The Law of Attraction [Chris Beck]

Chapter 6

                The next two weeks went by with zero incidents; no awkward fumbling over words with Beck, no having to avoid Watney and his detective ways, no internal need to dart away from Lewis when she came around the corner. Alice was feeling extremely comfortable, she had found a comfortable pattern to follow every single day. They had been on board the Hermes for thirty-one days, and Alice hadn't once thought about anything except the task at hand. Over the last month, she had been working with each crew member on different tasks, though she found herself mostly working with Johanssen and Watney; both of them Alice now considered good friends. While Johanssen hadn't brought up what had once been troubling Alice, Watney was still pushing it because he had a better sense about what it was about in the first place.

Even though Alice saw the situation as resolved, Watney was still prying.

"Okay," Watney said as Alice was brushing her teeth. She expected privacy, but the man was not letting up. "You're jealous that he's a real doctor, that's what this is about?"

"Hey, watch it," she said with a toothpaste-full mouth. She pointed at him accusingly. "I'm a real doctor."

Watney crossed his arms over his chest. "Just tell me."

She spat out her toothpaste, put her brush in a small box with her name on it that had all her personal hygiene products. "Watney, give it a rest. It was simply my ideas clashing with his, nothing more."

He raised his hands in defense. "Alright, alright. I'll drop this."

"Good." She had a sternness to her voice, but she laughed lightly afterwards to lighten the mood. "Otherwise I'm telling NASA that you're mentally unfit to be here, and are a danger to the crew."

"But I'm up here, what are they going to do? Ground me?" Watney let Alice step out of the small bathroom area and they left the dormitory. Walking down to the Rec room, they passed Vogel and nodded politely at him. Today was the day Alice had to do her first psych evaluation on each crew member; she was eager to see what had changed between everyone. But what worried her was that she had no one to evaluate her.

"No." Alice playfully pushed Watney's shoulder. "But the amount of drugs I have access to here? I can dope you up pretty good; you'll be useless."

"I didn't take you for the threatening kind."

"Why's that?"

"You're Canadian. Aren't you supposed to be made up of all things 'sorry' and 'thank you'?"

Alice would never get tired of his stereotyping, she saw it as a way of acceptance. "On good days, yes."

Suddenly Alice heard Lewis's voice in her ear piece, the device kept everyone in the crew connected were anything to come up suddenly. Until now, she had not been called upon for her expertise, and while she had hoped that it would never really come up, she was ready for it. Today was the day she was going to take her first monthly evaluation of the crew members, but all the morning tasks like system checks had to be done first. Something had come up, though, and she wondered if she would get through all of them or have to post-pone them. She certainly didn't want to disappoint Mitch Henderson and the rest of NASA back home, but she also had a duty on the Hermes and she would fulfill it.

"Blake, could you please report to the medical wing?" Lewis' voice said through the ear piece.

"I'm on my way," Alice said, then glanced at Watney. "Don't go too far, your psych eval. is second."

When Alice arrived in the medical ward, she knocked on the closed door first for privacy reasons. She didn't know who was in there, or why she was needed, because she didn't ask questions when the commander gave her an order. She heard Beck's soft voice call her in, and she opened the door and walked in. Her curious eyes did not reveal that they were exactly that, curious. It was her job to face any situation without showing any bias or emotion unless need be. She spotted Beck who was looking inside the cupboards; various meds all very obviously labelled were eye level for him, but he turned and looked at Alice when she entered.

"You requested me?" she asked, running her hands through her hair.

"Yeah, Martinez is having trouble sleeping, I was wondering if you had a better suggestion that isn't strong dose sleeping pills. We've got a ton of them, but I feel like it is too big of a risk to prescribe them. Not that I don't trust him, it's just some of those are extremely potent and we really can't have our pilot sleeping in. Lewis would kill me."

Alice had prescribed sleeping pills and other sleep assistance meds to many of the astronauts when they had returned home; it had been tough for them to re-adapt to their lives back home. The beds were different, the atmosphere felt different, there weren't noises like on the Hermes. They weren't working the same long, tedious hours. But she never felt comfortable prescribing anything too strong. Martinez didn't have any previous issues with any prescribed meds, but Alice agreed that giving him a bottle of heavy-duty sleeping pills would be a bad idea. She wouldn't give that as a first resort to anyone, and so she pressed her fingers to her lips and made a sort of hum as she thought.

"Should I talk to him about it, or did he tell you his symptoms?" Alice asked.

"He told me. Basically he can't get to sleep, but once he is asleep he stays asleep until morning, but by then he's exhausted."

Alice reached into the cupboard. "No to Ambien."

"Definitely not," he said, grabbing a bottle and pretending to pocket it. "Can't waste those on Martinez."

"It'll be our secret." She laughed as he put it back on the shelf. Their hands brushed and she smiled lightly. They had sorted everything out, and yet when his hand touched against hers it made something inside of her stomach flutter.

"One of many," he said quietly.

"Rozerem." Alice pulled out the white bottle with the scientific names upon the bottle. Along with the list of side effects and risks. There was more than one bottle, and she was sure that there was a bunch more somewhere else that only Beck knew. Tossing the bottle in the air twice, she placed it down on the counter and smiled up at Beck. "Hope that helped."

"Sure did, Blake.," he replied. "Oh, hey-"

Alice had her arms crossed over her chest, turned slightly towards the door to leave. She had a lot to do, it was her busiest day since she left, and yet here she was. She was doing her job, she was helping Beck out, but she still felt she needed to get back on track. If she failed to send her first psych evaluation to NASA, she would feel as though she had already started on a downhill spiral. Besides, Alice had a feeling that Beck hadn't called her down to help, because it was too simple of a request. He could have easily made the decision without her. She glanced at him. "Yeah?"

He brought his hand behind his head, his bicep flexed as his palm ran down the back of his neck. He looked casual, and yet slightly nervous. Though it had been so many years since she had first met him, he had hardly changed. The flurry of booze and youthful living had made their first and only night together a ton of fun, and as much as Alice had once told herself she could hardly remember it, she remembered everything down to the last, fine detail. And there she was, nibbling her lip as she studied the man in front of her; he looked better than he did back then. Like wine, he had gotten better with age. More mature, stronger features. Alice cleared her throat as she realized she was starting at Beck, waiting for him to say what he needed to say.

"When is my evaluation?" he asked, but Alice felt as though that had not been the question he originally wanted to ask.

Although she was curious to what other burning questions Beck had, Alice wasn't sure that knowing would be a good thing. "Lewis is first, after that I can call on anyone. Finish up with Martinez and I'll have you two at the end of the day."

"Save the best for last," he said quietly, as if it were a verbal secret between them. He put his arm down and grabbed the bottle of pills. "Thanks again, Doc."