❝I want to be like water. I want to slip through fingers but hold up a ship.❞ - Michelle Williams.

The shards of china smashed along the wooden floor as everyone fell silent, the reaction expected on Ted's behalf as he empathetically gave them a moment to process the information. Not a single person ushered a movement as his words rang in the air, like a knife tearing open an unbearably slow healing gape inside them.

A furious lump formed in Addiena's throat as the thought of her best friend and sister left on Mars began to slowly eat at her, inside out, "I'm- I'm sorry but did you just say s-she's alive?" Her voice broke as the discomfort in her throat blared with pain, Sarah wrapping an arm around her for support as she asked her burning question.

"Yes."

Her mother collapsed into her husband with instantly relieved sobs as Summer rushed to Addiena's side, biting back her own tears before she asked through her own confusion, "but this means you can bring her back home, right?"

"We're going to do everything in our power to do that," he confirmed as the family erupted with tears and hugs in relief, joy and confusion, all raw emotions like a long term plaster had just been brutally torn off.

It was a confusing roller coaster to ride, how'd you recover from learning your dead sister was actually alive but stuck on Mars? It was incomprehensible and Addiena could only be held by her younger sister and tremble with overflowing emotions that she couldn't even decipher as everyone else jumped for joy. Did Beck know?

☇

A few days passed and as the entire world caught wind of the unprecedented news, so did Mitch Henderson. Mitch, unlike Addiena, knew exactly what he felt especially after discovering they didn't intend to tell the crew; pure rage.

He marched towards the office, creating a panic as workers witnessed his anguish before he slammed the door open, two workers instantly diving to him as she tried to break free, pointing a finger at Teddy who carelessly stared at him, "you're a coward, you hear me? A goddamn coward!"

Venkat and Annie widened their eyes as they glanced to Teddy who clasped his hands together from his desk, "if this about the crew not knowing, we discussed this-"

"-No, you discussed it! I was left in the dark despite Bronwyn being one of my goddamn students!" He growled, trying to thrust the two workers off as Teddy hardened his expression.

"Mr. Henderson, I think you're forgetting your place."

"Beck is on that ship, it's not your place to decide wether he deserves to know or not," he growled, lunging foreword as the workers restrained him furthermore.

"If you want to be updated, you're going to have calm down."

Mitch contorted his face in fury as he acknowledged his point. Angrily, he snapped, "get off me then," as he violently forced the workers off him and straightened his suit jacket, composing his posture.

"Mr. Henderson, reacting like that again will cost you your position, I promise you," Teddy retorted as Venkat stared down to his feet, almost tasting the rising tension in the air as Annie sipped on her latte, pretending she didn't care despite evidently caring.

"Mr. Sanders, if Bronwyn dies her father's death, it'll cost you a lot more than your job I promise you," Mitch threatened in a low voice as Annie instantly choked on her sip of latte, her coughs and Venkat burping her back the only sound as Mitch glared Teddy down.

☇

Coaxing Watney back into the HAB after his incident was an undying chore, his crisped hair and sore face every excuse that he had used to protest. With this considered, Bronwyn entered the HAB as he waited in the Rover, checked it wasn't a bomb and rendered it safe so Watney could start supplying the areas designated with Martian soil.

Spending the first hour helping him to soothe his anxiety, she then climbed into the Rover and set off on her first journey, Jonathan's ring in her left suit compartment. Her first initial idea was to spend three days in the Rover but with Watney's episode, she thought against it for the first stretch and aim to make it back before night.

It wasn't long that she'd figured that no heating meant the battery conservation lasted longer than anticipated but as the night drew in faster than she'd initially comprehended, she stopped the Rover 6km from the HAB, her body shaking with frost bite but indignation to bury the omen that was in her left pocket. It was now or never.

Attaching her helmet, she felt her body scream with the iced conditions she was enduring as she opened the Rover door and stepped out. She'd later regret allowing more cold to enter the Rover and create a convection current but she had to get rid of the poisonous reminder of the man in her pocket.

Her breaths were condensing against the glass of her helmet as she retrieved the ring from her pocket, fumbling with it in her palm. Drawing in a deep breath, she stared at the garment she'd grown to despise as she shook her head, shaking the idea she had off.

"You don't deserve to be in my thoughts," she mumbled, "you shouldn't ever have been allowed to experience this with me, but it is what it is and this is me washing the dog shit off my shoe," she dropped the ring in front of the rover.

"If I die on this wasteland planet, it'll be for something greater than me and nothing, absolutely nothing will ever make me more happier than dying free of you. I'm loved by Beck, he loves me- though I doubt you know what that is. I'm loved by my family, you're loved by no one. I hope that stabs you someday as deep as finding out you had an affair stabbed me," she breathed out, feeling all her anger leave her as she kicked soil over the ring, "goodbye Jonathan," she breathed, her breath being the easiest she'd ever felt despite the harsh condition was in.

As she climbed back in the rover, a wave of freedom gushed through her and a weight she wasn't aware she carried on her shoulders, instantly lifted. The cold didn't bother her mentally as she smiled contently despite her body temperature dropping drastically, indicating on her suit that she needed to return to the HAB as soon as possible.

The Rover crunched over the ring as she drove it back to the HAB, digging it into the ground as its tyre prints that trailed in front of it with a small flaw being the only indication it ever was there; a lot like all that Jonathan was now in Bronwyn's life- a small, forgotten flaw.