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It's Christina's first night back in her home after nearly a year in space, and she should be thrilled, but readjusting to life on Earth is proving much more difficult than she anticipated.
That's a problem for tomorrow though. Tonight, all she has to do is sleep in her own bed for the first time in what feels like forever. She's exhausted; her body is not happy about having to work overtime now that gravity is suddenly back. So it shouldn't take her long to fall asleep. She just has to get ready for bed.
She pulls the bathroom door shut, but she doesn't latch it because the only other person in the house is her husband. Just five more minutes…she tells her fatigued body, then you can collapse into bed with your husband by your side.
The bathroom is spotless, her husband made sure the whole house was perfectly tidy when she returned. Her old routine is no longer muscle memory. She has to recall and put effort into each step.
She turns the faucet on and goes to lean forward to splash her face with water. Oh-and there goes gravity.
She's falling to the floor before she can even react. She hits her face on the counter, splitting her lip and then her shoulder hits the ground harder than the rest of her. She groans, immediately tasting blood.
"Christina?!" Her husband yells, the door swings open, barely missing her legs. "Oh my God, what happened?" She's still not entirely sure. She leaned forward a little bit and then she just fell.
Bobby turns the water off and kneels next to her all in one swift motion. She is unreasonably jealous of how easy it is for him to move.
"I don't know…" she's scared to move, she has no idea what's wrong with her. Bobby grabs her shoulder and gently turns her onto her back. "You're bleeding…" he frets, pushing her hair out of her face.
Then she suddenly has an idea. She leaned over, that requires using muscles in your back to stay upright and those are some of the muscles that she'd been unable to keep stimulated while in space.
"Did you fall?" He asks, panicked by her lack of words. "Y-yes…" it feels embarrassing to admit. "Okay," he sits back on his knees, "what hurts?"
"Um…" her shoulder is definitely bruised, not broken though, she knows what that feels like. "I think I bruised my shoulder…and split my lip." Her entire mouth hurts, but she thinks that's just from banging it on the counter.
"That's all?" He asks when she doesn't add anything else. "Yeah…it wasn't that epic of a fall…" she mutters, glancing off to the side.
"And that's why you're still on the floor?" Now that he knows she's okay, he can't help but make a joke. "Well-you haven't offered to help me up yet." She counters with a fake pout.
"In my defense, you're not supposed to move people when they've just been injured." He says, rolling his eyes playfully. "The first thing you did was turn me over!"
"I was panicking!" They both laugh.
"Come on, sweetheart…let's get you up." He says after a beat, outstretching a hand. She takes it, and her grip is firm: the muscles in her hands were ones that she could exercise pretty easily.
It's the first time that she has to get up off the floor after her mission. There are so many things that she didn't even consider the possibility of being difficult after being in zero gravity for almost a year. With Bobby's help though, it's not too bad.
He holds her hand with one hand and uses the other to support her back which helps a lot more than she cares to admit. "Everything okay?" He asks once she's on her feet before continuing. "Yes," she actually feels surprisingly steady on her feet.
He has hit her sit on the closed toilet seat and touches her lip with his thumb carefully. "How badly does it hurt?" He asks, cleaning the blood with a tissue.
"Um…it feels like I smacked it on the counter." It's supposed to be a humorous way of avoiding having to rate her pain, but then she realizes he hadn't actually been there for that part.
"Is that how this happened?" He asks, kneeling in front of her so their eyes can meet. "Yeah…I was leaning over the counter when it happened so…" she imitates how it happened by pretending to smack her face.
"You should talk to the doctors at the Johnson Center about this…" she deflates at that. She knows he's right, but she's not too thrilled about everyone in the office knowing that she's incapable of washing her face after being in space for so long.
"I know," she'll call them tomorrow. "It stopped bleeding," Bobby notes, pulling the tissue away. "Would a kiss make it better?"
She smirks, "Maybe…" He smiles, leaning forward and connecting their lips. Christina winces and makes a seething noise. Bobby pulls away immediately. "Sorry…" she apologizes, knowing he's waited for a year to kiss her.
"Hey, it's okay. Your pain does not offend me." Those words take a second to really sink in. She wants to say something equally profound, but her mind draws a blank so she just stares at him, wondering how she got so lucky.
He stands, kissing her forehead on the way up. "Bed?" She nods, taking his hands as they pull her up again. "Do you need to do anything else in here?" She looks around. There are things she probably should do, but she's far too tired.
She doesn't really need to wash her face anyway. She lets herself be led to bed, Bobby doesn't let go until she's safely resting against the headboard.
"Are you comfortable?" He asks when she gets settled. "Mhm," she feels herself getting emotional. "Are you sure? You sound like you're gonna cry…" he says, sitting on the bed next to her.
"Um…yeah…I just missed you." She admits, feeling her eyes start to water. "Aw, Tina…" he climbs into bed, wrapping his arms around her.
"We're together again, it'll be okay." She snuggles further into him. "I love you," she says into his chest.
"I love you too," he presses one last kiss on her forehead before they both fall asleep.