![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
faster than a heartbeat (3/3)
Master Post
Part One
Part Two
Patrick worked the same shift as Pete for the next three days, because the universe - or Spencer - was perverse and liked to see him suffer, apparently. Pete didn't acknowledge his existence. Once upon a time, Patrick would have thought that would make it easier to leave, but every time Pete passed by his console without grinning or ruffling his hair or leaning down into Patrick's light, Patrick felt a little more ill. On the third day, Patrick waited until nearly the end of the shift before he cleared his throat. "Uh, Pete?"
Pete didn't look at him. "What?"
"I need to talk to you. When we're done here."
"I'm busy."
"It's important."
Patrick's console squawked, and he swore under his breath. He tapped a couple of buttons. "Fuck. Drill 7's giving me an error message. It says it's shut itself down."
Pete scowled. He turned to Frank, who coughed miserably into the sleeve of his jumpsuit. "Go get some sleep, man. I'll cover this."
"You're going out alone?" Patrick asked. "Isn't that against regulations?"
"Fuck regulations," Pete muttered. "Listen, 7 is a temperamental bitch. Most of the time, the errors we get from her are false alarms. Gotta check on them, though. It'll be a thirty minute walk, no more. I'll just go and check it out. If it turns out there's something really wrong, we can wake up Suarez or something."
"You sure?" Frank asked. He punctuated his statement with a sneeze. "The weather's shit out there today. The wind nearly blew us both off the transport, remember?"
"Seriously. I can strap myself in and do the damned job. Get the fuck out of here before you give us all the death plague."
Frank made a rude gesture, but he made his way to the exit as soon as he was done stowing his pressure suit. Pete put his own suit back on. Before he lifted the helmet over his head, Patrick waved at him. "Hey," he said quietly. "Be careful, okay?"
Pete closed his eyes. When he finally looked back at Patrick, his mouth twisted in an expression that wasn't quite a smile. "I'm always careful."
"That's what I'm afraid of."
Pete was silent. For a moment, Patrick thought he was about to respond, but instead he just nodded and slipped his helmet on.
A few minutes later, Victoria wandered in and propped herself up between Travis and William. "You guys almost done? We're holding the poker game for you."
"Pete's out checking on 7. We need to stick around until he's back."
"Gotcha." She grinned at Patrick. "You joining us? Mikey wants one more shot at winning back his twenty credits from you before you go."
He grinned back. "He can certainly try."
They were in the middle of a conversation about the vid they'd all watched the night before when they were interrupted by the indignant shriek of the emergency alarm. The exit door slammed shut, and all four of them started shouting curses. Patrick punched a button on the comm. "Gabe? We just had a drill last month, you motherfucker."
"Not a drill," Gabe said, his voice uncharacteristically serious. "We've got a breach in the building structure over in the kitchen storeroom. There was a landslide up on the hill, it blew some rocks over this way."
"Hard enough to breach the structure? Damn, that’s some wind."
"You're telling me. It might take us a little while to get it fixed, the wind's working against us. So just lock everything down and sit tight, I'll let you know when we're done."
After the connection cut out, Patrick stared at his console. "If the wind is that bad, Pete ..."
"He should be fine," William said. "He should be at the drill by now. Just call and tell him to stay put until the wind dies down a little."
Patrick punched in Drill 7's frequency. "Control to 7. Pete, you in there yet?" Silence. "Pete, come in, we're on lockdown."
There was no response. Patrick rubbed the back of his neck. "Give it a few minutes and try again," Victoria suggested.
Ten minutes later, there was still no response from Pete. Victoria, Travis, and William finally looked worried. "Maybe someone should go out and look for him?" William suggested.
"In this weather?" Travis frowned. "Dude, if the wind is bad enough to break through the building ..."
"... then Pete's probably in trouble," Patrick interrupted.
"We're trained for this sort of thing," Victoria said. "Severe weather rescue. I haven't had to do it in a real-life situation, though. Just simulations back in training. I can give it a shot, though, if we think it's necessary."
"Is your pressure suit in here?" William asked.
Victoria's face fell. "No. It's in storage."
"Is there any way we can get Gabe to open the door long enough for you to go get it?" Patrick asked.
"Worth a shot." Victoria leaned over Patrick's console and punched the button. "Gabe, you there?"
It took a minute to get a reply. "Kinda busy here, Vic."
"Pete's missing outside. I need my suit to go find him. Can you unseal the door?"
"No can do. We've got the halls depressurized right now, diverting the electrical systems to our repairs. We open the door, you all lose your oxygen."
"Fuck." Victoria kicked the console before stepping away. "Whose suits are here? If Ryland or Suarez left theirs, I can probably make it work."
"Frank was the last one on shift," Patrick said.
"Dammit. God, I hope one of the other guys got lazy and didn't put their suit in storage after their last shift."
Patrick hoped, too. But when she emerged from the alcove a minute later, her frown told him all he needed to know. "There's no way in hell I can fit into Frank's suit," she said. "He's half my height."
"I have some basic planet walk training," Travis said, "but ..." He gestured at his own body. "Only if I cut myself off at the knees."
"Pete's probably all right," William said. He sounded like he was trying to convince himself. "The comm at Drill 7 is always on the fritz. I bet Pete made it there, but doesn't have any way of talking to us. He's probably hunkered down inside until the storm blows over. It's not like this is his first planet walk. He knows emergency procedures."
"Emergency procedure," Patrick reminded him, "states that if a walker misses three check-ins, another walker needs to go check on him."
"We just established that we can't do that," Victoria said.
Patrick reached out to flick the buttons on his console; as he pressed the sequence for Drill 7's comm system, he saw his hands shaking. He focused his gaze on the console in front of him. If he looked at anyone else, he thought, he might end up getting sick all over the floor. "We can," he said softly. "I ... I can fit into Frank's suit." The words came out in a rush - if he didn't say them right then, he knew he'd never have the nerve again.
There was a storm raging outside - a storm wild enough to have damaged the building's reinforced structure. It was bitterly cold, there was no breathable oxygen, and Patrick had just volunteered to do his very first planet walk. He wanted to take it back the minute the statement left his mouth. Outside? Him? It was madness. He'd probably end up getting himself killed no more than five steps outside the door. Just the thought of breathing the stale air inside the helmet made him woozy.
But Pete was out there. He could be hurt. He could be ... no, Patrick wasn't going to think about any worse options.
"Patrick?" Victoria said, her eyes wide. "Have you ever worked a suit before?"
"Yeah ... well, no, not on my own. Pete showed me how to work it, though."
"You've never been outside." Travis looked at him. "Are you sure?"
No. He wasn't sure at all. "Well ... yeah," he said slowly. "If Pete needs someone, it looks like I'm the only choice right now."
The other three looked at each other for a moment. Then, Victoria nodded. "Come over here. I'll give you the crash refresher course."
She spoke quickly as she helped him buckle into the pressure suit. "There's a transport parked just outside the door. It's easy to operate, just push the large center button and grip the sensors on the handle. The transport's navigation system will handle the rest. Just remember to punch in the sequence for Drill 7." She told him the numerical sequence, and made him repeat it back six times before she nodded at him. "With that, the transport will automatically take you to 7. It's designed for something like this, a storm in which we can't visually navigate ourselves. It normally takes about ten minutes to get out there, but with the wind, you'll want to go at half speed. Don't worry about your oxygen, you have plenty to get you there and back three times over. And in an emergency, there’s a canister stored inside the drill room that would give you enough to get back here. The instructions on how to use the canister are posted on the wall there, so you don't have to worry about remembering how to do that on top of everything else."
Patrick laughed weakly. "Thank god."
"You'll be fine. Trust me. Just get yourself out to the drill in one piece. If Pete's holed up in there, eating all the emergency rations, just punch him in the face for making us worry like this and try to wait it out with him. These storms don't usually last more than a couple of hours, so it should blow itself out soon." She came around to face him and handed him the helmet. "If Gabe gets his repairs done before you're back, I'll get my suit and come after both of you."
"Thanks, Vic. I ... I owe you."
"Bullshit." She shoved him lightly. "Put the fucking helmet on and go get our fearless leader."
Patrick took a long, deep breath and closed his eyes. If he chickened out and stayed inside now, if Pete turned out to be injured - or worse, but Patrick refused to think about that - Patrick would never forgive himself. He opened his eyes and slid the helmet over his head. “Seal me up.” His voice sounded muffled, even to himself.
He heard the clicking that indicated Victoria had engaged the helmet seal. He felt her shove something - the emergency medical kit, probably, along with an extra canister of oxygen - into the pack on his back, followed by a pat on his shoulder. “I’m closing the airlock door now,” she said, her voice fed through the small speakers next to his ears. “Don’t forget, the wind is going to be brutal out there. Take it slow, and you’ll be fine. Good luck.”
Then she was gone, and Patrick had nowhere to go but outside.
When he pulled the outside door closed behind him, Patrick was struck by how quiet it seemed. Where was the wind? He couldn’t feel much of anything through the thick padding of the pressure suit. But, then he looked up and around and noticed that there was a shelter built around the door, stretching for about two meters. Once he stepped out to the edge of the shelter, it was a different story. He tentatively reached his arm out to test the wind, and found himself holding his arm taut against a push that felt almost like someone slapping him. He swallowed hard. It wasn’t like he was a big guy, he thought - what if he fell over and couldn’t get back up?
“You can do this,” he muttered to himself. “Really, you can do this.”
He took his first step outside the shelter - and stumbled, only keeping himself upright by reaching out and bracing himself against the corner of the shelter. He stopped for a moment and spread his feet far enough from each other that he felt like he had a solid stance. He looked ahead - the transport vehicle was parked just a few meters ahead. “One step at a time,” he said aloud. “One step isn’t so bad.”
It wasn’t. Neither was two steps. He knew he probably looked ridiculous, taking what felt like tiny baby steps with his legs that far apart. Luckily, no one was watching him, and style didn’t count. As long as he made it to the transport without blowing away, nothing else mattered. Patrick didn’t count his steps, so he was almost surprised when he reached out and grabbed the handlebar of the transport. He pulled himself up onto the transport and spent a moment staring at the controls before Victoria’s instructions came back to him. He punched in the sequence for Drill 7 and grabbed the handles just before the vehicle lurched into motion.
The planet’s landscape was a lot rockier than Patrick expected. He bounced around in the seat so hard that he bit his tongue. Cursing, he clamped his jaw shut, tightened his legs around the transport seat, and held on for dear life. Eventually, he got up the nerve to look up and out at the land around him. He could see the drill silo in the distance, getting larger at a slow - too slow - pace. He didn’t see any dark patches on the ground ahead of him, which he considered a good sign; Pete was probably not wrecked out in the middle of the storm.
Unless he was buried in snow already. Patrick dismissed that thought as soon as it occurred to him.
When Patrick arrived at the drill, all he could hear was the wind howling around him. He figured he should hear the drill, even over the storm – the machine was probably two stories tall above ground, and stretched at least twice as far under the ground. Patrick had seen drills like this before on other planets, and they made enough of a racket to hear from a half mile away. This one was eerily quiet, even after he turned up the volume inside his helmet. He frowned and climbed off the transport.
He resumed his slow bow-legged walk, making sure one foot was firmly planted in the snow before taking another step. Soon, he arrived at another transport, haphazardly parked near the door to the drill's maintenance cabin. Patrick stopped to look at it. It didn't look like it had crashed, and a quick test of the controls proved it was still functional. Pete apparently just parked very quickly, without bothering to aim for the space designated in front of the door. Patrick wasn't terribly surprised. He was, however, relieved to not have encountered Pete in a frozen lump anywhere on his trip.
He made his way to the metal door, which stood twice as tall as Patrick did. Luckily, he already knew the code to open it – he was in charge of changing it once a month, and also had to listen to the planet walkers bitch every time they had to memorize a new one. The codes had only changed the week before, so the number was fresh in Patrick's mind. He punched the code into the number pad; the door gave an audible groan before swinging open. Patrick stepped inside the airlock and pushed the door closed. He breathed a small smile of relief. One more door, and he could take off his damned helmet. Hopefully. If the life support was functional. His sigh turned into a choked gasp, and he coughed inside his helmet.
Only one way to find out. He walked over to the control panel next to the inner door. It lit up when he hit the power button – a good sign. However, when he keyed in the sequence that should repressurize the airlock, the screen remained blank. "Oh no," he muttered, "don't do this to me, for fuck's sake don't do this to me." He keyed in the sequence again. Still nothing. Patrick could feel a bead of sweat trickling down the back of his neck. If he couldn't repressurize the airlock, he couldn't get into the main drill control room. He wondered, a little desperately, if he could figure out how to take the pack off his back without taking off the helmet, just in case he needed the extra oxygen tank. Victoria hadn't actually shown him how to do that.
But, he realized suddenly, if the controls to the airlock didn't work, chances were good that the life support inside the control room was also offline. Pete would either be existing on an emergency oxygen tank right now, or worse, if he'd had his helmet off when it failed. "Work, you stupid motherfucker," he muttered at the panel as he punched the same numbers for a third time.
There was a moment of silence – long enough for Patrick's heart to nearly leap out of his throat – before he heard the sweet, sweet sound of air blowing into the room.
The inner door opened more slowly than Patrick would have liked. The minute it was open far enough, he squeezed through and looked around the room.
He heard the cough before he noticed Pete. His voice was soft enough that Patrick had to strain to hear it inside his helmet. "Thank god. Frank, is that you?"
As the life support lights were still glowing a comforting green, Patrick quickly undid the seals on his helmet and pulled it off. When he turned toward the corner where the voice had come from, he swallowed a curse. Pete was huddled next to the heating vent, one leg stretched out awkwardly to the side. His pressure suit was ripped up the thigh, and the gray of the suit was marred by a disturbing patch of deep red. "What the hell happened? Are you okay?"
He was kneeling next to Pete before he looked up at his face. Pete was alarmingly pale, and his eyes were big enough to resemble giant black dots. "Patrick? Fuck, I'm hallucinating, I have to be dying."
"You're not hallucinating. I'm here. What happened to your leg?" Patrick shrugged the pack from his back. He removed his gloves and started digging through it for the medical kit.
"Patrick."
"Shit," Patrick muttered. "If your suit is ripped, I can't get you out of here. I wonder if I can get the comm back online, let Victoria know to bring a patch kit when she comes."
"Patrick." Patrick felt a faint pressure on his arm. He turned back to see Pete's hand laying on his forearm. "You're here," Pete murmured, his head falling back to rest against the wall. "You're really here."
Patrick nodded. "Yeah, Pete, I am."
Pete closed his eyes and dropped his hand. "The drill's offline," he said. "Something busted in the wind. I was outside, checking the sensors up on the second level when the fucking wind knocked me back on my ass. I got my leg caught between a couple of gears, tore the suit getting it unstuck. Managed to seal off my helmet and make it back in here on what air I had in my tubes. Of course, the fucking comm is down, couldn't call for help, and my leg gave out before I could get to the med kit on the wall." He laughed weakly. "I thought someone would show up a while ago. How long have I been out here?"
"Nearly an hour," Patrick admitted. "The station is under lockdown. The wind blew a hole in one of the cargo bays, Gabe and company are working on it. But the control room is sealed off, no one can get in and out."
"And I sent Frank away before I left," Pete remembered. "So he couldn't come out here to find me?"
"Nope. You're stuck with me."
Patrick pulled the rip in Pete's suit apart gingerly; from what he could tell, the gouge in Pete's leg went pretty deep. There was a puddle of blood underneath Pete's leg that caused Patrick to make a distressed noise in the back of his throat. He looked up and studied Pete's face. Pete reached up and grabbed the back of Patrick's neck in a weak grasp. "You came," he said. "You hate the outside."
"Still do." Patrick tried to smile at Pete. "I don't know how you idiots do this every day."
"But you came anyway. You came to find me."
"I was the only one who could. I was stuck in a control room with three giants and Frank's suit."
"But you're terrified."
Patrick felt his mouth twist into a scowl. "Thanks for reminding me, jackass, I was doing pretty well there for a little while."
Pete gripped Patrick's neck harder and tried to pull him closer. "Thank you," he whispered, staring at Patrick with impossibly dark eyes. "I didn't ... thank you."
Patrick swallowed, and on impulse leaned over and kissed Pete on the forehead. "Don't thank me yet, I don't know what the hell to do next."
"Drugs," Pete suggested. "Please. You have to have something in that kit, right?"
He did, in fact, and it was a relief to watch Pete relax against the wall as the painkiller kicked in. Patrick helped him sit up fully against the wall. Pete's eyes were fuzzy, but his complexion was starting to return to a semi-normal color, Patrick noted with relief. He bandaged the wound as best he could; he didn't want to rip the suit any further, to make it easier to patch when help arrived. (Help would arrive, he swore to himself. He had to believe that.) He was afraid he'd never get the suit back onto Pete if he took it off, though, so he cleaned and dressed the wound as much as he could reach through the tear. Finally, he tied a tourniquet firmly around Pete's leg. "Ow," Pete said distantly. He looked down at the knotted fabric, then gave Patrick a dopey grin. "Hey, you know, we never did any of that."
"Any of what?"
Pete waved his hand vaguely at his leg. "Tying up. You and me. I have the toys and everything. We just never made it that far."
"What, you mean in bed?" Pete nodded drowsily. Patrick tried to dispel the images that popped into his head – they were markedly unhelpful when he was trying to concentrate on ... well, everything that clearly had to be done. "Tell you what," he said, tugging on one of the ends of the knot. "We get out of here alive, we can do whatever you want with whatever toys you want. You know, if you still want to."
"What do you mean, if I still want to?" Pete's eyes drifted shut for a moment. When he opened them again, he poked Patrick. "Never stopped wanting."
"Could've fooled me."
"You're leaving me."
Patrick frowned. "I didn't ..." He was interrupted by the whoop of an alarm. He jumped to his feet. "What the hell is that?"
"Generator warning." Pete's voice was suddenly ten times more alert. "The wind must have fucked something up with that, too. Motherfucker."
"What do I do? Pete, I don't know anything about the generators."
"Calm down. I can talk you through it."
"Are you good enough for that?" Patrick gestured at his leg.
"I'll have to be." Pete waved his hand towards the wall on the other side of the room. "Data panel and comm unit over there. The comm's busted, as usual, but the panel should still be operational enough to tell you where the problem is."
Patrick went to the panel and keyed in the commands as Pete instructed. "It's showing 50% power."
"There's definitely something broken. With the drill not working, there's no way it should have gone through power that fast."
"What can I do?" Patrick took a deep breath. "Do I have to go outside?"
"Yeah, probably. You'll need to check on the backup generator. If that's operational, we can just turn it on and wait out the storm. It's set for at least three hours of power."
"Hopefully the storm doesn't last another three hours."
"It shouldn't." But Pete's voice wasn't as sure as Patrick wanted it to be.
Patrick put his gloves back on, then looked at his helmet on the floor. "I hope I can re-seal that by myself."
"Come here." Pete patted the ground next to him. "I'm not that bad off, I can still help."
Patrick sat down and handed Pete the helmet. He turned around so his back was to Pete. "Put it on, I can get the front seal. I just need you to get the two in back."
Instead of the weight of the helmet, though, the next thing Patrick felt was warm breath on his neck. Pete's lips brushed lightly against the skin behind Patrick's ear. "Be careful," Pete said softly. Then he slid the helmet onto Patrick's head, and Patrick lost any sense of Pete or anything else around him.
"I checked the gauge back here," Pete said, his voice thin inside the helmet speakers. "You've got a good half hour of air left. Should be plenty of time to go out, boot the backup, and get back in here."
"Hopefully."
"It will." Pete gave him instructions on how to work the backup generator, then made Patrick repeat them back. "Okay, go," he said finally. "I'll just stay here and take a nap."
"Don't you dare." Patrick shook a gloved finger at him. "I still need you."
Pete gave him a lopsided smile. Patrick straightened his shoulders, took a deep breath, and steeled himself once again for the great outdoors.
The wind still howled outside at a speed that nearly flattened Patrick back against the door. He put one hand on the side of the building and began making his way around to the back. When he turned the second corner, he saw the two metal-covered domes that housed the generators. The larger one, which housed the main generator, had a square door hanging high off the side by one hinge, banging forcefully against the casing. It had to be the door used to lift heavy parts in and out of the dome, he figured. It was a testament to how loud the wind was that Patrick barely heard the clanging. Patrick looked as closely as he could from that distance, but couldn't see any immediate reason the door would have broken in the wind – there was no large handle protruding, no indication at all that that would stick out enough for the wind to easily pick up. Yet, it had, somehow – the wind was that strong. "Damn," Patrick said aloud. The backup generator was on the far side of the main one, so Patrick couldn't immediately see if there was any damage to that one.
He took his hand off the side of the building and took one step toward the generators. At that moment, the door came flying off its remaining hinge and barreled straight for Patrick.
Later, Patrick couldn't remember exactly how he'd gotten out of the way. One minute, he saw the door flying toward him; the next, he was face-down in the snow, over a meter away, and the door was nowhere to be seen. He must have jumped, he figured, and gotten an assist from the wind to move that far. Patrick sat up and stared in the direction the door had flown. The fact that it had missed both Patrick and the building was a minor miracle.
"Oh fuck," he breathed, wrapping his arms around his knees. "Oh fuck. Oh fuck."
It took a long couple of minutes before Patrick stopped shaking enough to push himself to his feet. The wind knocked him back over twice before he finally struggled to standing. He bent his knees to ground himself – which hurt, fuck, he was going to be bruised everywhere tomorrow, provided he made it to tomorrow – and then started a slow shuffle to the backup generator.
He made himself walk all the way around the backup generator's dome. There was no immediately obvious damage to the structure, which had Patrick breathing easier for a brief moment. The entrance door was on the side nearest the main generator, and had a thankfully simple locking mechanism. It didn't take long for Patrick to get himself inside and out of the wind.
The dome was barely tall enough for Patrick to stand up straight in. He could only imagine how uncomfortable it must be for Victoria or Ryland to work in here. There was just enough room around the edge to walk around the generator's perimeter. A ladder was bolted to the side of the dome on either side of the generator; it curved with the ceiling to obviously allow someone to hang from the top rungs while making repairs. Patrick fervently hoped he had no reason to do so, as the wind was causing the metal dome to shake slightly around him. Besides, he'd have no idea what to do up there anyway. Pete had instructed him on how to turn the generator on, and that was it. If it didn't turn on, well, then he was fucked.
It didn't turn on.
Patrick repeated the sequence, just in case he'd done something wrong. In fact, he repeated it four times. Finally, he leaned back against the wall and lightly banged the back of his helmet against the metal. "Shit. Shit, shit, shit."
He circled the generator twice, looking at the machine even though he had no idea what he was looking at. Hoping for some kind of miraculous answer, he supposed. But after two circuits, he did some mental math and realized that his oxygen tank might possibly only have enough juice left to get him back into the main building. So, with another string of curses, he left the generator dome and made his way back through the storm.
Back inside, Pete stared at him hopefully as he fumbled with the seals on his helmet. When he was free, Patrick shook his head and resisted the urge to throw the helmet against the wall. "Backup won't work. I don't know why."
When Pete closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall without comment, a spark of concern flared in Patrick's chest. "Pete? Are you okay?"
"So tired," Pete muttered.
Patrick shrugged off his pack and gloves and knelt next to him. He inspected the bandage on Pete's leg. The bleeding had slowed, thank all the gods, but there was still far too much blood on the floor beneath him for Patrick to be anything but scared witless. He grabbed Pete's chin and shook him gently. "Stay with me, dude, I still need you."
Pete opened his eyes, but it looked like a struggle. "Right," he said, adjusting himself so he sat up a little straighter. "Gotta figure out how to take the power levels down in here. Maybe if we cut all non-essential functions, we can make the main generator last until someone comes to get us."
"What's non-essential?"
"Go back over there, read me the list of functions that are still online and working."
When Patrick logged back into the data panel, the power level read 40% in a bright, flashing red type. He swallowed his panic and read the function list to Pete. He turned back to Pete – his eyes were closed again, but thankfully his voice sounded clear when he began to speak. "Cut life support to the drill work rooms, we obviously don't need those right now. Cut the water, too. The drill's not running, so we don't need the cooling pipes. Take the lights down to 25%, we just need enough so you don't kill yourself walking around. And I guess you might as well cut the heat down to 25%, too."
Patrick frowned. "That's going to make it really fucking cold in here."
"If it makes you feel better, we'll suffocate long before we freeze to death."
"No, in fact, that doesn't make me feel better at all."
"Then think of it this way – if you don't cut the heat, we might run out of air. How's that?"
That, Patrick conceded, was a convincing argument. He made all the adjustments as Pete instructed, and was rewarded when the bright red "40% power" changed to a calmer yellow. "I think that worked," he told Pete.
"Hope so. There's not much more we can do."
Patrick crossed the room and slid down the wall next to Pete. Pete shifted to give him room between his body and the corner. Patrick noticed his wince when he moved. "How does that feel?" he asked, gesturing to Pete's leg.
"Fine."
"Bullshit." Patrick poked his arm. "Truth, asshole, I can't help if you don't tell me."
"Nothing you can do right now," Pete said, leaning some of his weight into Patrick's side. "It hurts like a motherfucker. I feel woozy. It's a problem, but there's nothing in your little kit that will do any more than you've already done. If someone doesn't come get us, I'm fucked."
Patrick put his arm around Pete's shoulders. Pete's head dropped to Patrick's chest. "They'll come for us," Patrick promised. He hoped he sounded convincing.
They sat like that for a while – how long, Patrick couldn't say, he started to lose track of time as the room lost heat. Pete became more and more limp, until he finally slid down and lay with his head in Patrick's lap. Every once in a while, Patrick said his name just to make sure his eyes opened, but those points got further and further apart. At some point, Patrick began to see his breath puff out in front of him, and he lost several minutes to watching the shapes the white tendrils made before they disappeared into the dim light.
"Patrick?"
Pete's voice was a surprise. Patrick looked down to see his eyes half-open. He was dangerously pale, and Patrick's heart lurched in his chest. "Yeah?"
"Don't leave me."
"I'm here. I don't exactly have anywhere else to go right now," Patrick pointed out.
Pete gave a violent shudder – from cold or injury, Patrick couldn't tell, but he slid down the wall enough that he could curl his body slightly around Pete's for extra warmth. Pete fisted a gloved hand in Patrick's suit. "No," he said, softly enough that Patrick had to strain to hear him. "Don't leave. After this. Stay here with me. I don't want ..."
Pete sucked in a shallow breath and started to cough. Patrick could only put a hand in his hair and try not to scream for help that wouldn't hear. Slowly, the coughing subsided, and Pete slumped back onto Patrick's legs. Patrick poked him, shook him, said his name over and over, but got no response. "Oh god," he breathed. Patrick tried to get his pulse, but even after having his gloves on, his fingers were still cold enough to be numb. Pete's chest continued to rise and fall very, very slowly, though, so Patrick pushed his panic back down to the pit of his stomach. "I'm not leaving, asshole. I hope you're listening. I'm not taking the job. I like my job here just fine. You know, when I get to stay inside where it's warm and there's air."
Pete didn't stir. Patrick tried to ignore the lump forming in his throat. "Fuck you," he said, "you're not allowed to die. This is all very dramatic, but I do not intend to be that person who watches his true love die in his arms, or whatever dumbass romance novel plans you're working on here."
Patrick leaned back on the wall and let his eyes close. He drifted off, until he wasn’t aware of anything other than the cold and Pete’s limp weight across his legs. The drumbeat of panic that had pounded behind his eyes for hours started to subside. Nothing to be done. Nothing he could do. Nowhere he could go. Maybe he should just go to sleep …
Some time passed. Maybe a minute, maybe an hour. Patrick didn’t realize the movement he felt wasn’t in his mind until a voice sounded next to his ear. “Patrick! Patrick, come on, wake up!”
The weight disappeared from his legs, and that brought Patrick out of his fog. He opened his eyes - a struggle he wasn’t expecting - to see Victoria’s face inches from his. “Thank god,” she said. “I could see you breathing, but for a minute there, I was afraid …”
“Pete?” His voice barely worked. “Pete, is he …”
“Alive,” Victoria said. Patrick looked beyond her to see Ryland crouching on the ground, struggling to put Pete’s helmet on his unconscious body. “He’s lost a lot of blood, though. We need to get him back. And you, too.”
“I’m fine.” Patrick pushed himself away from the wall, but when he tried to get his feet under him, he pitched forward. Only Victoria’s quick grasp kept him from face-planting into the floor.
“Careful. You probably have a touch of hypothermia. You both need to be back in med bay right now.” Patrick didn’t notice the hypo needle she carried until she jabbed him in the neck with it. “Sorry. Bebe’s orders. We’re gonna get you home now.”
Patrick allowed Victoria to haul him to his feet, and gratefully leaned on her as they made their way outside. The wind had died down to almost nothing - the landscape, Patrick noted as he sat in the medical cart Victoria was pulling behind her transport, was actually rather pretty in the bright sunlight. It had a pink tinge that he hadn’t noticed before, casting a rosy color on the mountains in the distance. This planet wasn’t nearly as ugly as he’d thought.
That was his last thought before the drugs Victoria had given him took effect. The bright world went dark.
Patrick woke up in the med bay. When he struggled to a sitting position, he saw Bebe stocking shelves across the room. She heard his movement and immediately crossed to his side. She worked the bed controls so that his back was supported. “Easy. You’ve only been out a few hours. I expected you to sleep longer.”
He groaned and rubbed his forehead. “My head is killing me.”
“Side effect of the treatment. Your hypothermia wasn’t the worst I’ve ever seen, but it still took a lot out of you.”
“Pete?” Patrick looked around the room. “Is he …”
“He’s okay.” But Bebe’s expression was serious. “Or, he’ll be okay. He’s back in the private recovery room. It’s lucky you got there when you did. If you hadn’t stemmed the bleeding …” She leaned over and kissed Patrick on his temple. “You’re a hero, dollface.”
“I don’t feel like much of a hero.”
“Trust me.” She patted his leg. “Rest. You need it.”
Patrick slept for most of the next day. When Bebe finally allowed him out of bed, he moved like a man of eighty. The black-and-blue tinge to most of his skin reminded him why. “Jesus,” he muttered, wincing as he bent his knees. “I forgot about the whole hitting-the-ground thing.”
His first destination was the private recovery room. Pete lay in the bed in the middle of the room, hooked up to several beeping machines. “He still needs transfusions every once in a while,” Bebe said from behind him. “I’m keeping him sedated until he’s a little farther along. But he’s going to be okay, I promise.” She tugged on Patrick’s arm. “Come on, out. I only let you out of bed since you promised to go back to your room and lay down. Get out of here.”
The minute he got to his bed, his door chimed. Gabe, Travis, and Greta shouldered their way into his room and steered him back to the bed. “You, down,” Greta ordered. “You look like you’re about to pass out again.”
“I was just about to when you guys showed up,” Patrick muttered.
“We came to make sure you don’t try to get up,” Travis announced. When Patrick was lying down, Greta draped herself across the foot of the bed, and Gabe and Travis sat themselves in the chairs next to him. “So we’re going to keep you company until you fall asleep.”
Patrick drifted off in the middle of an argument about whether Gabe could show porn in the lounge for his birthday party. When he woke up again, Travis was the only one left, reading something on a data pad. “You don’t have to babysit me,” Patrick said. “I’m sure you have other things to do.”
“Nah. I stay in here, I avoid Singer trying to pawn off kitchen duty on everyone who walks past.” Travis grinned and held up the pad. “Want me to read you some trashy gossip from Gamma 6? That trashy vid star - you know, the one in that movie Mikey loves so much - apparently broke up a politician’s marriage.”
Patrick smiled. “Yeah, sure, let’s hear it.”
A day later, Spencer poked his head into Patrick’s room. “Hey,” he said. “Um, we all sorta forgot what day it is. The transport is here for you.”
Patrick blinked. The transport - the one scheduled to take him to Heron. To take him home.
Spencer went on without waiting for a response. “Obviously, the pilot missed the news about your adventures. Don’t know how, apparently it’s all over the company news wires. By the way, if you haven’t already, send a message to your mom. I’ve talked to her twice already, but she’s getting impatient.” Patrick grimaced, but Spencer waved a hand at him. “Don’t worry, she understands. Anyway, if you want me to, I’ll tell him to come back next week. The company will pay for it, I checked. They don’t want to move you unless you’re ready.”
Patrick closed his eyes. He still felt cold most of the time, even though the heat in his room was turned up nearly as high as it would go. Last night, he’d dreamed about being back out in that control room, with Pete at his feet. This time, though, Pete was dead, and Patrick was stuck sitting there and staring at him. He’d woken up in a sweat, and made his way down to the med bay to look in on a still-unconscious Pete. The machines beeped a heart rate, which calmed Patrick considerably.
If he waited for a week, Pete would probably be conscious. Patrick could say goodbye to him before he left.
Just the thought made Patrick want to vomit.
“Tell him to go away,” he said to Spencer.
“Okay, I’ll have him come back in a week.”
“No.” Spencer furrowed his brow, but something inside Patrick’s chest had loosened for the first time in over a week. “Tell him not to come back at all. I’m not going.”
Spencer’s answering smile made Patrick feel better than any of Bebe’s drugs.
A little while later, Patrick hauled himself over to his comm and sent a message to the Undersecretary.
Thank you for your kind offer of employment on Heron. I know how much jobs on that station are valued, and I’m humbled to know my work has meant that much to the company. However, I am happy with my continued employment on Clandestine Station, and will be staying in this position for the foreseeable future.
He went back to sleep with a smile on his face.
Patrick didn’t get to see Pete when he woke up - Bebe kicked everyone out of the med bay and threatened to enforce the company’s policy of requiring annual physicals for every employee. “Unless you want me to start sticking my fingers in uncomfortable places,” she said, “you all will stay the fuck out.”
She softened a little bit when Patrick asked, but remained firm. “I promise, you’ll be the first to know when he can have visitors,” she said. “But he’s a little shit when it comes to being a patient, and I don’t want him doing anything to break his stitches or impede his recovery in any way. So I’m keeping him quarantined until I’m tempted to kill him.”
Patrick went back to work the next day. Spencer tried to argue with him, but Patrick waved him off. “I’m going to go crazy sitting around,” Patrick said. “Put me to work. I sit in a chair, no big deal.”
“Yeah, that’s what we used to think,” Spencer grumbled, but he let Patrick go to the control room and relieve Alex for half a shift.
Two days later, he left his shift to find Pete sitting in front of his door, looking pale and shaky. Patrick rushed over to him. “What the hell are you doing here? Does Bebe know you’re out of bed?”
“I staged a jailbreak. The warden is none the wiser,” Pete said. He grabbed Patrick’s arm. “Help me up.”
“I’m taking you back.”
“No, don’t.” When Pete was on his feet, he squeezed Patrick’s arm tightly. “Let me inside. I want to talk to you.”
“We can talk in the med bay. Seriously, Pete, you could injure yourself.”
“I’m already injured. Fuck that.” Pete wedged himself between Patrick and the door. “Let me in. Please.”
Sighing, Patrick opened the door and helped Pete inside to a chair. Pete’s leg was stretched out stiffly in front of him; Patrick knew from seeing him before that it was wrapped in layers and layers of bandages and gauze. “You didn’t even take a pair of crutches or something?”
“Bebe hid them all. I just held onto the wall all the way here.”
“You’re insane.” Patrick sat on the edge of the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Sore as fuck. Finally mostly drug-free, thank god, that shit was making me feel like I was floating three feet above the bed.” Pete shrugged. “Alive. Thanks to you.”
Patrick shifted uncomfortably. “Don’t mention it.”
“Fuck off.” Pete tried to lean forward, but the motion obviously pained him, so he leaned back. “You came for me. You’re fucking terrified of going outside, but you came after me. I don’t even know what to say to that. But don’t you dare play it off like that. I won’t let you.”
“Okay.” Patrick scrubbed a hand across his eyes and took a deep breath. “I just couldn’t stand the idea of you out there all alone. If you’d died while I just sat there, I never would have forgiven myself.”
“Fuck.” Pete covered his face with his hands. He let out a laugh that half sounded like a sob. When he dropped his hands, he visibly straightened his shoulders. “When do you leave?”
The question took Patrick by surprise. When he realized what it meant, he silently cursed Bebe for being a sadistic bitch. “I sent the shuttle away.”
“I know that. When does it come back?” Patrick opened his mouth to answer, but Pete cut him off. “Never mind. Don’t go. Please, for the love of god, don’t go.”
“Pete, I-”
“Listen, hear me out, please?” This time, Pete did lean forward, ignoring the pain that flashed in his eyes with the movement. “I love you. I should have told you a million times before this, I know. But I do. I love you, you stupid motherfucker, and it will kill me if you go, because I know I’ll never see you again. I can’t even think about that.”
A warmth spread through Patrick’s chest. He opened his mouth again, but Pete wouldn’t let him talk. “If I was stronger, I’d totally hold you down and make you stay in this room until you said you wouldn’t leave. I’m half tempted to ask Gabe to lock you in here, actually. I love you, and you came and fucking rescued me, and I can’t live without you. I won’t.”
“Pete.” The flood of words finally stopped. Patrick slid off the bed and knelt on the floor in front of Pete’s chair. “I’m not leaving.”
“Don’t just say that to get me -”
“Pete. Shut up.” Patrick gently shoved Pete backward until he was leaning back in the chair again. “And don’t hurt yourself. I’m not going anywhere. I turned down the job.”
Finally, understanding dawned in Pete’s eyes. “You’re … you did? For real?”
“For real. I love you too, jackass.” Patrick stood up and leaned lightly on the arm of the chair. He bent over and kissed Pete lightly. “Now you’re going back to med bay before I call Bebe in here with a hypo needle.”
Pete grabbed Patrick’s arm. “I love you.”
“I heard you the first time.” But Patrick couldn’t wipe the giant smile from his face.
“Get used to hearing it.” Pete allowed himself to be hoisted to his feet. He wrapped an arm around Patrick’s waist and leaned his head against Patrick’s shoulder. “I’ll only go back if you promise to sing me a lullaby.”
Patrick just smiled and pulled him a little closer. “I promise.”
Somehow, Patrick’s staying-at-Clandestine party felt just as strange as his welcoming party. “Nothing’s happening,” he grumbled. “Why do we need a party?”
Travis shrugged. “It’s always good to have an excuse to watch our drunk coworkers make fools of themselves.”
“Okay, you have a point.”
“Also,” Gabe added, “We totally had a going away party planned before all hell broke loose. You owe us a celebration.”
“Because the storm was my fault?”
Gabe brandished a bottle of wine - from which he was drinking - at Patrick. “Don’t bring logic into this, motherfucker.”
Patrick spent most of the party trying to keep Pete in one place. “If you keel over and die,” he told Pete, “Bebe will throw me out the airlock.”
“I’m not gonna die. I’m just going to hurt a lot in the morning. Which really isn’t that different than usual after a party, if you think about it.” Pete punctuated his statement by standing up - then immediately sitting back down, groaning and rubbing his leg.
Patrick shook his head. “I should tie you to the chair.”
Pete brightened. “Hey, that reminds me. Unless I was hallucinating at the time, you totally made me a promise when I was dying.”
“What?” A moment later, Patrick remembered. He felt his face flush red. “I guess I did, didn’t I?”
“What kind of promise?” Brendon asked, walking up and draping himself over the arm of Pete’s chair.
“None of your business,” Patrick said.
“Something to do with tying up,” Greta, sitting a few feet away, supplied helpfully.
Brendon grinned. “Oooh! Who’s getting tied up?”
“Yet to be determined,” Pete said.
Patrick reached over and shoved Brendon off the chair. “Nobody, until someone can at least stand up without looking like he’s going to die.”
“Oooh, a goal.” Pete looked across the room. “Hey, Bebe!” he shouted over the conversational din.
A moment later, she appeared in front of them. “Yes, my gimpy friend?”
“What time do you have for physical therapy tomorrow?”
Bebe raised an eyebrow. “Who are you and what have you done with Pete? You told me earlier today that you didn’t need any stinking exercises, you could walk just fine.”
“And you told me I was going to have goddamned therapy if you had to hold a gun to my head. Besides,” Pete added, grinning at Patrick, “now I have incentive.”
Patrick covered his face with his hands as Brendon and Greta laughed. “I don’t want to know,” Bebe decided. “But get your ass into med bay at nine tomorrow morning.”
Pete groaned. “That early?”
“You asked. Be there.”
“Fucking slavedriver,” Pete muttered. Bebe just smiled at him. She leaned over and gave Patrick a quick kiss on the temple before she wandered off again.
Pete and Brendon began to argue about an upcoming movie night; Patrick was content to lean against Pete’s shoulder and study the room. In the other corner, Gabe and Mikey were conversing with wild gestures, while Carden looked on with an amused expression. Travis played bartender at the table in the corner of the room, which was low enough to make Travis look like he stood behind a kiddie table. Frank and Ray sat on the floor next to the door; when Gerard walked in a few minutes later, Frank tugged him down to sit next to him. Gerard sprawled in front of the door, where Spencer nearly stepped on him when he came in. Frank howled with laughter. Home, he thought. “Who knew?” he murmured aloud.
“Who knew what?” Pete asked.
Patrick just smiled. “Never mind.”
***
Art Post
Mix Post
Part One
Part Two
Patrick worked the same shift as Pete for the next three days, because the universe - or Spencer - was perverse and liked to see him suffer, apparently. Pete didn't acknowledge his existence. Once upon a time, Patrick would have thought that would make it easier to leave, but every time Pete passed by his console without grinning or ruffling his hair or leaning down into Patrick's light, Patrick felt a little more ill. On the third day, Patrick waited until nearly the end of the shift before he cleared his throat. "Uh, Pete?"
Pete didn't look at him. "What?"
"I need to talk to you. When we're done here."
"I'm busy."
"It's important."
Patrick's console squawked, and he swore under his breath. He tapped a couple of buttons. "Fuck. Drill 7's giving me an error message. It says it's shut itself down."
Pete scowled. He turned to Frank, who coughed miserably into the sleeve of his jumpsuit. "Go get some sleep, man. I'll cover this."
"You're going out alone?" Patrick asked. "Isn't that against regulations?"
"Fuck regulations," Pete muttered. "Listen, 7 is a temperamental bitch. Most of the time, the errors we get from her are false alarms. Gotta check on them, though. It'll be a thirty minute walk, no more. I'll just go and check it out. If it turns out there's something really wrong, we can wake up Suarez or something."
"You sure?" Frank asked. He punctuated his statement with a sneeze. "The weather's shit out there today. The wind nearly blew us both off the transport, remember?"
"Seriously. I can strap myself in and do the damned job. Get the fuck out of here before you give us all the death plague."
Frank made a rude gesture, but he made his way to the exit as soon as he was done stowing his pressure suit. Pete put his own suit back on. Before he lifted the helmet over his head, Patrick waved at him. "Hey," he said quietly. "Be careful, okay?"
Pete closed his eyes. When he finally looked back at Patrick, his mouth twisted in an expression that wasn't quite a smile. "I'm always careful."
"That's what I'm afraid of."
Pete was silent. For a moment, Patrick thought he was about to respond, but instead he just nodded and slipped his helmet on.
A few minutes later, Victoria wandered in and propped herself up between Travis and William. "You guys almost done? We're holding the poker game for you."
"Pete's out checking on 7. We need to stick around until he's back."
"Gotcha." She grinned at Patrick. "You joining us? Mikey wants one more shot at winning back his twenty credits from you before you go."
He grinned back. "He can certainly try."
They were in the middle of a conversation about the vid they'd all watched the night before when they were interrupted by the indignant shriek of the emergency alarm. The exit door slammed shut, and all four of them started shouting curses. Patrick punched a button on the comm. "Gabe? We just had a drill last month, you motherfucker."
"Not a drill," Gabe said, his voice uncharacteristically serious. "We've got a breach in the building structure over in the kitchen storeroom. There was a landslide up on the hill, it blew some rocks over this way."
"Hard enough to breach the structure? Damn, that’s some wind."
"You're telling me. It might take us a little while to get it fixed, the wind's working against us. So just lock everything down and sit tight, I'll let you know when we're done."
After the connection cut out, Patrick stared at his console. "If the wind is that bad, Pete ..."
"He should be fine," William said. "He should be at the drill by now. Just call and tell him to stay put until the wind dies down a little."
Patrick punched in Drill 7's frequency. "Control to 7. Pete, you in there yet?" Silence. "Pete, come in, we're on lockdown."
There was no response. Patrick rubbed the back of his neck. "Give it a few minutes and try again," Victoria suggested.
Ten minutes later, there was still no response from Pete. Victoria, Travis, and William finally looked worried. "Maybe someone should go out and look for him?" William suggested.
"In this weather?" Travis frowned. "Dude, if the wind is bad enough to break through the building ..."
"... then Pete's probably in trouble," Patrick interrupted.
"We're trained for this sort of thing," Victoria said. "Severe weather rescue. I haven't had to do it in a real-life situation, though. Just simulations back in training. I can give it a shot, though, if we think it's necessary."
"Is your pressure suit in here?" William asked.
Victoria's face fell. "No. It's in storage."
"Is there any way we can get Gabe to open the door long enough for you to go get it?" Patrick asked.
"Worth a shot." Victoria leaned over Patrick's console and punched the button. "Gabe, you there?"
It took a minute to get a reply. "Kinda busy here, Vic."
"Pete's missing outside. I need my suit to go find him. Can you unseal the door?"
"No can do. We've got the halls depressurized right now, diverting the electrical systems to our repairs. We open the door, you all lose your oxygen."
"Fuck." Victoria kicked the console before stepping away. "Whose suits are here? If Ryland or Suarez left theirs, I can probably make it work."
"Frank was the last one on shift," Patrick said.
"Dammit. God, I hope one of the other guys got lazy and didn't put their suit in storage after their last shift."
Patrick hoped, too. But when she emerged from the alcove a minute later, her frown told him all he needed to know. "There's no way in hell I can fit into Frank's suit," she said. "He's half my height."
"I have some basic planet walk training," Travis said, "but ..." He gestured at his own body. "Only if I cut myself off at the knees."
"Pete's probably all right," William said. He sounded like he was trying to convince himself. "The comm at Drill 7 is always on the fritz. I bet Pete made it there, but doesn't have any way of talking to us. He's probably hunkered down inside until the storm blows over. It's not like this is his first planet walk. He knows emergency procedures."
"Emergency procedure," Patrick reminded him, "states that if a walker misses three check-ins, another walker needs to go check on him."
"We just established that we can't do that," Victoria said.
Patrick reached out to flick the buttons on his console; as he pressed the sequence for Drill 7's comm system, he saw his hands shaking. He focused his gaze on the console in front of him. If he looked at anyone else, he thought, he might end up getting sick all over the floor. "We can," he said softly. "I ... I can fit into Frank's suit." The words came out in a rush - if he didn't say them right then, he knew he'd never have the nerve again.
There was a storm raging outside - a storm wild enough to have damaged the building's reinforced structure. It was bitterly cold, there was no breathable oxygen, and Patrick had just volunteered to do his very first planet walk. He wanted to take it back the minute the statement left his mouth. Outside? Him? It was madness. He'd probably end up getting himself killed no more than five steps outside the door. Just the thought of breathing the stale air inside the helmet made him woozy.
But Pete was out there. He could be hurt. He could be ... no, Patrick wasn't going to think about any worse options.
"Patrick?" Victoria said, her eyes wide. "Have you ever worked a suit before?"
"Yeah ... well, no, not on my own. Pete showed me how to work it, though."
"You've never been outside." Travis looked at him. "Are you sure?"
No. He wasn't sure at all. "Well ... yeah," he said slowly. "If Pete needs someone, it looks like I'm the only choice right now."
The other three looked at each other for a moment. Then, Victoria nodded. "Come over here. I'll give you the crash refresher course."
She spoke quickly as she helped him buckle into the pressure suit. "There's a transport parked just outside the door. It's easy to operate, just push the large center button and grip the sensors on the handle. The transport's navigation system will handle the rest. Just remember to punch in the sequence for Drill 7." She told him the numerical sequence, and made him repeat it back six times before she nodded at him. "With that, the transport will automatically take you to 7. It's designed for something like this, a storm in which we can't visually navigate ourselves. It normally takes about ten minutes to get out there, but with the wind, you'll want to go at half speed. Don't worry about your oxygen, you have plenty to get you there and back three times over. And in an emergency, there’s a canister stored inside the drill room that would give you enough to get back here. The instructions on how to use the canister are posted on the wall there, so you don't have to worry about remembering how to do that on top of everything else."
Patrick laughed weakly. "Thank god."
"You'll be fine. Trust me. Just get yourself out to the drill in one piece. If Pete's holed up in there, eating all the emergency rations, just punch him in the face for making us worry like this and try to wait it out with him. These storms don't usually last more than a couple of hours, so it should blow itself out soon." She came around to face him and handed him the helmet. "If Gabe gets his repairs done before you're back, I'll get my suit and come after both of you."
"Thanks, Vic. I ... I owe you."
"Bullshit." She shoved him lightly. "Put the fucking helmet on and go get our fearless leader."
Patrick took a long, deep breath and closed his eyes. If he chickened out and stayed inside now, if Pete turned out to be injured - or worse, but Patrick refused to think about that - Patrick would never forgive himself. He opened his eyes and slid the helmet over his head. “Seal me up.” His voice sounded muffled, even to himself.
He heard the clicking that indicated Victoria had engaged the helmet seal. He felt her shove something - the emergency medical kit, probably, along with an extra canister of oxygen - into the pack on his back, followed by a pat on his shoulder. “I’m closing the airlock door now,” she said, her voice fed through the small speakers next to his ears. “Don’t forget, the wind is going to be brutal out there. Take it slow, and you’ll be fine. Good luck.”
Then she was gone, and Patrick had nowhere to go but outside.
When he pulled the outside door closed behind him, Patrick was struck by how quiet it seemed. Where was the wind? He couldn’t feel much of anything through the thick padding of the pressure suit. But, then he looked up and around and noticed that there was a shelter built around the door, stretching for about two meters. Once he stepped out to the edge of the shelter, it was a different story. He tentatively reached his arm out to test the wind, and found himself holding his arm taut against a push that felt almost like someone slapping him. He swallowed hard. It wasn’t like he was a big guy, he thought - what if he fell over and couldn’t get back up?
“You can do this,” he muttered to himself. “Really, you can do this.”
He took his first step outside the shelter - and stumbled, only keeping himself upright by reaching out and bracing himself against the corner of the shelter. He stopped for a moment and spread his feet far enough from each other that he felt like he had a solid stance. He looked ahead - the transport vehicle was parked just a few meters ahead. “One step at a time,” he said aloud. “One step isn’t so bad.”
It wasn’t. Neither was two steps. He knew he probably looked ridiculous, taking what felt like tiny baby steps with his legs that far apart. Luckily, no one was watching him, and style didn’t count. As long as he made it to the transport without blowing away, nothing else mattered. Patrick didn’t count his steps, so he was almost surprised when he reached out and grabbed the handlebar of the transport. He pulled himself up onto the transport and spent a moment staring at the controls before Victoria’s instructions came back to him. He punched in the sequence for Drill 7 and grabbed the handles just before the vehicle lurched into motion.
The planet’s landscape was a lot rockier than Patrick expected. He bounced around in the seat so hard that he bit his tongue. Cursing, he clamped his jaw shut, tightened his legs around the transport seat, and held on for dear life. Eventually, he got up the nerve to look up and out at the land around him. He could see the drill silo in the distance, getting larger at a slow - too slow - pace. He didn’t see any dark patches on the ground ahead of him, which he considered a good sign; Pete was probably not wrecked out in the middle of the storm.
Unless he was buried in snow already. Patrick dismissed that thought as soon as it occurred to him.
When Patrick arrived at the drill, all he could hear was the wind howling around him. He figured he should hear the drill, even over the storm – the machine was probably two stories tall above ground, and stretched at least twice as far under the ground. Patrick had seen drills like this before on other planets, and they made enough of a racket to hear from a half mile away. This one was eerily quiet, even after he turned up the volume inside his helmet. He frowned and climbed off the transport.
He resumed his slow bow-legged walk, making sure one foot was firmly planted in the snow before taking another step. Soon, he arrived at another transport, haphazardly parked near the door to the drill's maintenance cabin. Patrick stopped to look at it. It didn't look like it had crashed, and a quick test of the controls proved it was still functional. Pete apparently just parked very quickly, without bothering to aim for the space designated in front of the door. Patrick wasn't terribly surprised. He was, however, relieved to not have encountered Pete in a frozen lump anywhere on his trip.
He made his way to the metal door, which stood twice as tall as Patrick did. Luckily, he already knew the code to open it – he was in charge of changing it once a month, and also had to listen to the planet walkers bitch every time they had to memorize a new one. The codes had only changed the week before, so the number was fresh in Patrick's mind. He punched the code into the number pad; the door gave an audible groan before swinging open. Patrick stepped inside the airlock and pushed the door closed. He breathed a small smile of relief. One more door, and he could take off his damned helmet. Hopefully. If the life support was functional. His sigh turned into a choked gasp, and he coughed inside his helmet.
Only one way to find out. He walked over to the control panel next to the inner door. It lit up when he hit the power button – a good sign. However, when he keyed in the sequence that should repressurize the airlock, the screen remained blank. "Oh no," he muttered, "don't do this to me, for fuck's sake don't do this to me." He keyed in the sequence again. Still nothing. Patrick could feel a bead of sweat trickling down the back of his neck. If he couldn't repressurize the airlock, he couldn't get into the main drill control room. He wondered, a little desperately, if he could figure out how to take the pack off his back without taking off the helmet, just in case he needed the extra oxygen tank. Victoria hadn't actually shown him how to do that.
But, he realized suddenly, if the controls to the airlock didn't work, chances were good that the life support inside the control room was also offline. Pete would either be existing on an emergency oxygen tank right now, or worse, if he'd had his helmet off when it failed. "Work, you stupid motherfucker," he muttered at the panel as he punched the same numbers for a third time.
There was a moment of silence – long enough for Patrick's heart to nearly leap out of his throat – before he heard the sweet, sweet sound of air blowing into the room.
The inner door opened more slowly than Patrick would have liked. The minute it was open far enough, he squeezed through and looked around the room.
He heard the cough before he noticed Pete. His voice was soft enough that Patrick had to strain to hear it inside his helmet. "Thank god. Frank, is that you?"
As the life support lights were still glowing a comforting green, Patrick quickly undid the seals on his helmet and pulled it off. When he turned toward the corner where the voice had come from, he swallowed a curse. Pete was huddled next to the heating vent, one leg stretched out awkwardly to the side. His pressure suit was ripped up the thigh, and the gray of the suit was marred by a disturbing patch of deep red. "What the hell happened? Are you okay?"
He was kneeling next to Pete before he looked up at his face. Pete was alarmingly pale, and his eyes were big enough to resemble giant black dots. "Patrick? Fuck, I'm hallucinating, I have to be dying."
"You're not hallucinating. I'm here. What happened to your leg?" Patrick shrugged the pack from his back. He removed his gloves and started digging through it for the medical kit.
"Patrick."
"Shit," Patrick muttered. "If your suit is ripped, I can't get you out of here. I wonder if I can get the comm back online, let Victoria know to bring a patch kit when she comes."
"Patrick." Patrick felt a faint pressure on his arm. He turned back to see Pete's hand laying on his forearm. "You're here," Pete murmured, his head falling back to rest against the wall. "You're really here."
Patrick nodded. "Yeah, Pete, I am."
Pete closed his eyes and dropped his hand. "The drill's offline," he said. "Something busted in the wind. I was outside, checking the sensors up on the second level when the fucking wind knocked me back on my ass. I got my leg caught between a couple of gears, tore the suit getting it unstuck. Managed to seal off my helmet and make it back in here on what air I had in my tubes. Of course, the fucking comm is down, couldn't call for help, and my leg gave out before I could get to the med kit on the wall." He laughed weakly. "I thought someone would show up a while ago. How long have I been out here?"
"Nearly an hour," Patrick admitted. "The station is under lockdown. The wind blew a hole in one of the cargo bays, Gabe and company are working on it. But the control room is sealed off, no one can get in and out."
"And I sent Frank away before I left," Pete remembered. "So he couldn't come out here to find me?"
"Nope. You're stuck with me."
Patrick pulled the rip in Pete's suit apart gingerly; from what he could tell, the gouge in Pete's leg went pretty deep. There was a puddle of blood underneath Pete's leg that caused Patrick to make a distressed noise in the back of his throat. He looked up and studied Pete's face. Pete reached up and grabbed the back of Patrick's neck in a weak grasp. "You came," he said. "You hate the outside."
"Still do." Patrick tried to smile at Pete. "I don't know how you idiots do this every day."
"But you came anyway. You came to find me."
"I was the only one who could. I was stuck in a control room with three giants and Frank's suit."
"But you're terrified."
Patrick felt his mouth twist into a scowl. "Thanks for reminding me, jackass, I was doing pretty well there for a little while."
Pete gripped Patrick's neck harder and tried to pull him closer. "Thank you," he whispered, staring at Patrick with impossibly dark eyes. "I didn't ... thank you."
Patrick swallowed, and on impulse leaned over and kissed Pete on the forehead. "Don't thank me yet, I don't know what the hell to do next."
"Drugs," Pete suggested. "Please. You have to have something in that kit, right?"
He did, in fact, and it was a relief to watch Pete relax against the wall as the painkiller kicked in. Patrick helped him sit up fully against the wall. Pete's eyes were fuzzy, but his complexion was starting to return to a semi-normal color, Patrick noted with relief. He bandaged the wound as best he could; he didn't want to rip the suit any further, to make it easier to patch when help arrived. (Help would arrive, he swore to himself. He had to believe that.) He was afraid he'd never get the suit back onto Pete if he took it off, though, so he cleaned and dressed the wound as much as he could reach through the tear. Finally, he tied a tourniquet firmly around Pete's leg. "Ow," Pete said distantly. He looked down at the knotted fabric, then gave Patrick a dopey grin. "Hey, you know, we never did any of that."
"Any of what?"
Pete waved his hand vaguely at his leg. "Tying up. You and me. I have the toys and everything. We just never made it that far."
"What, you mean in bed?" Pete nodded drowsily. Patrick tried to dispel the images that popped into his head – they were markedly unhelpful when he was trying to concentrate on ... well, everything that clearly had to be done. "Tell you what," he said, tugging on one of the ends of the knot. "We get out of here alive, we can do whatever you want with whatever toys you want. You know, if you still want to."
"What do you mean, if I still want to?" Pete's eyes drifted shut for a moment. When he opened them again, he poked Patrick. "Never stopped wanting."
"Could've fooled me."
"You're leaving me."
Patrick frowned. "I didn't ..." He was interrupted by the whoop of an alarm. He jumped to his feet. "What the hell is that?"
"Generator warning." Pete's voice was suddenly ten times more alert. "The wind must have fucked something up with that, too. Motherfucker."
"What do I do? Pete, I don't know anything about the generators."
"Calm down. I can talk you through it."
"Are you good enough for that?" Patrick gestured at his leg.
"I'll have to be." Pete waved his hand towards the wall on the other side of the room. "Data panel and comm unit over there. The comm's busted, as usual, but the panel should still be operational enough to tell you where the problem is."
Patrick went to the panel and keyed in the commands as Pete instructed. "It's showing 50% power."
"There's definitely something broken. With the drill not working, there's no way it should have gone through power that fast."
"What can I do?" Patrick took a deep breath. "Do I have to go outside?"
"Yeah, probably. You'll need to check on the backup generator. If that's operational, we can just turn it on and wait out the storm. It's set for at least three hours of power."
"Hopefully the storm doesn't last another three hours."
"It shouldn't." But Pete's voice wasn't as sure as Patrick wanted it to be.
Patrick put his gloves back on, then looked at his helmet on the floor. "I hope I can re-seal that by myself."
"Come here." Pete patted the ground next to him. "I'm not that bad off, I can still help."
Patrick sat down and handed Pete the helmet. He turned around so his back was to Pete. "Put it on, I can get the front seal. I just need you to get the two in back."
Instead of the weight of the helmet, though, the next thing Patrick felt was warm breath on his neck. Pete's lips brushed lightly against the skin behind Patrick's ear. "Be careful," Pete said softly. Then he slid the helmet onto Patrick's head, and Patrick lost any sense of Pete or anything else around him.
"I checked the gauge back here," Pete said, his voice thin inside the helmet speakers. "You've got a good half hour of air left. Should be plenty of time to go out, boot the backup, and get back in here."
"Hopefully."
"It will." Pete gave him instructions on how to work the backup generator, then made Patrick repeat them back. "Okay, go," he said finally. "I'll just stay here and take a nap."
"Don't you dare." Patrick shook a gloved finger at him. "I still need you."
Pete gave him a lopsided smile. Patrick straightened his shoulders, took a deep breath, and steeled himself once again for the great outdoors.
The wind still howled outside at a speed that nearly flattened Patrick back against the door. He put one hand on the side of the building and began making his way around to the back. When he turned the second corner, he saw the two metal-covered domes that housed the generators. The larger one, which housed the main generator, had a square door hanging high off the side by one hinge, banging forcefully against the casing. It had to be the door used to lift heavy parts in and out of the dome, he figured. It was a testament to how loud the wind was that Patrick barely heard the clanging. Patrick looked as closely as he could from that distance, but couldn't see any immediate reason the door would have broken in the wind – there was no large handle protruding, no indication at all that that would stick out enough for the wind to easily pick up. Yet, it had, somehow – the wind was that strong. "Damn," Patrick said aloud. The backup generator was on the far side of the main one, so Patrick couldn't immediately see if there was any damage to that one.
He took his hand off the side of the building and took one step toward the generators. At that moment, the door came flying off its remaining hinge and barreled straight for Patrick.
Later, Patrick couldn't remember exactly how he'd gotten out of the way. One minute, he saw the door flying toward him; the next, he was face-down in the snow, over a meter away, and the door was nowhere to be seen. He must have jumped, he figured, and gotten an assist from the wind to move that far. Patrick sat up and stared in the direction the door had flown. The fact that it had missed both Patrick and the building was a minor miracle.
"Oh fuck," he breathed, wrapping his arms around his knees. "Oh fuck. Oh fuck."
It took a long couple of minutes before Patrick stopped shaking enough to push himself to his feet. The wind knocked him back over twice before he finally struggled to standing. He bent his knees to ground himself – which hurt, fuck, he was going to be bruised everywhere tomorrow, provided he made it to tomorrow – and then started a slow shuffle to the backup generator.
He made himself walk all the way around the backup generator's dome. There was no immediately obvious damage to the structure, which had Patrick breathing easier for a brief moment. The entrance door was on the side nearest the main generator, and had a thankfully simple locking mechanism. It didn't take long for Patrick to get himself inside and out of the wind.
The dome was barely tall enough for Patrick to stand up straight in. He could only imagine how uncomfortable it must be for Victoria or Ryland to work in here. There was just enough room around the edge to walk around the generator's perimeter. A ladder was bolted to the side of the dome on either side of the generator; it curved with the ceiling to obviously allow someone to hang from the top rungs while making repairs. Patrick fervently hoped he had no reason to do so, as the wind was causing the metal dome to shake slightly around him. Besides, he'd have no idea what to do up there anyway. Pete had instructed him on how to turn the generator on, and that was it. If it didn't turn on, well, then he was fucked.
It didn't turn on.
Patrick repeated the sequence, just in case he'd done something wrong. In fact, he repeated it four times. Finally, he leaned back against the wall and lightly banged the back of his helmet against the metal. "Shit. Shit, shit, shit."
He circled the generator twice, looking at the machine even though he had no idea what he was looking at. Hoping for some kind of miraculous answer, he supposed. But after two circuits, he did some mental math and realized that his oxygen tank might possibly only have enough juice left to get him back into the main building. So, with another string of curses, he left the generator dome and made his way back through the storm.
Back inside, Pete stared at him hopefully as he fumbled with the seals on his helmet. When he was free, Patrick shook his head and resisted the urge to throw the helmet against the wall. "Backup won't work. I don't know why."
When Pete closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall without comment, a spark of concern flared in Patrick's chest. "Pete? Are you okay?"
"So tired," Pete muttered.
Patrick shrugged off his pack and gloves and knelt next to him. He inspected the bandage on Pete's leg. The bleeding had slowed, thank all the gods, but there was still far too much blood on the floor beneath him for Patrick to be anything but scared witless. He grabbed Pete's chin and shook him gently. "Stay with me, dude, I still need you."
Pete opened his eyes, but it looked like a struggle. "Right," he said, adjusting himself so he sat up a little straighter. "Gotta figure out how to take the power levels down in here. Maybe if we cut all non-essential functions, we can make the main generator last until someone comes to get us."
"What's non-essential?"
"Go back over there, read me the list of functions that are still online and working."
When Patrick logged back into the data panel, the power level read 40% in a bright, flashing red type. He swallowed his panic and read the function list to Pete. He turned back to Pete – his eyes were closed again, but thankfully his voice sounded clear when he began to speak. "Cut life support to the drill work rooms, we obviously don't need those right now. Cut the water, too. The drill's not running, so we don't need the cooling pipes. Take the lights down to 25%, we just need enough so you don't kill yourself walking around. And I guess you might as well cut the heat down to 25%, too."
Patrick frowned. "That's going to make it really fucking cold in here."
"If it makes you feel better, we'll suffocate long before we freeze to death."
"No, in fact, that doesn't make me feel better at all."
"Then think of it this way – if you don't cut the heat, we might run out of air. How's that?"
That, Patrick conceded, was a convincing argument. He made all the adjustments as Pete instructed, and was rewarded when the bright red "40% power" changed to a calmer yellow. "I think that worked," he told Pete.
"Hope so. There's not much more we can do."
Patrick crossed the room and slid down the wall next to Pete. Pete shifted to give him room between his body and the corner. Patrick noticed his wince when he moved. "How does that feel?" he asked, gesturing to Pete's leg.
"Fine."
"Bullshit." Patrick poked his arm. "Truth, asshole, I can't help if you don't tell me."
"Nothing you can do right now," Pete said, leaning some of his weight into Patrick's side. "It hurts like a motherfucker. I feel woozy. It's a problem, but there's nothing in your little kit that will do any more than you've already done. If someone doesn't come get us, I'm fucked."
Patrick put his arm around Pete's shoulders. Pete's head dropped to Patrick's chest. "They'll come for us," Patrick promised. He hoped he sounded convincing.
They sat like that for a while – how long, Patrick couldn't say, he started to lose track of time as the room lost heat. Pete became more and more limp, until he finally slid down and lay with his head in Patrick's lap. Every once in a while, Patrick said his name just to make sure his eyes opened, but those points got further and further apart. At some point, Patrick began to see his breath puff out in front of him, and he lost several minutes to watching the shapes the white tendrils made before they disappeared into the dim light.
"Patrick?"
Pete's voice was a surprise. Patrick looked down to see his eyes half-open. He was dangerously pale, and Patrick's heart lurched in his chest. "Yeah?"
"Don't leave me."
"I'm here. I don't exactly have anywhere else to go right now," Patrick pointed out.
Pete gave a violent shudder – from cold or injury, Patrick couldn't tell, but he slid down the wall enough that he could curl his body slightly around Pete's for extra warmth. Pete fisted a gloved hand in Patrick's suit. "No," he said, softly enough that Patrick had to strain to hear him. "Don't leave. After this. Stay here with me. I don't want ..."
Pete sucked in a shallow breath and started to cough. Patrick could only put a hand in his hair and try not to scream for help that wouldn't hear. Slowly, the coughing subsided, and Pete slumped back onto Patrick's legs. Patrick poked him, shook him, said his name over and over, but got no response. "Oh god," he breathed. Patrick tried to get his pulse, but even after having his gloves on, his fingers were still cold enough to be numb. Pete's chest continued to rise and fall very, very slowly, though, so Patrick pushed his panic back down to the pit of his stomach. "I'm not leaving, asshole. I hope you're listening. I'm not taking the job. I like my job here just fine. You know, when I get to stay inside where it's warm and there's air."
Pete didn't stir. Patrick tried to ignore the lump forming in his throat. "Fuck you," he said, "you're not allowed to die. This is all very dramatic, but I do not intend to be that person who watches his true love die in his arms, or whatever dumbass romance novel plans you're working on here."
Patrick leaned back on the wall and let his eyes close. He drifted off, until he wasn’t aware of anything other than the cold and Pete’s limp weight across his legs. The drumbeat of panic that had pounded behind his eyes for hours started to subside. Nothing to be done. Nothing he could do. Nowhere he could go. Maybe he should just go to sleep …
Some time passed. Maybe a minute, maybe an hour. Patrick didn’t realize the movement he felt wasn’t in his mind until a voice sounded next to his ear. “Patrick! Patrick, come on, wake up!”
The weight disappeared from his legs, and that brought Patrick out of his fog. He opened his eyes - a struggle he wasn’t expecting - to see Victoria’s face inches from his. “Thank god,” she said. “I could see you breathing, but for a minute there, I was afraid …”
“Pete?” His voice barely worked. “Pete, is he …”
“Alive,” Victoria said. Patrick looked beyond her to see Ryland crouching on the ground, struggling to put Pete’s helmet on his unconscious body. “He’s lost a lot of blood, though. We need to get him back. And you, too.”
“I’m fine.” Patrick pushed himself away from the wall, but when he tried to get his feet under him, he pitched forward. Only Victoria’s quick grasp kept him from face-planting into the floor.
“Careful. You probably have a touch of hypothermia. You both need to be back in med bay right now.” Patrick didn’t notice the hypo needle she carried until she jabbed him in the neck with it. “Sorry. Bebe’s orders. We’re gonna get you home now.”
Patrick allowed Victoria to haul him to his feet, and gratefully leaned on her as they made their way outside. The wind had died down to almost nothing - the landscape, Patrick noted as he sat in the medical cart Victoria was pulling behind her transport, was actually rather pretty in the bright sunlight. It had a pink tinge that he hadn’t noticed before, casting a rosy color on the mountains in the distance. This planet wasn’t nearly as ugly as he’d thought.
That was his last thought before the drugs Victoria had given him took effect. The bright world went dark.
Patrick woke up in the med bay. When he struggled to a sitting position, he saw Bebe stocking shelves across the room. She heard his movement and immediately crossed to his side. She worked the bed controls so that his back was supported. “Easy. You’ve only been out a few hours. I expected you to sleep longer.”
He groaned and rubbed his forehead. “My head is killing me.”
“Side effect of the treatment. Your hypothermia wasn’t the worst I’ve ever seen, but it still took a lot out of you.”
“Pete?” Patrick looked around the room. “Is he …”
“He’s okay.” But Bebe’s expression was serious. “Or, he’ll be okay. He’s back in the private recovery room. It’s lucky you got there when you did. If you hadn’t stemmed the bleeding …” She leaned over and kissed Patrick on his temple. “You’re a hero, dollface.”
“I don’t feel like much of a hero.”
“Trust me.” She patted his leg. “Rest. You need it.”
Patrick slept for most of the next day. When Bebe finally allowed him out of bed, he moved like a man of eighty. The black-and-blue tinge to most of his skin reminded him why. “Jesus,” he muttered, wincing as he bent his knees. “I forgot about the whole hitting-the-ground thing.”
His first destination was the private recovery room. Pete lay in the bed in the middle of the room, hooked up to several beeping machines. “He still needs transfusions every once in a while,” Bebe said from behind him. “I’m keeping him sedated until he’s a little farther along. But he’s going to be okay, I promise.” She tugged on Patrick’s arm. “Come on, out. I only let you out of bed since you promised to go back to your room and lay down. Get out of here.”
The minute he got to his bed, his door chimed. Gabe, Travis, and Greta shouldered their way into his room and steered him back to the bed. “You, down,” Greta ordered. “You look like you’re about to pass out again.”
“I was just about to when you guys showed up,” Patrick muttered.
“We came to make sure you don’t try to get up,” Travis announced. When Patrick was lying down, Greta draped herself across the foot of the bed, and Gabe and Travis sat themselves in the chairs next to him. “So we’re going to keep you company until you fall asleep.”
Patrick drifted off in the middle of an argument about whether Gabe could show porn in the lounge for his birthday party. When he woke up again, Travis was the only one left, reading something on a data pad. “You don’t have to babysit me,” Patrick said. “I’m sure you have other things to do.”
“Nah. I stay in here, I avoid Singer trying to pawn off kitchen duty on everyone who walks past.” Travis grinned and held up the pad. “Want me to read you some trashy gossip from Gamma 6? That trashy vid star - you know, the one in that movie Mikey loves so much - apparently broke up a politician’s marriage.”
Patrick smiled. “Yeah, sure, let’s hear it.”
A day later, Spencer poked his head into Patrick’s room. “Hey,” he said. “Um, we all sorta forgot what day it is. The transport is here for you.”
Patrick blinked. The transport - the one scheduled to take him to Heron. To take him home.
Spencer went on without waiting for a response. “Obviously, the pilot missed the news about your adventures. Don’t know how, apparently it’s all over the company news wires. By the way, if you haven’t already, send a message to your mom. I’ve talked to her twice already, but she’s getting impatient.” Patrick grimaced, but Spencer waved a hand at him. “Don’t worry, she understands. Anyway, if you want me to, I’ll tell him to come back next week. The company will pay for it, I checked. They don’t want to move you unless you’re ready.”
Patrick closed his eyes. He still felt cold most of the time, even though the heat in his room was turned up nearly as high as it would go. Last night, he’d dreamed about being back out in that control room, with Pete at his feet. This time, though, Pete was dead, and Patrick was stuck sitting there and staring at him. He’d woken up in a sweat, and made his way down to the med bay to look in on a still-unconscious Pete. The machines beeped a heart rate, which calmed Patrick considerably.
If he waited for a week, Pete would probably be conscious. Patrick could say goodbye to him before he left.
Just the thought made Patrick want to vomit.
“Tell him to go away,” he said to Spencer.
“Okay, I’ll have him come back in a week.”
“No.” Spencer furrowed his brow, but something inside Patrick’s chest had loosened for the first time in over a week. “Tell him not to come back at all. I’m not going.”
Spencer’s answering smile made Patrick feel better than any of Bebe’s drugs.
A little while later, Patrick hauled himself over to his comm and sent a message to the Undersecretary.
Thank you for your kind offer of employment on Heron. I know how much jobs on that station are valued, and I’m humbled to know my work has meant that much to the company. However, I am happy with my continued employment on Clandestine Station, and will be staying in this position for the foreseeable future.
He went back to sleep with a smile on his face.
Patrick didn’t get to see Pete when he woke up - Bebe kicked everyone out of the med bay and threatened to enforce the company’s policy of requiring annual physicals for every employee. “Unless you want me to start sticking my fingers in uncomfortable places,” she said, “you all will stay the fuck out.”
She softened a little bit when Patrick asked, but remained firm. “I promise, you’ll be the first to know when he can have visitors,” she said. “But he’s a little shit when it comes to being a patient, and I don’t want him doing anything to break his stitches or impede his recovery in any way. So I’m keeping him quarantined until I’m tempted to kill him.”
Patrick went back to work the next day. Spencer tried to argue with him, but Patrick waved him off. “I’m going to go crazy sitting around,” Patrick said. “Put me to work. I sit in a chair, no big deal.”
“Yeah, that’s what we used to think,” Spencer grumbled, but he let Patrick go to the control room and relieve Alex for half a shift.
Two days later, he left his shift to find Pete sitting in front of his door, looking pale and shaky. Patrick rushed over to him. “What the hell are you doing here? Does Bebe know you’re out of bed?”
“I staged a jailbreak. The warden is none the wiser,” Pete said. He grabbed Patrick’s arm. “Help me up.”
“I’m taking you back.”
“No, don’t.” When Pete was on his feet, he squeezed Patrick’s arm tightly. “Let me inside. I want to talk to you.”
“We can talk in the med bay. Seriously, Pete, you could injure yourself.”
“I’m already injured. Fuck that.” Pete wedged himself between Patrick and the door. “Let me in. Please.”
Sighing, Patrick opened the door and helped Pete inside to a chair. Pete’s leg was stretched out stiffly in front of him; Patrick knew from seeing him before that it was wrapped in layers and layers of bandages and gauze. “You didn’t even take a pair of crutches or something?”
“Bebe hid them all. I just held onto the wall all the way here.”
“You’re insane.” Patrick sat on the edge of the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Sore as fuck. Finally mostly drug-free, thank god, that shit was making me feel like I was floating three feet above the bed.” Pete shrugged. “Alive. Thanks to you.”
Patrick shifted uncomfortably. “Don’t mention it.”
“Fuck off.” Pete tried to lean forward, but the motion obviously pained him, so he leaned back. “You came for me. You’re fucking terrified of going outside, but you came after me. I don’t even know what to say to that. But don’t you dare play it off like that. I won’t let you.”
“Okay.” Patrick scrubbed a hand across his eyes and took a deep breath. “I just couldn’t stand the idea of you out there all alone. If you’d died while I just sat there, I never would have forgiven myself.”
“Fuck.” Pete covered his face with his hands. He let out a laugh that half sounded like a sob. When he dropped his hands, he visibly straightened his shoulders. “When do you leave?”
The question took Patrick by surprise. When he realized what it meant, he silently cursed Bebe for being a sadistic bitch. “I sent the shuttle away.”
“I know that. When does it come back?” Patrick opened his mouth to answer, but Pete cut him off. “Never mind. Don’t go. Please, for the love of god, don’t go.”
“Pete, I-”
“Listen, hear me out, please?” This time, Pete did lean forward, ignoring the pain that flashed in his eyes with the movement. “I love you. I should have told you a million times before this, I know. But I do. I love you, you stupid motherfucker, and it will kill me if you go, because I know I’ll never see you again. I can’t even think about that.”
A warmth spread through Patrick’s chest. He opened his mouth again, but Pete wouldn’t let him talk. “If I was stronger, I’d totally hold you down and make you stay in this room until you said you wouldn’t leave. I’m half tempted to ask Gabe to lock you in here, actually. I love you, and you came and fucking rescued me, and I can’t live without you. I won’t.”
“Pete.” The flood of words finally stopped. Patrick slid off the bed and knelt on the floor in front of Pete’s chair. “I’m not leaving.”
“Don’t just say that to get me -”
“Pete. Shut up.” Patrick gently shoved Pete backward until he was leaning back in the chair again. “And don’t hurt yourself. I’m not going anywhere. I turned down the job.”
Finally, understanding dawned in Pete’s eyes. “You’re … you did? For real?”
“For real. I love you too, jackass.” Patrick stood up and leaned lightly on the arm of the chair. He bent over and kissed Pete lightly. “Now you’re going back to med bay before I call Bebe in here with a hypo needle.”
Pete grabbed Patrick’s arm. “I love you.”
“I heard you the first time.” But Patrick couldn’t wipe the giant smile from his face.
“Get used to hearing it.” Pete allowed himself to be hoisted to his feet. He wrapped an arm around Patrick’s waist and leaned his head against Patrick’s shoulder. “I’ll only go back if you promise to sing me a lullaby.”
Patrick just smiled and pulled him a little closer. “I promise.”
Somehow, Patrick’s staying-at-Clandestine party felt just as strange as his welcoming party. “Nothing’s happening,” he grumbled. “Why do we need a party?”
Travis shrugged. “It’s always good to have an excuse to watch our drunk coworkers make fools of themselves.”
“Okay, you have a point.”
“Also,” Gabe added, “We totally had a going away party planned before all hell broke loose. You owe us a celebration.”
“Because the storm was my fault?”
Gabe brandished a bottle of wine - from which he was drinking - at Patrick. “Don’t bring logic into this, motherfucker.”
Patrick spent most of the party trying to keep Pete in one place. “If you keel over and die,” he told Pete, “Bebe will throw me out the airlock.”
“I’m not gonna die. I’m just going to hurt a lot in the morning. Which really isn’t that different than usual after a party, if you think about it.” Pete punctuated his statement by standing up - then immediately sitting back down, groaning and rubbing his leg.
Patrick shook his head. “I should tie you to the chair.”
Pete brightened. “Hey, that reminds me. Unless I was hallucinating at the time, you totally made me a promise when I was dying.”
“What?” A moment later, Patrick remembered. He felt his face flush red. “I guess I did, didn’t I?”
“What kind of promise?” Brendon asked, walking up and draping himself over the arm of Pete’s chair.
“None of your business,” Patrick said.
“Something to do with tying up,” Greta, sitting a few feet away, supplied helpfully.
Brendon grinned. “Oooh! Who’s getting tied up?”
“Yet to be determined,” Pete said.
Patrick reached over and shoved Brendon off the chair. “Nobody, until someone can at least stand up without looking like he’s going to die.”
“Oooh, a goal.” Pete looked across the room. “Hey, Bebe!” he shouted over the conversational din.
A moment later, she appeared in front of them. “Yes, my gimpy friend?”
“What time do you have for physical therapy tomorrow?”
Bebe raised an eyebrow. “Who are you and what have you done with Pete? You told me earlier today that you didn’t need any stinking exercises, you could walk just fine.”
“And you told me I was going to have goddamned therapy if you had to hold a gun to my head. Besides,” Pete added, grinning at Patrick, “now I have incentive.”
Patrick covered his face with his hands as Brendon and Greta laughed. “I don’t want to know,” Bebe decided. “But get your ass into med bay at nine tomorrow morning.”
Pete groaned. “That early?”
“You asked. Be there.”
“Fucking slavedriver,” Pete muttered. Bebe just smiled at him. She leaned over and gave Patrick a quick kiss on the temple before she wandered off again.
Pete and Brendon began to argue about an upcoming movie night; Patrick was content to lean against Pete’s shoulder and study the room. In the other corner, Gabe and Mikey were conversing with wild gestures, while Carden looked on with an amused expression. Travis played bartender at the table in the corner of the room, which was low enough to make Travis look like he stood behind a kiddie table. Frank and Ray sat on the floor next to the door; when Gerard walked in a few minutes later, Frank tugged him down to sit next to him. Gerard sprawled in front of the door, where Spencer nearly stepped on him when he came in. Frank howled with laughter. Home, he thought. “Who knew?” he murmured aloud.
“Who knew what?” Pete asked.
Patrick just smiled. “Never mind.”
***
Art Post
Mix Post