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Melissa Lewis made her way through the crowded bar back to the booth where Mark Watney was sitting down, saving her a seat. They had never done this before; been alone together in this way. They had gone out for drinks before but only ever in a group with the other members of their crew.'
Part of Mark's recovery on board the Hermes had been to spend some one on one time with the rest of his crew but since they had landed and finished their recovery and their interviews they hadn't seen each other in person.
The crew was scattered across the globe now, everyone doing their own thing for the most part, but tonight Melissa Lewis intended to make good on a promise she’d made when she had learned that Mark was alive. Tonight she was going to buy Mark Watney a beer.
She’d been surprised when he called her to tell her he planned to fly into LAX and asked if she wanted to meet up. She was even more surprised, when she’d met him in the airport, to see that he was wearing glasses and that he'd shorn off most of his hair into a short buzz cut.
Part of their contract with NASA stipulated medical checkups for the rest of their lives to study the effect of space travel on humans. During Watney’s last appointment he had found that he could not pass the eye exam with flying colors. He was--like his mother--a little nearsighted and required either glasses or laser eye surgery. He had opted for glasses.
“My mom says I look distinguished,” he told her with a shrug. When she’d asked him about his hair he’d just shrugged again and said that he’d needed a change.
“Plus,” he’d said with a wry little smile, “Fewer people seem to recognize me like this, and when someone does recognize me, nine times out of ten its a kid. They stare at me like they can't believe I'm real."
Growing more worried by the minute and not wanting to show it she mocked him cheerfully.
"Well, to them you must seem like a character out of an adventure book: The Lost Astronaut, maybe seeing that you're a total dork is a shock to their systems."
He'd only managed a weak smile in response.
She squeezed past the last few people in her way and walked to their booth.
Whether he was intentionally hiding or not, the glasses and his new haircut made him hard to recognize unless you were paying attention. They made him look just enough like someone else that he didn’t look like anyone in particular, just another random face your eyes slid over as you went about your day. She wondered if that’s why they were doing this in California instead of Chicago.
Melissa set their drinks down on the table and slid into the seat across from Mark.
When she had been his commander, she’d had to walk the fine line between caring for her crew members and caring too much about them. They had to get along, it was mission-critical after all, they were going to live in a ship with no other people to buffer them if things got hairy. Friendly but not too friendly. Now however she was free to let her concern shine through.
“You look like shit Mark.”
“Thanks,” he said sarcastically.
One thing that she had learned early on about Mark Watney was that he never complained. Sure he would whimper into his pillow if you made him get up early, but otherwise there was nothing about their grueling training process that made him think they didn’t have the coolest job in the solar system. He loved being an astronaut and everything that came with it. And he looked exhausted. His whole body seemed to sag and the smile on his face looked forced.
“You do. You didn’t look this tired after we fished you out of the MAV.”
Mark, showing how mature he really is, sticks his tongue out at her.
“I’m serious Mark. If you don’t want to talk to me about whatever’s bothering you I won’t be offended, but I'm not going to pretend you look okay.”
He sighed deeply before reaching for his beer.
“I thought it would slow down after the media rounds but... its not. I get so sick of people recognizing me wherever I go, and asking when I'm going to write a book, and I am really fucking tired of talking about how Mars fucked me up."
Melissa considered what he’d just told her.
“That's kind of messed up Mark, I’m sure if you told people you didn’t want to talk about Mars anymore people would eventually leave it--,” she began but Mark was shaking his head.
“That’s the weird part: I want to talk about Mars. Teddy offered me a job teaching a couple classes at Houston. I could teach an astronaut candidate class and a emergency survival class, and the thing is: I want to talk about the Rover mods and the farming and all of the amazing science involved, and I wanted to do it, I just don’t want to talk about me.”
Melissa raised an eyebrow. “You want people to just...forget all the ridiculous and incredible things you had to do to survive? You think they’ll just say ‘oh that’s neat, this one guy single handedly farmed a planet where nothing can grow, good for him let’s move on’?”
Mark looked uncomfortable and wouldn’t meet her eyes, instead playing with the paper coaster damp from his drink. “I know Mars will always be what I’m famous for but I kind of wish it wasn’t.”
Mark slumped in his seat.
“Fuck. The number of times people have tested me for PTSD is ridiculous, but sometimes I wonder if maybe I do have it after all.”
Melissa didn’t consider herself the nurturing type but hearing the pain in his voice made her feel the urge to reach out and help.
“Something happened, didn't it? What was it? Mark?”
Mark looked up from the table and met her eyes.
“I had a panic attack the other day. I opened the door to go outside and all of a sudden I realized I didn’t have my EVA suit on and I knew I was going to die and I couldn’t believe I’d been so stupid to forget my suit.”
“Mark--” she began not sure what to say.
“And I know its normal, or to be expected at least. For a long time being outside unprotected meant death. Of course I’d have an adjustment period, but it's aggravating as shit. And now that I’m driving again I have to stop myself from always looking in the back seat to see if the oxygenator and other equipment is okay every time I get in the car. And I know objectively that I’m not going to suffocate but I just can’t seem to stop.”
“Mark, if you had come out of this unaffected I would have checked you for hidden circuitry. You are a person not a robot, there is no one size fits all remedy but if you want to talk about Mars and you don’t want to talk about you maybe you should teach since you seem to want to.”
Mark finally cracked a real smile. “I think I just might.”