Work Text:
Mission Log: Sol ???
Watney: I go into the shared lab sometimes and I just stare at all the projects my crewmates have been working on. I can grasp Lewis’, Vogel’s and Johanssen’s, but Beck’s is truly a nightmare of encrypted medical jargon I have no idea how to even start comprehending his work.
Watney: He’d let me help out before when he needed an extra set of hands. He sits at the microscope and I move his boxes of equipment and Martian rocks around. I’m not exactly, like, an expert in his field of study, so sometimes I contaminate samples and knock over shit. It’s super scary because Vogel has told me many times one wrong move in Beck’s space while he’s working and a deadly virus might be released, killing the whole team.
Watney: Obviously, because I don’t want to kill the whole team, I’m usually scared of working in Beck’s space.
Watney: But he always knew just what to say.
Watney: Hey, Chris? I’m sorry if I can’t come home to you.
Mission Log: Sol ???
Watney: Everyday I wake up to the many, many alarms I’ve gotten used to as my wake up call. I peek out the little strip of window they allow us near our bunks, out into the barren desert. I’d do anything just to be with my crew. To be with anyone, really.
Watney: You know, when we were on the Hermes, I used to just sit and watch him wake in the mornings. It’ll sound creepy, but really, nobody’s gonna see these logs anyway. I watch him stir in his bed and bury his face into the pillow, and when I put my hand in his hair he leans into it. I watch his eyes slowly flutter open and look at me dazedly, and then he smiles.
Watney: God, that smile.
Watney: Sometimes the loneliness really gets to me. It eats away at my positive outlook and I start to wander around the Hab like a zombie. It feels like dying, but worse. It feels like dying alone. Like getting rotten from the inside out while your heart is still heavy with the weight of the love you never got to show.
Watney: Mars, and craziness, makes a decent poet out of me. I’m trying to get home, Chris. I might be late.
Watney: But I’m going to come home.
Mission Log: Sol ???
Watney: I hate the rover, that’s no secret, but the secret is that sometimes I do love it. Alright, I know what you’re thinking. ‘Mark, of course you love the rover! It’s your only shelter for your long ass trip across the surface of Mars!’ And to that I say fuck you, smartass.
Watney: No, I love the rover sometimes because she herself is a simple symbol of hope. Every hour I spend in the cramped cockpit is another hour closer to home. To everyone waiting for me. It only means I’ll be with you soon.
Watney: And then there’s also the dreaded negative outlook. Booo! Every hour I spend here in the driver’s seat is another hour of endless orange red Martian rocks and the occasional sand blast. For every hour’s worth of visions of rocks and rocks and rocks is another reminder that I’m a billion light years away from literally anybody else, ever.
Watney: I’ve never been so far away.
Watney: I try not to think about that, though! What I try to focus on is how long I can keep my foot flat on the gas for, because I am coming home. I promise, Chris.
Mission Log: Sol ???
Watney: I might die. I might die today. Actually, I might die in thirty minutes, and it’s not Mars’ fault this time. It would be NASA’s fault if I die.
Watney: Sitting in this cockpit with a goddamn tarp over my head instead of the steel hull of the spaceship feels like sitting in an electric chair. My crime? Surviving too good. This would be a terrible way to die.
Watney: But, again, on the flip side, I am closer to any other human being right this moment, strapped in this electric chair, than I have been in almost two years. That’s a massive win, even if the prize is death.
Watney: Beck is supposed to perform the EVA and come get me. I’m more scared than excited. Don’t tell him this, because he’d hate it, but I don’t want it to be him. I’d rather it be someone else. Not naming any names, because I love everyone on the crew, but if something were to happen to Beck during the EVA… I don’t know what I’d do. Cut myself free and float into space.
Watney: I do want to see his face. I want to look up and see him peek through the tarp in his space suit, reaching out for me. I want to count the centimeters between us as they slowly decrease to zero when he finally grabs me.
Watney: So I won’t die. I’ll be a good lab rat for NASA, because there’s nothing I wouldn’t risk. For him.
Mission Log: Day ???
Mark watches in silence, utter silence, he doesn’t even dare breathe as Chris performs some scary looking medical procedure. Not on him, but on his lab table. It’s still scary.
“You want me to help?” Mark asks, voice small. Chris shakes his head slightly. Mark sits back and keeps being quiet. He likes being Chris’ trad wife. If it ever comes to that point, of course.
Chris turns in his swivel chair to look at him. “Can you please get me a coffee?” he asks quietly, the corners of his lips turning upwards into a tiny version of the smile Mark so dearly keeps in his heart.
“I’ll be right back,” he says quickly, leaping up. Chris grabs his arm. Mark stops.
“It’s alright. Take your time,” Chris smiles up at him. Mark bites back the urge to cry. “We have time.”
Mark wets his lips, opens his mouth. “I’m not sorry.”
“What?”
“I’m not sorry. Because I came home to you,” Mark says. Chris blinks a few times, batting those eyelashes of his, and then he smiles. Sweetly, like the mornings they used to have. Familiar, like Mark never left.
“Thank you,” Chris whispers. His chest is solid, warm like Mark used to know, where he unravels like a loose strand pulled from a sweater.