Humming. Creaking and rumbling. Heat. Clamps in her chest. Swampy humidity on her face. Veering. Slight but sudden. Aula jerks to break her fall, but she can't move. She's cocooned. It takes time for that to sink in. Everything takes time. A deep ache radiates through her body, blunted but persistent. Things feel different. Varied. When she opens her eyes, she catches sight of a blanket. The confines of a visor no longer exist. She's no longer in her spacesuit. 

Aula breathes in. It hurts, but it's not impossible. The bands clamping around her chest are finally loosening up. She gulps air as fast as she can stand. The rumbling underneath her changes. A slight pull signals changing direction. She focuses on what's outside of her immediate space. Low smooth ceiling. Two hatches, two docked suits, beyond her feet. One off-white. One reddish. The smell of pennies slides into her awareness. She cranes her head and manages to catch sight of a chair silhouetted against sharp light. Someone moving. Driving. Harvey.

It's startling to see another person. Aula doesn't know why, but it feels like she's been alone for a very long time.

Something in the air shifts. Harvey's left arm hesitates slightly, then stretches over the dash. Another click. "Hey, Al."

Aula grunts, but it provokes a sudden sharp pain on the right side of her ribs. The sound that leaves her is precariously close to a whimper.

"Yeah," he says heavily. "You'll have to live with that until we get home."

Home. ILUB-1 is non-viable. It's.... He means Earth. She blinks sweat out of her eyes. Of course he does. Their only survival option is EVAC C. They're heading to the emergency module. It should provoke some feeling, but that's all gone. An exhausted resource. She tests her good arm instead. It responds, but it pulls at her side. More sharp pain. She raises her hand high enough to peer beneath the blanket. Shirt cut open. She's naked from the waist up. A chest tube juts out underneath her armpit. Her bad arm is tucked in at an angle to avoid nudging the catheter or its sutures.

The tube slithers out from under her blanket to connect with a clear box that houses what could be mistaken for an oversized thermometer. It's the Medical Chest Drainage System. One of several prototypes to help with suction and fluid containment in low gravity.

Ziva was so excited to test them. We can finally fill the gaps, she said. Expand emergency medicine beyond Earth. It was a call to arms on all her talks about the Moon. The one thing that really animated her. The farther we go into the solar system, the farther we are from traditional trauma. Our patients are no longer bound to one planet.

And Ziva's still pushing that line. Still saving them.

A different kind of pain. One that rolls over Aula for a long time. She rests with it, but she has nothing to reciprocate with. It's just there. A big cold immovable stone on her chest. ILUB-1 is gone. Sam and Ziva are gone. Mission over. Herself and Harvey are stuck living a death sim. Problem stacking upon problem in a relentless cascading failure.

Everyone started calling her Grim Reed back in her ascan days because she relaxed into death simulations. The end result was known. All other variables led to the same outcome. She could handle a bad outcome. She had been handling bad outcomes her entire life. Adversity was familiar. It was everything else that scared the shit out of her.

The rumbling stops. Harvey leans back in his seat and exhales hard. "We're here."

A long pause. Maybe he expects her to respond. Maybe he's steeling himself for the task ahead. He pushes himself out of the seat and walks towards her. He's got that feverish shine of someone who's past their limits. He kneels down beside her and clutches her good hand. Even that leaves him out of breath.

"I need your help. I can't...." His voice suddenly cracks and he bows his head. "You have to get in my suit with the MCDS."

Aula doesn't need to look at their xEMUs to know how painful it will be. The sutures might rip. Harvey's suit is larger, but they're of a similar height and build. It doesn't buy them a lot of leeway. By the defeated angle of his shoulders, he knows it. He grips her hand like it's a life raft. When he finally looks at her, she nods as much as she's able. His entire body goes slack.

"Okay," he mutters. "Okay, then."

It takes Harvey two tries to stand up. He pushes the MCDS with his foot until it hits the far wall near their suits. The catheter tube hangs like a section of telephone wire. It pulls on Aula and she hisses through her teeth. But there's no time for gentleness or modesty. He digs under her arms and knees and lifts her. The blanket slides off. A rush of cool air to contrast the blunt pain that's crushing her ribs and shoulder. Harvey carries her maybe three feet, but his arms tremble. He's running on willpower now. Nothing else. He sets her down and she aims her feet into the legs of his suit. It takes some wiggling. All the while, his body is wracked by tremors. She tries to hold her own weight. Tries to duck in without bumping her shoulder or chest tube. She manages to hit both. The scream is monumental in its expense. No control. No cut-off. She just screams until she runs out of air. Then her lungs refill and the process repeats.

Harvey shoves her the rest of the way in. Her bad arm is crushed against her side. Tubing curls up against her ribs and hips. Then the MCDS presses hard into her spine. He pushes it down to her good side so it fills what slack there is. That forces her harder against her injured side and arm. The chest tube jams against the crease of her elbow.

Finally, finally, the hatch closes. The MCDS cuts into Aula's bare skin with every breath. Her vision blurs with tears. All she sees is a bright beige smear as the sun beats down on the moonscape. It would be blinding without the sun visor down. It's nearly blinding anyway. She blinks her tears away. In front of her is the immaculate site of EVAC C. Preprinted, shielded by bricks of regolith, and fully supplied. A life boat large enough for all of them.

Vibrations from Aula's left. She cranes her head to see Harvey disengage from SEV-2. He wobbles precariously before he turns and faces her head on. All the blood and dust is hidden by his own sun visor. Their helmets nearly touch as he leans in and manually undocks her. The hatch holds despite the pressure on it. She slowly falls forward, but Harvey angles himself forward to keep them both upright. They stay that way for a moment. Suspended. Then he leans to one side and she tilts towards the ladder. All she can do is raise her arm to brace for impact. It's soft, but the catheter jostles between her ribs. The MCDS cuts into her. She barely feels Harvey go down the ladder. Only the drag of going over the side into a guided fall.

She doesn't hit the ground, but it's close. Harvey hugs her so she falls onto him and they tilt in tandem. Slow, elegant chaos. He hops back across the regolith to disperse their momentum. Her feet are nerveless blocks, but the drag helps reestablish balance. Hot white sun sheers across their faces. The waltz ends sharply when Harvey hits the airlock door. Their helmets clunk together. Aula bites her own tongue. The pain is all-encompassing now. Nearly meaningless because she doesn't feel anything to compare it to.

Harvey reaches for the handle and pulls on it with one hand. He groans with exertion, but it's no use. The latch won't move.

"Al. I have to set you down."

He hasn't the strength to wait. He guides Aula to the printed wall and lets her slide down until she's propped up by her PLSS at an angle. Her legs jut out like two dead branches. The MCDS presses in like a hot blade on one side while the chest catheter rips through the other. She smells more pennies. Blood flows, cools, and quickly sticks to her skin. The sun beats down like an enormous search light. Broiling her through the suit.

Hissing static. Faint rumbling through the suit. Aula cranes her neck in time to see Harvey yank the airlock door open and stumble back towards her. The sun visor hides his expression, but his arms droop. The static eases off. Harvey must pull his mouth away from the mic because the sound lessens and clears up. His breathing is strained. He's sobbing for air. As fit and well-trained as he is, it takes nearly half a minute for him to catch his breath. Even then, his voice is hoarse.

"Nearly there." He slowly shuffles to face her. "Still with me?"

Aula grunts.

"Good enough."

Because she's propped against the module, Harvey can bend down far enough to grab her good arm and the PLSS. It's awkward. It's not protocol. But he tips back to use his weight as a lever. Rib-ripping pain. Always more pain. Her good shoulder drives into his Display and Control Module. Everything dims. Even the sun. Her legs buckle underneath her. It's only the xEMU's pressure that keeps her from collapsing on the spot. As Harvey hops back at a perilous angle, she tips face-first towards the regolith. Then her arm and PLSS are yanked again. It's not deliberate or measured. Harvey just pulls at her to regain balance. Their visors clunk against each other.

"Shit."

His voice sounds very far away. She hears it, but it takes a moment for the meaning to sink in. Harvey lugs her towards the airlock. He props his hip against hers and uses his right leg to push her in painful increments like a piece of heavy luggage. They slowly lurch away from SEV-2 and leave chaotic tracks in fine grey regolith.

Sudden shadow. The sun's heat vanishes. Harvey releases her one last time. She slides out of his grip and teeters PLSS-first onto the floor. He closes the outer hatch and the decompression cycle begins. Dust and debris flurry around them. Harvey holds his arm out and gently falls onto his side. There's barely enough room for both of them like this. She stares at the ceiling, but registers the pressure of his arms and legs.

Fingers clutch her glove. "Al."

She manages to flex her hand. It's enough.

*

Half an hour passes unevenly. Those black constellations dance around her face. Not all-encompassing. Not yet. The dust storm inside the airlock slowly clears. Sounds of humming equipment grow and sharpen as air builds up around them. She eyes the pressure gauge, but she can't see the reading from this angle. The sun visor's tint doesn't help, either. That annoyance lends enough contrast to occupy her. Otherwise, all she feels is heaviness and pain.

Harvey stirs eventually. The airlock is still. Sounds are clear. Things feel nearly terrestrial now. He plants one hand between Aula's arm and side, faces the floor, and pushes himself upright. His PLSS knocks the outer door and the thud resonates crisply through EVAC C. He shuffles forward so he doesn't accidentally kick her and leans into the latch. It grates, then gives with a series of clicks. She can't see anything more. He vanishes beyond the rim of her helmet.

She's alone for a long time. Suspended in the sharply lined light and shadow of EVAC C's airlock. Murky thoughts flick through her awareness like fish in river water. Sam's face when she hit him. Harvey saying I do to his long-suffering boyfriend Ross. Sofia's upturned face with eyes reflecting starlight of day-long nights. Learning of her successful entry into the astronaut corps, into the Canadian Air Force, and of her parents' death. She's older than them. Vague-shaped giants from her childhood that lose form over time because she changes, but they never do. They're still 33 and 36 to her. Unimaginably old; immortal and invulnerable. Until a truck drifted into their lane. She doesn't remember the crash, only an old police officer stroking her hair through a warren of broken glass. His murmuring drowned out by hydraulic spreaders. What he said is lost to time, but it feels kind.

Harvey suddenly reappears in Aula's field of vision without his suit. He drags her up over the bulkhead and into EVAC C's single module. A single ray of hot white sunlight pours through the small window. For a moment, the airlock resembles a small square church. It disappears the Harvey closes the interior door. He pushes the xEMU onto her good side and releases the hatch. Cool fresh air floods across her back. A sliver of pleasantness. She inhales as much of it as she can.

"This will hurt," Harvey says. It's the only warning before he starts pulling her out in fits and starts.

It takes time to draw Aula out of the xEMU. She struggles to push, to maneuver her body in any way, but there's truly nothing left in her. The pain is a distant, depleting constant. Her body is numb with it. Only the truly novel sensations punch through. Air rushing across her belly, her hands, and eventually her feet. Solid floor. An unwinding umbilical pull of the bloodied catheter that leads back into the suit. Harvey's arms locking around her like a harness, his stubble rasping against her jaw, a steady ocean rocking.

"I've got you," Harvey says over and over again. "I've got you."

*

Author's notes:

The Z-1 will be changed to the xEMU or something inspired by it since NASA announced its new suits.

I based the MCDS an actual prototype. If you're interested in space medicine (who isn't?), you can read up on it here. (https://flightopportunities.nasa.gov/technologies/26/)