Chapter Text
Log Entry: Mission Day 688
Beck wants me to keep doing personal log entries as much as I can. Says it'll help.
Well, they're not really log entries, they're technically more like journal entries. The difference being that log entries are given to NASA and these won't be. I don't know what the point is, if no one's going to read them, but who knows? Maybe I'll shove 'em all into a book someday. They wouldn't even have to be good- I'm so popular right now that I could probably slap my face onto anything and it would sell.
But anyway. Back to this thing.
Honestly? There's not much to say.
Without having the daily hassle of, you know, not dying, there's not too much to do up here. Beck was nice enough to give me all the reports he'd made of my plants while I was gone, so at least I've got that to read.
And I've got to hand it to him, really. For a brilliant doctor and biologist, he's a spectacularly shitty botanist. I mean, he remembered to water them. But he must have looked over my notes once and then just decided he knew what to do. I should consider myself lucky on their behalf that they're still alive at all.
But hey, technically my track record is worse than his.
I'm not allowed to actually see them- i.e. get out of bed- for at least a week. So, I get stabbed through my spacesuit, and a day later I get outside to take stock of things. But I break two ribs and suddenly I can't even walk. I mean, I can walk, but Beck won't let me.
The crew's survived this long with five people, they can handle themselves without me for a little longer. And in the meantime, I get to just. Do nothing.
At least I'll have the data dump to look forward to every day.
--
Well, I've still got half an hour until Beck comes by to give me an update on my ribs and helps me over to see the data dump, so. May as well pass the time by talking.
I'm still in Beck's quarters, he's using mine. Since his place is still the working medbay and he doesn't want to move me over to mine and risk making something else in my body go horribly wrong, I guess I'm just stuck here for a while.
I woke up this morning and forgot where I was. I probably should have expeceted it, but whatever. At least I didn't have some kind of horrible vivid nightmare about the Hab depressurizing or the rover tipping over or a hundred thousand other ways I could be dead right now.
But yeah, I didn't recognize Beck's sheets. Or the walls. Or anything.
It took me a few seconds, but I got my bearings. Luckily, I didn't make enough noise for anyone to notice, so as long as Beck doesn't decide to be a dick and read any of this, I'll be fine.
I'm scared as hell for the data dump. It's probably just going to be stuff for me- videos from my parents, from NASA. The rest of the crew is probably going to watch me watch it, the jerks. But I'll be able to send a message back with my face on it, which will make NASA's PA teams very happy.
Personally, I won't be satisfied until I get a personal message from David Tennant. I used to have the biggest crush on him when I was a kid, ha. Maybe crush isn't the word I'm looking for.
Confused pre-pubescant boner.
There we go.
Log Entry: Mission Day 688 (2)
I'm gonna buy Johanssen her own monogrammed spaceship when we get back.
I was right; the data dump was almost all for me. There were a couple of things for the others- flight plans for Lewis and Martinez to look at, a bunch of instructions for Beck to find out exactly how many kinds of cancer I've got, and a really long letter to Johanssen that I think probably boiled down to Never Do That Again.
But there were video messages from my parents, the teams down at NASA, a group of people from the Chinese National Space Administration, the President, and a bunch of celebrities. Including- I shit you not- David motherfucking Tennant.
I hadn't even opened up the file from my parents before I knew I was about to start crying like a little kid learning his dog was never sent to a butterfly farm. So Johanssen (bless her nerdy, nerdy soul) made them all go off and do something else. She said she'd come back to help me back to Beck's quarters in an hour, and then it was just me and the data dump.
I'll spare you the heartwarming details of my parents' video message and the five minutes I spent bawling my eyes out. But I will give you the horribly disappointing news that David Tennant's message didn't include the words "hey, handsome, want to grab a coffee sometime when you're back on earth?"
It's safe to say my hopes were crushed about as much as they were when I was sixteen and found out he was married.
But anyway.
I sent a few messages back, giving each one of them careful consideration and taking time to think each one through before recording. And by that, I mean I hit record and said whatever sappy shit I could think of for about five minutes, pushed stop, then pushed record again.
I'm sure mom and dad will be delighted to see my gross, barely shaven face again. At least they can't smell me, right? It's probably gonna be a week before I've finally washed out my own stench. Which means it's gonna be at least three weeks until Beck stops complaining about it.
I'd say more about him, but I know he's probably going to snoop through these, even if he said they were private. He's doctorly, like that.
But I guess he knows what he's doing. Even if my ribs hurt like fucking hell, I'm probably in the best hands I could be. At least he hasn't told me to "break the rest of them, too, then that one won't feel as bad." (Credit to that masterpiece of comedy goes to Martinez, by the way.)
But whatever.
Dick can go suck a Beck.
I'm not retyping that. It's the universe's way of telling me I'm right.
Fuck, I'm exhausted. I could carry all the solar panels and lash them onto the rover in a day and still have enough energy to write an ode to my hatred of disco afterword, but now I can't look at a bunch of video messages and lug myself back to my room without wanting to pass out.
Funny how things turn out, isn't it?
Well, no. Not really. Or maybe? I don't know.
Fuck this. I'm going to bed.