"What are you still doing here?" you ask through a dry throat. He takes a massive bite of the food and smiles as he puckers his lips around the noodles, not answering. You elaborate as you find strength to push yourself upright in the bed and steal the food. "Don't you have a lab to be running in some university basement?"
"Got it covered." He says, getting up to get his own food. He doesn't return to the spot next to you, but sits at the table. "I am under strict orders to be whatever you need me to be." He says.
"Carly's orders?"
"And Mel's," he says, subconsciously brushing at his black eye with the back of a finger. You smirk. Seeing him go down has been the highlight of your week. His presence makes sense to you. Your best girl friend can't be here for you, because unlike him, she can't get someone to do her work for her. She would order someone to be your lifeboat; you have a feeling that if he couldn't, then she would have recruited her brother.
You are happy she needn't take that stretch.
There isn't much on the three basic channels of the hotel cable, so once you are finished eating, you take a shower and get dressed for a day out on the town. He has cleaned the entire room while you were in the bathroom. The bed is even made. You roll your eyes and ask, "So what's next on the Sam's Lifeboat Schedule?"
He shoves his hands into his pockets. "You're running the show."
"Great, I'm going back to bed."
"I don't think so. You are allowed to pick any active activity, and I am allowed to not allow any down time."
"I don't know!" You groan. "I don't feel like doing anything." You sound angry, but it's that or have a wavering voice, which isn't an option. He takes it with a grain of salt, however, and shrugs. "Got a wetsuit?"
The beach is crowded with tourists but you claim a spot and plant your board in the pebbly sand under your feet. The waves are breaking beautifully. Other surfers are already taking advantage of them. You are both wearing matching suits because the store only had the one blue and white pattern. The boards are rented and yours is hot pink, his is white and longer.
"This should be interesting." He says. "I mean I haven't surfed since about the eleventh grade."
You laugh. "You're idea, Benson."
"Yeah, because the Sam I know can't pass over the chance to drown me and make it look like an accident."
"Can Lifeboats be suicidal?" You ask, a finger on your chin philosophically.
"I must be." He says, mostly to himself, and you wonder exactly what he meant by that but let it pass in order to move on to a happier subject. "I bet I can do this without falling once."
"Fifty bucks?"
You shrug. Hey, you've got that kind of money now. He laughs. "Oh it is on!"
You haven't done a whole lot of surfing in Houston. Your first attempt to get back on the board after an eight year hiatus looses you fifty bucks and gets water up your nose. Your second attempt is better, you actually get a feel for it, but when you try to maneuver the board up and down the wave like you once could, you wipeout.
He is straddling his board, laughing, when you resurface. You narrow your eyes. "Let's see you do any better."
He shrugs, and for a second you think he is actually going to wow you. Then he tanks it hard and comes up sputtering and gasping for air. You laugh so hard you can' sit up straight on your board. The next wave you both try together and you only wipe out when he crashes into you.
"You okay?" He comes up asking. You shake the water out of your eyes and ears, laughing. "Fine, you?"
He dog peddles in one place, his board floating at the end of its tether. "I think I pulled something on that one."
"Can you swim?" You ask, rolling onto your board and paddling over to him.
"I'll be fine." He says, rolling onto his board and sitting up. "Catch this next one, it'll be sweet!"
You are Dr. Fred Benson, D. Sc.
Your shoulder twinges but you ignore it as you hold tight to your board and dive under the wave that she rides. Once out the other side, you look back in time to see her do the first trick of the day, successfully staying on the board. She paddles back to you.
"That was amazing!" You tell her. She pinches her nose and wipes it. "Why didn't you catch it?"
"My shoulder." You admit. What a man, two waves, one head-on collision and you're already hurt. She asks questions until you assure her that it is just a pulled muscle. "Well, do you want call it a day?" she asks.
"No way, no." You say. "Surf, you're just picking it up again."
She shrugs and goes back to having her fun. You become the surf championship's only judge, judging the sole contestant Sam Puckett, who never makes a lower score with each new wave until she--under your scoring system anyway--is riding perfect tens every time.
One of the hard core surfers from a pack who evidently followed the waves this far up the coast, paddles to your side after she has pulled off a move that she has never done before. You are cheering so loud your voice will be hoarse tomorrow and you clap despite your shoulder.
"Dude," the blonde haired man says, "I've been, like, watching you since you guys came out, and I thought, you know, here's a couple of newbies, you know? Is this her first time surfing? because, like, whoa…"
You smile and shake your head. "No, we learned as kids, but she hasn't surfed in years, she's just…." You shrug happily as you watch her glide to a stop and sit down rather than wipeout. The wave has carried her a good distance from you; she waits for the next one to ride it back over here.
"No way? Cool, man, cool." The beach boy says, cutting himself off with, "Ah, look it, dude! She's a natural, man!" He says, laughing and cheering with you as she pulls another trick. Inspired to get back out there, your visitor goes to his stomach on his board and says casually between his excited shouts, "Tell your girl she's the man, bro! 'Kay?"
The idea that you and her could be mistaken as a couple makes you smile and shake your head, but for some reason you don't feel the need to correct him. "I will, man."
"Right on." he says, paddling out to meet the next one. She glides to a stop next to you.
"Making friends?" She asks. You are still smiling like a goof and try to stop incase she figures out what you just pretended about. "Yeah, he's a cool guy."
It starts to rain. The tourists flee. You and she virtually have the place to yourself, save for the small pack of real surfers. She is surfed out and floats on her board next to you, the pair of you bobbing up and down in the waves like a couple of corks as you watch the professionals do their thing.
You are Sam Puckett
Sitting across from him in a Subways dining room that evening, the pair of you talk about all of the great things about your mother that you can remember. You are laughing and crying. After the late dinner, you get some ice cream and sit on a bench in the park to enjoy it.
"Thanks." You say to him, crumbling your paper cup around the wooden stick and tossing it into the bin at the end of the seat. It has turned chilly and you cross your bare arms, leaning just a tad bit closer to his warmth.
"No problem." He says between licks on his vanilla cone.
"No I mean for the whole day, and this morning…"
He smiles and turns the cone to work on evening the shape. "I know." He says. You yawn. "I almost don't want to go back to Houston."
"Do you have to?" he asks. You shrug. "Might as well get back to it all. And I can't afford too much of a vacation. We're talking mission assignments, and I need to catch up on some studying."
"Studying?"
"Yeah, I have to, to keep up with those dorks," you say, allowing resentment to color your tone, "and they all want my seat so I can't slack off or I'll be passed over in the next flight."
He shakes his head. "Man, being an astronaut sounds like so much fun."
You snort. He would be attracted to the idea of constant study. On this thread, the pair of you recount your first spaceflight, what it felt like, how it effected you. Then you tell him about your moon walk and he apologies for missing it.
"I just wish we could work together again, you know? That was the best." he says.
"So come up with more experiments to do in orbit."
"I didn't come up with that, I won a spot on a prestigious team that had been planning it for five years. Besides…" he trails off and you have to prompt him to finish his thought. He shrugs. "I don't know…being a scientist is sort of...lonely, you know? I mean I run a lab full of other people, but we aren't really friends, we're just colleges and we work in silence or something. Not that what we're doing isn't important."
You bite back a retort about how important it could be, because now isn't the time. You've got a dork admitting he has no friends, and you've seen a path that will solve both of your problems.
"So quit. Do something else." You suggest. He laughs. "Yeah, because that's easy. I have all these degrees but they won't get me anywhere outside of a lab."
"So go to a bigger lab." You say. "I can probably get you a spot in mission control or something, if you want to work with computers again."
In his surprise, his lick is too hard and the scoop of ice cream falls off the cone. You look mournfully at the snack oozing on the dirty pavement of the walk. "Oooh, what a waste..." You sympathize. He doesn't give a flip about the ice-cream.
"Sam? Can you really do that?" he asks, his voice cracking an octave. You snort. "I can try. Jack can even vouch for you."
"Why would he?"
You shrug, because for some reason, you can't tell him that you can get that man to do anything for you if you bat your eyes. "You impressed him with your vigilance up there. Just let me do what I can, spring you from that student lab to a real one."
He can't stop thanking you until you are at your hotel door and you say good night. You close the door, lock it, and collapse on your bed, exhausted by your hours in the water. You are asleep in under a minute.
....
Back in your life, Jack asks how the funeral went and your mind slides over the foggy ceremony and presents crystal-clear memories of the day after, starring your Lifeboat, and you answer with a happy smile, "Great."
Disturbed, the colonel pauses in his work and looks you up an down. "It was your mother's funeral, wasn't it?"
Realizing how inappropriate your tone was, you cringe and mentally kick yourself for thinking like that. You clear all confusion by explaining that some therapeutic surfing had helped you put it all at peace, which is the truth, even if you let is sound like you surfed alone.
Then you get down to business. Just like you thought, Jack hears your request, shrugs and says yeah sure, he'll back the doctor. The two of you go to the head-macho's office.
You are Dr. Fred Benson D. Sc.
Okay. So you have been offered a job in NASA. You can take it, apply what your doctorate in technology has taught you and create new equipment to make an astronaut's life easier in space, or you can cure cancer.
In one job, you will make history with a group of men you don't even like. In the other, you will spend every day with a real friend. In the first, you will have a depressing life. In the second, you will have her smiles and jokes on a regular basis.
Maybe you aren't doing a proper pros and cons lists, but you sleep on it and wake up ready to accept the job at NASA.
AN: the surfing thing is based entirely on Spencer having once said he would surf because his meatball told him to; I didn't know you can surf in Seattle...*facepalm* I left it vague incase they were supposed to travel to a decent beach. lol.
