"Annie, Mitch, what brings you here?" Melissa Lewis asked when she looked up from her laptop and saw them hovering in the door. The room was larger than the usual astronaut office but was still cramped with six desks shoved in as close to each other as they could be while still allowing walking space between each.
Most crews were spread out over the entirety of the astronaut department, sharing offices with those on other crews. When they needed to get together, they met in their commander's office or the conference room down the hall. It was just the way it worked out naturally. Astronaut candidates who had completed initial training were assigned to an office with an experienced astronaut, one who had flown a mission, to serve as a mentor and guide. Offices changed over the years, but crews hardly ever shared a single office, not even back in the Gemini days when the crew consisted of only two astronauts.
The Ares III crew had started out the same way, but as training progressed they began spending more and more time together. They had begged and pleaded and made trades with other astronauts to trade offices so they took up three offices in a row, but that still wasn't enough. Finally, shaking her head the whole time, chief astronaut Emma McGee cleared out the largest room she could find and let Lewis's group take it over, after consulting with the psychologists.
There had always been a fear that personality conflicts would arise during a mission; it was inevitable. That fear grew as missions became longer and longer. There had been small problems over the years, but overall there was nothing that hadn't been handled professionally by the men and women involved, at least in flight. There was that tense time between Apollo 7 and Mission Control during the flight, but it wasn't the same. The chief astronaut handled issues on the ground, although those were usually small as well. Major issues like the astronaut love triangle were incredibly rare.
Extended time together while on Earth seemed like it could breed issues that wouldn't show themselves until they were in space but this crew just jelled differently. They'd come out of their three days in the MAV simulator and nearly ran away from each other but by the next morning, they were laughing and carrying on again as normal. Hermes had enough space, no one was worried about that time even though they would spend a year straight on the ship. It was a flying space station really. The Hab had been a bigger concern but they wouldn't be together all sol every sol due to their duties.
Their close nature however meant that they were still grieving and blaming themselves for their friend's death. Sharing the news with them had both Mitch and Annie more nervous than they could ever recall being.
"Where is everyone?" Annie asked, straightening her shoulders, stepping into the room, and looking around.
"Vogel and Beck just went to get some coffee," Martinez replied without looking away from the nerf basketball hoop he was shooting at.
"And Johanssen needed sugar so she ran to the cafeteria, but they should all be back shortly," Lewis said. "What do you need?"
"We need to talk to all five of you, but we can wait for them to get back. How's the debrief going?" Mitch asked conversationally, leaning against the wall and faking calm better than Annie expected. Maybe he was the right one to tell the crew after all.
Dr. Shields had argued that it should be her job and Annie had almost taken her up on the offer, but Mitch was incredibly protective of his crews. It was just one reason he was such a good flight director. NASA had tried to promote him out of Mission Control but he refused to go. His temperament and possessive nature had concerned her, but she should have known he'd do what was best. Now to just keep him from telling them Teddy had denied the imagery requests...or not.
He'd tell the crew what they knew, and no matter their reaction Dr. Shields was waiting in the next office over, out of sight but close by and on-call nonetheless.
"Hey Mitch, hiya Annie," Beth Johanssen called out as she came in popping skittles into her mouth.
"Sugar is the last thing you need Beth," Chris Beck teased her as he walked in behind her.
"Sure cause caffeine is so good for you," she threw back, flopping down into her desk chair and curling up with her feet to the side.
"His is caffeine-free," Vogel put in.
"Man, what's the point of coffee without caffeine," Martinez griped.
"Alright everyone, settle down. Let's hear what these two have to say."
"Yes, commander." The voices came as one.
Mitch shifted from one foot to another. "You should all sit down."
They exchanged glances, looking at the flight director and Annie carefully, then sat.
"There's no easy way to say this," Mitch started, then halted breathing shakily.
"Whatever it is," Melissa reassured him, "we can handle it." Nothing could be worse than what they'd already been through, she thought to herself, assuming this was an announcement that Congress was pulling the Ares budget and there would be no more flights to Mars.
"Mark...we think Mark may be alive."
"What the hell?"
"How?"
"What do you mean?"
"This is not funny."
"Mein Gott!"
"We have pictures of your Hab and the surrounding area that were taken last night." He looked to Annie who pulled out the folder and passed it to Lewis. "When you look at them you'll notice an addition. It appears that Mark retrieved Pathfinder and it's sitting outside the Hab. We have no way of knowing when he did that, but it is Pathfinder without a doubt."
"Mark… alive?" Martinez wavered between smiling and horror.
Johanssen burst into tears, Beck reached over and pulled her into his arms. Vogel began to mutter in German. Lewis sat completely still, eyes wide.
Annie filled them in on what was being done and assured them they would be at the top of the list to be notified as soon as they knew anything.
"Dr. Shields is here if you need her. I hate to leave you all like this, but I have to go prepare for the press conference tomorrow. I only hope we have some more positive news before then."
Mitch looked at each of the astronauts, nodded once, and left without saying anything more.
"He's alive," Rick whispered.
"Martinez," Beck said, "he was, we don't know if he is, and I hate saying that, so don't yell at me."
"And not knowing is worse," Vogel said.
"I left him behind," Lewis said quietly, so quietly her crew almost didn't hear her, but they did and immediately began to try to change her mind.
"We all left."
"I told you he was dead."
"You did what you had to do."
"No," she said emphatically. "I'm the commander, you all were just following orders. Beck, you had no reason to think he was alive, given the biomonitor readings. I gave the order to leave. It's on me. Now we have to figure out what we can do to help get him home."
"Commander, we don't-" Beck began.
She interrupted, "He's lived this long. If he's found a way to stay alive this long and gone so far as to go get Pathfinder, he's not giving up now. He must have a plan to get to Ares IV if nothing else. We're going to do whatever we can to help them plan how to get in contact with him, how to get that supply probe to him, and how to rescue him, be it with the Ares IV crew or sooner somehow. We are not leaving him there again."
Beth sniffed and sat up wiping her eyes, "I'm going to JPL," she announced. "I'll work with the Pathfinder team."
"Good idea," Lewis said, "Beck, you confer with Dr. Keller and the other flight surgeons and supervise the plan for the food supplies. See if you can figure out how he's stayed alive on the rations we left behind."
"I will also go to JPL, to the orbital dynamics department, and help with planning for the supply probe. Maybe we can work it out to shift some of the Ares IV supplies already en route to Acidalia Planitia." Vogel said.
"Martinez, you and I will work with the Ares IV crew to help them with the rescue plan once they get to Mars."
"You got it, Commander."
"Everyone keep in touch. We'll meet in video calls every evening to keep all of us up to date."
"Come on Vogel," Beth said. "Let's go see if we can find a couple of pilots to fly us to Pasadena, it'll be faster than trying to get commercial tickets. The pilots always need flight hours."
"Don't let anything slip yet," Lewis cautioned them.
"We won't," Johanssen promised.
Vogel thought for a second, "We'll tell them that we are the two chosen to express our thanks to JPL for all their work on the mission and that we'd like to get there quickly."
"That'll work," Martinez said. "Beth's right, we military pilots need stick time to keep from losing our flight pay so they'll fly them no problem if they don't have anything else to do."
"Alright then, eight o'clock tonight, Houston time. I'll send each of you a link. I'm going to go talk to Ares IV. We're going to need to work closely with them and if they don't know yet, they will soon. It may as well be me who tells them. While I'm at it, I'll let the debriefing team know we're done for now. They're repeating questions as it is. At this point, they can ask more later when Mark is safe. In the meantime, they can just read all of our reports and log entries. Rick, you've been medically cleared to fly, grab Taylor and fill her in while I tell the rest of their crew. You two can fly them instead of just a random pilot who's not part of the Mars program. That way everyone who is going is in the know. Go, I'll see you all later."
"Got it, commander."
Everyone but Lewis left the office. She held it together for a solid minute after the room emptied before beginning to shake. Seeing the official crew photo they had hung on their office wall she broke and tears began streaming down her face. She slumped over in her chair, nearly doubled in half, sobbing.
She was so distraught she didn't hear the woman who entered the room, didn't even notice her until she felt the hand rubbing slow circles on her back. The seasoned naval officer warred with her emotions but the control won out and she sat up, blew her nose, and turned to the psychologist.
"Irene," she said.
"Have you cried at all before this? I mean at all since Sol 6 and the evacuation when you thought you'd lost Mark," Dr. Shields asked her.
Lewis shook her head.
"I had a feeling. You've been numb since you left Mars. Not that you weren't feeling any emotion, but you held it at bay. You needed to keep it that way. You had to wait to deal with the guilt and the grief."
Melissa wanted to argue but the doctor was right. She'd put it in the back of her mind knowing she'd let herself feel when it was all over when she was finally home with her husband.
"You were waiting until you got home to Robert. You simply refused to break down in front of your crew. You blame yourself for losing Mark and now you blame yourself for leaving him behind."
"It is my fault-"
"Did you call for an abort as soon as you could?" Irene interrupted her.
"Not an abort, but I did make the decision to go to the MAV just in case."
"And what would have happened if you hadn't gone to the MAV?"
Lewis rolled her shoulders, "It would have tipped and we would all have been stranded."
"Was there any way you could have gone to the MAV sooner?"
"No, we didn't know the storm was that serious until it was nearly on top of us."
"One of the hazards of the communication distance that you all accepted, correct?"
Melissa nodded.
"After Mark was hit, his biomonitor showed no life signs, correct?"
Again Melissa nodded.
"And even with that knowledge, you and the crew looked for him, and then you looked for him alone, putting yourself at risk. You even tried to locate him with sensors on the MAV, correct?"
"Yes."
Irene smiled gently, "I won't tell you not to feel guilty because I know in a situation like this it's useless. You will feel what you're going to feel. However, you have to remember to lean on your crew as much as you let them lean on you. You are the backbone of this group but backbones are supported by the muscles and ligaments surrounding them. Let your crew help you."
"I'll try."
"That's all I can ask. I'm available any time for any of you just like I will be for Mark when we get in contact with him again. And I believe we will."
"Thank you, Irene," Melissa said. "I should go find Rick and get to work."
"I'll let you do that, but I will be checking back in."
"Understood."
Lewis watched the other woman leave. She stood and crossed the room to the crew photo. "We will bring you home Mark if we have to come back and get you ourselves."
Thirty minutes later, Karen had parked and was heading up to the waiting area for terminal 3. She checked her phone but still, no word from Hammond. Whatever it was, it was either nothing and Sanders was wasting her time, or it was huge and somehow still a secret.
She watched the travelers come out of the terminal and raised a hand when she saw the man. He nodded and headed in her direction.
"Thank you for meeting me, Ms. Rhodes. Let's get to the car and I can explain why I'm here."
"Yes sir," she said, turning to lead the way.
They didn't speak at all as they walked. She unlocked the doors and got in, waiting for him to buckle his seat belt before starting the car, but he didn't.
"You have to buckle up or I'm not driving," she said.
"I think we need to talk before you drive."
She fought not to sigh or growl in frustration, took a deep breath, and turned as much as she could to face him. "All right, go ahead."
"I'm here to see the Watneys."
"What the hell for?" she snapped. "What do you want them to do, come to some Ares III celebration now that the crew is out of quarantine? Maybe some other memorial for Mark now that his crew is here to be with you and be on display? Need some goodwill with all the bad press now that his death is in the news again? You can go right back in there and get on a plane back to Houston if that's what you want."
Sanders sat and didn't respond for a moment. "No, nothing like that. I do have some news to share though and it may be, no, it will be disturbing."
"And you want me there to help cushion the blow. Let me guess you finally took satellite images and found his body. They don't need to see that and I agree they need to be warned but I can do that alone. You don't need to be there."
"We did take satellite pictures but we didn't find Mark. What we did find was Pathfinder."
"Yeah, it's on Mars. It's been there a long ass time as I recall."
"Ms. Rhodes… Karen, we found it outside the Ares III hab."
"Outside…" realization dawned and she started shaking. "Mark?"
"We don't know for sure but we do have reason to believe he is still alive or was recently."
"Oh my God," she said flatly, her eyes filling. "You can't go to them with that. You can't say maybe, you have to know for sure. You can't give them hope just to rip it away from them in a few hours or days. You just can't."
"We don't have a choice. The pictures were taken early this morning. Dr. Kapoor took the call at approximately three am. If we don't tell them,..."
"The news will. Son of a- Fine, I'll take you there. I can't guarantee they'll both be home. They do have jobs. I know Timothy works from home most days anymore but Grace doesn't. Her schedule at the nursery isn't always the same."
Sanders nodded. "Could you call them and ask them to meet you at their house?"
"And what do I tell them? What reason do I give?"
"I don't know."
She took several deep breaths and bit her lip trying to center herself. Finally, when she felt she was calm enough she picked up her phone and dialed, then waited.
"No answer on Timothy's phone. I'll try Grace."
Again she dialed and waited.
"No luck with Grace either."
"Is there a reason you didn't leave a message?" Sanders asked.
Karen gritted her teeth and reminded herself that while she didn't have to answer to this man anymore it still wouldn't do her any good to scream at him like she'd like to. "And what exactly would you have me say?"
"Just leave a message, and ask them to call back, or tell them you need to talk to them."
"You really have no idea how to handle people on a personal level do you," she remarked. "It's no wonder you never married. No, I will not just leave them a message saying I need to talk. I'd rather go over and see if they're there. On the way, we can drive past the nursery where Grace works and even past her favorite grocery store and bookstore. If I don't see her car there it's quite possible they both just got caught up with something at home and didn't have their phones nearby."
She put the car in gear and began to drive, ignoring the man sitting next to her. It was a long, awkward, silent drive to the Watneys' neighborhood. She didn't even comment when she saw that Grace's car wasn't in any of the places listed. Her stomach was in knots as she pulled up to their house.
"Looks like they're here," she said as she put the car in park and turned it off but made no move to get out.
"We need to go in," Teddy said to her.
"I know, I just… damn it! I don't want to do this to them. They're finally doing ok, getting through the days without thinking of him constantly. They've made it through every holiday once without him and now we're going to tell them he didn't die when we said he did and he might still be alive but we have no idea for how long. We could be giving these parents back their son just to lose him all over again. It's just cruel." Her voice grew thick and her eyes filled.
"I know," Teddy said. "I know it's horrible, but we don't have another choice. We can't let them find out on TV or the internet. That would be worse."
She nodded and wiped her eyes, "I know it would I just… you weren't here the first time. I did this all by myself. I was the one that told them Mark was dead. I was the one that watched them grieve. I've been the one here watching them heal. Damn it!"
Teddy put a hand on her shoulder. "You took the brunt of it for everyone else and now you'll be here again. I'll have Dr. Shields call you."
"I don't need her."
Sanders thought differently, but kept that to himself and said, "But they might."
"They have a grief counselor. Irene will need to be with Mark's crew. Oh my God, how is the crew? Do they know yet?"
He looked at his watch, "I'm sure by now they do. You can call them later as well, but for now." He gestured to the house.
"Fine, let's go then." Karen unbuckled her seat belt, opened the door, and stepped out of the car. She straightened her shoulders and took a shaky deep breath then led the way to the door. She knocked three times in quick succession, her usual knock. She tried not to chew her lip or do anything else that might clue whichever Watney answered the door that something was wrong. She'd forgotten about her eyes, now red from the tears she'd tried so hard not to shed.
"Karen, what's wrong honey," Grace asked as soon as she had the door open before she spotted the man standing behind her. "Director Sanders."
"Who's here honey?" Timothy called from the living room.
"It's Karen and Director Sanders," she answered.
He rushed into the entryway and stood beside his wife, putting an arm around her shoulders.
"Come in," he said. They both stepped aside to let the others pass.
Karen led the way to the living room and sat in her usual chair. The Watneys sat on the sofa side by side clenching their hands. Sanders sat in the other chair facing them.
"What happened?" Grace asked, voice watery, looking at Karen rather than the director.
"I-" she hesitated. "I think it's better if Director Sanders explains."
Teddy opened up his briefcase in his lap. Everyone else had been too distracted to even notice he had it with him. He took out a manilla envelope.
"We requested satellite imagery of the Ares III site yesterday. Due to the current positioning of Mars and Earth, the request was processed in the middle of the night. When the pictures were returned we reviewed them carefully-"
"If you brought pictures of my son's dead body here, you need to leave now and you'd better run," Timothy snarled as Grace whimpered at the thought.
"No sir. As a matter of fact," he paused. He wasn't always good with words. Karen had been correct in assessing his personal people skills compared to his work people skills. This wasn't something he was trained to handle in the slightest. Still best to just say it. "We believe Mark may still be alive."
"Is this some kind of sick joke?" Timothy's face was growing redder by the second.
"No," Karen said and moved to kneel in front of the older couple. "It's not. I would never go along with that. I haven't seen the pictures, but I do know what they show. I can explain it to you."
Grace nodded.
Karen reached out a hand without looking at Sanders. When he handed her the photos she flipped through them herself quickly before choosing one and showing the Watneys and explaining about Pathfinder and the clean solar cells.
"So he's alive? Mark is alive," Grace looked at her pleadingly.
"We don't know."
Teddy spoke again. "He was recently and no one is sure how that is possible. He didn't have enough food to survive this long. We also can't explain why his biomonitor showed no signs of life when he clearly was still alive." He went on to explain how they had people at JPL working on contacting Pathfinder, and that all of the satellites were now programmed to take pictures of the site every time they passed over. If Mark was outside during any of those times they would get a picture.
"We also have people looking at how quickly we can get him supplies-"
"But you don't think you can get them to him in time do you? You came here to tell us our son may be alive but will probably still die. Fine, you've done that and now you can go. Karen, call him a cab."
"Yes ma'am. Director, why don't you come with me." Karen stood and walked back out the front door not bothering to see if he had followed her. When she heard the door close behind her she said, "I'll call a taxi or schedule an Uber whichever you prefer, but I'd suggest you wait here."
"I had hoped you would drive me back to the airport yourself. I need to get back to Houston."
"And leave them here alone? You're out of your mind. You can call your own damned cab. If you don't have a phone on you there might still be one you can use down at the gas station." She pointed down the street to the left and then to the right. "Or at the library, down that way two blocks, then right and three more blocks."
At that, she turned and went back into the house, locking the door behind her. She rushed to the living room where she once again knelt at their feet.
"I'm so sorry. I would never-"
Grace pulled her into a hug. "Oh sweetie we know. Now, who can you call and get more details?"
She almost laughed, she should have known. "I already called my commander. I can call him again and see if he knows anything but I'd be surprised if he did. NASA can be downright sneaky and secretive when they want to be. It's highly likely I'll be telling him about this, but then he can get to work getting information for us.
"Good, I don't want to bother Melissa. Oh, that poor girl."
Again Karen stifled a laugh. Melissa Lewis, a girl, a poor girl no less. Oh leave it to Grace Watney to call her that, and Lewis would probably let her, too.
"She's probably in debrief from the mission though she might know by now. I could call her."
"No, she'll contact us," Tim said. "She did after, well before."
"Todd can always find her and talk to her as well or he can talk to Terry. We'll make sure we know everything NASA knows. I promise you! I won't let you down."
"We know you won't."
Kayla took out her phone and dialed.
"Hammond."
"Rhodes."
"I don't have any answers for you."
"No, I have them for you." She filled him in.
"Ok then," he said, processing for a moment. "Ok, I'm going to go see if I can find Lewis or Lydell."
"Keep me up to date so I can tell the Watneys."
"Will do."
"Mr. President," Jarrod Eastman stood in the door to the Oval Office. He was chief of staff but he still hated to enter without his boss and friend's permission. It was a rare occasion that the president had the office to himself and this was one of those times. Jarrod was loathe to interrupt but he knew this information had to be shared.
This room held such history, as did most of the furnishings. The desk had sat in this office over thirty years before for two terms then been stored away until President Young had asked for it to be moved back in. If you looked at a picture of the Oval Office from thirty years ago it would look nearly the same. The wallpaper and drapes, the chairs and couches, and many of the paintings. Though now there was also a small portrait of Young's mentor, Josiah Bartlet, on the shelf to the right of the desk.
Charlie looked up from the briefing book he was reading and sat back in his chair, "Jarrod, come on in. You really don't have to wait. You're going to have to get over that. We've been here almost a year."
"You know I come in when I have to."
"You do." Charlie acknowledged and stood, then walked to the side table and poured himself a glass of water. "So what is it now?"
"Melody Aster called, she'd like to meet with you."
"And what is going on that the deputy director of NASA wants to meet with me?"
"Mark Watney may still be alive."
Charlie froze, "Schedule it."
"Yes sir."
"And Jarrod."
"Yes."
"Get Senators Seaborn and Bailey here for the meeting with her."
"Yes sir."