SOL 136

Today was going to be one of the harder days.

That was the first thing that the blonde thought of when she opened her eyes, hand raising to rub the sleep out of them. A yawn escaped her as she wordlessly accepted the cup of watery tea from Mark. The thing that sucked, absolutely sucked about being on Mars, was the fact that she had runned out of her antidepressants. They had given her enough or so they had thought. The pills that she took she had to take four of to get to the right dosage. Apparently who ever had packaged them fucked it all up. A part of her was pissed but she knew she couldn't do anything about it. What was done was done.

Fucking luckily they were sending more of them in the supply probe.

Olivia wasn't exactly suicidal or depressed, it was more so because her brain didn't create the right chemicals to keep everything balanced. Sue her, but it's what it was. At least, she hoped.

And, it was more so that she had anxiety.

So yeah, today was going to be a hard one.

A silent sigh was breathed out as she took a sip of the tea.

Peppermint.

One of the only flavors left and the only one out of them that she could stand. Yay for getting more in a couple hundred sols.

"You okay?" Mark spoke as he took a seat next to her on her bunk.

"Yeah, I haven't told you but i've been off of my meds for a month now." She said, fist clenching in the slightest. "They fucked up the supply and I ran out a month ago. It's finally hitting my body that I don't have the chemicals in my body from them." Her voice wavered off at the end and tears started to well up at the corner of her eyes.

This was the last thing that she needed him to see. Not that she hadn't cried in front of him, just that she did not want to seem weak.

"That has to be rough Liv. Is there anything I can do?" Liv let herself rest her head against his shoulder.

"Just, be there for me. Today isn't as bad as it normally gets but who knows." The sounds of the HAB allowed Olivia to dissociate a little. Sure it wasn't the best coping mechanism but it was one that helped. Everything seemed to fade away and she felt herself sink down deeper. The thing that stuck with her was that when she was like this, she didn't know how long she did it for. It was something that had started after her first anxiety attack when she was around eleven. Then they started to become more frequent as she aged.

"...Liv? Liv?" A jolt to her either her side or to her shoulder brought her back to the present, her head snapping up to look at Mark.

Fuck.

"I've been trying to get your attention for ten minutes, you scared me."

Shit, this was something that the crew never learned about her. Mostly because she never really felt the need to let them know. She didn't want them to look at her any differently.

"Uh, long story short, in times like this I dissociate to get away." Her voice came out quiet. "The only ones that knew were Beck and Lewis, literally just because they had to know."

"Hey, it's okay. Thank you for telling me." He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer into his side. The blonde released the breath that she didn't even realize that she was holding allowed herself to move closer, letting her eyes shut. Warmth seemed to blossom in her chest, making her body feel warm.

God, where would she be without two had met a couple of years before they even began training for the Ares III. It had been just after they had been selected into the ASCAN program. From the moment they met the bond between them had been right there. They just understood each other and they soon became best friends. Months passed and their friendship grew even further. Sure she was close with everyone in the program along with her crewmates but there was just something about Mark that made her want to be around him more.

Then came training for the mission. Training would take place for two years and for that time the crew went between Florida and Texas. Those two years were the roughest years of Liv's life, but at the same time they were also the most rewarding. Sure there were some days that she had to drag herself out of bed but for the most part she found herself looking forward to the next training day. Except for the time when they had to be in the capsule for how many days. That was torture. She found herself falling more and more in love with the mission and her part of the mission. They had assigned Liv to work alongside Lewis as a geologist but also had her training to do a few experiments in the field she got her PhD in, astrobiology. Why they didn't put her only as an astrobiologist, she couldn't tell you.

Growing up, she had always wondered if there was life on Mars, and it wasn't until she was twenty two that they got the answer. The news broke back in 2028, the year they got back the Perseverance rover surface samples, that there was indeed life on Mars, NASA went with it. Olivia remembered being fifteen and watching the liftoff of the rover and even going as far as to tracking it's journey to the Red Planet. Hearing that they did find little microbes alive in the sample from Jezero Crater, that was how Olivia got into astrobiology. It had taken years and years of school but she was the first one in her family to get a doctorate, officially making her Doctor Brooks.

It had a nice ring to it, she had to admit.

That was something she loved to hold over her other siblings.

Oh, and the rover was still alive and well on Mars, doing what it does best. Rumor had it that one of the Ares missions would land near its current location and give and upgrade and to collect some of the new samples it had dug.

As training progressed, she found herself questioning her feelings for Mark. It started off as them hanging out a couple times, watching Marvel movies and occasionally getting drinks after a tough week at training. He soon then became her close friend, and she often found herself with him daily. It was the little things, now that she thought about it, that drew her into him.

The way he tried to include her in all his conversations when she was around.

How he gave her rocks that reminded him of her.

The way she felt happier around him.

When she was with him, she felt almost complete.

The shameless flirting during the long days and not to mention the heart eyes that she always had in her eyes. At least, that's what Martinez called it. That had earned him a punch in the arm from the blonde.

There wasn't anything that she wouldn't do for him, and she always wanted him in her life. It was the night before liftoff that she admitted it to herself.

She was in love with Mark Watney.

Madly deeply in love.

But, she forced herself to shove it aside for the sake of the mission. She had to. No matter how much her heart wanted her to fall into his arms, kiss him like they were the only ones left on the planet, she didn't.

The mission was too critical.

So she suffered, in her own feelings for the rest of the cruise to Mars and then on. She was glad she was with him, for if it was anyone else she would have been driven insane by now.

No offense to the crew.

Like, at all.

How easy it was to shove all of her feelings aside and act like nothing was wrong. How easy she did it was concerning enough. But it's what she had to do.

The rest of the day was easy. She focused more on finishing the Commander's mission that she was supposed to complete while on the surface. She combined looking at samples 103 along with her sample 106 and even went as far as to combine the two and see how different they were. Mark was talking to his potatoes again, joking that it helped them grow into fine potatoes. Those were his exact words.

The blonde had just shaken her head and turned back to her work, shoving her glasses back on her face. They were blasting music from Martinez's data stick, Liv mouthing along as she placed another slide under the scope. They had spent the last couple of weeks starting on the reason why they were on handled her and Lewis' part, easily combining the two when they could. Mark was handling Beck's experiments as well as his own. Olivia was going to be sure that they completed the mission, come hell or high water. It was the least that she could do.

For her side of the experiments, she tracked everything, noting how they were the same and how the microbes in her part acted in the light from the scope. This, this is why she wanted to come to Mars.

Perhaps they would watch a movie tonight. Her own data stick didn't really have a lot of movies on it, but after digging around on Beth's she hit the jackpot. The entirety of the Marvel movies as well as all ten of the Star Wars movies. Not to mention the classic and new versions of Star Trek.

She would have to get Beth a new bookshelf when she got back.

Perhaps everything would be okay after all.

And little did she know, Mark was sneaking glances at her, a smile on his face and pain in his chest. How could someone be so close yet so out of reach? Did she feel the same feelings for him that he felt for her?