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Despite the dubiousness of the general public—hell, within NASA too by the gossip at the bar—about the timeline for relieving Apollo 24’s crew from Jamestown, Ellen Waverly splashed down on Earth only ninety-eight days after she took command from Ed Baldwin on the moon. For the eternity that seemed to stretch between Ellen leaving Earth and returning, the next few weeks Pam spent waiting for her to wander into Outpost Tavern felt significantly longer.
Pam nearly gave up on Ellen seeking her out at all. She knew she’d see Ellen again, likely on the arm of Larry or in a crowd of NASA employees, but that afforded Ellen the anonymity—or rather, afforded Ellen the anonymity of Pam, just another drink pourer at a dive bar. Pam consigned to herself that if she saw Ellen like that for the first time since she’d been out of this world, things between them were well and truly over, and all the jumps of emotion she’d experienced in those horrifying few days—terror, elation, pride, relief—really were one-sided.
The only thing that gave Pam hope now was that she hadn’t seen Ellen at all.
It wasn’t like she thought of Ellen too often—at least not when someone wasn’t talking about her on the TV. Work kept Pam busy enough, even on a dead Tuesday morning dedicated to inventorying the bar. Patrons didn’t usually trickle in until later in the afternoon, and nothing interesting was going on in the news or space for the day, which made for no business and plenty of time for Pam to work through her orders.
Only, that particular dead Tuesday heralded the creak of the front door within a few minutes of Pam flipping the OPEN sign. The telltale shriek of a barstool against the sticky floor drew Pam’s attention from where she was ducked under the bar.
“Just a minute,” she said loudly enough to be heard. She stood, a quip already in mind if Gordo had swung by for another ginger ale, but her words died on her tongue.
Because there she was: Ellen Waverly, second Commander of the Jamestown base on the moon, survivor of the Apollo 24 disaster, and the woman that knowingly chose her career over any chance at a future with Pam.
It burned that she’d made the right choice.
Pam had seen Ellen on television so much by that point: her broadcasts from the moon, then her many PR appearances on talk shows and late night television, that she was surprised by how surreal it was to see Ellen in person. She’d seemed like a talking mannequin at times, even more so dressed up to talk to some talk show host than when she was in her NASA coveralls. This Ellen sitting in front of her was real, three-dimensional, and so fucking welcome. Pam allowed herself a long look, drinking in the sight of her lover—god, she was allowed to think it at least—and the unfiltered rush of emotion that came with it.
After everything Ellen had done during her last mission, all the risks she’d taken, the many times she’d come close to death in a place as unforgiving as space, she looked nervous. Pam knew her well enough to see that: the awkward shifts, her dark eyes only meeting Pam’s gaze for a moment before darting away, and the heavy swallow that preceded silence.
She should feel bitter, angry, vindictive to see Ellen this way. Part of Pam wished she had it in her to crush Ellen the way Ellen had crushed her. All those moments of seeing Larry comforted, congratulated, and hailed as Ellen’s husband… All those, ‘I love you, Larry’s on television… And yet all Pam felt was profound relief. But fuck, she’d have felt that no matter Ellen’s expression. She’d have felt it even if Ellen had come in with her bar buddies and treated Pam like her bartender.
She opened her mouth and closed it again, not trusting herself to say anything without the cracks in her façade shattering her into pieces and exposing every truth. Instead, she reached under the bar to slap a shot glass on it and poured Ellen a double of the whiskey she favored. Ellen seemed arrested by the glass, her eyes wide and unwavering in their attention. Then she rested her face in her hand.
Pam shivered, half a moment away from offering everything up all over again. She’d seen Ellen’s expression break in sorrow.
“Welcome back,” she said instead, her voice surprisingly normal.
“Am I?” Ellen’s reply was muffled in her hand, and she wiped her tears away with the pads on her fingers. She licked her lips and bit the top one for a moment, raising her gaze to Pam. “Can I talk to you?”
“To say what, Ellen? How much you love Larry?” It was meant to be sharp, but Pam only heard defeat in her own voice.
Ellen choked back a laugh and shook her head. “What else could I say? I was being broadcast to everyone in America!”
Pam hated that she was still so in love with this woman who was too great for her. Another bartender, an artist, a teacher, a fucking actress—that might work. But not Ellen Waverly, of the first class of women astronauts, Commander of Apollo 24, likely slated for another mission to the moon in the next few years. Pam turned away to hide her tears and reached blindly for her inventory list.
When Ellen spoke, her voice was low and rushed, with more emotion in it than Pam had ever heard. “Do you think I didn’t think of you up there? Thinking about the last moment we spoke to each other before all of that? Thinking of how you must feel being down here, watching that on television—hoping you did still feel something?”
Pam turned on her heel, her emotion turning the movement clumsy. She opened her mouth, words blurring past, the need to scream that of course she still felt something, she felt everything, but all of it stopped when Ellen held her gaze and continued vehemently:
“Regretting that I never told you that I love you.”
Then, Pam realized, all the pain of being in the shadows, the way it belittled her love and filled her with bitterness… Well, it wasn’t erased, but it sure didn’t matter as much. She swallowed, shivering in her tracks, thinking of where they were and who might walk in that door at any moment. If she were a man, she would have taken Ellen into her arms unapologetically and kissed her, screw anyone who might witness the embrace. But she wasn’t, and she guessed it was a fucking good thing because Ellen Waverly wouldn’t be looking at her like she hung the goddamn moon if she were a man.
“Okay,” Pam said quietly. “Let’s talk.”
“Come home with me.”
Pam couldn’t help but scoff. “What will Larry say?”
“Fuck Larry.” Ellen’s teary expression shifted into a faint smile. “Not literally.” She looked down at the shot glass again and, practical as always, asked, “Do you still work early shift on Tuesdays?”
Pam nodded. Ellen wiped a tear away abruptly as if embarrassed by it. She held out her hand, and after a moment of figuring out her intention, Pam cupped her palm, reflecting Ellen’s faint smile as they shook hands so formally. But Ellen didn’t let go. She traced her thumb over Pam’s knuckles for a long, heart-stuttering moment before she stepped back. “Come by after your shift. I’ll make dinner.”
“Just to talk.”
Ellen’s smile wavered, and the tears were back. “I wouldn’t… Pam, I wouldn’t ask you over just to…”
It was true, even from the start. Pam had seen Ellen as fun at first, but Ellen—so serious, so quiet, so shy even to this day—had never given that vibe. Not even when she tried to pretend she was straight, that being a lesbian was just a phase.
Pam shook her head at Ellen, interrupting her protests. “I’ll come by tonight. To talk.”
The smile was back, soft and hopeful. Ellen held her gaze for too long as she took several steps backward, and she clipped a chair, nearly tripping on her way out. She darted an embarrassed but still doe-eyed look over her shoulder, and Pam wondered how the hell she ever thought she could turn this love off. For all the pain it wrought, she sure as hell was ready and willing for more.
As much as she wished for the world to know and accept their truth, Pam realized she had to accept it wasn’t going to happen. Not now, maybe not ever. In the eyes of the world, Ellen Waverly was the loving wife of Larry Wilson, but what did that matter when it was she, Pam, who just earned that look of hope and love? Maybe that wide-eyed look Ellen had given so many times on TV really was for Pam Horton, bartender from Texas. Hell, maybe Pam hadn’t imagined the hitch in Ellen’s voice when she stumbled over Larry’s name after her ‘I love you’s, as if his name didn’t quite fit in her narrative. Maybe it didn’t matter either way, not if Larry was Ellen’s lie and Pam was Ellen’s truth.
“’Just to talk’ my ass,” she muttered to herself, downing the untouched whiskey still sitting on the bar.
She was as good as an astronaut’s wife, and it was time to fucking accept that.