ground control to major tom

ground control to major tom

take your protein pills and get your helmet on

entry #3015

orbital inclination: 51.64 degrees

orbital speed: 7.67 km/s, 27,600 km/h, 17,200 mph

days in orbit: 2555

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happy birthday station

happy birthday hannelore

Her feet are cold against the tile, and still she thinks she can feel things moving over the tops of them, making her twitch with each gust.

“A-are you sure there’s nothing there?” she whimpers.

“I promise,” says Station in the most comforting tone he has. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I don’t like this, I don’t like this –“

“The room is clean, Hannelore. I promise. You trust me, right?”

Hannelore looks up at Station, his kind, translucent face, the pixels in his eyes visible from this close. “I-I trust you. But I still. I still gotta-“ She closes her eyes, opens them, then sits down and takes the cloth to her feet again, then gets down to her hands and knees to try get the dust out from under the bed and off the floor. She can’t see them, but she knows they’re there, and she just has to be sure –

“T-ten times. I cleaned ten times. So it’s okay now. Right? It’s clean now.”

“It’s clean.”

Hannelore tries to breathe, even though she can feel the panic rising in here. What if she missed a spot? What if –

Station takes her hand, and she can’t feel it, but it looks comforting and that’s good enough. She takes a few steps forward, then a few more. (one-two-three, four-five-six, seven-eight-nine-)

“It’s supposed to be ten steps to the door. I have to go back.”

“Okay.”

Today she’s seven years old, and today, she opens up the door on her own for the first time – for ten seconds – she counts them.

But she can’t suppress the choking sobs after she closes the door. They get so bad that the next thing she knows, there’s hands on her hands hands HANDS and a needle and she’s quiet once more and drifting, drifting in the silent bubble.

She’s just awake enough, though, to hear the doctor murmur, “Happy birthday, dear. The next one will be better, I promise.”

When she does come out of the drugged stupor, she’s mostly restrained (and she can’t blame them; there’s still jagged scars on her arms from the last time she tried to scratch away the moles on her skin) but one hand’s left free, and there’s a small fudge candy sitting on her bedside table.

Ground control to major tom

Commencing countdown, engines on

Check ignition

And may God’s love be with you

entry #4290

orbital inclination: 61.52 degrees

orbital speed: 7.42 km/s, 26,712 km/h, 16,598 mph

days in orbit: 3285

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happy birthday station

happy birthday hannelore

welcome aboard beatrice

“Beatrice, I cannot even begin to tell you how much I disapprove-“

“Nonsense! She’s my daughter too. And I happen to disapprove of you coddling her ridiculous fantasies. She can’t stay in a room forever.”

“You can’t forcibly drag her out and then expect her problems to disappear-“

Hannelore crouches behind the door of her room. She can hear them arguing. She doesn’t mind her father’s voice too much. Even when he’s obviously angry, she can hear the kindness in it. He’s so smart. He doesn’t talk to her much, but when he does, he never talks down to her. It’s like talking to Station.

But the woman is bad. Hannelore knows, theoretically, that she’s her mother. But she wishes Dr. Case was her mother instead. Dr. Case gives her candy when she’s good, even when it’s stuff she doesn’t feel very proud of, like holding her breath long enough to let Dr. Case brush or cut her hair, or shaking somebody’s hand and not having to ask for medication afterwards. They’re stupid things. She knows they’re stupid. But Dr. Case never treats her like she’s stupid.

Beatrice, though –

The door opens, and Hannelore squeaks, scuttering away – but it’s too late, and Beatrice’s hand latches onto Hannelore’s arm. She holds her breath, tries to make the itch go away, but the scream rips out of her throat anyway, hitching sobs coming out over and over again.

“Oh, stop that. I’m not hurting you.”

stop touching me, Hannelore wants to scream, but nothing will come out except more sobbing. Counting to ten doesn’t work, even after Beatrice finally lets go, so she starts doing the Fibonacci sequence instead, one, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, eleven –

“Beatrice, it’s time to leave.”

“She’s my daughter-“

“And you’re upsetting her.”

Hannelore buries her head in her knees, the crush of disappointment settling in her chest so heavy she thinks she might break her own ribs with it. She doesn’t mean to be a spaz. She doesn’t even know what non-spazzes act like.

She knows where she got the word, though. Because nobody on the space station uses it. It’s only Beatrice who calls her that. And Beatrice is an Earth person.

Hannelore decides she never wants to go down there. Even though – despite the fear, despite the circling drain – she wonders what her mother wanted to do.

---

They don’t put any restraints on her this time – possibly they forgot – and Hannelore tries to be good and not scratch at herself. Maybe then it won’t happen as often.

Still, when Dr. Case appears at the door and sits carefully at the entrance, not coming inside, Hannelore finds her heart racing anyway. “Y-you’re not gonna make me put the straps on, right?” she whimpers, eyes watering.

“No, no. Unless you ask me to.”

“No. I hate them.”

“Alright. I promise I only ever use them if I think you’re going to hurt somebody or yourself.”

Hannelore pauses, then nuzzles her knees. They’re bruised from her collapsing to the ground. “…Do you think I’m gonna? Hurt anybody, I mean.”

“I don’t think so. You’re just little. And you’re getting better all the time.”

“I don’t wanna be a spaz,” she mumbles.

There’s a chill in the air. Hannelore thinks, at first, that she’s said something wrong. Then Dr. Case says, slowly, firmly, “You don’t ever use that word again. Okay?”

“I – okay.”

“You are not a spaz. You’ve got some problems. A lot of problems.” Then Dr. Case smiles, and Hannelore wants to cry all over again. “But we’re getting there.”

“C-can I have another candy?”

“Sure. Just make sure you brush your teeth.” Dr. Case hands it over, setting it down on the tile so Hannelore doesn’t have to touch her hand –

“One more tile over,” Hannelore murmurs, and Dr. Case nods and does so.

Little things.

(And in the morning, she wakes up to a strawberry pie on her bedside table with a book of extra-hard sudoku next to it, labelled ‘From Dad – sorry it’s late, bunny’. The best part, she thinks, is that whoever made the pie put an even number of strawberries in each slice.)

this is ground control to major tom

you’ve really made the grade

and the papers want to know whose shirts you wear

now it’s time to leave the capsule if you dare

entry #3015

orbital inclination: 51.64 degrees

orbital speed: 7.67 km/s, 27,600 km/h, 17,200 mph

days in orbit: 4745

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happy birthday station

happy birthday hannelore

When Hannelore is thirteen, she gets into television. Specifically, ‘Friends’.

“How can you watch that tripe?” Station asks with a laugh.

“I notice you haven’t moved in three episodes.”

“Hush.”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. They’re so… normal.” She exhales. “I could be like that, one day.”

“Do you want to be?”

“I don’t know yet.” She arranges the M&Ms in order on her table, making a 6x6 square with the colours in perfect lines. “But I could.”

“Is the new medication helping?”

She shrugs. “I won’t know until I’ve been on it for a week.” But then she gives him a smile. “But I’ve got a good feeling about it.”

It’s a lie, meant to comfort Station, meant to give herself some positive feedback. Hannelore doesn’t get good feelings about anything.

But god, she hopes.

(The latest piece of information she clings to like a piece of fudge candy is that she and Station really do have the same birthday. It’s okay for him to be her only friend. They were born that way.)

(It’s less comforting the longer she thinks about it.)

Though I’m past one hundred thousand miles

I’m feeling very still

And I think my spaceship knows which way to go

Tell my wife I love her very much -

she knows.

entry #6000

orbital inclination: 51.64 degrees

orbital speed: 7.67 km/s, 27,600 km/h, 17,200 mph

days in orbit: 6935

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happy birthday station

happy birthday hannelore

safe travels.

“Are you sure about this?”

Hannelore doesn’t have an answer, so she just gives the doc and Station and her father and everybody else who is so, so concerned the biggest smile she can.

“I’ve got to learn some time! I can’t stay up here forever.” It’s the wrong thing to say – she can see it in Station’s eyes that he had kind of hoped she would. People aren’t cruel up in the station, and if they are, Father can just send them away.

But…

But Hannelore’s never been in a mall. She’s never had Chinese food. She’s never had an apartment, or unlocked a front door, or been on a bus. And she loves everybody on the space station. She loves Station.

But every day, the room she can barely leave gets a little tighter, a little harder to breathe in. She can’t look at the ceiling without remembering being strapped down, even though it’s been years since anybody’s had to. She can’t eat strawberry pie without wanting to cry over the word that still follows her around (spaz spaz spaz).

Like she’s reading the future, she sees what it’ll be like with a startling amount of realism. She’ll spend a month panicking. She’ll want to call home and come back.

Maybe she will. Maybe it’ll be too much, and she’s expecting too much of herself.

Or, maybe, thinks Hannelore – maybe it’ll be everything she ever dreamed of.