Vows

"Welcome back to a special edition of the Today Show on NBC, streaming worldwide on NBC dot com, I'm Stefani Germanotta," The woman formerly known as Lady Gaga said. "As we have reported all morning, this is the day NASA and the city of Houston have been looking forward to since Mark and Mindy announced they were getting married. The preparations are done, the chapel is ready, and an air of happiness can be felt throughout the city. The guests have been arriving for the last few days as the attention of the world has fallen on Houston."

"And dissolve server one video," the director called.

The image NBC was broadcasting faded from Miss Germanotta to a shot of a man and his family descending an airplane stairway. "The British Royal family arrived yesterday morning alongside all the Prime ministers of the British Commonwealth of Nations for a private dinner with the bride and groom," her voice said. "Both Mindy Park and Mark Watney were on hand yesterday afternoon to personally welcome the representatives of the CNSA as they disembarked their flight from Beijing." The screen showed Mark and Mindy shaking hands with the director and media director of the CNSA amid a blinding storm of flashes. "And a who's who of dignitaries and stars have descended on the city."

"Take server two audio video."

The scene changed to a series of clips of various international celebrities arriving at the Houston airport.

"Bring up remote one mic and cue."

"The most highly coveted item in Houston today is this credential." Stefani Germanotta said

"And take remote one," The director called.

The screen cut back to Miss Germanotta smiling broadly and holding up her security badge. The laminated three by five card had the invitation picture of Mark and Mindy with the date emblazoned across the bottom. Miss Germanotta's said 'Ceremony and Reception' above the date. "Every card has an identity of its own, a QR scan code and a small RFID chip is embedded in each card ensure it," she said. "And on the back it has a picture of the person it belongs to."

"Starting at three miles out from the venue security checkpoints have been set up. The mayor of Houston has declared this a city holiday so that the security forces usually assigned to courts and other city services could be utilized for the wedding."

"Roll sever two, take," the director said, and screens across the world showed the people of Houston and their guests politely and with smiling faces negotiating the road blocks and security check points surrounding the U.H. chapel.

"At one half mile from the chapel only credentials with 'ceremony' on them are allowed beyond the check points," her voice continued.

(*)

"Well done, Annie," Teddy said as he watched the report on the monitor in the lobby. "How are the bride and groom this morning?"

"They're good," Annie said with a smile. "Mindy's got her mother, Roberta, and Clara, her best friend, upstairs working her over as we speak. Mark is with the Becks, and the rest of the crew but Lewis out back in the staging tent. Adel is in dressing room two warming up, and Cameron Carpenter is down in the chapel checking out the organ."

"How's Lewis?"

Annie smirked. "As Roberta likes to say, 'couldn't met butter on her forehead'," she said and laughed. "Cool in a crisis doesn't begin to describe her. She's in the rector's office with him reviewing her lines."

"Looks like we're a go," Teddy said with a smile.

(*)

Okay, okay, okay. Survived a hole in my suit and me in a near vacuum, blown up airlock, dust storms, rolled rover, 12 G launch, I can do this. I can do this.

Beth has been running messages back and forth all morning between here and mission control (that's what we're calling the bridal dressing room). Min is in great hands.

Chris has the rings, I know 'cause I've asked him a dozen times. He's holding up well, the only thing he's worried about is the toast, and that's a couple of hours away. Right now he's yucking it up with the other two male crew members. Rick and Alex are the old hands at this, they've been married their whole lives. Chris and I? Well, we're learning.

The two old hands are trying (with limited success) to calm our intrepid hero. He's pretty tense. He's worried that he'll draw a total blank when it comes to what he wants to say, he's worried he'll drop the ring, he's worried that the earth will swallow him just when he's caught the prize.

The prize.

She sure is.

I can't help the stupid grin I get when I think of her today. She's brilliant, way smarter than me. She's compassionate and kind. She's beautiful (to me, I know she doesn't think so, but I do). She's brave (braver than I'd like really), and she loves me. Me, the dorky botanist. This brilliant thoughtful, astonishing woman loves me.

I'm staring out the window with that stupid grin again.

(*)

"Welcome," Commander Lewis said from behind the podium to the privileged two hundred and seventy five. "As Mark would tell you, I'm a woman of few words, so here are a few. "Ladies and gentlemen, Cameron Carpenter."

The world renowned organist began, Mars, Bringer of War, by Holst. As Mr. Carpenter gave a spirited interpretation of the great piece, Chris Beck led Mrs. Watney to her seat in the very front on her son's side. Right behind him Rick Martinez led Deborah Park to her seat exactly opposite the aisle from Mrs. Watney. The two women's husbands followed their escorts and sat beside their wives. Then Mark appeared at the rear of the chapel.

Mark walked slowly up the aisle and joined Chris and Rick. Commander Lewis winked slyly as he mounted the altar platform and turned to face the gathering of friends and dignitaries. Chris stood next to him and then Rick stood next to Chris.

Carpenter finished the Holst piece, and then he began the introduction to a new song by the iconic singer, Adel. She walked from a side door to the platform, took the microphone that Commander Lewis handed her, and began to sing. It was a ballad she had written about Mark and Mindy. Though she never said their names, or mentioned Mars or NASA, or indicated that they were the couple she sung about, they were, and the whole world knew.

I watched you

I watched you struggle and suffer,

I watched you and I couldn't help.

I watched you fight to live

and I cheered when you won

I watched you.

We were made to be.

Nothing can keep you from me.

Though you are far away,

when you come home

I know you'll say.

"I love you, and I always will.

My travels are through,

and my feet are still.

My place is here

Forever by the fire with you."

I watched you

When you walked on different lands,

I watched you

your courage shining in the night.

I watched you build your ship

piece by piece in the blazing sun.

I watched you

return to me.

Mindy was standing in the doorway as Adel finished. The singer smiled and winked at the bride as she strode down the steps of the platform and took her seat. Carpenter played the grand prelude to the Wedding March, and the entire audience stood and turned. There was a mutual gasp.

Mindy smiled.

For second time in her life she actually felt beautiful. The first time had been when Mark presented her the ring. Three days after Easter he had taken her to Irma's, their favorite restaurant, and there, in a quiet booth with no witnesses, he had made her feel like the most beautiful girl on the earth. She was feeling that way again, because sixty feet down the aisle he was looking at her with the same awestruck, love filled, expression.

Holy crap! She's gorgeous! I knew that, though. Now everybody does, and that dress, wow!

All the pent up tension flowed out of her, and a tear of happiness traced her cheek. The whole world was watching, and it made no difference at all, because it was really just them. He was here, waiting patiently at the end of a short walk, and he would take her hand and her heart, and she would take his name.

"Get moving, Min," Clara whispered behind her, and Mindy, followed by Clara and then Beth, began her slow walk to her father standing at the end of the row of pews.

"Damn, Mark, she cleans up real nice," Rick said just loud enough for the front row to hear. The whole group at the front of the church giggled.

Mindy came to a stop next to her father. "Who gives this woman to be wed?" Commander Lewis asked.

"I do, happily," Mindy's father said. He led her up the short steps and placed her hand in Mark's. "She's your problem now, son," he said with a smile, and the audience laughed.

Mindy handed her bouquet to Clara and turned to Mark. They just stood there, taking each other in, saving the memory. Then Commander Lewis said, "Please be seated."

Dressed in her full navel uniform Melissa Lewis was, as always, an imposing figure. "Mark and Mindy have asked us to be here to help them celebrate their love," she said. "I'm sure they would have preferred a smaller, more intimate affair, but the world had other plans."

A ripple of laughter ran through the audience.

"And so we welcome those fortunate among us that are here in person, and those around the world who are here spirit, watching." She smiled at Mark. "Two years ago and twenty minutes from now Dr. Christopher Beck, Mark's best man and my friend and crewmate, pulled Mark from the M.A.V. and back into all our lives." She smiled at Mindy. "One life in particular."

She looked back up. "Mindy, as you have read, was the person that discovered Mark was still alive. I reviewed every report she made while we were on the way back to Mars, from the first time she discovered he was there, to the last analysis of the modifications to the M.A.V. Mindy, as Mark says over and over, was his guardian angel. From the moment she discovered him alive at the Hab, to the day Alex Vogel pulled Mark and Chris into the Hermes, Mindy watched and wrote."

Commander Lewis looked down at Mindy's parents. "And in reading those reports and observations, I read a woman falling in love with the man on the screen. She researched Mark, learning how he thought so that she could better understand what she was seeing. As she learned more about him, I could read her becoming more concerned about his feelings, his mood, his soul."

She turned to Marks parents. "Mark was a beaten up mess two years ago. After we got him aboard and scrubbed the stench of a year and a half of Mars off him." She paused and reflected. "Not the greatest assignment I ever gave Chris and Rick," she said, and the crowd in the chapel sniggered. "Well, after that he made it his mission to thank everyone involved in getting him off Mars, and that led him to Mindy. They emailed constantly during the nine months it took us to get back to Earth."

"Everyone knows what happened next," She said with a smile. "The good, the bad, the bad ass."

The audience genuinely laughed.

"And all of that has brought us here." Commander Lewis looked at Mark. "Love remains a mystery, apart from science, but it is as real as anything you can touch or see, and that is because you can hold love. This ethereal thing can be held, and you can hold not just your own love, but that of your partner. This isn't news to Mark, I'm sure. You and Mindy have held each other's love for a year at least, but from this day on you will be official custodians of the others heart."

Sniffles sounded throughout the chapel.

"Traditionally there is a reading at this point. Some choose the Bible, some choose the Koran, and some choose Keats or Shakespeare. I did some editing and chose Watney and Park from two years ago today."

Mindy and Mark looked at her with surprise. They had picked one of Shakespeare's sonnets.

Commander Lewis smirked and looked down at her notes.

"I still can't quite believe that this is really it. I'm really leaving. This frigid desert has been my home for a year and a half. I figured out how to survive, at least for a while, and I got used to how things worked. My terrifying struggle to stay alive became somehow routine. Get up in the morning, eat breakfast, tend my crops, fix broken stuff, eat lunch, answer e-mail, watch TV, eat dinner, go to bed. The life of a modern farmer.

Then I was a trucker, doing a long haul across the world. And finally, a construction worker, rebuilding a ship in ways no one ever considered before this. I've done a little of everything here, because I'm the only one around to do it.

That's all over now. I have no more jobs to do, and no more nature to defeat. I've had my last Martian potato. I've slept in the rover for the last time. I've left my last footprints in the dusty red sand. I'm leaving Mars today, one way or another."

She looked out at the crowd. "Mindy's from that day is much more succinct," she said and looked at Mindy. "Please, God, let him be safe."

Half the church was sobbing, and Commander Lewis let them collect themselves. Mark pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his soon to be wife's eyes.

"Well, here he is, Mindy," Commander Lewis said with a smile for her, and Mindy hugged Mark's arm. "Mark and Mindy have words they have chosen to say. Mindy?"

She turned and faced Mark. "Four years ago I first heard the name Mark Watney," she said. "In control we all learned about each member of the crew we would be serving. The sterling commander, the brilliant software engineer, the cool and collected doctor, the fearless pilot, the intense chemist, and the comedian botanist."

A round of chuckles ran through the audience.

"Up until sol six we were having a great time, and then we weren't. Forty four days later I was sent the most important email of my life. Twenty minutes after that I was frantically calling Mitch and Ven." She took a shaky breath, the memories more of a source of nerves than the situation. "From that moment until your rescue I was on Martian time with you, watching you, willing you to survive. You scared me, so many times, but you also made me proud to be human and be a part of NASA. Then these people," she looked at Chris, Commander Lewis, Beth, Alex, and Rick. "These five brave friends saved you for me. I can't thank them enough." She smiled at them. "And they'll tell you I've tried."

The Becks, the Vogles and the Martinezs chuckled.

"Then you appeared out of nowhere in front of my station in control. It was the best, and last, first date of my life. I had been infatuated with you, I fell in love with you, the real you, and the longer we are together, the more in love with you I am. You are the keeper of my heart, you are the one man that has ever helped me be a whole person. I'm my best when I'm with you, and I intend to be at your side for the rest of our lives. I love you, Mark, and I'm so happy to become your wife."

Lewis gave the attendees a moment to collect themselves. The mothers of the couple were crying softly, their husbands comforting them.

"Mark?"

He took Mindy's hand. "I didn't know who Mindy Park was until two years ago today. I'm so happy I found out. I knew the world was watching me, but I also knew it was really just one person. Ven had said 'she checks every image' in one of his emails, and I imagined a guardian angel sitting at her computer watching over me. I never realized how real that was until we were out bound from Mars.

On that journey we became friends. I wanted to know you. I wanted to know the woman that saved me, and the more I found out about you and what you did for me, the more we talked, the more I wanted to meet you and get to know you in person. Then I did, and I've been the happiest I've ever been since. You are my reason for… everything, Min. I want to do amazing things with you," he shrugged. "Maybe not the best way to put that," he commented, and the audience sniggered. "I want to someday make our moms grand moms, I want to grow old with you, I want to be married to you in every way. I love you, Mindy. Thank you for saving me, Min, over and over."

Lewis gave the audience time to collect themselves. "This is the easy part," she said. "Do you, Mark Watney, take this woman, Mindy Park to be your wife? To keep her comfort foremost in your mind, to cherish her love, and to be her friend?"

Mark smiled and looked into Mindy's eyes. "I do."

"And do you, Mindy Park, take this man, Mark Watney. To be your husband? To be his friend, to keep his love safe in your heart, and his comfort foremost in your mind?

"I do," she said in such an earnest voice that recordings of it became ring tones worldwide.

"Now we come to the rings," She said and grinned. "Mark thought Chris here would have them, but the talented folks at JPL had other ideas."

The door to the chapel opened and the full scale mockup of the latest Mars rover, Investigator, rolled down the aisle. It stopped in front of the wedding party, its sample scoop extended, and it raised the sampling arm up to Mark's waist height. The scoop cover retracted, and the rings sat inside it on a small NASA packing pillow. Mark laughed and pulled Mindy's ring from the scoop. Mindy grabbed Mark's, and the rover made a series of squeaks and beeps. Then the camera head swiveled one hundred eighty degrees, the arm retracted, and the rover drove back down the aisle and out of the door.

Lewis chuckled. "The ring has a long tradition," she said. It is a symbol of love eternal, and a promise made real. With these rings that Mark and Mindy have chosen gift one and other with, they give their love, one to the other, in a real and physical form. Mark?"

He took Mindy's hand and smiled at her. "Min, I give you this ring as symbol of the promise I make today. I will love you and care for you my whole life. With this ring I thee wed." he slid the ring carefully on her finger.

She calmly took his hand and said, "Mark, I give you this ring as symbol of the promise I make today. I will love you and be there for you, where ever 'there' is, my whole life. With this ring I thee wed."

Commander Lewis smiled out at the audience and the world. "As Mark and Mindy have exchanged vows and rings, and have made their promise, so we are bound to witness their union. Mark, Mindy, I now pronounce you husband and wife." She grinned wickedly. "Kiss the girl, Watney."

Quote taken from the Martian, chapter twenty five.