48 Gotta Hit Them Angles, With Your Phone Out

Nice For What by Drake

Mark woke up groggily and groaned when he tried to move his neck and it hurt. There was a weird weight on him that he realised was the combined mass of a small Asian-American woman and her cat half laid on top of him. In the background the TV was playing, was that teleshopping? Huh, he could buy a magic blender for only $24.99 if I called in now and apparently it sliced and diced too.

He leaned up a bit more, ignoring the pain in his neck, and looked around. He had fallen asleep on Mindy's sofa, they both had apparently. Mindy's head was resting on his chest, there was no way to get up without waking her but Mark tried anyway, sliding off the sofa and onto the floor inch by inch so as not to disrupt her too much.

Of course it didn't work and he ended up just wasting his time, she woke up to find Mark half on the floor, awkwardly "Mark?"

"Hey, I didn't want to wake you."

"What time is it?"

"Um, 6:15 AM."

She nodded "You should probably get home and change if you want to get to work on time."

"Yeah, I was just thinking that." He stood up and grabbed his stuff, twisting his neck as he did so "Hey Mindy?" he asked, about to question what last night meant, were they together? What were they? "I had fun last night." he settled with and then he left.

Mark got home pretty quickly since there was next to no traffic on the roads at that time of the morning. When he did get home he showered and changed into new clothes and then had some breakfast. He checked his twitter and saw #WatneyWatch trending "Oh no, now what?"

Astronaut Mark Watney was spotted in the early hours of this morning doing the walk, or drive, of shame.

Underneath it there was a picture of him yesterday leaving a shop with the chocolates in hand and then next to it was a picture of him this morning driving in his car with a time stamp that clearly showed it had been taken that morning. There were red circles in all the areas that showed he was wearing the same clothes. A circle around the collar of his shirt, the striped pattern and the fact that he was driving around that early in the morning highlighted the scandalousness of Mark Watney having yet another sexual encounter.

Mark sighed, as he thought about how when he got to work he would have to explain this to Annie, again, plus he would have to scroll through all the tweet calling him a manwhore or something because that was his job.

He'd hadn't thought this whole thing through, he'd fucked up and he told Dr Shields as much when he saw her that morning "I'm not sure if I can do this anymore, I didn't think the whole thing through."

"What do you mean?"

"Like talking about NASA, easy I can do that, talking about Mars? I can do that too but when I signed up for this job I didn't anticipate talking about myself. Watney Watch is trending on twitter which means when I go to do my job I'll have to deal with all that by myself. There are people out there who absolutely hate me, and when I used to hear about the LeaveHimThere and the LetHimDie movement I could just ignore them pretty easily but now it's my job to deal with them!"

"So you want to quit?"

"I can't quit! I signed a contract! I took the job! Jeff already moved on to his new job, I can't just up and leave like 5 minutes after I got there because I couldn't hack it!"

"Well then maybe you should take a break, I've been telling you to take a break since you got back from your parents'. You really didn't spend a lot of time with them when you got back from Mars."

"I'm not really a break kinda guy."

"Mmm." Shields pulled out a page from her files and stated "You seemed to like breaks a lot in highschool you took a lot of extended breaks."

"Yeah well I actually like working at NASA, I don't think anyone likes highschool." Mark joked.

Siobhan hesitated before asking "Does my line of questioning make you uncomfortable?"

"What? Why?"

"Because when you get uncomfortable you deflect with humour. I tend to ignore it but I can't think why taking a break would make you uncomfortable."

"It doesn't."

"So if I put you on medical leave what would you say?"

"I'd say "Don't" because there's nothing wrong with me."

"Mark, come on, give me something to work with. My sole purpose is to help you, I can't help if you don't open up with me. Why don't you like breaks?"

"Because breaks means being alone." He sighed, looked away and then at the floor "When I was on Mars, I always had something to do, something to fix, something to count, communications, planning, farming. Being alone on Mars wasn't too bad, that wasn't the part that killed me. It was after I lost my potatoes and I lost communications and I was just waiting for the next thing to happen and I would just have to sit there and watch Happy Days and wait for something to happen. Just me, myself and the Fonz. I couldn't stand it! Taking a break means being by myself and having nothing to do and I don't know how to do that anymore without freaking out."

"Why don't you ask the crew to come with you?"

"Beth and Beck are figuring stuff out with the wedding and the kid; it's school time to Alex and Rick's kids are still in school and with how long they've spent away from their kids I doubt they'd want to spend any more time not with them. And The Commander... she denies it but she still feels guilty for leaving me behind on Mars, if I asked her for anything she'd probably say yes because she feels she owes me. They've already given up so much time for me, I can't ask them to give up any more."

"Well don't you think they should be able to decide that?"

"But they'll say yes."

"Isn't that what you want."

"They'll say yes for the wrong reasons."

"Mark, they're grown ups, they can decide for themselves whether they want to hang out with you or not."

"So you think I should take a break and ask them to come with?"

"I do."

"Where would we go?"

"Where do you want to go?"

Mark paused for a second. "Honestly... I just want to go home."

She noted something down on her note pad (she'd gone computer-less ever since the hack) "Your last trip to Chicago got cut short by Annie's press conference and the hack. You haven't been back since have you?"

"No, but I call them almost every day." He paused "My mum... my dad's worried about my mum."

"Why?"

"She... she apparently has a weird lump on her breast... so you know... she's got a doctor's appointment tomorrow. Hopefully it's all clear. I don't know what I would do if she..." He looked away again, his eyes unusually moist, Mark Watney was not one for tears. Just then the fire alarm went off "Saved by the bell." he smirked at her but looked around concerned.

They both stood up, Dr Shields locked her papers in a fireproof safe behind her desk and her and Mark left he building to go to the fire assembly point.

Once everyone was outside and accounted for Teddy was handed a megaphone and addressed his employees "I'd like to commend everyone on your quick and orderly exit of the building. I'd also like to apologise for wasting your time, this was not a drill but fortunately this was not an actual fire either. It would seem that someone" he shot a glare at someone in the large crowd but everyone was standing too close to pin point who "fell into the alarm and set it off by accident so everyone can return back to work. Dismissed."

As Mark and Siobhan went back in the direction of her office Mark checked the time and asked if their session was over "I don't know Mark, is there anything else you want to talk about?"

Mark paused, he kinda did want to talk about Mindy, about what happened last night, how the press was kind of right about his drive of shame that morning but instead he just shook his head "Maybe tomorrow."

"If you're sure." She replied. She didn't look convinced but she didn't push it which he was grateful for.

On his way to work Mark put out on his personal twitter

No I wasn't doing the walk of shame this morning, I was hanging out with a friend and fell asleep on their sofa. Everyone needs to chill.

That was technically correct, he didn't mention that the friend was Mindy and that he almost had done the walk of shame had Mindy not called the whole thing off.

What did their kiss and them almost having sex mean? Were they just friends with benefits or did she want something more with him?