forbidden - chris beck

Chapter 7

I went around to the back where we hung out suits. After releasing all of the air tight locks I slid the suit off leaving me in my leggings and t-shirt.

Before getting my head injury examined I walked into the bathroom and checked it out for myself in the mirror. Ok, it's pretty bad, worse than I'd expected actually.

I sighed after realising I couldn't get out of this one and so I slowly walked to the medical room where Beck was waiting. It consisted of a little area where the medical supplies were stored away as well as having a few chairs for treatments and a body bench for anything serious, which we hoped we wouldn't have to use.

As flight surgeon, Beck was the one who spent most of his time in here, reading medical reports and studying emergency procedures, even though I'm pretty sure he already knew then off by heart.

After tapping in the code to unlock the door, I found him searching the cabinets for something.

I cleared my throat as I stood awkwardly in the doorway. I can't ignore the fact that things are a little weird between us, but I'm sure it was just the night talking. Everyone was in an extremely good mood the night we danced and who knows who said what, right?

Beck turned to look at me when he noticed I was there. He closed the cabinet. "Woah." he breathed as his eyes averted to my head and took a few steps towards me.

"Yeah, it's staring to hurt a little now."

"Let me take a look." He motioned for me to sit on a chair, so I walked up to it and sat down.

He stood in front of me, looking down at my injury. After folding his arms he furrowed his eyebrows in thought as he examined it.

Beck ran a hand through his hair and sighed, "I'm afraid it's fatal." He bit his lip in attempt to hold back his grin.

"Beck." I whined with a hint of laughter. In even the most serious times he never failed to make me smile.

He let out a deep chuckle and leaned down to my level. I felt his hand brush against my face as he moved my hair back to look at the wound. As much as I tried to stop it, I felt my heart rate quicken in my chest as I felt his soft breath against my face.

"Just need to clean it up a bit, bandage it up. It's nothing too serious." His voice seemed to startle me out of my thoughts. 

I sighed heavily when Beck moved away to get the supplies he needed. He shook his head as he placed all the required assortments into a tin tray which he placed on the table next to where I was seated. "How did you even manage to do that?"

My eyes followed his actions as he held each bottle and capsule with care. "I hit my helmet against the airlock as I was coming back in."

At that he laughed and sat back down in his chair. "You have got to be the clumsiest girl I know, Ava." He reached over and picked up a small bottle of disinfectant solution. After soaking a cotton pad with it he pressed it against my head and gently wiped away the blood, making me slightly wince.

I rolled my eyes at his comment. "Only because you all make it look so easy."

I don't know how, but I always seemed to be the one who lacked in the physical tasks of space travel. I preferred work of the mind, I was much safer inside my head, and so of course I decided to plummet out of the Earth's atmosphere into the unpredictable galaxy. Sometimes I wonder why they let me up here, I'm such a hazard if I'm not careful.

With his face being in such close proximity to mine, I couldn't help but notice how blue his eyes were up close. I admired them for a little while, watching them focus on my head, but then they turned to me. Flushed with embarrassment I averted my eyes to the floor hearing a quiet chuckle from Beck.

After clearing all the blood, Chris opened up a bandage and stuck it neatly on my head. "There." He smiled proudly. "You're all done. All I have to do is keep changing the bandage once a day for about three days and then it should be healed."

"Thanks Beck." I stood up from the chair and brushed off my bottoms.

"Anytime Collins." He smirked and rolled up his sleeves before going to the sink to wash his hands and then packing the equipment up.

~

Beck's P.O.V

After I cleaned everything up and washed myself, I decided to sit in the Rec for little while. My day was practically done and to be honest, I was ahead of schedule with my work.

I walked in to find Watney reading something on his laptop.

"Hey man, wanna play some cards." I asked, waving the pack in my hand.

Watney looked up with a smile, as if he was relieved there was finally some company. I presume everyone else was still finishing up their work for the day.
"Sure, I was wondering when I'd see a face today."

Watney closed the lid on his laptop which was on the table in front of him. I sat on the opposite couch and shuffled the cards on the table between us.

"So, did Collins survive?" He said with all seriousness.

"Yeah, just a deep cut that's all." I nodded. I'm glad that's all it was, it could have been a lot worse.

"I uh, couldn't help but notice you two the other night." He awkwardly cleared his throat and kept his gaze on the cards.

"What do you mean?" I continued to move the cards around skilfully in my hands.

"You do remember what Lewis said to us don't you?" Watney leaned forward over the table slightly, making me kind of nervous. I didn't know what I did wrong and I was afraid I'd went against Lewis' word about something.

"Lewis has said a lot of things to us." I shook my head to show my confusion. Where was he going with all this?

"If we hit on any of the girls she threatened to kick us off the mission."

At this point, I was convinced that he had the wrong idea about me and Collins.

"Okay, first of all, I didn't hit on her. Everybody was dancing. And second, how can we be kicked off a space ship?"

"I'm just warning you, dude." Watney leaned back as I started to deal out the cards. "Lewis doesn't mess around."

I let out a sigh. Maybe I was getting a little too comfortable here that I forgot it was a mission. That doesn't mean I want to stay away from Collins. I mean that's kind of impossible anyway, it's a small ship.

"Let's just say I did like Collins. How would I go about it? I can't fake my feelings for this long." I sighed and in that moment I came into realisation that I felt something for her. In the beginning it was just flirty fun, but now it's a little more. I knew it was useless attempt, she would never like me like that.

Watney smiled smugly at my confession as if he knew the answer all along. "I'm not saying ignore it. Heck, go for it!"

I was a little taken aback by his response. I had expected a disapproval more or less. But yet again, Watney proved to be an awesome friend.

He continued, "I'm just saying don't do it in front of Lewis, and in case she does suspect something, just know I've got you're back, man."

I grinned widely. Could this man be anymore spectacular?

"Thank you Mark." I said sincerely. "I don't think I've got much of a chance anyway, but it's nice to know that you would help me if I did."

After that our conversation shifted to the cards that were on the table as we got into heated game.

However, my mind remained blurry with the thoughts of Collins. Was it all worth it? Was she worth it?

I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I had to at least try.