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Ed grips the backrest of the seat that he'd had to vacate when the nervous energy thrumming through his entire body had finally forced him to his feet. His fingers dig into the faux leather, knuckles turning white as he tries to breathe through it.
"He'll be okay, Ed," Mary says, from beside him. She reaches out, laying a reassuring hand on Ed's forearm. "They'll all be okay."
Her voice sounds calm, but when Ed shoots her a sidelong glance, he can see that the anxiety in her eyes mirrors his own.
"I know," Ed says, patting her hand. "I know. It's just… fuck. This is gonna be the longest six minutes of my life, y'know?"
The tension in Mission Control is thick enough to cut with a knife. Every single person in the control room is laser focused on the specific role they need to play to get the four astronauts aboard the Orion capsule back home safely. The six minutes of radio blackout, caused by the plasma shield that will form around the capsule due to the extreme temperatures created by re-entry, are expected and planned for, but that won't make them pass any more quickly.
Ed replays his husband's final words to him before communications went dark. I love you, my Starlight. I'll see you soon.
Ed had squeaked out a reply in a wavering voice, though he knew Stede had no way to hear him. Make sure you do, Moonrise.
Ed has been up there himself — to the ISS, mind, not the moon — and so he has undergone re-entry three times before. And that means he knows first hand how pants-shittingly terrifying this part of the mission is. All astronauts know that what they do is dangerous, of course — it's always important to make sure your affairs are in order before launch day — but nothing brings home quite so viscerally just how fucking insane an astronaut's job is than hurtling through the atmosphere at 24,000 miles per hour.
The fact of it is, there is no margin for error at this point in the mission. Thousands of things have to go right. Nothing can go wrong. All it would take would be for the heat shields to fail…
No. Nope. Ed is not gonna think about that.
He fiddles with the gold band on his ring finger, twisting it round and round. God, Ed is so fucking lucky that Stede Bonnet had slid into that seat across from him in the staff cafeteria three years ago. Ed had been captivated by him straight away, but then he'd made a bitchy comment on the quality of the yoghurts ("Honestly, Ed, I don't think this yoghurt has ever seen a strawberry in its life!"), and Ed had been gone. Thankfully, Ed hadn't been the only one who had fallen like a ton of bricks, and they had been married within a year.
He closes his eyes, thinking back to the day Stede had slid Ed's wedding band onto his finger as they had stood on a golden beach, bare toes digging into the sand. He pictures the way the sunset had caught in Stede's curls, and how the light had reflected from his glassy eyes as he had tried so valiantly to hold back the tears. He had been so beautiful that day, glowing with a light that had put the sunset to shame.
"Pops?" Louis asks, looking up from his appropriately space themed colouring book.
"Yeah, mate?" Ed says, grateful for the distraction.
"How much longer until we can hear Dad's voice again?"
Ed doesn't even need to look at his watch. He's been counting the seconds in his head. "Three more minutes, bud. Not even enough time to boil an egg."
Alma chuckles a little at that, though it sounds a little strained. Ed looks over at her. The chair dwarfs her, making her look younger than her years. Her knees are hugged in tight to her chest, and she is chewing on one of the drawstrings from her hoodie — a nervous habit that Ed hasn't seen her do in a while.
Alma had been much slower to warm up to Ed than Louis. Even now, he still feels a little at sea around her, never quite sure of what he can say to bridge the gap between them.
He flops down in the seat next to her. Instantly, his leg starts jiggling uncontrollably. There is no way he's keeping still until he hears Stede's voice again, it seems.
"How are you doing, Al?" Ed asks, quietly.
She shrugs, pulling her knees in tighter. Ed wracks his brains for what he can say to help her. Empty platitudes won't work, that much he's sure of. She's a smart kid, and she's read up on the mission extensively. She knows as well as anyone in this building what the risks are.
He reaches into his jacket pocket, pulling out the small glass tube that he keeps in there. Inside the tube is a tiny fragment of meteorite. "I've had this since I was younger than you are now. I used to look at it for hours, just imagining how far it had travelled across the universe before it finally rained down on our tiny planet. Our little blue dot. It's kind of my good luck charm. I've had it with me on every mission, and you know what? I always came back safe."
He holds the vial out to Alma. "Hold onto this for me until your dad splashes down safely, yeah?"
Alma takes it from him, closing her fist around it. She nods, and sniffs a quiet "Thank you."
Ed pats her knee and stands again, unable to stay in one place for a single moment longer. Just twenty more seconds to go. Twenty seconds until Mission Control can check in with the astronauts, confirming that they are well.
Ed has been on this planet for one and a half billion seconds, give or take a few million. But the twenty seconds before radio communications are restored feel qualitatively different to any of the others that have come before. They are stretched to breaking point, entire lifetimes contained within each one.
Ed's heart is pounding in this throat. God, he's trying to be stoic for the sake of the kids, but he feels like he's on the verge of throwing up. He doesn't even notice that Mary has sidled up to him until she slips her hand into his, giving it a tight squeeze.
"Houston? Do you copy?"
Ed's knees almost give out from under him as Stede's voice rings out from the speakers.
Flight Director Zheng Yi Sao's voice is the next to be heard. She is professional as ever, but the relief is unmistakable in the tone of her voice. "We copy, Commander Bonnet. It's good to hear your voice."
Louis and Alma come bounding over, barrelling into Ed and Mary, very nearly knocking them on their asses. The four of them quickly become a mass of limbs, all tangled together like some giant human pretzel. Ed finds himself laughing, and he's not ashamed of the tears that prick at his eyeballs. And as Ed glances around the room at the families of the other crew members, it's clear that he's not the only one feeling overwhelmed.
The four of them continue to hold each other as the capsule's parachutes deploy, though Ed's attention remains tightly fixed on the chatter passing back and forth between Mission Control and the crew. Only when safe splashdown is confirmed does Ed let himself fully relax. He grins as he feels Alma pressing his meteorite fragment into his palm, the tube warm from where she'd been gripping it.
Once the furore has died down, and the boats start moving in to extract the crew and perform their standard medical checks, Stede's voice comes over the speakers once more. But this time, he speaks directly to Ed.
"Hello Starlight. Did you miss me?"
Ed laughs, scrubbing a hand over his face. He steps over to the mic in the Family Room, trusting that they'll patch him through. "Longest six minutes of my life, Moonrise. Let's never do that again, huh?"
"How about next time, you come with me?"
"Sure, babe. It's a deal."