Chapter Text
The first time Donna Redmond lost a patient in the ER, she’d been in her second year of residency. In her med school rotations, she’d seen hospice patients die. People who had lived full lives – war heroes, wives and mothers, husbands and fathers, successful executives. The end came for them all, and often, at that point it was at the end of a long illness or the natural conclusion of a long life. It was a relief. Peace.
James Mitchell was barely 17 with sandy brown hair and a light smattering of freckles across his face. He’d run a red light and been t-boned. Donna had done everything she could. He was bleeding from a gash in his head and internally in his abdomen. The trauma surgeon had been busy trying to save the passenger so Donna had assisted an attending in cutting the boy’s stomach open in an ultimately futile effort to save him.
Donna had looked down on that face. God he was young. She’d pressed a hand hard over her mouth, pushing her feelings down deep while her attending told her they had to inform the boy’s family. Later, she’d sat at a bar across from the hospital. Dr. Ross had sat next to her, giving her shoulder a squeeze.
“How? How do we do this? Look death in the face over and over again? Does it get easier?” She wondered aloud.
Dr. Ross looked straight at her, his eyes honest. “It never gets easier, and you don’t want it to get easier. If it gets easy, you’ve lost something vital in yourself. When you’re in there, you push it away, you keep going. You save as many lives as you can. Then, you find time in a quiet moment to feel it before getting back to work. I try to get out for a hike at least once a month.”
Dr. Ross was right. It never got easier. Donna saved plenty of lives, helped heal bruises and bones, treated acute illnesses. The losses though…they stuck with her. She obsessed about them – running through scenarios, trying to think of a way to save them. The human body was fragile, and medicine’s understanding only went so far. Taking it patient by patient felt like holding a finger in a dike against a flood. Research that could lead to larger breakthroughs, real changes for all patients, that’s what interested her about NASA. What could they learn about the body in some of the most extreme conditions in the universe and how might that change medicine on earth?
She’d been studying what happened to human bodies in space. Joan’s severe case of nausea had piqued her interest…and Donna already had a practical earth-based application: morning sickness. Donna had been distractedly paging through research at home with the main loop on in the background. She smiled at the warmth in Hank’s voice. Donna wasn’t sure if Thea could register when her father was speaking, but she liked to think Thea smiled a little when she heard him. She underlined a few paragraphs that could be helpful for Joan when she went back up. Her poor friend had finally achieved the dream they all shared and spent her time sicker than a dog. Joan deserved a better experience. She deserved a lot of things. Joan’s voice was so professional talking to their friends on the loop. She was an excellent CAPCOM: professional, poised, calm. Donna wasn’t sure she’d be totally professional talking to Hank. She missed him, but it was only a couple more days.
Joan’s voice changed. The whole tenor shifted. Alarms rang in the background.
Donna’s vision tunneled. There had been an explosion. There was a leak. Her brain whirred as the seconds ticked by. She’d worked with Flight Surgeon on simulations where the crew was in danger like this. They calculated the outcomes from sudden and significant loss of oxygen in the abstract. A countdown clock began in her head. She forced air in and out of her lungs.
What the fuck had happened?
Joan’s voice was steady, calm. Donna was grateful she was in that chair. Knuckles white, her nails bit into her palms. The Mercury recording had been so loud. This was quiet, agonizingly quiet.
Minutes ticked by. Donna took in only the most basic information:
Vanessa was the only conscious astronaut.
Cabin pressure was rising.
Lydia must have found the leak. God Lydia of all people.
Hank was dead.
Steve was dead.
Lydia was unconscious.
Donna didn’t hear anymore after that. She slowly collapsed to the floor next to her kitchen table. Her knees curled up and her shoulders shook as she sobbed. Hank, her Hank was…was…gone.
She opened and closed her hands, trying to sync her breathing with the motion. Their jobs were dangerous. This was a real possibility. The letters Hank had prepared, the cassette tape for Thea – those were all safely stored in a drawer in Hank’s desk. “Just in case.” He’d said with a smile.
Donna hadn’t even thought of it. God he was such a good father, leaving behind something special for his daughter in case he didn’t come home. There was a letter for her too.
She’d read it later.
She knew what it said – he loved her, always will (his eyes crinkled very specifically every time he said this to her) and he loved Thea. No doubt there were instructions as well – lawyers to contact, financial advisors that would help her manage his trust. So much to do.
Joan’s voice broke through her grief. Griff was gone. God, Griff too. Their trio was down to two – her and Joan. On the shuttle it was just Lydia, unconscious with the bends, and Vanessa.
Donna heard Vanessa cursing.
She couldn’t get the latches to close. She needed to know how much time Lydia had.
Donna knew.
She knew Lydia wouldn’t survive the additional twelve hours. Donna listened to Joan and Vanessa go back and forth about the doors, the risks, and Donna knew where this was going.
She climbed to her feet, running a hand over her face. There was nothing she could do about Hank right now, or Steve, or Griff, but there were still people she could help, still lives she could save. With careful, quick movements, she bundled her daughter into her car and drove to the JSC. Traffic stalled out all over – most people who lived in this area had some connection to NASA. There was no way everyone from the diner waitresses to the barber at the barbershop didn’t know.
The 20-minute drive took 10 minutes flat. She was in the theater to hear Vanessa pronounce that she was not going to leave Lydia to die while she tried to fix the doors. Donna’s eyes fell on the back of Joan’s head. Donna could see how tightly Joan gripped her pen. She could read the tension in her friend’s shoulders, but her voice stayed steady and calm as she relayed Jack’s orders and took in Vanessa’s response.
God Joan was strong. If Donna had been talking to Hank, she’d be begging, pleading for him to save himself. He didn’t know Lydia as well, but she’d tell him that Lydia would understand – she was a calculating and rational to a fault. Lydia would follow the order. She was a trauma surgeon who understood how to cut losses, accept how things had to be, and move forward.
Vanessa though. Well Donna knew that Vanessa had been challenging the status quo for quite some time. She did not accept how the world told her things had to be. She’d heard Vanessa complaining about not being allowed to fly even though she was a fully qualified pilot. Donna knew Steve had been advocating for Vanessa – doing what he could to change things. Donna admired Vanessa. It had helped motivate Donna to fight for herself too. She wasn’t going to roll over and accept NASA’s restrictions about her pregnancy. No, she hid it for as long as she could and then fought like hell to get back to work as soon as she could.
At first, Donna had wondered at how Vanessa found that strength, that resolve and refusal to accept the world as it was. Certainly all the women in the NASA astronaut program had some of that inside them. Before they were astronauts, they were the only women in their med school and engineering programs, boldly going into spaces and saying “I deserve to be here” well before they were saying “I deserve to be in space.”
Still for Lydia it wasn’t so much about changing the world, it was about her wanting to be an astronaut and happening to be a woman. Donna felt similarly on that point.
Joan and Vanessa…it had taken a while for her to suss it out.
In New Orleans, Donna had felt certain that she was doing Joan a favor by getting her into a beautiful dress that showed off her surprising assets. She’d pushed for the strip club, expecting that Joan would bail and that Griff would insist on helping her home. Then, with just the right amount of social lubricant and chemistry…maybe she and Hank would have another couple to double date with.
As predicted, Griff had helped Joan home. Donna tried to tease Griff about it the next morning, goading him into sharing the details. When he told her he wasn’t one to kiss and tell, his voice had been so dejected. It was confusing.
Vanessa had rallied Joan, which Donna was grateful for. She felt bad for pushing Griff into something that didn’t work and wanted to support him. As they got on the bus, she caught a look Vanessa gave Joan. The taller woman stood a little straighter, her chin lifted. Her smile wasn’t teasing, as Donna would have expected because, well, Joan Goodwin was hungover. Vanessa was…hopeful, like she’d heard David Bowie announce a new album. She was looking forward to something.
Weeks later, Hank dropped her off very late, that is to say, very early after a date. It was after 2AM. She spied Vanessa’s convertible in the apartment complex parking lot. It was gone in the morning. She and Vanessa had been assigned to a public outreach assignment visiting a high school that following Monday. Donna didn’t ask about the late night visit, but she did note that the sense of anticipation Vanessa had carried with her before was gone. It had been replaced by quiet certainty…satisfaction. Whatever Vanessa had been waiting for, she had it.
Good for them.
Donna had seen plenty of pain and loss in the world in her old life. She would not begrudge two people, especially two people she loved dearly, finding happiness in one another. Donna knew what it was to hide a relationship at NASA and knew she hadn’t exactly been a master, but Joan and Vanessa: they could keep a fucking secret. It was why she knew she could trust them with the news of her pregnancy, knew she could count on Joan to help her out. Donna hoped by sharing that, the women might feel like they could trust her in return, might know that they had her support. Just a few weeks ago, Donna thought she’d maybe had that breakthrough with Joan. She hadn’t had a chance to check in though and now, Joan was in the CAPCOM chair talking to the love of her life stranded in a compromised shuttle and choosing to take an extraordinary risk that could cost her her life.
Donna listened to Vanessa and Joan say goodbye, say all the things they felt so deeply without being able to actually say them. Donna knew what she would want to say to Hank. She wouldn’t give a fuck that CAPCOM was the voice of Houston, she’d say what she goddamn needed to say to her husband. Joan and Vanessa refused to cross that line. Each understanding that the cost to Joan was too great.
It was gut wrenching.
Donna looked around the theater. Helene was there, eyes red but dry for now. Her mascara had run earlier. A few of the men seemed moved by the scene unfolding in front of them. But when she saw Jimmy Haymen roll his eyes as Joan and Vanessa talked about David Bowie, anger flared inside her.
NASA would need answers, need an explanation, need someone to blame. Her friends were in the crosshairs. The world was cruel to women like Joan and Vanessa over and over again. Joan’s career was already at risk. If Vanessa survived…Donna set her jaw.
That’s not going to happen here.
***
Looking around the theater again, her eyes spotted Jennifer Hanson, tears streaming down her face. She worked in the press office and had been with Donna as she did more public outreach post pregnancy. NASA shuttle missions were expensive, and Donna had been trotted out with other astronauts for all kinds of speeches to build goodwill.
“You’re a natural.” Jennifer had told her as the left a panel on women in science with Sally Ride. Sally had obviously been the main draw, but Jennifer had said it was good to show it wasn’t just Sally working at NASA.
Thea in her arms, Donna strode over to Jennifer and touched her shoulder lightly. Jennifer’s wet brown eyes turned to her. “I need your help.”
“Anything.” Jennifer said as she nodded.
That nod confirmed Donna’s suspicions. She was no longer just an astronaut and an astronaut’s wife. She had joined rare company as the wife of a dead astronaut…and that terrible position also came with power. Donna waved Helene over as well. The women exchanged a hug.
Donna opened her mouth to explain her plan, but her ears caught Vanessa’s voice again. Her final transmission before blackout was achingly beautiful but not overt. They’d stayed careful. As blackout started, Donna turned back to Jennifer, grateful for a distraction.
***
“Tell me how this will all work.”
She and Helene listened as Jennifer laid it out. The press office, like everywhere else in NASA, had detailed protocols for any contingency, including, the death of an astronaut on a mission. This was unprecedented, Jennifer said, but the protocol as to Donna and Helene was the same. NASA press office would provide support and do their best to protect the grieving women by getting in front of it. They could release a statement if they liked. The President would call with condolences. Donna nodded, her brain slotting each bullet point into her plan in case…in case there was one more life to save.
Joan’s voice rose as she begged Vanessa to respond.
The silence had been unbearable, but Joan’s agony cut to her bones. Hank was dead, and Donna would be devastated when she let herself fully feel it. She understood it though. Cause of death was obvious. Time of death was calculable. It hurt to know she wouldn’t have his body to bury, but she knew enough. The uncertainty Joan was left with…would she ask Donna about it? About what heat shield failure would have done to Vanessa’s body, what she would have felt? God, Donna would have to tell her. If she asked, Donna would have to tell her.
Then the impossible…no, the improbable happened. Vanessa’s voice rang loud and clear through the theater. Lydia was alive and they would be landing soon. Hank and Steve and Griff were home.
Hank.
Her heart cracked. Vanessa had brought him home. Donna swallowed hard and set her jaw. She’d feel all of that later. She had people to save.