The Day We Went To Mars - Sidemen Fanfiction

**Chapter 13**

The view from the window offered the young man no consolation. Where others saw the park; seesaw still tilting from side to side and swings moving in the breeze, he saw darkness. The sky was a burning inferno, a bright glowing orange that no sunset could ever rival. The blackening clouds loomed like ash, billowing in the fire's angry breath.

"Mr Bradley?" the seated woman in front of him prompted, not for the first time, "You were saying?" He ignored her for a brief moment, still entranced in the way a young child sits transfixed in front of a slowly flickering candle. To him the outside world was a distant memory, maybe that's what a few years on a spacecraft does to the head.

"I understand you still don't want to talk about him," she continued in her low, often droning voice, "But the events of the past few years must be discussed at some point." It was the same spiel and as usual the bearded man did not begin to talk. He did not say the words that sat patiently on the tip of his tongue, ready to flee his mouth as soon as it opened.

Words. That was what his life had been reduced to nowadays. He could sell his 'story' for a fortune: the struggling artist turned astronaut with a failed romance to throw into the mix. It was laughable really - so many words, an entire language even but he couldn't even find one single word to describe what went on in his own head.

Pain? More than that, it was a part of him that had burned during reentry, fizzling away to nothing as the ignited shell of their battered craft had slowly cooled from a glowing yellow to dull grey. And along with it, his eyes had done much the same, no longer holding their lustre.

Guilt? Maybe that got closer. Although the title of commander had long since been abolished from the crew's vocabulary once they reached Earth, he had tentatively pushed them to take the risk. He had wanted justice and yes, maybe it was for the crew but then, that twinge of selfishness always got to him.

And him. Perhaps that was the word he would choose because maybe that was the only one he wanted to have the luxury of forming in his mouth. It was the one he wanted to murmur in the mornings and again late at night. Hell, he wanted to shout it from the rooftops at any given opportunity despite the fact that the man himself would never hear it; not where he's gone. Above all, he wanted to say his name so he didn't have to think of it in the crushing silence of remorse.

"This session has really gone downhill," there she was again, interrupting his self-therapy which seemed to do more for his mental health than anything she had ever said in one of their weekly hour long silences.

"I see you don't want to talk to me but I hope you understand that one day you have to remember."

Remember.

***

In the midst of Harry and Ethan's panic, Simon continued to pull himself up, his gloved hands making the supposedly simple action much harder. Coupled with his slight headache from the crash, the small gap on the metal exterior of the spacecraft seemed to shrink to the size of a pinhole.

Eventually, with perspiration forming around his hairline, Simon found a better grip and hauled his floating body up, resting on his elbows to breathe. The sight in front of him would be comical were it not for his predicament; two fully grown men engaged in a silent argument, punctuated with flailing arms and wild gestures. He debated a strategy to catch their attention, ruling out any possible ways of making noise in the expansive vacuum he still floated freely in. Ripping at another piece of his failed tether, he threw it weakly in the zero gravity, watching as it steadily came between the feuding boys.

Harry was the first to spot it, his eyes slightly glazing over as he swallowed a lump that formed in his throat. His fingers closed around the severed fibres, gently curling into a protective fist as Ethan too stopped loudly shouting to himself inside of his helmet. He placed a hand over Harry's closed one, softly patting it before frowning internally. The youngest boy followed his gaze, relief seeping into his eyes as Simon swam into his vision and, as fast as one does in a spacesuit, he pushed himself towards the sheepishly grinning man.