Chapter Text
Bay Area Regional Hospital
Houston, Texas, United States
Sunday October 05, 2003
Heero flinched as Wufei, Houston Mission Control’s head physician, tentatively palpated his abdomen with a gloved hand.
“This is serious. It may be your appendix…” the Chinese man said with a frown. He looked up at Heero with an apologetic expression. He knew how much weight his diagnosis would carry for the eager astronaut.
“No. I must have strained myself during my morning workout,” replied Heero weakly, his expression pained despite his attempts to play it off. He shuddered as another chill coursed through his body, accompanied by a dense lump of nausea that had formed in his throat. It had been an hour since the extreme, sudden pain had started at his bellybutton and eventually had radiated around to his right side. Unable to sit up, he was curled into the fetal position on his left side while he combatted the ominous pain stabbing at his gut.
“You’re an idiot,” Wufei grumbled as he tugged Heero’s white JAXA[1] t-shirt down to cover his torso. “You know damn well that I’m right,” he chastised his injured comrade with a sigh, “I’m sorry to say this but we’ve got to admit you ASAP. That appendix is going to have to come out before it ruptures. You’re looking at a serious infection, Yuy.”
Duo absently groped at his own stomach through his blue NASA polo shirt as he watched Wufei give Heero his quick, emergency exam. “How does that even fuckin’ happen? What causes it?”
Heero tried to push himself to a sit but immediately hit a wall of pain that forced him back down onto the gurney. He hugged his knees and medicated himself with a stream of curses angrily muttered under his breath. This isn’t happening. This can’t be fucking happening...
“Could be a stomach infection that moved to the intestine, or maybe something is lodged in there and that’s causing an issue. Either way, he’s going to have to have another surgeon examine him.” Wufei looked down at Heero and sighed. “I’m sorry but there’s no other way around it.”
The statement felt like a punch to his already aching abdomen. Heero closed his eyes and groaned, this time not from the searing pain, but from the realization that he was grounded. He was off the mission. He wouldn’t be going anywhere.
8 months before Heero had landed back on Earth after his first 6-month mission to the ISS and had been chomping at the bit to get back out to space ever since. Working in the cramped, chaotic, isolated maze of gear and experimentation was like heaven to him. He had loved everything about it: the objectives, the liberating feeling of weightlessness as his body escaped the pull of Earth’s gravity and the quiet detachment from the rest of human society. He felt more at home in his tiny, rectangular sleeping pod than he did in his queen sized, spacious bed back in Houston.
Now his wings had been clipped, forced to watch the launch from the ground, caged in the hospital while the rest of his fellow crew launched from Cape Canaveral[2] on the Space Shuttle Atlantis without him. He couldn’t help but feel disappointed and completely helpless. He tried his best not to appear as frustrated as he felt, draped his arm over his eyes and bit his lower lip.
“Don’t worry, Heero. I’ll bring you a piece of asteroid or somethin’ as a souvenir,” Duo chirped in an attempt to lighten the mood. Had his grinning colleague been within arm’s reach Heero would have cold clocked him in the nose.
“Duo, go have Sally tell the ground team that we’re going to activate the secondary flight engineer. Have her transfer Heero’s medical record to the head emergency surgeon here at the hospital.” Wufei rubbed his chin as he spoke. “That doesn’t give your replacement much time to prepare for departure. I’ll have to get in touch with whoever that astronaut’s physician is to make sure that he or she is up to date on all of their sequential pre-launch physicals…” It was clear that Wufei’s mind was no longer on Heero’s apparent appendicitis but a few steps ahead, planning for the arrival of his replacement.
“Got it,” Duo said with a small salute, cast an apologetic glance at Heero, and vanished from the room.
Once alone Wufei gently squeezed Heero’s shoulder and frowned down at him as he spoke. “These things happen. We have the situation under control, you’re going to be fine.”
“Right…” Heero grumbled from behind his arm. “I’m just fine.”
The reality was that he wasn’t fine. His health was the least of his worries. The appendix wasn’t a vital organ, and that its purpose was still unknown. He would be able to live without it. What he couldn’t live with was the fact that he had spent months of grueling training with his team only to be plucked out of the situation at the last minute to be replaced by someone else. It was his new reality, and a bitter pill to swallow.
“The doctor said you can’t go home unless you eat,” Relena explained as she presented Heero with a heaping spoonful of bland mashed potatoes. The sight of them immediately turned his stomach. “You don’t want to be stuck in here forever, do you?”
“I’m not hungry,” Heero grumbled as he narrowed his eyes at the computer screen. Fresh out of surgery, his body may have been in his hospital room but his mind was in the shuttle with the rest of the crew as as they careened through the atmosphere to orbit.
They’re probably experiencing the full 3 g’s right now[3], he thought as he recalled his last shuttle flight from Earth. It had been his first ride and while it had been a mild experience compared to some of the g-forces he had sustained in his Navy pilot training it had still been a thrilling ride.
The Atlantis[4] launch had lifted off from Kennedy SLF Runway 15 without a hitch, on schedule at exactly 12:45:47 UTC with it’s crew of 7; 5 soon-to-be resident ISS astronauts and 2 NASA Atlantis pilots.
Heero watched the textbook launch on his laptop while Relena dropped the potatoes and fussed over him, trying to coax him to drink his apple juice. He ignored her, too entranced with the video feed as the shuttle performed its standard roll program as it broke through the atmosphere. He swat her hand away irritably, his eyes never leaving the brilliant footage of the rocket at breakneck 84,500 mph.
NASA had been merciful enough to provide him with a direct video feed of the launch, as well as a link to the broadcast of communications between ground control in Houston and the space shuttle itself. His thoughts were verified by the mission Commander Lucrezia Noin speaking over the COM.
“3 g’s, positive pressure affirmed. Pitch, yaw complete. External temps are looking good.”
Houston responded. “All crew vitals are stable. Shuttle maintaining heading, external temperatures now 2000 degrees fahrenheit. Propellant tanks now at 40 percent.”
Heero watched the grainy video footage as the shuttle and rocket shrank away into the distance, occasionally becoming occluded by a thin layer of cirrus clouds.
They’ll drop the external propellant tank soon, he thought, his mind ticking off each step of the launch.
“Here, try some creamed corn,” Relena offered a heaping spoonful of the slimy yellow goo. Heero shook his head with a frown, pursed his lips and avoided the incoming mush with a tilt of his head.
“You’re being such a big baby about this,” Relena exclaimed, exasperated.
“Just … let me watch this. Then I’ll eat,” he grumbled as he turned the volume up on the live COM feed. Sighing in defeat, Relena dropped the spoon onto Heero’s tray and slumped back into the hard chair at his bedside, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. She had no interest in watching the launch footage, it wasn’t like she hadn’t seen one before.
As the mission’s head Public Affairs Officer[5], Heero knew that Relena was fully capable of appreciating all of the hard work and manpower that went into each launch, but it was obvious that she didn’t find the sight of the space shuttle piercing the clouds to be as thrilling as he did.
The space shuttle soon found its orbit around the Earth eight and a half minutes after the initial launch sequence had begun. The familiar back and forth between Houston and the onboard crew filled the COM connection as the astronauts checked in and became comfortable in the microgravity of Low Earth Orbit[6].
“Beginning all-systems safety protocol checklist,” replied the calm, familiar voice of his former teammate, Sally Po.
“Cabin pressures nominal,” Duo, the mission’s primary science officer, announced casually before adding, “whew, what a ride. Heero, you listenin’ in? I got a nosebleed this time, too!” The American astronaut exclaimed proudly into the COM, sniffing loudly into his microphone for emphasis.
“Computer establishing contact with ISS,” a low, unfamiliar voice reported over the connection. “ Rendezvous and dock projected in 38 hours, 12 minutes, 30 seconds,” it added, the calm voice carrying with it a notable French accent.
Heero frowned and glanced to his right at Relena, who was sorting a stack of papers in her lap.
“Who is that,” he asked with a frown, though he had a feeling he knew the answer.
“Oh? Now you want to talk to me?” She was obviously hurt by his previous dismissive behavior.
Heero sighed and flopped back against his pillow, staring irritably up at the ceiling. His morphine was wearing off and the stapled incision site in his abdomen was beginning to ache. “Fine. Don’t tell me.”
He felt Relena’s cool fingers grab his wrist, tangling in the many identity and medical bracelets there. “I’ll tell you if you just eat something,” she negotiated. He cut his eyes at her, noticing the faint smile that had formed on her glossy lips. Relena always knew how to manipulate him to get what she wanted.
Heero looked down at his tray with its individual squares full of nutritious, hospital-grade slop and cringed at the thought of putting any of it in his mouth. He had eaten some rather unappetizing things in space, but somehow the thought of eating the terrestrial ‘fresh’ cuisine of the regional hospital seemed a fate worse than death.
Relena had noticed his hesitation. “Wufei gave me this, said maybe you would want to look over it when you’re feeling better,” she said, indicating a thick file folder hanging out of her oversized purse she had hooked to the back of her chair. “He said once you’re discharged you should come see him about that CAPCOM position-”
“CAPCOM?” Heero interrupted her, his eyes locked onto the file, eager to get his hands on the information inside.
“Yes. You know, Capsule Communicator-”
“I know what it means,” Heero replied with a frown. “What did Wufei mean by a position ?”
Relena smiled. “He said when you’re discharged that, if you want to, you can come work at flight control as the ISS CAPCOM, considering you’re familiar with all of the mission particulars and repair objectives…”
“I’ll do it. Yes.” Heero sat straight up and immediately regretted it. He flopped back against his pillow with a groan, his pained voice mingling with the constant stream of conversation still broadcasting from the laptop on the table in front of him.
Despite the consuming pain from his surgery and the compounding frustrations that came with being booted from the mission he felt a surge of hope wash over his mind. Finally some positive news.
He didn’t need Relena to elaborate, he knew what Wufei was proposing. It had been many years since an astronaut grounded from a mission had taken the role of CAPCOM, the main communications officer on the ground in Houston. Typically the position was up for offer to the grounded individual, especially if the reason for their removal was for a simple medical reason. Any small illness could ground an astronaut. A common cold could become detrimental to the entire crew, especially since the human body didn’t react the same way in space as it did on Earth. Viruses and bacterial growth could easily run rampant through the crew in such a small, cramped space. It was why NASA took every precaution before flight, quarantined the crew shortly before launch, and limited their interactions with other people as they prepared for their journey off-planet.
NASA was notorious for their impeccable logistics, and this situation had a detailed and outlined plan, thanks to similar situations arising in the early days of the Apollo missions[7]. It would be easy for Heero to seamlessly join the flight controllers at Houston. With a previous mission under his belt and countless hours of logged training specific for the ISS, he was more than qualified for the task.
“When can I start?” Heero asked. He grabbed the spoon out of the creamed corn, scooped a lumpy blob from the mashed potatoes and held it aloft, inspecting it with a scowl.
“As soon as you’re feeling up to it,” Relena explained casually. She grabbed the file folder from her purse and held it on her lap. “The doctor said you can’t be discharged unless you can eat and pass the food without any issues.”
Shit. Literally.
In his lifetime of pilot training Heero had endured 10-g flight compression, grueling conditions in weighted suits, pressure chambers and various torturous forms of training but in that moment the most daunting task he had ever been given was eating the hospital’s unpalatable food.
He forced the potatoes into his mouth and tried to swallow them down as quickly as he could, spooned a few more disgusting masses in and then held his hand out for the file. Relena smiled, looking accomplished, and finally handed it to him.
The file contained profiles of all of the ISS crew, along with the Atlantis pilots, basic mission goals and various plans regarding maintenance of the station, most of which was already well known to Heero. Mission launch forgotten, Heero snapped the laptop closed and set the file on top of it, and began flipping through the pages with curiosity as he force fed himself with newfound determination.
The familiar faces of his former crewmates stared up at him with each passing profile. His Italian Commander Lucrezia Noin-Peacecraft, NASA science officers Sally Po and Duo Maxwell, Relena’s brother Milliardo Peacecraft and-
Heero stopped at a face he had never seen before. The unfamiliar profile belonged to a Lieutenant Trowa Barton of the Armée de l’Air , the French Air Force. Heero immediately noticed the rectangular ESA, or European Space Agency, patch on the left side of the new astronaut’s chest and the blue, white and red bars of the French flag as it accented his shoulder.
Unlike the apparent enthusiasm in the other team member’s profile pics, this Trowa Barton simply stared into the camera with a cool, placid expression. For being a military-commission astronaut, Trowa seemed young, his pleasantly angular, handsome face half-hidden behind long, carefully styled light auburn hair. Heero shifted on the bed, staring down at the picture, unable to look away.
“That’s the guy. The flight engineer they called in to take your spot,” Relena pointed out from beside him, obviously having noticed his interest in the new profile. “He was supposed to go up for STS-107 but they boosted him to this mission when your slot opened.”
Heero finally looked away from the profile picture and skimmed the information outlined at the bottom. All of Barton’s accomplishments were listed beneath it, including his qualifications and the levels of training he had accomplished with the ESA. One thing of particular interest to Heero was the mention of the US Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Base in California. The dates that Barton had been in attendance didn’t coincided with his own time there. He had been in the same international exchange program Heero had attended, only the other astronaut had been the French selection and had entered the program a year after he had.
He found himself studying his picture again, wondering if he had ever seen him before. Edwards was a small base, and the test pilot program even smaller.
No. If they had, Heero would have definitely remembered him.
“He seems more than capable,” Relena added as she looked over at Trowa Barton’s file. “Your team will be in good hands.”
Heero frowned. Sure, the guy looked plenty qualified on paper, but who the hell was he?