Work Text:
Oh, you're spiralin' again
The moment right before it ends, you're most afraid of
Twenty six years after the Hail Mary was sent off to death, something returns to earth.
I, Mark Watney (Space Pirate) wake up in bed for the first time in years to good news. The world has cooled significantly, the greenhouse gases only able to do so much to keep the earth from freezing.
In the meantime, earth had continued to try to prevent the nearing end, pumping more and more chemicals into the sky.
Oh the sky.
I missed the way it used to be, before the end of the world… before I got stuck on Mars.
Before I lost the man I gave my heart to, to the stars.
Twenty Six years after Ryland Grace was sent on a suicidal mission to the (not dying) star Tau Ceti, the beetles were finally coming back home. Well, at least two of them did, we only saw two.
Hopefully with a fix.
Almost certainly with his suicide note.
I just fucking hope that Stratt (Fuck you, you bitch) rolls over in her cell, and they tell her her awful plan worked. I would laugh at that one.
Hah. I still kind of do.
She got lifetimes in prison for what she did.
It was never enough. Not for what she did, not for who she took away from me- from us. Because in less than six hours, we would see what my beloved Dr. Ryland Grace sent back to earth, and I can only hope that he proved them all fucking wrong.
Albeit, she wasn't wrong, he was remembered. I still had all of the letters from the classes he had, everyone wishing him luck and hoping he could come back.
Nobody really had the heart to tell them otherwise.
But don't you cancel any plans
'Cause I won't let you get the chance to never make them
I'm older, not as bold and so, so tired. I drag myself up and out of bed, getting dressed and ready to finally pull myself to the car and to the conference room. It's hard pulling up to the building, and just knowing that whatever happens, I can't do anything about it.
I walk in, wrapped in more layers than I wish I had to. I get too cold nowadays. The screen is blank, but there is a small group of people already seated in the room.
“Move the hell over,” I say, and Carl shifts his chair, pulling another up next to him. I'm sandwiched between him and Dr. Komorov, I honestly have to double take.
“I didn't expect you to be here, Nice to see you again.” I say, a sad smile on my face. He looks the same way.
“I was invited a week ago when they first got the signal.” Dimitri says, looking around for a moment as movement catches the corner of his eye. Dr. Lokken is moving to sit at the end of the table, and even Hatch, Dr Leclerc and Dr Lamai are walking in.
I snort slightly. This room is a who's-who of everyone the project must have ever dragged into its orbit. And in the back of my mind, I wonder just how many of them were here for Grace- Or if they just wanted what they could have found.
Stayed on the line with you the entire night
'Til you let it out and let it in
I don't know, and I suppose that I don't actually care either way. I knew why I came. I was too old to be sent back to space, but I never needed to see space again to know why I was here. I just needed to know he made it, that he was so, so much stronger than everyone else said he was. That he was as strong as I knew he was.
I just wait for the projector to boot up, and just watch the others in the room. It's a small group, but I know almost all of them, albeit I didn't keep any sort of good connections with anyone after the project fell apart.
The screen blinks on, and my head snaps to the front of the room.
Someone- I don't recognize them, but they must have been part of the project to get the information from the beetles to earth, set up their laptop and open the screen on the projector.
Lines of code spill out, with multiple nestled files sitting within.
File1-OPEN FIRST!!.MP4
They hover over it, and Dimitri sits up and turns, as if to tell them to click, before they do, and Grace's face pops up on screen, looking only a little older than when I saw him last. He looks so much more tired, but the glint in his eye is something I had watched die.
Don't let this darkness fool you
All lights turned off can be turned on
“Hey earth. It's me, Dr. Ryland Grace, on the Hail Mary.”
Tears begin to fall from my eyes and for a moment my heart shatters again,
“So, I wanted to start with a few things. First, you need to collect the beetles again- I know, not helpful, but I only sent two of them- Yes I will get to that-” He says, before he shifts away from the screen for a moment. “Ok, first…” Grace takes a deep breath and shakes his head before continuing. “Commander Yáo and Engineer Ilyukhina died getting here. I don't know how, but they were long dead, maybe a pump issue?”
He turns his face from the camera for a moment, before turning back.
“But otherwise, the real reason you need to collect the beetles is the fact that we figured out how to kill astrophage. Tau Ceti wasn't just unaffected, it was the birthplace of them. They have a petrova line, but their star didn't dim because their Astrophage birthplace was their native home. Astrophage has a predator.” He's smiling wider, but his eyes still show an ache of sadness. As he shifts, his jumpsuit moves and shows a collection of burn scars on his left arm and lower down on his neck.
“You need to collect the beetles to get the Taumoeba out of them, you should have enough to start your own farm and seed Venus.” He swallows for a moment, looking paler.
“What happened to him…” Dimitri breathes, and I just shake my head. I don't know if he would ever tell us, but we had more left to what he would say.
“And, I dunno if you all are sitting down, maybe you are… but well, we weren’t the only ones affected by this, obviously- there were other stars dying, are other stars dying. But when I arrived, something was already here- not just the Astrophage, more than that.” The camera shakes a little as Grace looks up, blinking hard as he seems to fight tears. “I made videos with him before this, but I met an alien, I call him Rocky, he’s from the 40-Eridani system and just like me he was the last on his ship. That’s where this comes in.”
He holds up a dark mottled grey and clear container, wrapped in more metal and plastic.
“His species uses a form of solid Xenon, which is what this is, I called it Xenonite- that’s not important- what is important is that he gave me fuel, they didn’t know about Relativistic physics or the speed of light, so they had way too much Astrophage. We started by breeding the Taumoeba in Xenonite containers, but it evolved to escape.”
Grace’s head lays back against the wall, and he breaths in shakily. “His fuel is going to be eaten alive. He won’t know where the leak is, because his entire ship is made of Xenonite, the leak is his ship.” He makes a sad look at the camera, and it breaks my heart more.
“I don’t have enough fuel or food to do both. I can either come home, or go save Rocky. And if you're getting these Beetles, assume I saved him.” He smiles slightly more. “I did want to come home, believe me, I did.”
I'll drive, I'll drive all night
I'll call your mom
The video ends there, we all sit in stunned silence for a moment, I reach up and very briefly realize that I am crying harder. Fuck me, he did it, but he still sacrificed himself.
There are more files, but I push my way up and away from the table, stumbling out into the hall, before I slowly slide down the wall with my head in my hands.
He’s dead by now, has to be. My stupid, brilliant, idiot Doctor saved the world and I can’t even hold it together enough to watch the rest of his transmissions.
Somewhere in my mind I knew they would be shared, and if I so chose, I could watch them another time.
But I don’t want to watch his death. I had seen plenty enough of that already. With my head in my hands I don't even notice as someone sits beside me until they are speaking. I jolt for a moment, before realizing that it is Carl.
“Mark, it's ok if you can't watch any more. But… There IS a video for you. I think that everyone in there agrees with me that we won't watch it unless you want us to. It's the least we could do for him.”
I breathe in for a moment, before I turn and hug Carl.
“Thank you, for being there for him when I couldn't. I think that you were one of his only friends.” I feel Carl shake for a moment, before a shattered sob wracks him.
We sit there for a long, long time. I lose the feeling in my legs, but I don't care, albeit my body will scream at me for it later. I just needed to know someone cared about him as much as I did, and now I do.
Oh, dear, don't be discouraged
I've been exactly where you are
After some time, Carl pulls away, and we just go back to sitting, my head rolled against the wall.
“Fuck. I should probably go tell them I want to watch it, shouldn't I?” I say, wiping tears away from my face. He just nods.
I slowly push myself to my feet, cursing my aging body, and I slowly walk back in. Many people are crying, and I don't know how many videos they have finished, but it seems that most of the important things have been gotten out of the way.
I just lean over to Dimitri, quietly telling him I want to watch the video addressed to me in private, and if I could just be given a copy of it. He nods, and motions for the person with the laptop to do something, and he copies the file over into an email. I look down as my phone alerts me to the notification.
I'll drive, I'll drive all night
I'll call your mom
I just turn my phone off, and walk back out, noting that Carl got up, I don't know where he's gone, but at this point I'm more focused on keeping myself together.
Leaning against the wall for support, I desperately look for an empty room.
I find an empty office, without a name-plate, and with the chair stored on top of the desk- pulling it down, I slump down behind the desk, and pull the shades on the window closed.
File14-ForMarkWatney.MP4
I pull the video up on my phone, and pause to look at his face again. He is as beautiful as the day he left, maybe even more so. I swallow my pain, and press play.
“Dear Mark, I'm sorry to you most of all, I don't know what happened to me, outside of being drugged. But I wish I had gotten to tell you goodbye.”
“I wish I had gotten to see you again before this. There was never enough time in the world to say how much I missed you. And now I'm going to die, and I think that I will always regret not being able to say I loved you.” He's crying, injured arm curled in against his body.
“Mark Watney, you were one of the best things that happened to the project, and I hope you live a good life, a happy life. One where my sacrifice means something.”
I press my fingers to the glass, and sob, leaning my head on my arms as I watch him. He fumbles for a moment and holds something up- it's the stupid little hacky sack, a beanbag of planet earth. “I almost didn't remember you, which is what makes this worse. But I just KNEW I had someone back home, and I knew what you had done. You did great, Mark, and I hope you know that.”
He smiles at the camera, before shaking his head. “You and Rocky would have gotten along like a house on fire.”
“Im sure we would have.” I say, knowing he will never respond.
“Uh- I think I'm running out of time. But I love you Mark Watney… I dunno- is that weird to say? You're probably married by now, I don't know, it's been twenty years- I'm sorry, I just made that weird… uh, anyway, goodbye. I hope your life is amazing.”
I'll call your mom
I break down again, but with no tears left, all I do is sob louder. There's nothing left for me here, and the one thing I had turned around in space to save another planet.
He was always braver than he knew.
He was always strong. They would pick up his beetles, and save the world, but I would never see him again.
“I love you too, Ryland Grace.”
Waiting room, no place to stand
His greatest fears and wringing hands and the loudest silence
Somewhere, just outside of the orbit of Neptune, a pale grey spaceship flies. Its solar sails are battered, its hull in need of repair.
But onboard, a starving human, and a stalwart eridian make their way home.