Chapter Text
Kennedy Space Center
Titusville Florida, United States
Monday, August 30, 2004
As Heero entered the cafe on the first floor of the Kennedy Space Center he noticed that it was nearly identical to the one back in Houston at the Johnson Space Center. The dark, recently polished cherry wood floors gleamed and reflected the soft, ambient lighting from the modern overhead light fixtures. Like the walls of Johnson’s cafe, Kennedy’s boasted portraits of notable astronauts who had all trained and launched from there: Alan Shepard, Neil Armstrong, Sally Ride, and Edward White all watched him with solemn expressions as he cradled his double espresso in hand while he studied the second cup placed on a saucer directly across from him.
It had been 5 months since Heero was offered the command position of STS-108; a crew rotation, resupply and International Space Station maintenance mission. In a month’s time he and his crew were set to launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida on the Space Shuttle Endeavor for an 8-month long stint in Low Earth Orbit[1].
For 5 months he had prepared his body to once again become accustomed to microgravity and the initial increased g-forces of launch. Finally he’d been cleared for mission, but he couldn’t help but be overly cautious this time. He had turned down attending many 4th of July celebrations, a wedding, a surprise birthday party and a trip with Wufei and Duo to Disney World in fear of contracting any microbes or illness that would prevent him from returning to space. Heero knew that it was stupid, after all his last grounding had nothing to do with community-acquired illness, but he took the precautions anyway.
It wasn’t like he had anything to lose by not being social. Every day he trained and prepared with the American unit of his crew. He had plenty of daily interaction with others. Now all he wanted was interaction with a particular person, one he hadn’t seen at all these past 5 months.
Trowa Barton had been offered a position as flight engineer under Heero’s command for mission STS-108 and shortly after accepting the slot he was quickly carted off across the Pacific Ocean to Cologne, Germany for refresh training with the ESA and to spend his next few weeks with his family in France before his extended time in orbit.
Trowa’s departure had left no time for Heero to really get to know him. Training was necessary, and they had become burdened with too many personal and professional demands to pursue one another any further. Before Heero knew it Trowa had called him from the airport to say goodbye and asked him to keep in touch.
Initially Heero had kept in touch until he experienced a sudden family emergency. His mother, Aoi, had been diagnosed with liver cancer. It came as a surprise to everyone, especially Heero. His mother was a healthy woman. She never smoked, drank, and was active for her age. Suddenly she had become weak, bedridden from chemotherapy, and her prognosis hadn’t been good.
He had found himself at an impasse. If he left Houston for Japan he would have to forfeit his position on the mission. Pre-flight training was a requirement, he couldn’t fly without it. However, if he didn’t see his mother he may have never seen her again.
So he had signed the paperwork to release his position as commander and flew home to Japan to be with her. When he arrived he was greeted by his father, who had no problem telling Heero how disgusted he was with him throwing his career away for ‘something like this’.
Heero never had a good relationship with his father. Odin, ethnically Russian, wasn’t the warmest parent and had never been very openly supportive of him. When Heero had joined the Japanese Navy his father refused to come to his swearing in. When Heero had expressed his desire to join the Japanese Aeronautics Exploration Agency his father had refused to speak to him for an entire month. When they finally did speak again, it was so Odin could give Heero an earful about how JAXA was an inferior organization that didn’t even have its own training facilities (Heero would have to train with NASA) and that the Russian Space Agency was world-class and had a long, prestigious history when it came to space exploration.
Heero wouldn’t let himself be swayed by his father’s opinions. He had already made his decision, and by doing so had forced an even bigger wedge between them. Before Heero returned home to be with his mother he hadn’t spoken to his father for nearly two years. His father’s first words to him after two years had been an insult.
He had spent a week at his mother’s bedside. Her condition had been stable. She was weak from the chemotherapy but still holding on. She promised him she wouldn’t be dying anytime soon.
He hadn’t believed her. Every day he sat beside her, tending to her every need while his father ignored him, sulked in the corners and accosted the nurses. Despite how poor his father’s behavior was, Heero knew that it was the only way he could cope. There was no doubt that Odin loved his mother and what she saw in him, Heero had no idea.
Finally on his seventh day in the hospital with her Aoi began to cry and told him that she didn’t want to see him waste his life sitting around while she recovered, and that it made her unhappy to see him there. The admission had caught Heero off guard. How could she want him to leave? What if she died? He didn’t know if he could live with himself for being so far away. If things took a turn for the worse he had no way of coming back home to her.
Eventually Aoi had won him over and coaxed him into returning to NASA. An awkward phone call with Quatre and Miss Sodhi resulted in his reinstatement and immediate return to Houston to resume his training.
His mother was finally in remission, however she couldn’t go home due to her continued weakened state. Instead the Japanese health system advised her to take up residence in a long-term care unit at one of their nursing homes so she could continue to be closely monitored. While Heero knew that it was the best place for her, he still couldn’t shake the guilt of his own mother being in a nursing home while he was off riding a rocket to outer space.
He had fallen behind and it took a month for him to catch up to the rest of the crew. In that time, with all of the family drama and overload of work, he had lost touch with Trowa. The thin thread that had once connected them had been severed and Heero couldn’t bring himself to call him, to bother him with his problems and burden him with his own situation. Now, five months later, Trowa was set to return to the United States for the final phase of pre-flight preparations and training. It was time to apologize.
Heero rolled his wrist and looked down at his watch. He had been early. An hour early. He glanced across the table at the espresso he had ordered Trowa, to pay him back for the coffee the other astronaut had bought him in Houston 5 months before. It was probably cold by now.
He bounced his knee under the table and crossed his arms over his chest. With each passing second he felt his own anxiety creeping up the center of his chest, forcing his breath to quicken. The last time he had coffee with Trowa Barton he’d almost kissed him. He could still recall the moist, pale pink of the other man’s lips as if he had just seen them only minutes before. Their former coffee date had played out like a perfect dream, before his professional dreams had crashed in to interrupt it.
What had Trowa been doing all of this time? Aside from the occasional, rare email about training related annoyances he hadn’t spoken to him much at all. He wanted to know how he was. What he did in his free time. How his family was. Was he ready to fly? How did he feel about being under Heero’s command?
That was one of the biggest question plaguing him. He was going to serve on the ISS with Trowa, but unfortunately their first mission together was going to have unspoken restrictions on their personal interactions. Heero was going to be Trowa’s commander. To openly pursue the flight engineer would be fraternization. After Noin had conceived Milliardo’s child in space, NASA had begun to crack down hard on their lax enforcement of the ‘no relationships’ rule as well. Relationships in space had become a liability. That, along with the fact that Trowa was another man, made things complicated. This mission would be monitored by two Russian cosmonauts who, more than likely, would be opposed to same-sex relationships. Heero had a feeling that if these Russians had any of the same values as his own Russian father he’d be faced with a serious conflict if they found out he had feelings for another male crewmember. He doubted that they would take him seriously as their mission Commander if they knew.
Heero was now responsible for others. He had to put his mission above his own wants. It was going to be a crowded station: two Russian cosmonauts, NASA astronauts Duo Maxwell, Sally Po, Wufei Chang, ESA’s Trowa Barton and himself would be working to revamp the ISS power storage units, solar cells and be optimizing various aspects of basic life support to make the station more efficient for the next set of crew.
While he knew he was going to be busy managing the others with their laundry list of work, he wasn’t sure how he was going to last 8 months with Trowa on the International Space Station, crammed in such close quarters, and still manage to maintain strict professionalism. He could barely make it through a cup of espresso without trying to kiss him. It had been safer to be an atmosphere away from Trowa and to admire him from afar. Now he would literally be within arm’s reach, and he hadn’t stopped Heero from touching him the last time they had seen each other.
Did that mean that he wanted Heero’s advances? Or was he just too stunned in the moment to respond? Had he interpreted the casual demeanor, playful smiles and half-lidded smouldering green eyes as an invitation? Or was Trowa Barton just an openly affectionate person, and he hadn’t stopped him from almost kissing him because he had been too stunned in the moment?
The questions had nagged Heero’s sleepless nights ever since Trowa had left for his ESA training in Germany. It was why he wanted to speak to Trowa alone before they began their final phase of training. He wanted to know where they stood - where the line needed to be drawn.
There was movement at the entrance of the cafe. A small group of NASA staff walked through the doors chatting noisily amongst themselves. Trailing behind them, hands in his pockets and earbuds in, was Trowa Barton.
The tall astronaut scanned the room until he spotted Heero’s familiar face. He reached into his pocket for his brand new 4th generation iPod and powered it down, tugging the earbuds gently from his ears as he approached the table.
“Heero.”
At the sound of his name being spoken by a voice he hadn’t heard in months, Heero immediately stood and nodded to Trowa in greeting.
“Hey.” His fingers twitched, he wasn’t sure what to do. Their last meeting had been intimate in nature, and before that when they had first met in person Trowa had hugged him. He found himself glancing around the room, wondering if anyone else was spectating this meeting. He was mission Commander now. Would it be out of line to hug him in greeting?
Irritated and unsure what to do, he simply stuck out his hand. “Thanks for coming,” he finally said.
Trowa shook his hand firmly and formally. “Yeah, no problem. How are you,” he asked politely.
Heero immediately noticed that Trowa’s hands were the same as they had been before. The heart of his palm was warm, but his long slender fingers held an unusual chill. He shook the offered hand and released it quickly, waited for Trowa to take the seat across from him and then took his own.
“I’m well.” That was a lie. Heero was exhausted, emotionally and physically. Stress had become his constant companion. He couldn’t sleep and he could barely eat, but most of all he missed talking to Trowa, a fact he couldn’t openly admit. “How have you been?”
“I’m alright. Is this for me?” Trowa was studying the coffee in front of him.
The coffee. Heero had completely forgotten about it. It had been sitting on the table for nearly half an hour. He had ordered it without thinking about the time. “Yeah, it was, but it’s probably no good by now…” he admitted, feeling a tingling heat well up in his face. “I got here earlier than I meant to. Let me order you another one?”
Trowa shook his head and smiled. “No, I’m sure this is fine. Thank you.” He picked the cup up and brought it to his lips for a sip. “You said you wanted to talk to me about something…?”
Heero pushed his own coffee away with a frown, his stomach too tied up in knots to even consider taking it in. “Yes. I want to discuss this upcoming mission, I want your input on a few things and-” he paused and crossed his arms over his chest in an attempt to calm his nerves, “-I wanted to talk to you because I regret not having kept in contact with you over the summer.”
Trowa shook his head again. “It’s alright. Don’t feel bad,” he replied, his expression reflecting friendly understanding. His finger slid along the edge of the saucer as he spoke. “Quatre told me about your mother. I’m sorry to hear about it. I hope she’s doing better?”
“As well as can be hoped,” Heero replied slowly as he studied Trowa’s expression curiously. He had been been speaking with Quatre? He wondered what else he knew. Quatre was the only other person Heero had ever confided in. Upon his return to Houston to resign his command offer he had spilled everything to him: his mother’s situation, his conflict with his father, his concerns about possible cultural disagreements with the Russian staff on board the station and had finally admitted his feelings for Trowa. To hear Quatre say that he already knew how he felt had been a shock. Heero thought he had hidden his feelings better than that. It made him self conscious about his actions towards Trowa ever since.
Had Quatre told Trowa everything? Heero doubted it. Quatre had more respect for others than that. However, the notion that his personal secret was now out and floating amongst the staff at NASA still bothered him.
“I’m not the best with being emotionally available to people,” Heero admitted candidly. “It’s something I’m trying to work on. I should have told you what was happening instead of cutting you off like I did. I value your friendship, Trowa, and it bothers me to think that my sudden silence could have hurt you. No matter what the reason was…” He tapped his finger against his forearm thoughtfully. “I don’t want to push away my friends anymore. Which makes this upcoming mission complicated, considering all of the factors at play.”
It was why he wanted to talk to him. He wanted him to know that he valued his friendship, no matter what his role was about to be. Feeling unsettled, he shifted in his seat, grabbed his cold cup of espresso and forced himself to sip it.
Trowa appeared to shift uncomfortably in his seat as he picked up his own cup, took a sip of his cold coffee and averted his gaze. “It’s okay, Heero. It doesn’t have to be complicated.”
Heero frowned. He could easily perceive the coolness of their conversation, far different from the warm friendship of their last exchange.
The problem was that the situation was complicated. Heero had tried to dismiss his feelings for the other astronaut. He had spent his time as CAPCOM trying to deny his feelings and when he finally had come to terms with how he felt Trowa had been ripped away from him and limits had been imposed on their interactions.
Heero wasn’t one to ignore his personal wants. He had never experienced anything like this before: a situation where he was so passionately obsessed with someone but unable to act on it. Seeing Trowa in person was making these thoughts more intense, making the points he had previously planned to outline a muddled mess in his mind.
“It is complicated,” he finally said, his voice tight. I’m not walking away from this. I’ve got to tell him everything, or else I’m going to burst. “Listen, I just want you to know that I really-”
“Hey! It’s about time you showed up, Frenchie!” A figure bounced up to their table, dragged a chair from nearby and forced himself between them. “I was wonderin’ when you were gonna get here.”
Heero felt his entire body tense, his heart throbbing heavily in his chest. Duo Maxwell was grinning at them, unaware that he had interrupted Heero’s flood of emotion. It was as if he had let the floodgates of his mind free, only to be immediately stopped by a dam with a braid and a bag of chips. He didn’t even try to mask his irritation, his face icing over with annoyance.
“Heero, you okay? You’re lookin’ a little pale, pal.”
“It’s because he got a good look at your face.” Wufei walked up behind the braided astronaut, arms crossed over his chest, looking annoyed and like a parent who’d had no luck keeping their child in check.
“Trowa! It’s so good to see you!” Sally’s pleasant voice pierced the air as she appeared at Trowa’s side. She bent down to wrap her arms casually around his shoulders in a friendly embrace.
“Hey guys,” Trowa regarded them all in turn and then offered a polite smile.
Heero couldn’t help but feel the claws of jealousy slashing at his stomach, making him unsettled as Sally casually hugged Trowa. It was a gesture that only she could do, because she was a woman and of equal rank. Had Heero done something like that he would risk getting in trouble for it.
“Hardee, har har,” Duo replied to Wufei’s comment with an eye roll and a dismissive wave of his hand. “This is the face that launched a thousand ships-”
“More like a thousand shits,” Wufei replied coolly, grabbing a chair and sliding it up to sit to Heero’s left.
“Damn, Wufei, you’re fierce,” Duo said with a laugh, clearly unaffected by the comment. “So what are you guys talkin’ about?” He peered at Heero’s coffee and noticed he hadn’t finished it. “You gonna drink that?”
Heero sighed and pushed his coffee at Duo, his expression hard. “Nothing. It was nothing…”