Stowaway (Bechloe)

*Warning Spoilers for the movie Stowaway*

You never know where life's gonna take you.

For Beca Mitchell being a doctor aboard the spaceship, Hyperion on a two-year mission to Mars was the last place she thought she'd be. For as long as she could remember, all Beca had ever wanted to be was a music producer. That is until the love of her life, Chloe Beale, came down with a rare form of cancer their senior year in college. It was then that Beca decided to pursue a career in the medical field. For years Beca studied, as her wife went from one treatment to the next. She studied intently, hoping to find something that doctors may have missed, which would elevate her wife's pain. But no matter how hard she studied, Chloe just got worse. And one day, Beca had to say goodbye to the love of her life.

After Chloe died, Beca had a gaping hole in her life. The tiny brunette felt numb to almost everything except her work. She had applied to the HARP program because she thought it would be a funny story to be rejected by Hyperion. But she later realized this is one of those rare opportunities that could truly give her life meaning. Perhaps she'd even discover a cure for the cancer that took her wife.

However, things didn't go as planned on her trip to Mars. During an inspection of the CDRA (Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly) life support system, Marina, the ship's captain, discovered one of the Hyperion's mechanics, Michael Adams, injured and unconscious behind a ceiling panel. When he finally awoke, Michael had no memories of how he was knocked unconscious or how he ended up in the ceiling panel. All he knew was that he didn't want to be on the ship. He begged Marina to turn the ship around, but there was nothing she could do. The Hyperion already used too much fuel to turn around.

As she treated his wounds, Michael told Beca of how he took care of his younger sister and how she would be all alone without him. Beca tried to comfort the older man, but she just couldn't find the words. Comforting people was always Chloe's gift. All she could do was make sure he made it back home to his sister.

Micheal's discovery led to a much bigger problem, as the ship was only designed for a three-person crew. To make matters worse, Marina discovered the CDRA where Micheal had been trapped had been damaged beyond repair. The ship's crew were slowly running out of air, and if something wasn't done soon, they would all die.

Marina and David talked about the possibility of asking Michel to leave the ship for the sake of the crew. But Beca refused to entertain that idea for even a moment. She knew the pain associated with losing someone you loved and would do whatever it took to save Micheal's sister from knowing that pain.

Beca insisted that they see if there's enough oxygen left in the tank tethered 450 meters above the Kingfisher. The tank was used for the launch, and there was no way of telling how much was left without a perilous journey up the tethers. Marina couldn't do it because she's got a fractured arm after Michael fell on her when he was discovered. Michael wasn't trained to climb the tether. So it's left to Zoe and David.

Climbing the tether wasn't the only problem. The Hyperion was passing through a solar storm, and its radiation would be deadly to anyone exposed to it. With the storm set to last for hours, David volunteered to sacrifice himself to get a full canister for the other three crew members to survive. David was about to go out of the airlock when Beca stopped him. She knew that she should be the one to go. David had a wife waiting for him back on Earth. Beca had no one left now that Chloe was gone. She was the only one who could climb the tether through the high-energy solar flare and collect a tank of liquid oxygen from the launch vehicle.

Beca headed out onto the tethers, and despite suffering the effects of the solar storm radiation, she managed to get to the oxygen tank, fill up a canister, and bring it back to the ship. As she lowered the oxygen tanked down into the ship, she felt exhaustion overcome. The small doctor sat on the edge of the ship. It wouldn't be long now. The effects of the storm were starting to take their toll. But for the first time since Chloe died, Beca was at peace. She didn't make it to mars. She didn't find a cure for cancer. But the crew was going to make it now. She had saved them like Chloe had saved her, and that was good enough.

Beca looked back towards the Earth one last time. It was only a small red dot now. Her mind wandered back to the redhead that she had met so many years ago at the activities fair. She could see her sparkly blue eyes and her beautiful smile. From the moment they first met, she had been head over heels in love with Chloe. And not a day had gone by since they parted where she didn't long to be with her wife again.

"I'm coming for you, Chole," Beca thought as she drifted off.

-Finis