Chapter Text
Mindy Park had dreamt of this moment for months, Literally, for months. She was never sure if it would actually happen, but the hope was always there. Now that Mark Watney was actually aboard the Hermes with his crew again, she didn’t know what to do with herself.
So she cried.
Every waking moment of her life had become every waking moment of his life. And every waking moment had been dedicated to watching him and making sure he was still alive. Now, he was safe and sound as well as alive. The feeling was overwhelming. Her whole body was alive with electricity and she wanted to fly apart at the seams or explode or… something. But all she could do was weep.
She wasn’t the only person in the room crying, but she felt like she might be the only one crying because – how could she even explain it - she might never feel this way again. She excused herself to her office since all of the necessary mission procedures had been taken care of. Not feeling essential anymore, she retreated to the sanctity of her own space.
The office itself was mostly unimpressive. She had framed and put up a few posters on the wall behind her desk and there was a small sofa along one wall. Piles of loose paperwork sat next to stacks of crates that held more paperwork. There were star maps folded and scattered all over as well as planet maps and some blueprints. It really was the office of a NASA nerd, she thought to herself.
She sat heavily behind the desk in her chair. The tears had long since stopped, but the weight of them sat on her cheeks. She rubbed at the salt and tried to think of something to do. Venkat Kapoor knocked on her then and removed the need for her try and think herself out of this circle.
“How are you doing, Mindy?”
Mindy took a breath and tried not to look as lost as she felt. “I think… I‘m good?”
“You think?” He eyed her carefully; he could see that she was more than a little off.
“Yeah. I think I’m okay. What dragged you away from the celebration, sir?”
“There’s only so much good humor I can take before it becomes overwhelming. What about you?”
“Pretty much the same.” She gestured around at the clutter of her office. “I came in here to do something, but I can’t seem to find anything to do.”
Venkat smiled and breathed out a laugh. “Tell you what, why don’t you take some time off? You’ve had a busy year and could use some ‘you’ time.”
“You mean that, sir?”
“I’ll see to it that the proper people are notified and that your vacation can start tomorrow. Take three weeks. Get some sleep.” At that, Mindy laughed a little harshly. If anyone here knew how little sleep she had been getting, it was him. He knew that she had altered her schedule to match Mark’s, but he also knew she didn’t sleep much when the time came because she had started to have nightmares.
“Thank you, sir. I really appreciate that.”
“After everything you’ve done for Mark, there’s no one who deserves it more.”
Mindy smiled. “I was just in the right place at the right time, sir.”
“And thank the gods for that.”
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It was roughly halfway through her vacation when the nightmares finally started to wane. They had been just as strong and frequent as when he was on the surface because she still wasn’t used to the idea of him being safe. She woke up gasping for air and throwing the blanket from her body. She usually made it six or seven steps to her bedroom door before she remembered where she was and stopped moving. Then the sobbing started.
Recalibrating her sleep schedule had also been a chore. When there was something to do and a lot going on, being awake at odd hours was never a problem. But, being back on a regular Earth schedule was somehow more odd. She’d also lost a not insignificant amount of weight because she mostly forgot to eat while she was at work.
Being at home didn’t help, it turned out. Granted, it had been so long since she’d spent any significant time here since she’d discovered Mark was alive. But she was still so obsessed with any news of him that it was hard to actually relax. The news was still running their live coverage of the return mission and she sat glued to the television every time it aired. She had already collected newspapers with articles about him and being home really just gave her an excuse to preserve and organize them.
“This is pathetic, Mindy! You need to get a life!” Talking to herself was only something she really did when she was alone. Her coworkers already thought she was plenty strange, she didn’t need to be talking to herself about the readouts or about a certain image on the screens.
She’d reorganized her apartment once already since she took her vacation. Since she didn’t want to spend too much time obsessing over Mark Watney, she decided this was a good time to visit her mother. Her mother was a high school physics teacher in New Hampshire. Mindy would always attribute her NASA career to her mother being a teacher in New Hampshire, just like Christa McAuliffe. Her mother was never one turn down a visit.
“I’m so glad they gave you time off, sweetie! It’s been too long and I know you’ve been working too hard. Coffee’s working!” her mother said as she pulled her into a tight hug. “Quiche is in the oven, so we have time to just chit chat.”
“Mom, I’m going to be here for a week; there’s more than plenty of time!”
“So, how have you been? How is your vacation going?”
They sat down at the kitchen table, coffee in hand. “It had a rough start.” Her mother frowned. “I just stopped having regular nightmares.”
“Oh, honey…”
“I’m okay. I just spent so long worrying about poor Mark that I started having nightmares and my mind hasn’t quite adjusted to him being on his way home. It’s a tough switch.”
Her mother stroked her hand on the table. As she used her free hand to lift her mug to her mouth, her mother said, “I’ll bet. It must not help that you’re in love with him.”
Mindy nearly choked on the coffee she had been sipping. “What do you mean by that?!” she demanded, spluttering.
“You know exactly what I mean, young lady. Don’t play dumb, you’re no good at it.”
“I’m plenty good at being dumb!” Her mother fixed her with an unamused glare. “Okay, well, I’m not in love with him, Mom.”
“Uh-huh.” She got up to get the quiche from the oven and serve it.
“I’ve never even met him. He’s a complete stranger that I just happened to notice was alive when he should have been dead.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I was getting paid to obsess over him, Mom. That’s not love.”
“Mmhmm.”
“I mean, maybe I care a little bit more about him than a lot of other people, but stress and constant observation can do that to anyone!”
“Oh, sure.”
“Will you stop that!”
Her mother placed a plate of quiche in front of her and sat down again, smiling a wicked smile.
“You’re the worst. Thank god you can cook, though.” That earned her a hearty laugh.
Over the next week, they tried to do their best to help Mindy decompress. It took longer than she would like to admit and at the end of it, she was sorry to be going back to her own apartment. They had spent the week going to different antique stores and bookstores and cafes. Her mother was very careful to keep her from watching the Watney news program and she did her best to steer her away from newspapers. All in all, it was a much needed break.
“When do you get to meet him?” her mother asked over breakfast on the morning she was going to leave for home.
“I honestly don’t know if I get to at all.”
“After everything you did for him? After everything you did for NASA for him? They sorta have to let you meet him. At least once.”
Mindy shrugged. “I’ll just be happy when he has boots on the ground.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Min. You want at least a hug.” Mindy blushed and put a large amount of muffin and coffee in her mouth to avoid responding.
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The day that Mindy returned to work, she was scheduled to meet with Venkat. She never bothered getting nervous about meetings like this because working for NASA was enough stress that there was little room for anything else.
“Good morning, Mindy. How was your vacation?”
“It was apparently just what I needed, sir. Thanks again for swinging that for me.”
“There was no one who deserved it more.”
Mindy snorted a laugh, showing she didn’t believe that was true for a second. “Did you get some vacation time, too?”
Venkat nodded. “Not quite as much, but yes; I did get to go home and do nothing, be nothing, for a week. It was what I imagine Heaven is like.” Mindy laughed outright this time. “I have something I want to discuss with you.”
“Am I in trouble?”
“No, nothing of the sort. We want you to be in the hangar when they get home.”
It took Mindy a moment to understand what he meant. She made a face like she was disgusted, but it was a face made out of surprise. “Why?”
Laughing at her confusion, he said, “Why not? Don’t you want to be there?”
“Of course! I mean, It’s not that I don’t want to be there, it’s just that…” She paused, trying to find the right words to not sound entirely self-deprecating.
“It’s just that what?”
She huffed out a sigh before saying, “I’m hardly essential personnel, sir. Why would I need to be there?”
“Are you serious?” Mindy didn’t understand his irritation. “You’re the reason he’s alive! You need to be there because he wouldn’t be coming home without you.”
“With all due respect, sir, he is the reason he’s alive. He couldn’t be coming home without the Hermes crew. I’m just some girl who was at the right monitor at the right time.” Venkat started to say something else, but Mindy pressed on. “The people he needs to see that day are doctors and his parents. He doesn’t need to see me there; I’m nobody.”
A look of realization crossed his face. “Oh, Mindy…” She shifted in her chair as she thought that he must think she was in love with him, too. She wasn’t! But she couldn’t be faulted for caring about him. She had lived to monitor him for so long, how could she not develop some sort of affection? But she sure as hell wasn’t in love with him.
“I’ll be there if you want me to be, but I still don’t quite understand. Sir.”
“That’s all I ask. Thank you, Mindy.”
---------
There was still a long time to go before the Hermes crew would touch down on Earth. This meant there was plenty of preparatory work to be done. Mindy had less to do for the upcoming return flight than she had to do with everything else involving the Ares mission, so it was back to business as usual. Mostly.
Time had passed pretty slowly as the Hermes got closer to Earth, closer to home, but everyone was pleasantly busy. Roughly a month before they were due to touch down, Mindy was sent an encrypted email from Venkat Kapoor. The subject line was a single word: potatoes. She had no idea what to make of it, but she opened it anyway. There was a link to a private folder on the NASA server entitled “Watney Mission Logs.” Her heart fluttered a little as she double-clicked it. A pop-up appeared asking for a password. She quickly did the math – 2+2 must equal potatoes – so she typed it in and was granted access.
A year and a half of Mark’s life was laid out before her. It was almost as overwhelming as the moment he was received by the Hermes crew. She wiped at a tear that had the nerve to roll down her face and took a steadying breath before opening the first file.
Mindy would read the mission logs on her lunch breaks. Or, more often than not, she would stay after hours to read through them. It took her less than a week to finish them and now she was just re-reading them because… why not? Quite a few times, she found herself laughing aloud at Mark’s voice in the logs. He had a strong personality that came through in them. And what she had read of his profile, he had been – effectively – the class clown of the crew. No matter what kind of situation they had been in, he was always able to keep morale up. He sounded like a great guy.
And in a month, she might even get to meet him. Shake his hand. See that he was more than just words on a screen and a shadow on Mars.
---------
Mission control and a few select other employees had been assembled in the hangar, ready to receive the Hermes crew. Mindy Park stood among them, a subtle tremble running from her shoulder to her knees.
“How are you holding up, kiddo?” Venkat said from behind her. She was proud to say she only started a little.
“I’m okay?” He chuckled.
“You sound unsure.”
“I am unsure.”
“You’ll be fine, Min. They’re all going to love you.”
Mindy blew a breath out and shifted uneasily. “We’ll see about that.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and hugged her. They had gotten closer over the past few months and she was proud to call him a friend. They might even say they that they had a sort of father-daughter closeness now. She was grateful for it. Without Mark’s logs and Venkat’s guidance and support, she doesn’t know how she would have made it through these seven months.
“Where are they?” she whispered, looking around the hangar. Venkat knew exactly who she meant.
“They’re outside on the deck. Even before the doctors, they will be the first to see him up close and personal.” Mindy looked up at him a smiled, tears threatening the corners of her eyes. “It felt right.”
“You’re a good man.”
“And remember, you’re not just some girl. You’re the girl.” With that, he left her side to join the mission control team.
The final moments seemed to be the worst, though. After so much waiting, it seemed like it took absolutely forever for the ship to breach he atmosphere and approach the landing runway. Mindy began to bounce on the balls of her feet to keep herself from flying apart at the seams. A colleague, Lukas Shepard, watched her curiously. She tried to smile at him, but it came off strained and artificial. He smiled back warmly and reached out for her hand. She gladly took it a small wave of relief swept over her.
On final approach, the Hermes crew was itchy to get out of the ship. They had been canned up for so long, they feared they may have forgotten what fresh air actually was like.
“Does it have a taste? Or is it just a smell? Will my lungs explode? Did I get rescued on Mars just to die back on Earth?!” Mark asked over the comm.
“You’re an idiot.” Commander Lewis responded. “Now, clear the line. Only official communication from here on.”
They all responded, “Yes ma’am.”
Landing went off without a hitch and they were met with applause from the hangar. Mindy clutched Lukas’ hand tighter in hers. He didn’t mind at all. The medical team was on standby to assess the team as soon as they disembarked. They would meet with the press later, even though the press was ravenous to ask their questions. The hatch opened on the ship and the crew stepped out, squinting in the sun.
The first five crew members stepped down, waving at everyone present. This moment was being watched from all corners of the world. The most awaited moment, though, was about to happen. In Trafalgar Square and Tiananmen Square and Times Square, they watched on giant screens, all waiting for Mark Watney to be seen for the first time since he stepped onto the ship so long ago.
When he finally exited the ship, the world erupted in cheers and applause and weeping. It very nearly took physical restraining to keep Mark’s parents from running to him, but Venkat assured their escorts that it would not be necessary and they were allowed to go to him. Completely overcome with emotion – and fresh oxygen – Mark collapsed to his knees. His mother rushed to him and cupped his face with her hands. He reached up to grasp her hand and brought it to his lips to kiss it. She bent down to hug him, tears streaming down her face, and fell to her knees as well. His father, a little more composed, but not less ecstatic, walked over with a cane and stood next to them. He gave them a moment before he laid his hand on Mark’s head and started weeping as well. He looked up at the sky as Mark wrapped one arm around his legs, holding his father as close and his mother. The sound of cameras was almost deafening.
Mindy sucked in large breaths and worried about her vision going dark at the edges. The world had taken on a buzzing sound that she didn’t recall being there just a moment ago. Lukas shook her at the shoulders and said something to her, but all she could do was frown and dumbly reply, “Huh?”
The next thing she remembered was waking up on the sofa in her office.
“There she is!” Lukas said, looking up from the desk. He had been surfing the internet on her computer. “How are you feeling?”
“What in the hell happened?” she asked as she sat up gingerly. Lukas came over and sat next to her, handing her a bottle of water.
“You might have fainted.”
Mindy made a pathetic face and she swallowed the gulp of water in her mouth. “You’re kidding!”
“I wish. Don’t worry, I got you out of there without anyone noticing. I didn’t take you to the infirmary because I thought you’d hate that. But I also knew you’d be okay. You’ve only been out for about an hour.”
“How did the rest of the… thing go? Did you watch it?”
“It went well. They’re all still being looked at by the doctors. It’ll take a while.”
“Where’s Venk… Dr. Kapoor.”
“Press conference, I assume. Let me check.” He got up and clicked on something on the screen which brought him to the live broadcast of the press conference. Sure enough, Venkat was currently speaking about the elation of NASA and what the next steps would be.
Mindy nodded and took another sip of her water. “I think I’m gonna go home.”
“Do you want help getting there? Or will you be okay.” Lukas looked at her, eyebrows knit with concern.
“I’ll call you when I get there.”
“Deal.”
---------
Mark Watney was being poked and prodded and having blood taken and lights shone in his eyes. He was tired of it already.
“Who was that woman?” he asked anyone who was listening. Beck was closest and frowned his confusion.
“What woman?”
“There was a woman in the back of the hangar. A guy carried her out. What happened to her?”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about, Mark. Sorry.”
Mark looked up at the doctor. “Do you know who she is?” The doctor just shook her head and went on with her work. “So you don’t know if she’s okay? You don’t know what happened to her?”
“Mr. Watney, my job here is to make sure you’re okay. You’ve been in space a long time and came very close to being malnourished so I need to run all sorts of – ”
“Yeah. I know. I was there. I endured a lot of shit. You don’t have to be so clinical about it. I’m still a person even though I became a Martian for a year and a half!”
The doctor had the decency to look a little ashamed as she fell silent.
Annie Montrose bustled into the infirmary and threw her hands out in welcome. “Good afternoon astronauts! How are we feeling?” They all looked at her without saying anything. “Well, fuck you very much, too!”
“Where’s Dr. Kapoor? I have a personnel question for him.” Mark ventured, thinking she might be able to help at least a little.
“He’s dealing with the press. Speaking of which, how soon do you think they will be able to do that, too?” she addressed the doctor this time.
“I want to keep them overnight for observ – ”
“Excuse me, I was talking to you!”
Annie raised her eyebrows comically at Mark. “Yes, Mr. Martian, what’s your question?”
“Where’s Dr. Kapoor and when can I speak to him? I have a question about a woman I saw.”
“I have no idea who any of these people are, really. You’ll have to ask Venkat.” She waved a hand dismissively at him and turned back to the doctor, ready to ignore him again.
“Dammit, that’s what I’m trying to do!” he yelled at her.
She smirked at him as if his ire aroused her. She disgusted him. “I’ll see how quickly I can get him here.”
“Thank you!” Mark settled back into the chair, ready for more medical maltreatment.
It was only about an hour before Venkat was able to escape and come see Mark and the rest of the crew. He was much better received that Annie had been. Mark was genuinely happy to see him and the rest of the crew was pleased as well.
“Hello, all! So sorry this is the first time we’ve had to chat. How are you all doing?”
Commander Lewis took the time to speak for the crew. “We’re tired, but fine. A little anxious to get home. Some more than others.” She glanced at Mark.
“Of course. Mark.” Venkat sat in front of him and they shook hands. “I’m sorry that you have to be here overnight; I’m sorry to all of you. I know it’s been a long journey for everyone and as soon as I can get clearance for you to go home, you will be on your way. You can do any necessary paperwork from there and I will see that you spend as much time away from NASA as humanly possible.” Martinez whooped from his corner of the infirmary and the rest of them laughed. “Mark, I understand you have a question for me about a member of my staff?” He looked more concerned than he needed to be.
“Oh, it’s nothing serious, just someone I noticed in the hangar. She was being carried out by a coworker. I wanted to know if she was alright?”
Venkat frowned and tried to think of who it might be. “I don’t know of anyone… Wait…” IT suddenly occurred to him that he hadn’t seen Mindy at the landing since he had walked away from her. He reached into his pocket for his phone. Just as he made to turn it on to check for messages, it started ringing. The display read “M. PARK SatCon, Office”
“Mindy?” he said, not bothering with a greeting. “Are you alright?”
“Sorry, sir. Not Mindy. I’m just borrowing her phone. This is Lukas. Shepard.”
“Hi, Lukas. Is everything alright? Where’s Mindy?”
“That’s actually why I’m calling. She fainted at the landing shortly after Mark got off the ship so I carried her back to her office. She just left to go home, but I wanted to let you know she was fine. She slept for a while and I got some water in her, but she wanted to go home. I didn’t think an infirmary visit would be necessary.”
“A reasonable thought. Thank you so much, Lukas. You should go home and get some rest, too. We all had a big day.”
“Thank you, sir. Have a good day, sir.”
Venkat hung up and looked to the expectant Mark Watney in front of him. “In answer to your question, the employee is called Mindy Park. She was overcome with emotion upon seeing you all home safely that she fainted. She’s fine, but she will not be able to join us for any pleasantries this afternoon.”
“Who is she?” Lewis asked. “I mean that as in what does she do for NASA?” Venkat explained that she worked in SatCon. “So, why was she even there? Just rubber-necking? Her clearance doesn’t sound high enough to be invited.”
“That’s a little harsh, commander. You don’t even know her.” Martinez said.
Venkat raised a hand to calm him. “She’s a close, personal friend of mine.” he began.
“Yeah, but… who is she?” Mark pressed.
Venkat looked him right in the eye and said, “She’s the reason that NASA knew you were alive, Mark. She discovered you. And she’d been following your movements daily until your crew came back for you.”
Mark stared at him, gaping. “So, she’s my guardian angel?”
Laughing, Venkat nodded and said, “Yes. I would definitely call her that.”
“When can I meet her?”
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Mindy took the next day off for her mental health. She didn’t sit at home, though. She went to local bookstores and supermarkets to see how many newspapers and magazines she could track down and purchase. It took longer than she wanted because many people had already bought much of the available media. She bought doubles of each item she could find; one to preserve and one to read. The most ubiquitous picture of the day was of Mark hugging his parents on the runway. The relief written all over his face made Mindy’s chest tight and her nose tickle with impending tears.
By the time she had gotten all of the articles read and the others preserved, she realized she hadn’t eaten anything all day. It was close to 9pm. She whipped up some homemade mac n cheese and settled in front of the television. She tried for about five minutes to stay away from the news, but eventually she succumbed. Of course, Mark was everywhere. She tried for five more minutes to not cry, but that was useless as well. She turned off the TV and left her dinner on the counter, only a few bites taken from it.
That night, she had nightmares again. Nightmares that Mark had never made it home. She woke up in a cold sweat with worried tears rolling hot down her cheeks. She swiped at them angrily before whipping off her blanket and getting dressed. It was the middle of the night, but NASA was used to having people come in at all sorts of odd hours. Since no one would look twice at her, she got in her car and drove to work.
There was no real new data since the other day, but she poured over it anyway. She took notes on many different things, worked out solutions in her head to problems that had been bugging her over the past couple of months. She had been at it for several hours when a knock at her door startled her to look away from her computer screen.
“What in the hell are you doing here?”
“Hi, Venkat. Couldn’t sleep.”
He frowned at her. “Are your nightmares back?”
“They’re not really back. They’re… different.”
Venkat entered the room and sat on the sofa as she rifled through some papers on her desk, looking for something, she didn’t even know what. “Do you dream that he never made it home now?”
A sob caught in her throat and all she could do was nod. Venkat patted the space on the sofa next to him, requesting that she abandon her non-task and come sit with him. She obeyed and sat heavily next to her friend. He wrapped an arm around her and drew her to his shoulder, kissing her hair fondly. She wiped at a few tears on her face and tried not to sniffle too loudly.
“He’s fine, Min. You did your job more than admirably and the Hermes crew got him home in one piece. One stressed, but healthy piece.” A watery laugh broke from her lips. “Lukas told me about what happened the other day.”
“I was hoping no one had noticed…” she said, sheepishly.
“You think I wouldn’t notice that you had disappeared? The one moment you had been looking forward to ever since they got him back onboard? Not a chance. Which is one reason why I’m wondering why you’re back here?”
“I took a day, but couldn’t get my head to calm down. I feel much better, though.”
“I sincerely doubt that, otherwise you wouldn’t have come here in the middle of the night.”
She shifted to face him and tried not to be too obviously uncomfortable. She hung her head and focused on her hands in her lap. Finally, she whispered, “I didn’t know what else to do.” He stroked her arm. “I couldn’t sit at home. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. All I can do is worry. He’s back and I still worry that he’s died on the surface because of my inattention.”
“Would it help if I said he wants to meet you?”
“The prospect sort of makes me want to throw up. What would I even say to him? ‘Hi, Mark, I’m Mindy Park. I watched you move around Mars for a year because I’m a well-paid voyeur?’ Not exactly the best introduction!”
Venkat laughed loud, pleased that she at least sounded like the Mindy he had grown to love. “I know it’s a big, scary event, but I think it would be good for the both of you. He knows you saved his life and he wants to thank you.”
Mindy got meek again. “I didn’t save anyone’s life. I’ve told you – ”
“Yes, yes, I’ve heard that drivel! ‘I was just the person on the monitor that night.’ Mindy, when will you stop believing that you’re nothing special? No one else noticed the things that you noticed. Maybe you were just the person at the computer, but it was you! It wasn’t me, it wasn’t Lukas, and it sure as shit wasn’t Annie! It was you. You’re special, even if you think it was random. And Mark wants to thank his guardian angel.”
“Oh my god, he did not call me that!” She blushed furiously.
“He did, in fact. I did not make that up.”
They sat together in a relatively comfortable silence for a little while longer. “When does he want to meet me?”
“Whenever you’re ready, he says.”
“Oh, okay, so never?” Venkat laughed again and hugged her.
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“Are you sure she’s going to appreciate this?” Mark asked, standing just down the hall from Mindy’s office.
“I can tell you, with relative certainty, that she will not appreciate it at all.” Mark grimaced, severely disliking the idea of ambushing this woman. “But, I fear she will keep putting this off until it never happens. And I want the two of you to meet. You both deserve it.”
Mark nodded, cracked his neck then squared his shoulders, before walking down the hall. He stood outside her door for a moment before he stepped into the doorway and knocked on the jamb.
“Mindy?” he ventured.
She looked up from her computer screen. The pencil that had been held in her teeth fell to the desk when her mouth dropped open.
“Fuck…” she said.
A surprised laugh burst forth from Mark and he switched from foot to foot. “Not quite the reaction I was expecting. But I can work with it.”
Mindy scrambled to clear some space in the other chair that sat by her desk. Mark gestured to the sofa as if to ask if he could just sit there instead of making her rearrange things.
“Sure! Yeah, of course. Simpler, right? Duh!” Her nervous babble was wildly endearing to him and he smiled at her as she whirled like a dervish. “Can I get you something? Coffee? I have a pretty boss coffee maker, courtesy of NASA’s finest administrator, Venkat Kapoor. He got it for me after one too many late nights followed by sleeping through one too many early meetings.”
“Sure. Coffee would be great. Thank you.” He stayed silent and watched her move about her office, mumbling to herself. “Venkat has nothing but good things to say about you, you know.”
Mindy looked at him, an adorably surprised look on her face. “He’s a pretty good liar.” He laughed. “Do you take sugar? Cream?”
“Black, no sugar, please.”
They spent some more time in silence while the coffee brewed. Mindy made an attempt to break the silence, which she hoped wouldn’t make things more awkward between them.
“Does, uh… Does black coffee remind you of your Martian coffee? Is that why… Is that why you drink it?”
Mark fixed her with a curious stare. A small smirk made an appearance before he spoke, making it disappear. “I guess so, yeah. I mean, I always took it black, two sugars before. But, now… I guess straight black coffee reminds me of Mars, yeah. Can’t shake it.”
“You can hardly say that. I mean, you just got back. It’s pretty normal for you to still be in the Martian headspace.”
He looked at her curiously again. “You might be onto something there.”
The coffee maker beeped that it was ready. She moved to make Mark’s coffee for him and hummed to herself. As she turned around to hand over the mug, she caught him staring at her again. The expression on his face was unreadable, but she blushed anyway.
“So, uhm… What brings you by?”
Mark giggled, honest to god giggled, at her. “You serious?”
“Y-yes?”
“Venkat told me you were the one who discovered I was alive and made it possible for me to be rescued. I owe you my life.”
Mindy sat on the corner of her desk and rubbed at her arms self-consciously. “You don’t owe me anything, Mark. I was just in the right place at the right time. I didn’t do anything extraordinary. I don’t know why Venkat keeps saying that…” she faded.
“He told me you might say something like that as well. He thinks very highly of you which makes me think very highly of you. I can tell you think you’re nothing special,” she started to interject to agree with him. He pressed on, “but! You are something else, Mindy. I do owe you my life, whether you like it or not. You did something remarkable and I will never be done thanking you for that.”
Mindy wiped at her eyes, pretending like she wasn’t crying. She couldn’t meet his eyes, though. “Maybe I was the one who let NASA know you were alive, but you saved your own life. I’ve read your logs; you are a phenomenon! You did things on that planet that no one else would do or could do. I didn’t save you, Mark. I just saw you.”
Mark put his coffee down on the desk behind Mindy. She was unsure what his next move would be and she fidgeted. Before she could react, Mark pulled her into a strong hug. She let go of a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding and melted into the hug. Her drew her closer and buried his hand in her hair. She reached up as best she could with his arms wrapped tight around her shoulders and stroked his back.
“Thank you, Mindy.”
She nuzzled her face into his shoulder. “You’re welcome, Mark.”