Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Mark Watney
Mission Day 687

I'm fucking back.

I'm in the Hermes, floating in the airlock curled around my broken ribs, throat raw from screaming and crying. Everyone is cheering into my helmet so loudly I'm sure I'll get a headache. I could listen to it forever.

I'm not on Mars anymore.

For the first time in a long time, I'm not on Mars. I feel displaced. Like I've teleported to a different world. A much better one.

I'm struggling to catch a good breath. Between the crying and the screaming and the 12 g's, I'm exhausted.

As everyone’s whooping dies down, Beck asks “Are you okay?”

Jesus, what kind of question is that?

I flip my radio on. "Uh, no," I groan. 

When I hear my voice, I notice how strained it is compared to Beck's. His voice is smooth and comforting. Mine is ragged and broken.

"Go limp, I'll push you to my quarters," Beck commands. Standard procedure on a 0 g ship; injured people go limp and healthy people get them to safety. Injuries on a spacecraft several million miles away from a hospital can quickly turn tragic. "Try not to talk or move, you don't want to strain anything. You pulled 12 g's."

I'm aware I pulled 12 g's. Everyone has made it a point to inform me multiple times. Fastest man in the history of space travel. And my body is telling me, via sharp pain all over, that there's a reason we don't shoot people into space that fast.

Being pushed through the Hermes by Beck is a spiritual experience. My eyes drink in the sight. I memorize every detail in a way I never did on Mars. Who cares about Mars? It's nothing but a clump of ferrous rocks so big it developed a gravitational well. The real action is on Earth, with plants and mountains and rivers, where someone can be stranded naked in a forest and still somehow survive. A planet where someone needs billions of dollars of life support to survive is no planet at all.

My vision blurs. I start to feel faint. I'm thankful Beck is pushing me so I don't have to haul my sorry ass through the ship myself. It's been a exhausting Sol.

Once Beck and I got to his quarters, we waited for the ship to re-pressurize. Hermes had enough spare air to refill the ship two more times if needed. It'd be a pretty shitty long-range ship if it couldn't recover from a decompression.

Re-pressurizing takes a while, though. It takes a few hours to fill an entire spacecraft with an atmosphere of air. While that happens, everyone has to go over the ship for air leaks and structural integrity. There's a procedure for that, and we all know it, and it includes everyone suiting up and floating around the ship to inspect every little damn thing.

"Well, if everyone's busy doing inspections..." I say, "Who's flying the ship?"

Everyone explodes into laughter. The sound is too perfect to describe.

“Might as well get this out of the way now,” Lewis says. I can hear the smile in her voice. “Beck and Johanssen are an item now and yes, everyone on the ship is aware.”

"Million-mile high club. Nice,” I say.

I can feel the eye roll Beck gives me. "Martinez said the same thing," he says.

They're all laughing. It's so beautiful. May they never stop.

So, Beck listened to my advice. That they listened to my last-words-slash-advice makes my chest feel warm.

I'm glad they did. They're perfect for each other.

"Gross," I say.

"I know," Martinez agrees. "They, like, publicly display affection. It's nasty."

"He tries to," Johanssen says brusquely. "But I'm usually too busy."

"Oh, okay, playing hard to get, I see."

"I am busy!" She says, scandalized. "I'm the only one who's not out of work, since light waves can find me even in interplanetary space."

"It is rather cute," Vogel admits, now floating behind Beck in my line of sight. "She will shoo him away, but he always comes back. She cannot resist for long."

Johanssen is not someone easily distracted from her work. Neither of them are. That's how they managed to become astronauts before thirty and avoid confessing their feelings for each other for nearly a decade of NASA service.

But, I will give Beck shit about it all the same. "Already regretting it, Johanssen?"

Beck's barb is quick. "Are we sure we should have come back for him?"

It's been less than ten minutes since I got back, and they're already giving me a hard time. What a relief. I love these guys.

I laugh with them this time. It's the first time I am around people again, so I listen to the sound, and it's... rough, and unsettling. I stop quickly.

I want to be out of this spacesuit, god damn it. I want to see them, not Beck and Vogel's space suits hovering in his quarters, everyone else a voice in my ear. He's got photos everywhere, but they're not anything I haven't seen before. I want to see people.

"ETA?" I say. My voice sounds ragged as hell. Is this what I sound like now? Maybe I should keep my mouth shut, at least until whatever's wrong with my voice heals.

"Twenty minutes," Johanssen's reassuring voice says over the radio.

"It's kind of weird looking at your spacesuit floating limply," Beck admits. "I know you're in there, but it looks empty."

All we're doing is floating here and waiting for re-pressurization to finish. Normally we'd have other re-pressurization tasks to do, but given the circumstances, we have new responsibilities. Beck's new responsibility is to make sure I don't die, and my new responsibility is to let him do that. 

That leaves us floating across from each other, in our spacesuits, unable to see past the UV-tinted visors. I could be an empty spacesuit for all Beck knows. 

I'm an unwrapped package, and nobody knows what's inside.

Except me.

"It is weird to see the EVA suit," Vogel agrees. "The green looks strange in the Hermes." 

The Martian EVA suits were sent beforehand in the supply missions given how much more massive and laden with equipment they are. We were never supposed to see a Mars EVA suit on board the Hermes. I'll bet it gives them the same wrong feeling the empty landing struts gave me... but hopefully without any suicidal impulses.

"It is an awful shade of green," I agree gamely. "They could have chosen better. I spent a lot of time thinking about that."

"You don't need to spend time thinking to know that that's puke-green," Martinez joins in.

Even to my ears, my voice is pained. "I'm glad it's green. Reminded me of Earth."

They fall silent. 

Did I say something weird? Did my voice crack on the end of that sentence? I think it might have.

I don't feel good. In fact, I feel kinda high.

But that makes sense, because I am high.

I'm not making a space joke. I took an unwise amount of opiates prior to shooting myself into the upper Martian atmosphere. It's not wise to be high during a launch, but better high and functional than sober and shrieking in pain. The Rover Ride Across the Surface of Hell taught me that.

I will keep that information to myself.

"Sorry guys," I laugh nervously. My voice chokes up a bit. "I haven't talked to anyone in a while."

"It's all right," Beck reassures me. He's got a good reassurance voice, smooth and calming. Good ship doctor voice. How have I not noticed this before? "I'm pleased to hear how strong your voice is after a year and a half of disuse. I'm surprised you can talk at all."

I'm sure the next thing I have to say is weird, but there's nothing for it. "My voice wasn't disused. I spent at least an hour or two speaking every day."

Nobody says anything for a moment.

"That's some forward thinking," Beck says, clearly off-balance. 

Yeah, but it wasn't because I was trying to preserve my voice. More to hear the sound of something other than beeping machinery. Something. Anything. 

"Pressurization complete!" Johanssen's voice ring's out. "All clear. Remove your flight suits."

“I will get your suit off after I get mine,” Beck says, doffing his helmet. Vogel, too, doffs his.

I'm content to sit and wait limply. I'm fucking exhausted. Did I mention that before? I'm completely fucking exhausted. I'm so aware of how hard I was working. Even on my days off, I was brutally fucking exhausted. My back hurts like someone stuck a knife in it for the last six months, but somehow I stopped noticing. My stomach is a cavern, larger and emptier than Lewis Valley. My chest is hurting like I've been trampled. My entire body feels like somebody set my blood on fire. I would kill for another Vicodin.

Beck's got his entire spacesuit off now. I can see his body clearly. He's wearing the standard-issue NASA jumpsuit that leaves nothing to the imagination. I can see muscles, sinew, and life. My eyes leak tears. 

Human body, muscles, the sounds of breath, and life, are all so near me now. It's been so long since I've seen a normal fucking human. I'm more dewey-eyed than Beck is when he sees Johanssen in a dress. 

I want Beck next to me right now. As soon as possible. Preferably touching me. Not in a sexual or romantic way - I don't think my broken heart is even capable of that anymore - but in an ordinary, I need to be around other humans way that I haven't had in oh god,so long.

When Beck takes my helmet off, he looks shocked.

"I'm sorry," I laugh awkwardly, motioning with my gloved hand towards the red watery mess I know my face is. "There aren't any tissues in a spacesuit."

"No," he says, shaking his head back and forth rigidly. "It's..." He pulls a face, smiling even while cringing. "You smell, dude."

The inanity of the comment made me laugh, kind of hard. Then I gasped, because that hurt.

"What?" He says, working on getting the suit off.

"I forgot," I say, laughing shallowly. "I got used to it."

Becks ‘s face turns a shade whiter.

For a split second, I imagine what I must look like. Red-faced, crying, eyes wide, skeletally thin, bruised, deranged haircut, covered in feces. I shut up quickly.

I see Martinez floating by the door. "Well you better get un-used to it," Martinez says casually, waving his hand in front of his face from the smell. "Dude, oh my lord. The Hermes is will be working for days filtering this air."

I wonder if they all got together beforehand and agreed on how to treat me when I got back. I bet they did, because their humor and normalcy is far too coordinated and exactly what I want right now.

The rest of the crew lingers at the door, eyes peeking around the corner. Their faces all look twisted in a way I don't understand. Whatever this facial expression means, though, they're clearly trying to hide it. They are achieving varying levels of success, from Lewis (who looks stiff, but normal) to Johanssen (who looks like her cat got hit by a car). 

I'm elated to see their normal, human bodies, their human hair, their funny faces. I'm elated to hear their voices in my ears. Realvoices, not through a radio or a computer but their real voices.Nobody talks about how musical real voices sound, all beautiful notes blending together.

"Come in, guys," I say. They all float in, pulling faces too but saying nothing. "Yeah, yeah, Beck already told me. Mars doesn't have showers, okay?"

"No, they can't come in yet," Beck says. "Medical examination comes first."

My heart thumps in my chest. My blood rushes in my ears.

"Sorry guys, doctor says," I shrug, attempting to appear unconcerned.

As they leave, I feel like my heart is being ripped out all fucking over again, but I know they'll be there when we're done so I bite my tongue until it bleeds.

Beck gets me all the way out of the suit, and the first thing he notices is how baggy my clothes are on my skeletal frame.

"Whose clothes are these?" Beck asks, astonished. Then he notices the name printed on the sides. Beth Johanssen.

After the RTG baths, I ditched my clothes because they had become irredeemably disgusting. I had started to fit Johanssen's clothes better anyways. I would have went without, except one has to wear something under the EVA suit because the padding on the inside is scratchy and uncomfortable.

I... didn't think of the fact that I would need clothes on the MAV before I left, so I'm glad I happened to bring the jumpsuit along. Beck probably will cut it off anyway, though, and space it as quickly a possible. Or seal it in a bag for history and science. (God, I hope he doesn’t do that).

I cast my eyes down, shame pooling in my gut like hot poison. I'm not normally modest, but something about the disgusting, sorry state I'm in makes me feel like hiding.

It's not that I don't want to be seen this way. It's that I don't want Beck to have to see it. Nobody should have to see this.

"Hey, it's all right," he says mildly, shoving the EVA suit out the door so that someone else can put it away. "Don't worry, I've seen worse."

There's no way that's not a lie. Beck is a flight surgeon who spends more than half his time as a biologist. He hasn't seen shit. A few broken bones maybe, dissected cadavers, but I look like... one of those starving African children. Worse.

Silence grows between us, suffocating.

"Don't we need gravity to do an exam?" I ask, trying to escape the situation.

Beck shakes his head, pointing towards the examination table. "Nope, we can tie you to the table." True to his word, there are wrist, torso, and ankle straps, presumably for using the ultrasound or other tools that require pressure. In zero gravity, if you poke someone with something, they float away.

"Fun," I say as he pushes me to the table and straps me in.

Inside of ten minutes, my x-ray is done. Turns out I've only got two broken ribs, and Beck says there's not much you can do for a broken rib.

Then, moments later:

“I will bandage it," Beck declares.

"Why? You just said there isn't anything you can do about a broken rib."

"The pressure of the bandages will help keep everything in place. It'll make you feel better," he insists. That sounds like a load crap to me, but he's the doctor. 

Beck's face turns soft. "Mark, I know you probably won't like this, but NASA insisted I do a complete physical before you shower, or sleep, or do anything else."

NASA deemed it unnecessary to send along those paper robes doctors normally have, so I'll be completely undressed. That isn't a problem in and of itself; we were naked in front of each other tons of times during training. One, we had small shared locker rooms, two, lots of the training involved emergency situations and cutting off clothes, and three, they didn't want us to make stupid mistakes in space because we were abashed, so NASA created excuses for us to be naked together more than once. Hell, Beck's our primary doctor while we're on board and most of us are over 40, so he has the dubious privilege of doing our regular physicals.

But back then, I was healthy. Whole.

"Really? Why?" I protest.

"Because if you have internal bleeding, more broken bones, or any of the other complications a 12 g launch might have for someone suffering from starvation, the pressure of a shower or the time it takes to sleep could kill you."

He's right, I know he's right, if any of my organs were upset about that convertible launch then they could kill me and it would be incredibly stupid to die right after I got on board.

I nod my assent, close my eyes, and unzip the jumpsuit. If my eyes are closed, I can't see Beck's horrified face.

It feels like my suffering is on display.

Beck's a good doctor. He notices my discomfort and immediately starts up a stream of endless chatter to fill the air. "Tell me on a scale of 0 to 10 if it hurts," he says.

First, a general pain inventory. My back, my stomach, my feet, my knees, how much does everything hurt? Beck isn't asking how all these things happened, only how badly they hurt now, and I'm offering a stream of information without any explanations. This hurts, that hurts more, that hurts most. I'm talking and talking and by the end it feels like I've described every part of my body because every single part of my body hurts. As I talk he runs his hands over injuries, poking and prodding and checking for deeper problems, holding up his stethoscope and listening.

Beck keeps up the steady stream of chatter as he asks me to raise my arms as much as I can - which isn't much - runs his hands over my sides, pokes me everywhere with his gloved fingers asking if this hurts, and that hurts, "How badly does it hurt on a scale of 1 to 10 when I poke?" My answers are minimal, mumbled, and I open my eyes but keep them downcast, away from Beck and whatever he's doing. A 3 there, a 5 there, "Jesus fucking Christ, 7" right in the small of my back, and it turns out I'm partially numb in some of my toes. This goes on forever, it hurts everywhere he pokes, and I want it to be over.

Eventually it's finally over and Beck hits the wall radio, "Johanssen, get a sweatshirt and one of your sweatpants?" he says. As he turns away, I look up, catch the sight of myself in a wall mirror.

My ribcage, collarbone, shoulder blades, everything is sticking out of everywhere by now. I'm more skeleton than man. I quickly look away.

"Time for bandages," he says, and he keeps chattering as he mummifies me with expensive NASA wraps. I'm sure NASA paid $100 a pop for these. I think it makes him feel good to bandage me like this.

His hands touch me as he wraps the bandage around me, and I do my damnedest to hide how it makes the inside of my chest tear, hot and sharp. I settle for biting my tongue to stop my breath from catching, and I'm praying to God that Beck will take mercy on me and let his hands linger.

The man I remember being before would have leaped at him to hug him. But despite how much I want to do that, something in me stops me from doing so.

Instead, Beck takes out a syringe and pokes me with a needle. "Painkillers," he says gently, and fuck am I thankful.

As Johanssen arrives with her clothes, a crack in the door allows her to get a look at me, and as the door shuts I see her eyes go wide. Beck hands me the clothes, turning away to busy himself and give me some privacy.

As I put them on, I realize they must be all huddled by the door. 

Beck stares at the closed door for a minute, cracks it open to stare at what's on the other side for another minute, sighs, makes sure I'm dressed, then throws the door wide.

"Mark!" Johanssen says as she enters the room, arms already up for a hug.

It pains me to say it, but I say "Don't hug me," sort-of holding a hand up. "My ribs are broken." 

But it's not that, not that that stops me. I want to leap at them, hug them all, but all of a sudden I can't. 

I want them close, but the closer they get to me, the harder my heart hammers.

She rolls her eyes and holds her hand up.

For a moment, I'm confused. She's holding her hand out, her face is completely even, so I can't read it. What the fuck does she want with my hand? Her palm is up toward the ceiling. 

I stare at her hand for a few moments... and then I high-five her.

She looks at me like I've lost my mind, and everyone else does, and I realized that she wanted to hold my hand. She and I both start laughing at the stupidity, everyone starts laughing, laughing because oh God I'm rescued, we're all laughing as they high-five me.

God, their laugher hasn't stopped being beautiful. 

I stare at their faces. I didn't think I'd ever see a human face again. Now they're alive and here and talking to me. I'm not dead anymore, I'm alive, I'm alive, and finally with my crew. The urge to cry bursts into my chest, strong and hot.

Do not cry Watney you are Not in your spacesuit they can all See You.

I cry anyway, thick sobs jerking my chest.

Beck hands me a towel, which I'm thankful for because even before the crying my face is a mess from all the screaming I did in the EVA suit.

Everyone else high fives me while I hold the towel up to my face with the other hand, hiding tears leaking out of my eyes. "Sorry about..." I say, gesturing to myself. "It's been a hard two years." My voice cracks.

"But it's over now," Martinez says. "You're with us now." The smile on his face is warm and soft, and everyone else's faces light up with the same soft smile, all directed at me. My eyes water anew.

Martinez, Beck, Johanssen are at the forefront, eyes bright and shining and happy and trying to talk animatedly to me. Vogel stands back, smiling wider than I've ever seen and standing next to Lewis, who is standing stiffly like she's in pain. Johanssen wasn't kidding about her taking this hard.

"All right, everyone out, the guy needs rest," Beck commandeered after a beat. "Watney, as soon as you can move your arms, shower. Then call for one of us, we'll bring you food."

I'd forgotten I was starving to death until he said that. Then the ferocious hunger hits me and it feels like someone roundhouse kicked me in the stomach. I groan in pain. 

I've lived like this for so long.

I had maybe two months left when they rescued me, and I'd started getting antsy about things and eating 1/2 rations whenever I could. Hey, 3/4 rations did nothing to ease the shredding pain in my stomach, so I might as well eat 1/2 and save some food in case...

The pain gets milder by the second, though. I remember Beck poking me with a needle that I now realize was probably full of sweet sweet Oxy.

I collapse on Beck's cot. It's cold, so I nestle under the blankets. I'm probably dirtying Beck's nice clean sheets, but I don't care. I'll trade him out if he cares so much.

By the time the painkillers allow me to move my arms, I'm asleep.

Mark Watney
Mission Day 687

I wake up, eyes crusted, feeling exhausted. My entire body is sore, a standard Martian morning.

I lie still for a moment. On Mars, there is absolutely no reason for me to force myself to get up at a particular time. The backbreaking labor, terrifying problems, or monotonous driving will wait patiently for me.

As soon as I'm ready for the sol, I open my eyes.

As soon I open my eyes, I realize I'm on the fucking Hermes.

OH MY GOD, I think, sitting up quickly, gasping loudly. But that turns out to be a mistake. Something stabs my lungs. My gasp turns into a grunt of pain as I jerk forward, hissing through my teeth.

"Jesus, Watney!" Beck exclaims. His jerking motion surprises me, then I jerk back in surprise too, leaving both of us feeling rather stupid. We stare at each other.

He is sitting on a chair next to my cot (his cot) with his laptop open.

"Watching me sleep? Kinky motherfucker," I say, hunching over my middle.

Beck shakes his head at me. "Go get a shower, Watney. You're rank." He snaps shut the laptop and bounces out of the quarters, presumably escaping eau de Mars.

I don't need told twice. I haul myself out of the cot and go for a shower. While I was asleep, the gravity increased, but not more than 0.2 g by my estimation. I can walk fine and my body can mostly hold it's own weight, so the low gravity amble to the shower is doable. The shower is also in the 1 g zone. It wouldn't be much of a shower if the water couldn't fall.

Bouncing through the hall is surreal. I can see everyone else's personal effects, can see where they'd pinned photos up in their bunks. Can see the blackness of space out of the windows. It isn't Mars.

This isn't Mars. I'm not on Mars. I've escaped. 

I can't believe it. It feels like a dream.

This shower, this, my first shower back, changes my perspective on life. I've always been one to prefer baths, but there is something about the light pressure of water against my back that makes my head and my heart light. Not to mention whatever I'm on make everything feel amazing.

Beck got me high. I'm not arguing.

I shamelessly take a long shower, going well over our personal time limit of ten minutes. I haven't had a shower in a year and a half. I figure they should be thankful. I'm doing them a service. That justifies my forty-minute shower. No one knocks at the door to stop me at any point, either, social proof that my logic is sound.

Very early on, I ran out of toilet paper. And paper towels. And paper. And small hand towels. And clothes. A massive amount of dirt and other nasty nonsense pools around shower drain in a brown sludge. After I step out, I let the shower run another couple seconds until it all goes down the drain. 

On Mars, I'd have to panic about whether the water reclaimer can handle that. But the Hermes water reclaimer can. I mean, someone will have to clean it out after that, and because I'm The Victim that someone probably won't be me, but that's an easy procedure on a hugely expensive reusable spacecraft. Man, life on the Hermes is all luxury.

I get out of the shower and look on the shelves. Toothpaste, toothbrushes, and floss have been set out for me, my brands. Must have been sent up with the Taiyang Shen, since they would have jettisoned my personal effects after my death. No room for unnecessary mass on a spaceship.

I imagine them loading all my stuff into the airlock to send it out to space. 

While I am on the surface of Mars. Alive. 

I shudder.

I brush my teeth. Well, I try to. I haven't brushed my teeth for months and I'll feel disgusting if I don't at least try, but I find I can't brush well right now. I'm too tired. My arm is moving too slowly to truly clean, and I'm not doing a great job holding the brush against my teeth.

Also, I'm hating this toothpaste. I used to like mint toothpaste, but the second it's in my mouth, I'm overwhelmed by how strong and bitter the taste is. I almost spit it out in disgust.

I bounce back to Beck's quarters to find him instead standing in the hall as if he were waiting for me. He probably was.

"You might like your quarters better, they're warmer," he says in a sort of strangled voice, pointing down the hall.

He probably wants his own quarters back. The Hermes has separate bunk rooms because NASA therapists decided it was better for astronauts and worth the multi-million-dollar expense. They're tiny, but they're separate, and they even have pocket doors and everything (doors that don't lock, but beggars can't be choosers).

As soon as I walk through the door, I think I might understand why Beck's voice sounded like that.

My photographs are all over the wall. So many photographs. I didn't realize I own so much. All the people I've ever loved. I'm floored. Looking at the bunk I haven't seen in over a year and a half, I see the faces of my loved ones staring back at me.

I pick one off the wall. My mother. Her smile is radiant.

I didn't have anything but the memory of their faces. Human brains aren't perfect, and they don't remember details. I eventually came to the horrifying realization that I was forgetting everyone's faces. My mom's perfect eyes sparkle out of the photograph, specially printed on photo paper for my bunk. I thought I would die without ever seeing it again.

My laptop, media stick, and personal effects are sitting on the cot in their box, right where I packed them for descent. Vogel wanted my help with something right before launch and it ended up taking so long I had to leave them behind. I didn't care at the time because it was only 31 Sols. I even remember thinking 'It's not like I'll die without it.' Idiot.

Beck is talking but I don't hear him. That stupid media stick could have changed my entire life there. As it is, the only thing I ever hear in my head anymore is Stayin Alive by the Bee Gees and I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor. 

Okay, that's a little dramatic. The media stick wouldn't have mattered in the end. Even with Battlestar Galactica, I would have still been stuck on Mars.

But the photos... those would have changed my life.

Choked up, I turn to address Beck, but he's disappeared. It's a little alarming to me that I didn't notice him disappearing.

I hit the wall radio button instead. "I want food," I say, knowing it will echo in the whole ship.

Johanssen answers. "Any particular kind of food?"

My voice has that hysterical edge. "Not potatoes!"

"Got it," came Beck's voice from the radio, presumably in the Rec Room.

Soon, Beck was back with the food. He stood there and watched me eat it, although I barely sat down before all the food was gone. I barely noticed what it was, either, something easy on the stomach like rice or reconstituted bread or I don't know what. Either way, it was carbohydrate mush. I inhaled it like I've never seen food in my life. I haven't seen food in a long fucking time.

"Where's the rest?" I say, holding up the plate.

Beck gave me a regretful look. "You can't overfeed victims of starvation. It's fatal."

My voice is whiny like a child's. "I was only at 3/4 rations! I wasn't starving!" Beck turns a piercing doctorly eye on me. "...most of the time."

The food hits my stomach, and I'm freaking exhausted again. I flop back into my bed. "Beck, I'm gonna sleep now," I say, feeling drowsiness pull my eyelids down.

Beck nods. I'm asleep before he shuts the door.

Chris Beck
Mission Day 687

Earlier

Beck is sitting in a chair next to Watney, who is asleep so deeply Beck wondered at least twice whether he had fallen into a light coma. But using his doctorly doctoring skills, he poked Watney and determined that no, he's merely asleep. Thank God. 

Beck is typing on his laptop. He resolved earlier that if Watney didn't wake up in the next two hours, Beck would wake him and make him shower. His stench was difficult to endure.

But Watney hasn't had a chance to rest in so long, Beck can't bring himself to take it from him over a smell. So Beck gets past it, wrinkling his nose and sitting in the room with the door closed, hoping that will at least contain it to this bunk room.

Suddenly Watney jerks, slamming his body forward out of bed, and the motion is so sudden Beck starts in his chair. Beck hears his hiss of pain as he sits up. 

"Jesus, Watney!" Beck says. He blinks at Watney, and Watney blinks back at Beck.

"Watching me sleep? Kinky motherfucker," He pants, hand at his side. He gives a grin to go with the joke, yellowed and toothy and 100% Mark Watney.

"Go get a shower, Watney. You're rank." Beck says, snapping the laptop shut and reading. Watney doesn't need babysat to get a shower, and Beck wants a moment away from the smell.

But after Watney leaves for the shower, Beck doesn't leave the quarters hallway. He floats there, staring at the bathroom door.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Watney's bunk door.

The bunk doors had two settings: green for Enter and red for Do Not Enter. It wasn't a lock, not technically, but Hermes etiquette was such that nothing short of a life-or-death situation was a valid reason to override someone's Do Not Enter setting. 

Watney left his door on Do Not Enter. None of them had gone in there, not even after Watney had been declared alive again. No one wanted to go in there, even when they discovered Watney was alive, knowing he might not ever make it back.

Beck decides that Watney should be in his own quarters again.

It takes him half an hour to pack up all the emergency medical supplies into a few boxes and put them in the hall outside the door. He refuses to go into Watney's bunk room without his permission. After he finishes, he waits.

He doesn't have to wait long for Watney to reappear, complete with wild hair and bony shoulders.

"You might like your quarters better, they're warmer," Beck says, voice thick. Watney gives him a strange look, but opens the door and walks in.

Watney completely misses the significance as he steps in casually. Mark's back, coming back so casually like it's nothing. Like he wasn't dead, like he wasn't gone, stepping into his quarters easily like it isn't a fucking miracle that he's here at all.

The moment Watney steps through his door, he comes to a halt. Beck sees his eyes, roving over the photographs Watney had pinned all over his wall, mouth open in a small 'o.'

It doesn't take Beck long to move the boxes into Watney's room while he stands there staring at the photos. Beck looks at Watney as he picks a photograph from the wall. He brings his other hand over the photograph, fingers gently tracing the outline of his mother's face. Watney gives no indication that he can hear Beck, absorbed in the heavy color print that he's holding.

He didn't have any personal effects on Mars, Beck realizes, and he immediately backs out of the room and shuts the door. Beck couldn't deny the cold feeling drenching him, ice poured over his shoulders. He didn't have any photographs. Nothing.

Beck retreats to the Rec Room and tries to take his mind off the thought of Watney, alone, dying, without even a photograph for comfort.

Log Entry
Mission Day 687

I'm so elated I might float away. I'm elated like when I was accepted into the Ares III mission. That was my only goal for six years of my life. It was an amazing feeling. Except I'm more elated, far more, because escaping has been the only thing I've been thinking about for the past 18 months, and achieving this goal means I get to live. It's making my heart bubble up in my chest every time I think about it.

I might also be high from Beck's drugs, but I am Mark Watney, Space Pirate. I can do what I like.

My life feels like a cross between a hallucinogenic dream and a vacation. The situation is different, the environment is different, it's a different bed, I'm being taken care of, and part of me is waiting for it all to be over and to be time to go home (back to Mars) again.

I keep telling myself "You're not going back, you're not going back" but I can't convince myself. My chest is knotted and my insides are sure I'm dreaming.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. I could die on the way back to Earth. I might never see Earth.

But that's not dying on Mars, and frankly, that thrills me to pieces all on it's own. Fuck you, Mars. Man, I am so glad... I'm so glad I didn't kneel into the dirt. It was worth it, all of it, to see my crew again. 

Hah. Easy for me to say now.

I feel exhausted. That hot shower made me feel even more so. And my stomach is finally full, I am finally not hungry, which makes me feel more sleepy. I will sleep, and I'm sleeping a long time because I don't have to get up and do anything tomorrow. Or the next day, or the next day, or any day until I tell Lewis I want to, because they can't make me do shit.

That's not totally true. If Lewis ordered me to do something, I would. But I know she won't because I earned it.

Ares III Crew
Mission Day 688

The crew, sans Watney, gathers in the Rec Room to eat lunch. Watney missed breakfast, as expected. Beck informs the crew in broad terms that Watney is tired, and malnourished, and would be sleeping a long time. 

But he'd been back for hours, and the crew hadn't seen much of him yet. They were getting antsy.

"He isn't awake?" Johanssen says, stirring her oatmeal listlessly.

"Nope," Beck says. "Guy's tired." Beck had been poking his head in on Watney every few hours. He was sleeping every time, sleeping so heavily it amazed Beck.

"He's been asleep for, like, seventeen hours!" Johanssen protests.

Back shrugs. "He should be. Three days ago he was half-starved, pulling Hull Panel 19 off of the MAV solo. That's 400kg. Even in Martian gravity, that ain't light."

The image of Watney, starved, teeth bared, screaming, using his skeletal frame to rip Hull Panel 19 off, flashes through everyone's minds.

"All right," she relents. "I'm just... eager to see him, that's all."

"We all are," Lewis says quietly.

They sit at the table silently, eating their lunch.

"Anyone thought about what they're gonna say?" Martinez asks.

"You sound like you have something in mind," Lewis says.

Martinez grins. "I prepared some puns."

Everyone else groans as Martinez whips out his tablet and starts reading.

"What do you give an alien? Some space." Martinez waggles his eyebrows. A breath. "What did the doctor say to the rocket? Time to get your booster shot. Because, you know, Beck has to give him -"

"We get it, Martinez," Johanssen says dryly, a smile playing on her face.

Martinez continues. "How do astronauts serve dinner? On flying saucers. I'll toss him the plate in 0 g too so it's spinning."

Everyone's groaning by now, but Martinez has a prepared list. "What do you think of that restaurant on Mars? The food had a little bit too much potato, but it had no atmosphere."

"Okay, that one is bad," Vogel says.

Martinez shrugs. "They are works in progress, okay?"

"I'll be damned if you get to use even one of those, Martinez," Beck laughs.

"There's a few more -" swiping at his tablet. "Why does NASA think there's life on Mars? Because they saw a Mark in the sand."

"You know, when this conversation started, I thought for a second you might say something touching," Lewis says, shaking her head.

Melissa Lewis
Mission Day 689

Lewis vowed to herself she wouldn't do this, feet padding through the bunk room hallway. She couldn't pace around the Hermes anymore, though, coming up with excuses to walk through the crew quarters several times an hour only to stare at the door to Watney's room.

She grabbed the handle of Watney's door, set to green for Enter. She snuck in easily, knowing she wouldn't be interrupted because everyone else was off doing work she assigned them.

Beck reported that Watney's sleep was deep and unnaturally still, but that's not the sight that greeted the Commander. She saw Mark Watney, breath hitching as he turned, pulling and twisting the covers. Every few minutes he murmured something that Lewis couldn't make out, hands knotted in the thin fabric. She wasn't sure if he'd woken up in all these hours.

Lewis knew from Missed Orbit Training that Mark Watney used to sleep the sleep of the dead. He'd go and go and go until he was exhausted, and then he'd fall asleep face-first wherever he ended up. He'd gotten good sleep in some truly weird situations before, curled up between seats of the model rover they trained in.

The sight of his face pulled in pain, frowning even in sleep, tore at her heart.

Chris Beck
Sleeping

"Commander," Beck's voice rang out. "Watney's dead."

"What the fuck, man?" Martinez exclaimed, turning around.

"We lost Mark. I don't want to lose the Commander too." His voice is ringing, coming from outside and inside his own head.

Beck swivels his head to the window and Mark is lying prone in the Martian sand, totally and completely alive. "Commander!" He tries to yell, but Lewis is already climbing into the MAV with them. His mouth is open but he can't get a sound out, oh god oh god he's right fucking there -

He fights the straps as the MAV lifts off, but it's too late, flight thrust traps him in his seat. As they lift off he can see Mark open his eyes, can see Mark get up, reaching out for them, screaming for them to STOP -

Chris Beck
Mission Day 690

Beck sits up abruptly in bed, gasping.

"Chris?" Johanssen mumbles. "Bad dream?"

He looks down at Johanssen's sleepy form. "Yeah."

He'd been getting nightmares on and off since Mark died. When they thought he was dead, the nightmares were of leaving his body behind. But since they found out Mark was alive, Mark's eyes watched them leave. Mark always cried, begging Beck to stop.

Her sleepy hand reaches up to his back, as it always did. "It's okay, Chris. We got him."

She used to say 'we're getting him.' Now they succeeded. 'We got him.'

Beck heaves a sigh and tries to make it enough.

The urge to check on Mark strikes him. Watney is across the ship now, not abandoned on a desolate world, and he can go lay eyes on him right this second. He throws off the covers and slips out of the bunk.

He finds Watney sleeping. But unlike earlier, his sleep isn’t peaceful. Hes tossing and turning. Beck watches Watney's head jerk every few seconds. His thin and wrinkled hands grips the covers, then relaxes. After a few more pained seconds, he falls still.

Beck collapses into the chair by Watney's bed. Beck sees Watney's bones poke out of his shoulders, his skeleton visible for anyone to see. Watney is curled on his side, his breath catching, cringing in his sleep. 

Beck was the one administering his painkillers. He knows Watney should be too high to dream.

Watney's condition is exactly as bad as everyone told Beck it would be, but far worse than Beck hoped for.

Beck hasn't told Watney this - or anyone other than NASA's medical team, for that matter - but Watney's body is on the point of collapse. Beck is surprised he hasn’t collapsed already. His body weight is dangerously low, and he has multiple nutritional deficiencies despite the vitamins he was taking. There was only so much artificial vitamins could do. They kept full-blown scurvy at bay, but Watney's muscles and organs were beginning to degrade anyway. His pulse is irregular, his heartbeat off-time, his blood pressure whacked out and different every time Beck takes it.

Beck knows Watney's condition isn’t just from starvation rations. Watney's body has degraded faster than it should have given his caloric intake. Far faster. 

Beck is not a psychiatrist, but all doctors had to take basic psychiatric medicine at some point. Those psychiatric courses often included the prison treatment reform of the 2020s, which were characterized partially by the elimination of solitary confinement as a punishment. His psychiatric course case studies were of victims of solitary confinement, and it was shown that - in addition to a collection of psychiatric conditions - solitary confinement alonecould cause someone's physical body to stop functioning.

At this moment, though, Beck isn't thinking of Watney's condition in such clinical terms. Beck is looking at Watney's sallow skin, his disturbed sleep, and he feels like it would be better to throw himself out the airlock than to have done this to one of his closest friends. But throwing himself out the airlock won't help Watney; the only way he can help Watney now is by helping him recover.

So Beck sits in the chair, watches Watney sleep, and wishes there were something more he could do.

Log Entry
Mission Day 691

I was fucking tired. I slept clear through the rest of the day, and the next day, and finally woke up with everyone else today for the 7:00 alarm. I mean slept, like didn't-wake-up-once-the-entire-time, dead-to-the-world sleep. I did get that tired on Mars occasionally, when I exhausted myself to the point of passing out hauling dirt or other stupid shit. I guess being crushed by 12 g's is tiring.

My cot in the Hab (which was two cots piled on top of each other) was OK. I never had any disagreements with it. But after sleeping on an honest-to-god mattress, the Hab bed is certifiably shit. This mattress is the best thing that's ever happened to me, an unrealistically perfect featherbed. I can't imagine what Earth mattresses feel like.

I even woke up feeling pasty, like I took an ill-advised midday nap. All my muscles locked up in response. It's like I got on the Hermes, my body shouted MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, and now I'm fucking falling apart. I'm sore all over, all my muscles are on fire, and I don't think I could move a single solar panel in the condition I'm in.

It may be 7 AM, time for the morning alarm, but I didn't wake up because of the alarm. I woke up because I could hear everyone else from across the ship. They turned off the alarm in my room, but I'm so used to the silence of Mars that I can hear people making food across the ship now. Which is how I know it's breakfast time.

Mars was silent. Mars wasn't dead silent, it was just silent except for the noises of machines and any noises I made. Nothing unexpected. Unexpected noises could kill me.

Could, not can, because I'm not on Mars anymore! Now unexpected noises are people. Real people, too, not 'complicated psychiatric conditions!'

My first day post-rescue. What will I do today?

The crew will want to cry over me, probably. Or something. We high-fived and hugged for like, a minute, but I fell asleep before anyone could come talk to me. What should I say to them? 'Hey, thanks for doubling your trip time and volunteering to die in space to come rescue me.' There's nothing I could possibly do to repay them for saving me from having to kill myself alone on Mars.

I'M NOT ON MARS!

Mark Watney
Mission Day 691

I shut the laptop and crawl out of bed. Shit, my ribs hurt bad, piercing my sides, but I don't care. I want to see my crew mates. I've been alone for 18 months. A little back pain didn't stop me from hauling all that dirt, and it isn't gonna stop me from getting to my crew. A little back pain, a little ribs-are-stabbing-me-on-the-inside pain, a little starvation pain, who's keeping track?

Beck, Beck is keeping track. I can tell because of how high I am. Everything is soft and warm and it's great.

The ship hasn't gotten all the way to full speed rotation, meaning the gravity isn't all the way on, so it isn't hard for me to get to the Rec Room. I can push myself off of the bars in the walls and bounce myself there. 

I will go to the Rec Room to see my crew mates because they rescued me from Mars. I'M NOT ON MARS!

I can feel myself saying it out loud, and I make sure to keep the volume down. "Not on Mars, not on Mars, not on Mars..." I feel giddy, like kids do the night before Christmas.

It unsettles me a little that I have to physically keep myself from talking to myself at full volume. Hey, at least that little habit kept my voice usable. That would have been annoying were I mute upon rescue. There would be no end to the amount of shit from Martinez.

I float to the ladder and slide down, and god fucking damnit do these broken ribs hurt. This is annoying.

Aha, they are all here. They're even sitting at the Rec Room table in a semi-organized fashion like they're doing something productive. Probably waiting on me. Or talking about me. I don't care.

"I'm not on Mars!" I shout. Dryness rips through my throat. 

As I double over coughing, it occurs to me that one can't drink water while asleep, and I've been asleep for days. For all the problems I had on Mars, dehydration was never one of them.

Johanssen immediately gets up to get a packet of water (because it would float right out of a glass in zero gravity) and I suck it down greedily.

Okay, clear my throat again. Drink some more water. Try again.

"I'M NOT ON MARS!" There, I got some volume now, the noise echoing off of the thick composite walls.

Their faces break out into smiles, damn right they do, and they start cheering. I join them, fist-pumping like when I got to the MAV, and of course my biceps are already sore. They're getting up from the table now, excited by how excited I am, and I'm glad they are. This is the time for hugs and cheering.

I haven't touched another human in 18 months, and Johanssen is standing nearest me, so I envelop her in a hug, blowing past the uncomfortable tearing sensation in my chest.

"Johanssen, you're so warm," I say, burying my head in her shoulder that is four inches below me. She seems tall. Am I shorter? I think I'm smaller. I notice how muscle-bound she is, and I remember that it's not her that's muscle-bound, but me that is all skin and bones. Wow, I'm skeletal. 

I never thought about it on Mars. I saw myself in the mirror on Mars, and in Beck's quarters, but now I feel it. I feel how her shoulder blades don't stick out like mine, how you can't feel her spine all the way down her back, how her hips don't jut out of her sides. I feel the thick muscles on her body under my fingertips. Ice cubes drop into my stomach.

She happily returns the contact, the warmth from her body reaching my bones. I want a group hug. If she's warm they've gotta be warm too. 

God, I've been so alone. I don't want to be alone anymore. 

"Guys, come on, group hug time."

Lewis must have been waiting for permission because she nearly rushes at me, and fuck she's warm too. Beck, Martinez and even Vogel join the party, and I find myself in the middle of an Ares III huddle. It's warm, but not like RTG warm, more like 'I'm not alone on a planet anymore' warm.

"Oh fuck, I was alone for so long," my mouth says on my behalf, in that desperate tone I've been trying to ignore for years. 

I've been talking that way for years. 

Another ice cube falls into my stomach.

How many things did I ignore because I had to?

"You're not alone anymore," came Lewis's muffled voice from somewhere. Wow, cliche, like a movie for teens, but I wasn't will argue because the words made my chest feel impossibly warm.

Christ, here come the waterworks again. "Jesus fuck," I say. It's only because I've been through so much shit with these guys that I am not ashamed to start crying, right in the middle of that group hug. I don't think I could have stopped myself if I wanted to.

But of course, they feel my chest jerk and immediately give me space, and I don't want that yet so my hand grabs at someone as they all break apart. The arm I end up grabbing belong's to Martinez. It's awkward as hell, but it happened and I'm not going back on it.

Martinez looks me in the eye and puts his hand on my shoulder.

I'm not particularly emotionally backward, as far as men go, but I always preferred a joke and verbal reassurances to touchy-feely-look-me-in-the-eyes comfort. But I'm getting the impression that Club Mars changed that about me. For the first time since high school, I find myself wanting look-me-in-the-eyes comfort.

I'm thankful Martinez has been married since college. He knows how to provide touchy-feely comfort when the situation calls for it.

It's been so long since another human has looked at me, so of course my chest jerks again as soon as his eyes connect. I bring my hands up to cover my face, which is getting gross again fast. "Sorry, sorry, I haven't -"

"We know, Watney," is Martinez's amused and exasperated reply as he grips me back tightly.

"We got you," Johanssen says again, a soft smile on her face. "You're safe with us."

My chest jerks again. "Johanssen, stop it." Every word she says, the tone she uses, makes me want to sob for ten years.

Instead of crying more, though, I wipe my face off with my shirt (because after everything, who even fucking cares) and sit down in the nearest chair. More like collapse in the nearest chair, but what's the difference these Sols?

They all look at me and sit down too, letting me lead this interaction. 

Now that my body had that little emotional upheaval, it's making it's will known to me. Painfully. "Shit, I'm hungry," I began to say, but the words weren't out of my mouth before Beck starts making something. "Beck, you're my hero."

Beck puffs up and says "I am the one who tethered you in, after all," in a false self-important voice.

"Guys," I say. "You're all-"

"We know, we know," Johanssen says, again, smiling.

They're all sitting around the table, warm eyes looking at me. 

Everyone is looking right at me, here with me, smiling at me, and there's something hot and warm in my chest that I can't quite wrap my senses around. I can feel my throat tearing, too many emotions jammed in my body at once.

But then I see Lewis's face, the way it's strained, the way something about her seems held back. Lewis is a good Commander, and I'll bet you any money she's been blaming herself. I look like a pretty sorry sack of shit, so she's probably feeling guilty just looking at me.

I wave my hand in her face. "Stop that," I say. "You're ruining my moment."

Lewis raises her eyebrow, pressing her lips together thinly. Is she trying not to cry? I've never seen the Commander cry.

I wave indistinctly again in her direction, with more energy. "Feeling guilty. Stop feeling guilty for the state I'm in, it's not your fault," I say.

The moment I made first contact, I always led with 'don't blame the crew.' I wrote them letters that said 'don't blame yourselves.' I wrote a general message to the ship that says 'don't blame yourselves.' I could have written it in Morse fucking Code, and they wouldn't get it.

I turn my head to look at everyone else. "That goes for all of you. Don't feel guilty. You did nothing wrong, you were following protocol, and it was perfectly reasonable to think I was dead." A pause. "And also, I'm selfish, remember? I want all the glory. I don't want to deal with your guilt."

That last sentence gets half a laugh from them, so I feel confident I made my point.

It doesn't matter if I did or not though because Beck hands me a plate of food and I make it my job to get it in my stomach as fast as possible. I have to eat bland food with tiny bites or I'll get sick, but I will eat those tiny bites as fast as I humanly can.

I only used a utensil out of habit, and as I was inhaling food it occurred to me it might be easier to tip the plate toward my face. I consider doing that for a second, but then I remember there are people around to see. People! I'm not alone!

"Mark?" Lewis asked, concerned. Oh, right, I'm laughing to myself without explaining.

"How fucking high are you, man?" Martinez asks, laughing.

"Very," Beck answers warmly.

I laugh again. "I turned into a bit of a caveman over the last few hundred sols," I say. "I considered tipping the plate into my mouth, but then I remembered I shouldn't do that where people can see. And then I realized that people are here! I'm not alone!" I say, looking up at her. "Amazing."

They look upset. I can hear the cooing in their thoughts. He's been alone for so long.

And then I remembered I've been alone for so fucking long. So alone.

At the word 'alone,' the empty MAV landing struts flash in my mind, lightning-fast and barely there. The emptiness seeps into my chest like poison.

"Don't - don't do that," I mumble. "Don't look all... traumatized, or whatever. It's okay."

"Are we supposed to not be bothered?" Lewis asks, almost defensively. She was the voice of the team, I could hear it.

The team, not including me. 

A wall slams down.

Suddenly I'm not a part of this crew anymore, and I feel the emptiness crackle through my chest like flash-frozen ice.

"No, but..." I sigh. "I want to be able to say whatever I want to say, but I can't if anything I might say might make you guys... It's bad, yeah, but it is what it is, so just..." I trailed off, gesturing. I'm not sure how to articulate what I'm asking. What is it I'm asking? For them to not make a big deal of it, I guess.

They all furrowed their brows and said nothing, so I figured 'fuck it' and got back to my meal. But they all kept staring at me, even as I continued to eat.

"Guys, guys," I joked. "I know I'm attractive, no need to stare."

"I've never seen someone eat that fast," Vogel says with his characteristic flat humor.

I silently thank him for the normalcy.

Martinez was quick with a joke. "Yeah Watney, you're not gonna be underweight anymore if you keep that up." Trust Martinez to mock the starving guy. He must think he's hilarious. Privately, I do too.

"You're one to talk, Martinez," I say through my food, mouth open, and everything. It was mature of me.

Martinez raises his eyebrows, grinning.

"But , I've been on three-quarters rations for... like, the whole time I was there. It's not like it was half, but..." stop to inhale more food. "I didn't feel any more hungry than usual until Beck gave me a full meal, and now it's like my body remembered I'm starving."

After a minute, I look up and see their aghast faces again. What - oh yeah, living on 3/4 rations is a Bad Thing.

The part of my ration that I can't eat is staring at me, I can't look away. My stomach is shredding my insides, and I feel like the last meal I ate must have been a meal of knives. I'm not doing any manual labor today, so I limit myself to a half-ration.

"It's okay," I tell myself, forcing myself to cover it with a bowl and putting it back in the fridge. "It's okay," I say, looking down at the food I do have. "You have plenty of food. Watney, you're lucky you even get to eat." My insides feel shredded, decimated. "Look, you get to eat and lay around and watch TV. You don't have to lift jack shit, you can lay down and put a pillow under your back and watch Dukes of Hazzard." My voice is shaky but I don't notice.

Walking away from the fridge is physically painful, the blackness in my chest growing and growing.

The memory slams into me out of nowhere. The emptiness explodes in my chest, but I'm able to breathe through my nose and divert the shaking in my chest to a deep, shaky breath.

On the inside, I'm reeling. On the outside, I must be doing an OK job hiding it, because no one seems to notice anything changed. Or maybe they're politely ignoring it.

Martinez is talking. "I can tell you're starving, dude, because you're eating this shitty rehydrated food like it's the best thing that's ever happened to you."

"Dude, Martinez, it is."

I meant for the words to come out conversational, but they must have come out heavy. Even Martinez looked like someone killed his puppy.

"I am sorry if I'm bringing the mood down," I say awkwardly, although on the inside I'm not sure if I am all that sorry.

Lewis shakes her head. I can't read her emotions. "No, we're the ones who are supposed to be understanding."

"But how can you understand?"

In an instant, Lewis looked like she'd been struck. She thought I meant that as a snippy comeback.

"Shit! sorry, I didn't mean it like..." is my hastily mumbled response.

I put my head in my hands. What the hell is happening to me?

That seems to relieve her sense of hurt, as her gaze softens and she smiles at me. Her anger instantly, visibly morphs back to guilt.

I'm dozens of pounds underweight, haggard, inhaling reconstituted food, talking blithely about that time they abandoned me on a desolate, lifeless planet to die.

Okay Watney, pull it together.

I'm trying to think. How would I have reacted to someone else in my position two years ago? I don't know. I haven't been around Bad Things. I've had family members pass away, but that's natural. When your grandparents or elderly family members die you're bereft, but ultimately you knew it was going to happen. I moved on. I've never been around people who were, like, damaged. I don't even know how to handle myself. How can I ask them to know?

I put the fork down, and mumble in the table's direction. "I'm not angry, and I don't blame you guys, OK? I just want everything to go back to normal."

Even as I say it, contradictions pile up in my mind. I am angry. I had enough temper tantrums in the Hab to know some part of me does blame them. And I've only been conscious for less than an hour, but already I'm feeling the dawning horror of knowing things will probably never be normal again. But I've got to fucking try. 

Lewis looks at me with her sparkling blue eyes, and nods gently. Everyone else stares a beat, then does the same. 

"'Sides," I say. "I'm finally back. I'm Mark Watney, junior most member of Ares III, I'm a dick who makes everything into a joke, and I'm back." I don't know how to smile, but I think the moment calls for it, so I force a smile and crinkle my eyes to add realism. "Can I be that guy again?"

Lewis sighs and dips her head, nodding. "Of course, Mark, you're right."

"If Lewis tries to take anything personally I'll make fun of her for it," Martinez assures me, nodding solemnly.

Great. I can go back to inhaling my food now. "The only reason you like that shit is that it's not potatoes," Martinez says, trying heroically to get everything back to normal.

"Don't knock my potatoes," I say, feeling the weight of the food settle in my stomach. "Yeah, I'm never eating potatoes again, but there were only good bacteria on Mars, and they were completely organic and GMO. I gave each plant individual care. They were the best baked potatoes anyone's ever had."

"I can't imagine," he says, laughing, "Only eating baked fucking potatoes for a solid year."

"I mashed them once or twice," I say conversationally, "But it took a lot of effort and it was a pain to clean, and I always lost a little no matter how careful I was, so I stopped doing that."

"How did you wash things?" Beck asks curiously.

"I made 600L of water. I had plenty of water to wash stuff; had to dump it back into the reclaimer after. But with all the dirt on the floor, things never stayed clean long."

"How did you make 600L of water?" Vogel asked, eyes blown. He's the chemist, after all.

"You'll like this, Vogel," I say, grinning. "I lit the hydrazine from the MDV on fire. Turns it right to water."

They aren't laughing. They are staring at me. They don't seem to think it's funny.

I keep laughing a little, but their expressions don't change, so I stop. Their eyes are round, like I told them something disastrous.

I needed water; that's how you get water. What was I supposed to do?

Their shocked faces kept staring at me, mouths dropping open. I kept staring at them, trying to understand what was alarming them so much.

Yeah, I know, lighting hydrazine on fire is bad. But what was I supposed to do?

I put myself in their shoes. I called to mind our training, and all the times they told us how completely dangerous and fatal fire is, how our number one priority is to avoid a fire, how a fire during space travel was as good as certain death. I remembered all the tests and the drills, and I remembered the way my heart pounded when we went to bed at night because the last thing I wanted during my Ares mission was a fire.

And suddenly, I understood. 

I lit jet fuel on fire.

Intentionally.

And it was terrifying.

Setting hydrazine on fire can blow you up so fast you won't even know you died. I remembered my training, my fear of hydrazine, my deadly fear of fire on the Hermes. I remembered the fear of everything exploding, everyone dying by explosion. The way we trained and trained and trained and trained to avoid fire.

NASA's safety rules and guidelines weren't them being fucking annoying pigeon nannies. NASA was trying to keep me alive.

If you ask NASA what the worst-case scenario is, they say "fire." If you ask them what happens, they'd answer "death by fire."

But I blocked all that out because it didn't fucking matter. I knew what I was doing when I lit the hydrazine on fire. I understood the risks. I also understood it didn't fucking matter. I need water, and that was the only way I could get water. It was my best option, and I took it.

And also, a small part of me says, if it had killed me, so much the better.

A different sort of cavern opens up in my chest, coming from nowhere, consuming me. My chest physically hurts as if elephants have been rampaging across my sternum.

No, it's not out of nowhere, it's the cavern that's been there since Sol 6. But I'm rescued. I'm on the Hermes. Why the fuck is it here?

"We're sorry, Mark," Lewis says, and I am yanked into the present. 

"Look, I had to do a lot of stupid shit to survive," I say. "I'm laughing about it now because I lived. If I didn't get that water, I was going to starve to death. I couldn't delay it, either; I had to start growing the potatoes immediately. For them to have enough time to grow, I needed water right then. Yeah, I could have exploded, but it was probably explode now versus definitely starve to death later." I neglected to mention the other part. "I did what I had to do."

Ok, there are those dreadful facial expressions again.

All right, official goals:

• Rebuild brain-mouth filter.
• Stop saying Bad Things like it's no big deal because it makes them upset.

I notice myself getting angry. I should be able to talk about what happened to me!

But life isn't fair. And they weren't there with me. They don't get it.

Which is kind of the whole point. No one should have to get this.

"We know, Watney, just..." Lewis rubs her face like she is a million years old. "We worried a lot about you."

I smile reassuringly. "Well you don't need to worry anymore, because I could have died from all the stupid stuff I did, but I didn't."

Yeah, fuck you, Mars. You didn't kill me, I win. A grin split my face as I finished the last of my food. Okay, I will say that out loud. "Yeah fuck you, Mars, I win."

"You are the King of Mars," Beck says.

The concept makes me shiver. "Not anymore. I don't want anything to do with that god-forsaken hellscape anymore."

"No can do, pal," Martinez shakes his head. "You're gonna be the guy that survived 549 Sols for the rest of your life, and people will be asking about Mars until the day you die."

I'm finally out of food, and my stomach is so full that I can physically feel it stretching. I'm exhausted. I can feel myself sinking down at the table, ready to put my face in my arms. "I'll tell them fuck Mars, I beat Mars."

"He needs to be put down for a nap," Beck laughs. "Get up, Watney, go to bed," he said, shoving my shoulder. The moment his hand lands, I wish he wouldn't lift it.

New Mark Watney Personality Trait: Clingy.

I don't want to get up. I want to sit here with my head in my hands and listen to them talk. But Beck pushes me gently until I get up, so I get on my stabby ribs as Beck floats with me to my quarters.

"Do you need anything?" Beck asks from behind me.

"Are you putting me to bed?" My voice is mocking, and I'm glad I can pull that off.

"Yes, because I'm a doctor, and you're my patient who broke two ribs in a 12g convertible launch, damaged their back and legs from almost constant physical activity and cramped living conditions, and has been a victim of starvation for a year and a half. I am personally putting you to bed."

I briefly entertain the notion of demanding independence, but decide against it. If Beck keeps checking up on me, I’ll have company (a huge plus) and I’ll have Beck stepping and fetching shit for me (another huge plus).

Beck is still talking. "In fact, I'm inclined to put you on forced bedrest for a few days to heal."

I shrug. "That's fine, as long as you losers come visit me."

Beck rolls his eyes. “I’ll be right back, I’m grabbing you some meds," he says, shutting the door.

The moment I an alone in the room with the shut door, my body goes rigid. I feel my muscles thrumming. Time slows down. It takes me by surprise. This is how my body feels when something bad is about to happen.

Have I noticed something wrong? Is something bad about to happen?

Fuck, no, I'm on the Hermes, not Mars, please don't let anything bad happen.

I stand there on high alert, straining my ears.

Nothing happens.

Beck is back as soon as he left, but when he opens the door it startles the shit out of me. I jerk backward so hard I almost fall over.

"Watney!" Beck exclaimed. "You all right?"

As soon as I adjust to him being in the room, my stress level drop significantly.

"Yeah, yeah," I say, collapsing onto the bed. "Gimme the drugs."

He does. I down them greedily and fall back on the bed. I would have liked to stay awake longer and look at all the photos I put on my wall, but I fall asleep before I even know it happened.

Melissa Lewis
Mission Day 691

Earlier That Day

"All right," Beck says. "NASA compiled a report on the possible physical and psychological effects of his time on Mars. They want me to talk you guys through how we should treat him on the ship, as in, how we should behave around him. Although, I gotta say," he said, swiping on the tablet, "It isn't a very helpful report."

"So, like every NASA report?" Martinez asked.

"No, this one is worse. I think they googled 'solitary confinement,' and included every bad thing that's ever happened to someone from isolation. In addition to the usual anxiety, depression, PTSD, mood dysregulation, personality changes, dissociation -"

"These are the usual things?" Johanssen cut in.

"-They included inability to sleep, as in at all, complex hallucinations, specific hallucinations 'such as dancing apples,' inability to speak, loss of object permanence - the inability to remember things he can't see exist - loss of object permanence with respect to people is a big concern of theirs -"

"So he might forget we're on this ship with him if he can't see us?" Lewis says, concerned.

Beck nods. "Yes. Uh, they've also indicated he's at risk for anorexia, bulimia, substance abuse, and a whole host of other behavioral problems.”

Everyone pauses for a moment, swallowing.

"It's not gonna be that bad," Beck says, trying to be reassuring. "This is everything that could happen. I highly doubt all of these things will happen."

"Beck, you're his doctor," Lewis says. "What risks do you think we should be worrying about first?"

Beck raises his eyebrows. "Uh, well, he seems to remember that we all exist when we're not around, which is good -"

Suddenly Watney thrusts himself into the Rec Room, and everyone's mouths snap shut.

He's in a sorry state. He's wearing the sweat clothes that belong to Johanssen, and everyone notices how they hang off of his skeletal frame, draping where his shoulders poke through his shirt. His skin is unevenly colored, red blotches visible on his face and hands, bruises on his arms, dirt embedded under his fingernails. His skin is wrinkled and leathery on his face, tan from solar radiation. His hair is cut in a somewhat organized fashion, but they can tell he did it himself with an electric razor and one mirror, and his bedhead makes it look like a mess. He's lost a ton of muscle, bearing more resemblance to a starving child in a Sarah McLaughlin commercial than to an astronaut. They can see how much it hurts him to move, can see him flinching whenever hr pushes off a surface, can see him panting hard from the exertion it took to get to the Rec Room.

Mark Watney used to have bright eyes. Bright, blue, full of laughter, playfully teasing someone nearby, always ready to give someone a hug. The most cheerful person in any room.

The Mark Watney that stands in front of them has the same hopeful eyes, but there is a century of suffering that wasn't there before. His eyes are sunken, open a little too wide for comfort. They dart around the room, never staying on one spot for long. There is a heaviness in his gaze that floors them all.

He doesn’t seem to notice any of this as he rights himself in the low gravity. He charges in, seemingly completely unaware of the situation, intent on saying whatever it is he was gonna say. That, at least, is the same Mark Watney they’ve always known

"I'm not on Mars!" He yells, but immediately doubles over hacking and coughing. Johanssen rushes to get him a packet of water, and he stands there for a moment sucking it up like a child with a juice box.

After some water and throat clearing, he yells again. "I'M NOT ON MARS!"

His shouting hurts their eardrums, but they start smiling despite themselves. Watney, skeletal, malnourished, and closer to death than life, is standing tall in front of them with a shit-eating grin on his face, and they're so damn proud of him. They cheer with him.

He begins to fist pump, looking around to an imaginary crowd of onlookers. The crew laughs and stands to greet him. 

After his fist-pumping, his eyes land on Johanssen, and he immediately pulls her into a crushing hug.

"Johanssen, you're so warm," he mumbles, snuggling with Johanssen, who unabashedly snuggles right back. The entire crew is aware of how tightly he is hugging her, aware that Watney is burying his face in her shoulder even though she's the shorter one, watching Johanssen bring her hand up to Watney's hair.

"Guys, come on, group hug time," Watney mumbles in her shoulder. Lewis rushes at the both of them, taller than either, then Beck and Martinez and Vogel join on all sides.

For a perfect moment, the six of them stand there, together again.

"Oh fuck, I was alone on for so long," Comes Watney's voice from somewhere in the middle of the hug.

"You're not alone anymore," came Lewis's choked voice from above, tallest of them all.

Watney's voice comes from the middle of the hug again. "Jesus fuck," he pants.

But from the middle of the group hug they feel Watney's chest jerk. They instinctively break apart to give him space. As soon as it's happening, they think that might not have been the right thing to do, as Watney's hand follows Martinez's and grabs on.

Martinez, the most fifteen-year-old person to ever live, looks him in the eye and puts his hand on Watney's shoulder.

In response, Watney instantly slams his eyes shut, brings his hands up to cover his face, hiding tears. "Sorry, sorry, I haven't -" he starts thickly.

"We know, Watney," is Martinez's amused and exasperated reply, gripping him back.

"We rescued you," Johanssen says again, a soft smile on her face. "You're safe with us."

"Johanssen, stop it," is Watney's thick and joking reply as he collapses into his seat. Everyone else follows suit, sitting around the rec table.

Everyone always sits in the same seat at the rec table. Lewis, with Beck on one side and Watney on the other, Watney next to Martinez, next to Vogel, next to Johanssen, next to Beck. The second Watney collapses into his seat, something in the world is put right again. They've been staring at that empty seat for far too long.

Watney looks around for a moment distractedly, taking in the sight of the Hermes. The rest of the crew looks at him, watching, waiting.

Watney is silent for a moment. Then he says "Shit, I'm hungry," And Beck's already on his feet making food. Watney sees and says "Beck, you're my hero."

Beck puffs up and says "I am the one who tethered you in, after all," with false self-importance.

"But, guys," He says, looking up. "You're all-"

"We know, we know," Johanssen said, again, smiling.

Watney looks around the table again for a moment distantly.

The crew ignores the stiff way Lewis is sitting. She'd been like that ever since they came to rescue him.

As Lewis begins to wonder what Watney’s thinking, he waves his hand in her face. "Stop that. You're ruining my moment."

Lewis raises her eyebrow, pressing her lips together thinly, pretending she doesn't know what he's talking about.

He waves his arm again. "Feeling guilty. Stop feeling guilty for the state I'm in, it's not your fault." Watney looks at the rest of the crew in turn. "That goes for all of you. Don't feel guilty. You did nothing wrong, you were following protocol, and it was perfectly reasonable to think I was dead." A pause. "And also, I'm selfish, remember? I want all the glory. I don't want to deal with your guilt."

But as soon as Watney spots food, he stops talking to everyone else in favor of shoving it in his face as fast as possible. Although, it isn’t too fast, considering Watney is taking tiny bites and using extra care to chew each one thoroughly. He looks like he is having trouble with the utensil, as if he hadn't used one in a while.

Watney's laughing to himself while he's eating. They wait on him to provide an explanation, but he doesn't.

"Mark?" Lewis asks.

"How fucking high are you, man?" Martinez laughs.

"Very," Beck answers warmly.

Watney looks up and they could swear he looks startled before his eyes focus on them.

"I turned into a bit of a caveman over the last few hundred sols. I considered tipping the plate into my mouth, but then I remembered I shouldn't do that where people can see. And then I realized that people are here! I'm not alone! Amazing."

His voice sounds strangely flat, but Lewis tells herself that's probably from the drugs.

By the time anyone can respond, he's returned to staring at his food lovingly. No one knows quite how to react.

Watney's eating slows down, and he looks up at the group. "Don't - don't do that," He mumbles. "Don't look all... traumatized, or whatever. It's okay."

Lewis looks visibly annoyed. She takes a breath. "Are we supposed to not be bothered?"

"No, but..." He looks down at the table. "I want to be able to say whatever I want to say, but I can't if anything I might say might make you guys..." he waves his hand as if to say 'like this.' "It's bad, yeah, but it is what it is, so just..."

Just what? Don't react? Nobody is quite sure what he's trying to say. Everyone looks at Watney. He goes back to shoveling food into his mouth at the speed of light. No one has the heart to talk to him, because he would have to stop eating to respond.

"Guys, guys," He jokes in between bites. "I know I'm attractive, no need to stare."

Martinez immediately snorts.

"I've never seen someone eat that fast," Vogel says drily.

"Yeah Watney, you're not gonna be underweight anymore if you keep that up," Martinez says oh-so-sensitively.

"You're one to talk, Martinez," Watney says, mouth full of food. Johanssen groans, and puts a hand between her and Watney. Martinez raises his eyebrows, grinning.

"But, I've been on three-quarters rations for... like, the whole time I was there. It's not like it was half, but..." stop to inhale more food. "I didn't feel any more hungry than usual until Beck gave me a full meal, and now it's like my body remembered I'm starving."

Watney is somehow smiling as he says that. Ha ha. I got so used to starving to death that I forgot all about it!

Guilt seeps into her heart like ice.

Watney takes an awkward pause from his food, breathing deeply through his nose, eyes unfocused. Probably gathering steam to dive back into his food.

"I can tell you're starving, dude, because you're eating this shitty rehydrated food like it's the best thing that's ever happened to you," is Martinez's chosen response.

Watney's not resumed eating yet, staring at his food oddly. "Dude, Martinez, it is."

Oh God, Lewis thinks. It is, isn't it?

Everyone is silent for a moment, processing that information.

"I am sorry if I'm bringing the mood down," Watney mumbles.

You are not bringing the mood down, Lewis thinks. We brought the mood down by leaving you there. We did this to you. 

"No, we're the ones who are supposed to be understanding," Lewis says.

"But how can you understand?" 

He asks the question plainly. He doesn't mean it as an insult, and everyone else knows that, but the reality of it slams into her like a train. How can we possibly understand what he's going through?

Starvation, isolation, and the constant threat of death are things that happen to Navy SEALS, not astronauts. Astronauts train rigorously to avoid death, but generally, astronauts are either doing fine or already dead. The crew was about as prepared to understand and deal with this anyone else would be - which is to say, not prepared at all. 

"Shit! sorry, I didn't mean it like..." Watney puts his head in his hands. "I'm not angry, and I don't blame you guys, OK? I just want everything to go back to normal."

Her heart pangs. Of course that's what he wants. Isn't that what anyone would want?

"'Sides," he says. "I'm finally back. I'm Mark Watney, junior most member of Ares III, I'm a dick who makes everything into a joke, and I'm back. Can I be that guy again?" He's grinning, eyes crinkling, but his smile looks weary and tired. 

"Of course, Mark, you're right," Lewis says.

"If Lewis tries to take anything personally I'll make fun of her for it," Martinez assures Watney, working heroically to keep things normal.

"Don't knock my potatoes. Yeah, I'm never eating potatoes again, but there were only good bacteria on Mars, and they were completely organic and GMO. I gave each plant individual care. They were the best baked potatoes anyone's ever had."

"I can't imagine," Martinez laughs, "Only eating baked fucking potatoes for a solid year."

"I mashed them once or twice, but it took a lot of effort and it was a pain to clean, and I always lost a little no matter how careful I was, so I stopped doing that."

"How did you wash things?" Beck asks curiously.

This was one of the mysteries of how Watney survived. They knew he made massive amounts of water, but nobody told the crew how. NASA held back operational details about "Watney's surface mission" from the Hermes crew, ostensibly so the stress wouldn't distract them from their mission. 

Watney shrugs. "I made 600L of water. I had plenty of water to wash stuff; had to dump it back into the reclaimer after. But with all the dirt on the floor, things never stayed clean long."

"How did you make 600L of water?" Vogel asked, eyes blown. He's the chemist, after all.

Watney starts laughing. "You'll like this, Vogel. I lit the hydrazine from the MDV on fire. Turns it right to water." Watney snaps his fingers for effect, grinning.

Ice shards slide right into everyone’s hearts.

He lit the hydrazine on fire.

First, he took the hydrazine into the Hab, his only safe haven. He looked for something flammable in the Hab. He created an open spark with electrical equipment, in the Hab. And then he used it to light rocket fuel on fire in the Hab.

The worst part of all of this is that Watney thinks this is funny.

At the time, Lewis thought the decision to hold back operational information was bullshit. He's our crew mate and we have a right to know, she thought. But hearing that, and feeling cold tendrils of fear snake down her arms, makes her think maybe NASA had a point after all. 

His laughing dies down in the face of their silence. He furrows his brow at them, visibly confused.

But after a moment, he looks down. He doesn't look confused anymore. He stares past his food. Nobody says anything.

Her guilt gnaws at her further. She shouldn't be reacting so poorly. What else was he supposed to do? She knew he was fighting for his life. What did she think that meant?

"We're sorry, Mark," Lewis says quietly.

Watney jerks, looks up at them, and starts mumbling. "Look, I had to do a lot of stupid shit to survive. I'm laughing about it now because I lived. If I didn't get that water, I would have starved to death. I couldn't delay it, either; I had to start growing the potatoes immediately. For them to have enough time to grow, I needed water right then. Yeah, I could have exploded, but it was probablyexplode now versus definitely starve to death later." He sighs. "I did what I had to do."

"We know, Watney, just..." Lewis rubs her face, clearly burdened by command. "We worried a lot about you."

He smiles a little smile. "Well you don't need to worry anymore, because I could have died from all the stupid stuff I did, but I didn't." He grins, widely. "Fuck you Mars, I win."

"You are the King of Mars," Beck says, quoting one of Mark's letters.

Watney shivers. "Not anymore. I don't want anything to do with that god-forsaken hellscape anymore."

"No can do, pal," Martinez shakes his head. "You're gonna be the guy that survived 549 Sols for the rest of your life, and people are gonna be asking about Mars until the day you die."

Watney finishes his food and slumps down on the table into his folded arms. "I'll tell them fuck Mars, I beat Mars."

"He needs to be put down for a nap," Beck laughs. "Get up, Watney, go to bed," he says, shoving Watney's shoulder. "Do you need anything?"

"Are you putting me to bed?" Watney's voice is a cross between joking and whining.

"Yes, because I'm a doctor, and you're my patient who broke two ribs in a 12 g convertible launch..." they continue talking as they bounce out of the Rec Room.

In their wake, everyone looks at each other awkwardly. No one knows what to say.

"Am I the only one who noticed how often he spaced out?" Martinez ventures. "Not once, but twice he spaced out so hard that he jerked when we said his name."

"NASA warned us," Lewis says, as if that means anything.

Martinez shakes his head. "It's... weird, you know?"

"Also, he would look no one in the eye," Vogel observes. "I wonder what NASA will make of this."

Beck bounces back into the Rec Room. "I put him to bed," he offered. "If we're lucky, he will sleep three more days."

"Did you see the way he kept just... spacing out?" Martinez asked Beck. "Every other sentence, it's like he forgot we were here. Staring at the wall."

Beck spreads his arms out. "NASA warned us."

"Lewis said," Martinez rolls his eyes.

"Based on that interaction, can you assess Watney's condition?" Lewis says. "You were telling us you have no idea."

Beck sighs for a moment. "Well, he carried on a cogent conversation, cracked jokes, picked up on social cues, so that's all promising. He doesn't seem to have a sense for his own pain, but he's probably in the habit of ignoring it..." Beck picks up his tablet, swiping. "I don't think he's a threat to himself or others, which would be the only reason I would want to break doctor-patient confidentiality."

"We all released that when we went on this mission," Lewis says.

Beck shrugs. "If I think you need to know, I'll tell you. For now, I will keep my suspicions to myself out of respect for his privacy."

Lewis frowns, but nods.

"Okay, NASA's recommendations for his care. Physiological is my department, but behavioral will need all of your help. Basically, NASA thinks normalcy and routine will minimize his risk of long-term psychological complications."

Lewis nods. "That's what I was thinking. We already have a routine, so we have to make sure we stick to it." 

Lewis turns her piercing eye around the table. In the last hundred days, they had become less than rigorous about sticking to the NASA schedule. They were anxious about Watney's rescue and almost ten light-minutes away from Earth. NASA had no power to make them stick to any routine.

"Yes Commander," Johanssen says guiltily. It was, of course, her and Beck who were doing the worst job sticking to the curfew.

"I know you two like spending time in the Rec Room after-hours -" Lewis begins.

"But you have to keep your canoodling to yourselves now, do you hear?" Martinez laughs. "Get a room."

"We have a room, a tiny room with a tiny bed and about ten square feet of walking space," Johanssen says.

Martinez waggles his eyebrows. "I'm sure you two will find a way."

"We're not -" Beck says in a stilted voice. "It's -" He tries again. "This ship isn't soundproof, and besides, we wouldn't..."

Lewis frowns, not wanting to appear as if she approved of what was happening here, but amused nonetheless.

"This true?" Martinez asks Johanssen.

She shrugs. "For the most part."

Vogel shakes his head. "For the most part," he repeats in his thick accent.

"Anyways," Beck said loudly, "The geniuses at NASA also said that Watney will probably be lonely and wanting contact with other humans, so pending Watney's feelings on the matter, we should spend time with him and, basically, touch him a lot. We all saw the way he hung on to Martinez."

"Oh, the wisdom of NASA," Martinez shakes his head. "Telling us shit we already know." 

Commander Lewis privately agrees.

"Oh, and one more thing," Beck says. "NASA included a bunch of warning symptoms we should all be on the lookout for. If you see any of the following, let me know within 24 hours: extreme mood swings, failure to get his attention after yelling his name in his face, inability to wake him up, insomnia, uh..." more swiping. "If you observe any of the following, let me know immediately: talking or yelling at things that aren't there, failure to acknowledge things that are there."

"Is there a reason we need to tell you if we think he's not sleeping? Can't he do that himself?" Martinez asks.

Beck frowns. "NASA is worried he's will hide things from us or lie about it to us."

"I feel like they're convicting him before he's even done anything," Johanssen says. "I know, 'be prepared for every eventuality,' but I can't believe Mark would lie to us."

"People are more willing to lie about things that they think they shouldn't have to talk about," Lewis says. "We're not supposed to lie on the ship, but if someone asked me what losing my virginity was like, I would hardly be inclined to give a helpful answer. We know Watney wasn't especially private before, but he may make an exception this time."

"We already know what your loss of virginity was like," Martinez says unhelpfully. "We've gossiped about everything on this ship."

Lewis rolls her eyes. "You know what I'm trying to say."