Work Text:
It's been three years and Beth still appreciates the effort put into designing the main room of the Hermes to be not only habitable but comfortable for six people crammed into a very small space for years at a time. The benches lining two of the walls are wide and padded in a velvety material with velcroed cushions. It's going to take an adjustment period to get used to wearing shoes again once they get back to Earth but for now she's enjoying wearing socks 24/7 and not worrying about putting her feet up, even if Mark hasn't yet accepted his role as foot rest.
The lighting is soft and warm, recessed into the walls and adjustable enough to make it usable for detail work. There's a low table bolted to the floor by the mock sofas and a cup holder that Mark's taken over since he got back and filled with dirt. Something she thinks is basil is sprouting heartily under the little grow light clipped to the rim and it makes Vogel's eye twitch every time he sees it, which is hilarious.
What Beth doesn't appreciate is that she's the one who has to spend the next eight hours in here with her commanding officer and try to avoid the topic of where all the rest of her crewmates are and what they're doing right now.
Her only saving grace is that she aggressively refused to be informed of any details so even if she does crack–and they're all pretty sure the commander wants to talk about it as little as all of them do–she doesn't have much to spill.
“I see you switched up the shift rosters,” Commander Lewis says, slipping in through the hatch, and Beth jumps, trying to keep the guilt out of the set of her mouth as she turns around.
“Yeah, Martinez wasn’t, um. Feeling too well,” she says, biting her lip at the hesitation. God, she’s so bad at this. Why did they have to pick her to be the one to do things like lie and try to keep up appearances for an entire shift? Beth hasn’t kept a secret since Amy from fourth grade told her about her parents’ divorce and she’d only managed that because Isabel blabbed to the whole school two hours into the next school day.
Beck would be so much better at this. He’s basically full of secrets; it took two months of officially dating to pry his favorite ration flavor out of him and she’s still not sure how many siblings he has.
Well. The real answer is that as bad as she is at secret keeping, she’s worse at sex, so even if she’d been inclined to join the orgy happening in Vogel’s quarters at some point over the next seven hours and fifty eight minutes she’d probably sit it out anyways because she’s only just managed to stop laughing at the sight of a dick long enough to figure out how to do something with them.
It’s really not her fault fifty percent of the human population has objectively hilarious genitalia.
There have been so many times over the course of this mission Beth’s been extremely grateful that Commander Lewis probably doesn’t have mind reading powers, and this is definitely one of them–though she’s not sure how necessary would be, because she’s also really bad at keeping the general direction of her thoughts off her face.
Based on the commander’s carefully neutral expression, she’s currently scoring a perfect zero in that field.
“You’re supposed to clear those with me before the beginning of the shift,” the commander says, exactly no emotions whatsoever in her voice.
“...slipped my mind?” Beth tries, the heat already lighting up her cheekbones spreading across her nose and up to the tips of her ears as well. “And there are some repairs that really shouldn’t wait, and anyways, Martinez just went to go, uh, rest, and I don’t wanna wake him, you know?”
“Johanssen,” the commander says, trying for a flat affect, but even her military composure can only stretch so far and there’s something warm and a little awkward in her voice.
It takes about three seconds for her to crack. “Commander, Mark threatened to space himself if any heart to hearts occurred about what may or may not be going on presently in other areas of the ship,” Beth says, a little desperately. It’s not quite true, but she knows Mark pretty well, and it’s accurate to the spirit of his words even if not quite to the letter. “So I’m gonna clean these filters and then go fix the heat vents and you should put on some disco and if you want to talk it should be about something else, because we’ve really come too far to lose him to embarrassment-induced suicide.”
The thing about Beth is that she’s still not used to having people, not like this. It’s been years, but she’s had a lot longer to get set in her ways and she’s still breaking some habits, like letting her mouth run without thinking about what she says first.
The last words seem to ring in the small space and then–this is the other thing about Beth–she’s crying, because she’s always been an easy crier, and not even astronaut training managed to break her of that.
She’d been so jealous of Mark for a while, because back at the beginning of the crew selection process they’d been crying buddies, passing wads of toilet paper under the stall walls, and nothing had been able to snap her out of a funk like the honking noise when he blew his nose. He’d toughened up, though, and she just…hadn’t.
She was fine under stress, great at holding things together so long as she had a job to do, but the second the stakes dropped and she didn’t have anything to keep her busy it was still Tears City.
She’d told Mark how frustrating it was, a couple of weeks ago, when no one else had been up and about and she’d clambered up to cram herself into his side while she fiddled with some broken tools and he logged data.
He’d scoffed and told her that was probably why she was so much less emotionally stunted than him–that if she’d been on Mars they wouldn’t even need to get her the kinds of hella therapy he was in for once they got back to Earth because she’d have a good cry about it and talk it through with some people and be good.
It was a clear exaggeration but that was how Mark worked. She could guess at what he meant; at the desire for words to come more easily, to be able to reach out and pull emotions close whenever he wanted, and not have to wait around for them to sneak attack him.
She got that. She’d been a lot more like that, once upon a time, and as much as she might be saying all kinds of nonsense, retreating back to that place was the only thing that scared her more than the idea of crying in front of every authority figure in her life.
There are arms around her now.
They’re Commander Lewis’s, which kind of makes Beth want to space herself when she realizes, no matter what her therapist has told her about biological reactions not being inherently manipulative and her deserving comfort.
The hug is stilted and awkward and Beth is definitely getting snot all over her commanding officer’s uniform and laundry day isn’t for another week and she would like her own personalized rift in the wall to suck her off into space, now and thank you, please.
It takes her six and a half minutes to stop crying, because that’s how much time was left on the timer for the solder heater, which beeps and reminds her that she has work to do. She takes the tissue that the commander hands her, blows her nose and gets snot like, all over her hand, which is mega gross and also means she needs to detour to the sanitation room.
When she gets back the commander’s reset her heater to keep at the perfect temperature and laid out her tools and it’s about all she can do to push back another wave of tears.
“You’re not okay,” Commander Lewis says, simply, not turning to look at her.
You don’t spend two years in a pressurized tin can with a person without figuring out how to read them at least a little–not even Beth, who was absolutely certain her childhood bully was her best friend from grades second through fifth.
But it took Lewis three weeks to figure out that Beth can’t be looked at when she’s talking about emotions or she’ll just lie badly, that she needs something to do with her hands if she’s going to follow any kind of conversational thread, and to discover that Beth knows how to relocate her own shoulder.
To be fair, playing support in the aftermath of the super-against-the-rules knock-down, drag-out fight Beth had gotten into with the alternate tech was cheating a little bit, but in any case the commander had a scary aptitude for prying out everyone’s littlest secrets and figuring out how to communicate with them before they’d even learned her first name.
“No,” Beth admits, pressing her palms to the tabletop until the tendons in her wrists protest to get her hands to steady out. It’s an old trick she figured out back at MIT, hopped up on caffeine and with nothing better to do with her time than finish her degrees as quick as possible. “But we’re going home, and we have enough food, and everyone’s alive. So I’m making do.”
“Do you regret coming on the mission?” Commander Lewis asks, blunt enough to make Beth flinch.
She wants to say no.
The answer is no.
“Johanssen?”
“I don’t know,” she whispers, shame a lead lining for her stomach. She settles onto the bench and hunches in on herself. “I don’t–I think I wouldn’t give all of you up for anything. But… I used to love space, you know? And even if they’d ever let me back up here, I don’t think I could do it. And it hurts when everyone I love is hurting, and it’s so much better than the other option, but I just–want to be home.”
“I know,” the commander says softly.
“I want everyone to be safe and to know that all the people I care about aren't starving and don't have broken ribs and not to worry about having to fucking eat anyone ever again,” Beth chokes out, the tears starting up again.
The tissues hiss as they slide over the flooring and bump into her knee.
“I’m never going to forgive myself for leaving him behind,” Commander Lewis says, quiet like a confession. “I know it was the right call, and this is the one in a million shot that worked out beyond anyone’s hopes and dreams that wouldn't have been possible if I haven't. And those two things can both be true. It’s just important that I know them both.”
Beth laughs wetly. “Yessir, Commander Shrink.”
That gets her a rare, startled laugh. “Is that insubordination I hear, Johanssen?”
“Insubordiantion is literally the least of all our protocol issues on this ship,” she deadpans, finishing the last seam on the filter and setting it aside.
The commander groans. “I thought I taught y’all to be better at plausible deniability than this.”
Beth shrugs. “Well, you didn’t get me kicked out off the bat for trying to scalp Kravitz, so I think we all just figured you were the cool sort of officer who’d take our side against the brass.”
“I’m much better at doing that when I don’t have an answer for the first nosy reporter to ask me how many of my crewmates are fucking each other rather than having to lie about it,” she grumbles, scooting over to sit closer and picking up a detailing tool to finish the filters as Beth gets done reconnecting them.
“You’re a great liar, commander,” Beth says, earnestly.
“Ha. No, you’re just record-settingly terrible,” the commander says, scraping grit out of a corner.
Beth hums, and then reaches for another tissue. “I dunno. I’m pretty good at redirection.”
“I would not believe you did this on purpose if you swore it on your great-grandmother’s grave,” she says flatly, lifting her head to stare at Beth.
“Well, yeah, she was cremated,” Beth agrees, giggling. “No, you’re right. We’re already making plans to fake a case of the flu for me to avoid the first round of press, even though personally I still hope they’ll be more interested in the stupid amount of money we’ve cost the government than which of my crewmates I’ve slept with.”
“You’re funny.”
Beth sighs. “I know. I’ll never understand why people are so weird about sex. It's not even that interesting. Like, math is right there. Go pick up a book on observational astrophysics and stop asking me about my bodycount on live TV. It’s still three.”
“Still?” the commander asks. Out of the corner of her eye, Beth can see her eyebrows jump. “No, wait, I didn’t ask that.”
“Yeah, I slept with Chris before the mission started. We were both terrible about it, that’s why I couldn’t look him in the eye for a week. Then he took me to a local trivia night and I got over it,” Beth says, trying to pretend like she isn’t blushing horribly. “And we were fine and normal about it! Like everyone should be about this stuff!”
“I wish I could be that optimistic,” the commander says, smoothly abandoning the topic. “But realistically we’re going to be grilled within an inch of our lives about every choice we’ve made on this mission, and probably all end up grounded and possibly discredited in every academic circle.”
“You could pull a Mark Kelly and run for office,” Beth suggests, shrugging. “Or if the rest of the geology nerds are really that butthurt about you deciding to save Mark’s life and coming home with a whole crew and hella data, call me up. I’m sure we can make math and rocks do something interesting together and once you have a couple research grants in your name they’ll respect you again super quick.”
She laughs again. “I always forget this is your backup career. That’s your plan, then? Forbes 30 under 30?”
“I’ll be older than that by the time we get back,” Beth says, a little sadly. She doesn’t care what a bunch of business majors are writing about each other, but she’d really thought she would be spending her next birthday at home–and her last one. She misses her mom’s birthday cake. “But yeah. I mean, I’d love to stay on as a software engineer for a while–I get too bored just focusing on commercial applications of code–but like you said, I doubt they’ll keep me.”
“I’m sure Watney will be happy to pull some strings for you,” the commander says, something soft and a little pained in her voice the way there always is now when she talks to or about Mark. He’s told Beth it drives him crazy, but he hasn’t figured out how to get her to stop yet. Instead he just teases her relentlessly about her taste in music and military posture and that helps, more or less. “He can threaten to start a twitter account and they’ll cave; no one wants his brain on social media.”
“I, for one, think that would be hilarious,” Beth says, only a little bit because she thinks that Mark deserves to do whatever he wants forever and is planning on doing her damndest to make that happen. “I’ll worry about it when we get there. Work is so far down on the list of things I’m thnking about right now.”
They both fall quiet for a long minute, nothing but the constant circulation of the air systems and the clink of tools.
“We’re gonna take him home with us,” Beth says, eventually. In a whisper, because it’s still a secret. “Me and Chris. I mean, it’s up to Mark, but–he doesn’t want anything like what we are, and that’s okay, but I hate the idea of just splitting up, leaving him alone.”
“He’s got his family,” the commander says, gently. “And friends. He won’t be alone.”
“Yeah, but we’re those things too,” Beth says, stubbornly, narrowly avoiding tearing the filter she’s working on. “And we get it. Like I said, it’s his choice. We’re not gonna pressure him. But we already talked about it, and we both want him there.” She glances up, just for a second. The commander is focused too intently on her work. Cleaning carbon scoring really isn’t that interesting. “In case you. You know.”
Were feeling some kind of way about leaving Mark again, even if it was in the tender hands of trained physicians and not for dead on Mars.Beth doesn’t say that, though, because she can’t think of a different way to phrase it, and she’s definitely pushed the boundaries of their pool of discussion topics enough for the day.
The commander’s shoulders drop, just slightly. “That’s good to know,” she says, quietly.
“It’ll be great,” Beth continues blithely, “We’ll get a SNES and I’ll make him play, like, GoofTroop with me and he’ll get so mad. It’s gonna be hilarious.”
“Pictures or it didn’t happen,” Commander Lewis says, setting down her last filter. “I wish you a lot of luck with keeping your save file intact.”
Beth thinks that’s approval, or something like it, which is good, because now she can hold it over Mark if he tries to get weird about it. He’s got really strange ideas about propriety and relationships for an aro-allo from Chicago. “Going to check the helm?”
“Yes, and there’s a data dump coming in three hours if you want to prep for it before you do the vents. I was going to leave you to sort it later, but if there’s nothing else more immediate…”
“I’ll get on that,” Beth agrees, already reaching for her tablet. “And, hey, commander?”
“Johanssen?”
“Thank you,” she says, looking up. “One thing I’m never gonna regret is meeting you.”
“I’ll remind you you said that when you’re writing up your final mission report and I get on your case about commas,” the commander says, but she’s smiling, and she ducks the rag Beth halfheartedly throws her way before heading through the hatch.
Beth settles in to work, shoulders not crowded up around her ears for the first time in a while. It might not last, but for now the fear is keeping its distance and leaving room for other, more pleasant things.
She’s good at keeping her head down and moving forward, but she might have let herself forget the importance of looking up and keeping sight of the goal every now and then. It’s really nice to have people to remind her of that.