Y/N POV:
So I guess it's been all right with Mark borrowing my eReader. He borrows it every evening for about two hours, then gives it back before he turns in for the night, or whatever thing he does. I don't care, just so long as he doesn't get in my way, or try to bother me. He doesn't seem to be doing much of either these days. Ever since the incident in the tunnel at midnight, and my harshness, or at least, my frank honesty, he's been really polite about it and left me alone.
I don't know why I feel so awful about it. Every time I see him, I feel the guilt creeping up like a blush, and I have to look away from him. Eye contact is difficult, and I have no idea why.
I only know that I feel uncomfortable and scared around him when we're 'alone' since nobody is ever really alone on this little ship, but at least, for a moment, alone. He reminds me of the big, strapping guys at flight academy who were always subtly hitting on me, because it made them feel more manly or some apeshit like that.
That's the kind of guy Watney reminds me of- the one you'd never want to drive you home from a party- because any number of possibilities are there.
I don't mean to make Mark sound like he's a rapist, and maybe it's just the way he walks or talks or looks at me when he thinks I don't notice, that bother me so damn much.
I just.... I don't know what else to say. Every second I spend with him, I feel inexplicably bothered. I don't know how else to deal with men- the single ones, at least. The married ones are uncomplicated because there's no confusion.
Maybe that's what's bothering me about Watney.
I have an EVA that I'm not really looking forward to in less than half an hour, and I was going to do it alone, but as luck would have it, or rather, as Commander Lewis would have it- I'm stuck with Watney as a companion-helper of all people. He's an EVA specialist, but this will be the first one we've done together. I don't need my nerves wound tight like a spring like they are now, and I swear if Watney cracks one lame joke, I'll probably snap. I think he thinks he's alleviating tension, or pressure, or maybe to alleviate his own fears, but all he does is frustrate me.
I think he knows he's not funny, but he just doesn't care anymore. Maybe it's the fact that he doesn't care that scares me so much- because I care, and I take all of this so personally because, out of everyone else, I'm the one who has been dreaming of this time since I was six years old.
I can't deal with a Chicago botanist ruining it all.
Oh well. Maybe he'll be useful and make the EVA go a little quicker.
Mark:
So today I had my first EVA with her. My second EVA, and Lewis told me that this was going to be her first solo EVA, but Lewis thought that maybe Y/N would have a hard time by herself, especially with lifting some of the panels, and so she sent me. That's what you get for being the most technically useless crew member- you get farm hand duty.
It was so painfully quiet in the air lock after we suited up. She barely talked to me, didn't even look me in the eyes when she was going over the list of what we were going to do, just looked at the list on her helmet readout and kept staring staring ahead out of the tiny porthole.
I bit my lip, silently vowing not to try and crack any jokes, since she wouldn't laugh anyways. It doesn't seem like anything I do will ever make her laugh, let alone smile.
"So, we'll just put the panel over here," she said, gesturing with her bulky suit. She looked so small against the backdrop of the eternity that stretched beyond the Hermes, and she was but a white speck amongst the galaxies.
And I was here with her, floating out in space with nothing but tethers keeping us to the ship.
We moved about for an hour, I lifting the panels back into place, while she fixed them, so that they could keep collecting sunlight. This was just a practice run, in essence, for the kind of mechanical work that she'd do on Mars to keep the solar panels running, and all of that I had only a marginal knowledge of. I'll bet that there's not much that she can't fix.
"Take this." she said, handing me one of the tools she was working with, and it was hell to try and fix anything with the gigantic gloves that she had to work with, which was why it took so much time. She kept handing me the tools, all seven of them, none of which I knew what to do with, except hold them like she said to. she got a little frustrated when I hadn't understood that I was to put said tools in the tool kit that she'd had, a sort of toolbox, if you will.
More frustration with the gloves in working, she realized that she'd missed a step and would have to have me open and lift the panel again so she could work under it.
I did so, and I had to hold it above my head, like some greasy mechanic lifting the hood of the car, only I wasn't the one fixing it.
It took five grueling minutes until she was done. My arms were numb, but I hadn't let go. gingerly, I shut the panel, and she put her tools away back in her tool kit.
"Anything else needs fixin', ma'am?"I asked, in a mock-southern accent.
She seemed startled. "Uh, no, we're done-"
Dammit, I'd done it again, with my stupid sense of humor.
Then, all of a terrible sudden, it all went to hell. She put the toolkit back into the sort of outer-trunk that was a little ways away from the panel, and then we started to make our way to the airlock door.
"AH!" she let out a small scream, mostly one of surprise, when she realized that, to our mutual horror, it had been pinched by the panel that I'd been holding up, and while she was putting the tools away, she hadn't gathered her tether. I wasn't sure whose fault it was- here for not gathering the tether closer to her, or me for not noticing the white, umbilical-cord-like tether that wound around her. Worst part was, she wasn't stuck or caught in it. It had pinched, and just as she was out of my reach, the damn thing finished severing, and snapped. She had no tether, and was in a slow freefall.
I could hear her panicking, or trying not to, as she tried to find something solid to grab onto, her breathing heavy, trying to hold back her tears. The air force prepared her for a lot of things, but to free-fall to a slow death in space by suffocation, out there all alone, was not something that they'd prepared her, or any of us, for.
"Y/N!" I called out, watching helplessly while her helmeted head slammed against the side of the Hermes, and she grunted, trying not to scream. She was calling at the sides of the ship, as she got further and further away from me.
She managed to, at the last possible second, grab onto a panel, and cling to it. She was over twenty feet away from me, out of my reach from my now re-extended tether, which might as well have been twenty damn miles. She was whimpering in pain, since the blow must've hurt, and she likely had a concussion. I was no medical expert like Beck, but any idiot could deduce that from the hard blow I'd seen her take.
"Watney?" she called out through the radio.
"I'm here." I said, keeping my voice calm.
"This is a stupid way to die." she said, after a moment of silence. No, no, no, everything inside of me was panicking. There had to be another way-
"You're not going to die." I said, "I won't let you."
"Just- just pull yourself forward, panel by panel, and I'll get you, okay?" I told her.
"Okay." she said, and slowly, for what seemed like hours- with her oxygen running low, she clawed her way back towards me, ten feet, then fourteen feet, then thirteen feet. There were no more panels after that, and that left seven feet of distance between us. Seven feet between her, life, and death.
"Take my hand, y/n." I said, "just reach out as far as you can, and I'm coming to get you."
She let go with one hand, and reached out another, extending the range my a few precious feet, but not much. Not enough.
"What do you mean you're coming to get me? You can't come out any farther." she said.
"I'll do whatever it takes."I said.
And with that, I unclipped my tether, wrapping one end around my glove, like a balloon string tied to a kid's wrist, (or a reverse balloon?!) and that extended the range.
There was still an agonizing two feet between our fingertips.
"Y/n, you're gonna have to kick off the side of the Hermes and jump for me." I said, choking up a little.
She waited a second, then, counted down.
"One."
"Two."
"Three!"
I saw it all flash before my eyes, until I felt her gloved hand in mine, and, holding onto the side of the ship with one hand, I took the tether off my own wrist, and clipped it to her tether clip, which still had the other end to it, a short little rope only a few feet long.
"Watney!" she yelled. "You can't untether yourself!"
"I said I'd do whatever it takes." I said. She started to pull herself in, staying with me as I held onto her end of the tether. If I felt the slightest bit of trouble, and it started to snap or fray, I was going to let go. The tethers weren't meant for two astronauts, but hell, NASA had paid so much for the stupid pieces of rope, they should've been able to support twelve astronauts.
The panic didn't subside until we were safely inside the airlock, safety being a state of mind in space. When she took off her helmet, we were both crying, though I was probably more tearful than her.
She had a huge bruise on the side of her forehead, and obvious signs of concussion, and likely delirium, because she buried her head in my chest, and cried, clinging to me.
"Why'd you do it?" she asked.
"You know, non-military people are, in fact, capable of acts of courage, occasionally." I said quietly.
"I thought I was dead." she said.
"Don't ever talk like that." I said. She let go of me, the initial shock now passed, I guessed, so we were back to the same old distance.
"You'd better go to Beck, your head looks pretty banged up." I said, my voice hoarse.
I had been twenty feet from losing her. Twenty feet from being forever separated from her, forever haunted by the specter of her, and I don't think I could've lived with myself.
I loved her. that's why I gave her the tether instead of just pulling her along with me. Maybe Lewis or Beck or Vogel or anyone else would've done the same, but I loved her too much.
Maybe that's what love was- putting someone else's needs ahead of your own, right? I mean, I guess that's part of it, but truth be told, I had never been in love, and no one had ever been in love with me.
This was a first and I didn't want it to be the last- not the last time I had to see her, and forever live with the guilt.
I have to go- it's dinner, and I have to force myself to eat something. After this last brush with death, I'm not feeling up to it. She's still in the medical ward, and likely will be for a while, unless Beck calls me back.
I know she still doesn't really want to see me. One little event of heroism doesn't change everything.