Let me get something straight. Moving in Martian gravity, even though it is lighter than earth gravity, isn't easy when you are starting to suffer from a lack of nitrogen.

I should start by explaining as to why I am on Mars, I suppose.

The Ares program. Sending crews via the Hermes to Mars to live there for 31 days and perform experiments and gather information and samples and what not. I had been part of the Ares 3 program, and we had been 6 days into the mission, and it had been the most exciting and greatest 6 days of my life.

I don't when someone will read this. You'll eventually find this, I guess, after I'm long gone. Ya'll, if you are reading this, I want you to know that I'm not blaming you. You did what regulations require, and in your place, I would've done the exact same thing. I'm happy you guys survived. If ya'll do read this, don't blame yourselves, please. But I want you to know. I didn't die on Sol 6. Let me explain here.

To anybody else, if you are reading this, lemme tell ya how Mars missions work. I had been sent along with 6 other crewmen, and I was ranked the second to last member of the crew, with only Watney below me. I was an electrician and computer engineer, basically the crew's fix it woman for any electrical problems or highly advanced computer malfunctions, such as if the communications computers stopped working, then I would be the woman for the job.

We got up to Earth orbit the normal way, through an ordinary ship to Hermes. All the Ares Missions use Hermes to get to and from Mars. It's super huge and cost a shit ton to build, so there's only one.

Hermes is powered by ion engines. It accelerates by spewing Argon out the back end really fast to get a teensy ass amount of acceleration. (Add to that, some Nuclear reactors to power things, and you're set.) So needless to say, with a small amount of acceleration in space, you get going really fast. We got to Mars 124 days later without killing each other, and it was the most fun I've had in years. I don't feel like trotting down that memory lane right now though. Maybe later.

So, now the real trick to making Mars missions go smoothly. Having all of our shit there in advance. Since supplies aren't fragile and won't die if they go down in a tumble dryer of hell, they can hit the ground really hard. We, however, the fragile humans that we are, were soft landed via the MDV. Mars Descent Vehicle. It's basically a tin can with some light thrusters and a couple chutes attached.

But the most important thing that was there was the MAV. The Mars Ascent Vehicle. It's pretty neat, and that's how we got back to Hermes after the surface missions were completed. It was also constantly communicating with Houston, so if there were any problems with it, we would have just done a loop around Mars and come home without ever landing.

So, needless to say, you can imagine how devastated I was when the MAV was gone.

Through a ridiculous series of events that led to me almost dying and an even more ridiculous series of events that led to me living, I stand here now. In the hab. Yay. Let me tell you what happened.

The mission is designed to handle sandstorm gusts up to 150 kph. So, needless to say, when we got smacked with 175 kph winds, NASA was pretty nervous. We all got into our spacesuits and huddled in the hab in case it lost pressure. But the hab wasn't the real issue here.

The MAV is a spaceship, and they have a lot of delicate parts. They can't just sit out there and get sandblasted for forever. After an hour and a half of storming, NASA gave the order to abort. We all were really reluctant, because who wants to leave Mars after just six days? But if we had stayed any longer, we would have all been stranded down here, and trust me, that's no fun.

We went through the storm to get to the MAV. It was dangerous, but we had no choice. Everyone made it but me.

One of the smaller communications dishes, which was still huge by the way, was ripped off the tower it stood on and was being tossed around in the wind. I was in the back, just behind Mark, and it came out of freaking nowhere, smashing directly into me. Given that it was so freaking huge and I'm an average height, 150 pound female, I was thrown backward with incredible force. The last thing I remember is an unimaginable pain in my torso and Beck's yell of, 'Harley!'

I woke up to the oxygen alarm in my suit. After a moment of laying there and wondering why I wasn't dead, my next thought was why on earth (Bad pun not intended) wasn't I able to move. I laid there and struggled to free my arm, and after another couple seconds of struggling, pulled it free from the mountain of sand I was buried under. My oxygen levels were at 82%. Oh hell. I was fine for now, but if I stayed like this for too long, I was screwed.

I started digging at the sand mountain covering me, and after a few minutes of frantic digging, I uncovered enough of my torso to start maneuvering out from underneath it. I started to shift out from underneath it, which is damn hard in a space suit, might I add, and nearly blacked out from the pain.

Slowly, I lowered myself back down and tried to breathe. I had been hit squarely in my low torso, and trying to pull myself up from my stomach wasn't doing me any good. I was going to have to roll over if I wanted to get up any time soon. I kicked some more sand off my legs and wiggled my hips slightly, groaning in agony at the pain. But if I didn't get to the hab I was going die from oxygen toxicity, and that wasn't preferable.

I shimmied out from the sand mountain and stood slowly, and I discovered that I had rolled down a small sand dune, and had the communication dish laying in two nearby. After scrabbling my way up the dune, I saw something that made me very pleased, and something that nearly brought me to tears.

The hab was intact, (Internal cheerleading routine!) and the MAV was gone (Sobs of misery). Well, now I know for sure that I'm screwed. But I definitely wasn't going to just keel over on the surface. I skip-walked my way to the nearest airlock and scrambled inside. I then waited for it to pressurize, throwing off my helmet with a gasp for air and a gasp of pain as once it did. I had survived.

I made it inside the Hab, and was halfway through fumbling out of my suit when I looked up at the noise of terror. I screamed in shock, matching Mark's yelp of astonishment, with mutual cries of;

"What the hell!?"

"The hell!?"

Mark Watney was standing in front of me, mouth open in shock, looking very real. Why was he here!? He wasn't supposed to be here! No…

"I knew it. I died, and this is what hell is like. Being stranded on Mars and having someone else here that you care about with you to slowly die." I say, throwing my arms to the ceiling and then crumpling over because, ow-fucking-hell-that-hurt.

Mark came over, and I noticed that he was shirtless with slight bloodstains dried on his hip. He gently grabs my shoulders and helps me up, eyes dark and concerned.

"No Harley. You're not dead. Just like I'm not dead. How did you survive?" He asks, eyeing me for any visible wounds, though his eyes were still wide with utter shock and slight horror, because oh god, we were stranded on Mars. The crew had lost TWO of us, in rapid succession. I can't even imagine the mental turmoil of realizing that fact.

"I was hit by the communications dish, the secondary one. Threw me back about a hundred meters or so and buried me in a mountain of sand. How did you live? And how did they think we were both… never mind, I know why they think I was dead." I say, showing him my smashed bio monitor. Add to that getting slammed and thrown down a hill with a communications dish, and ayup, I looked dead.

I finished stripping off my suit while he explained how he lived. He also put on a shirt, much to my dismay. He was a pretty sight to look at, but I was more concerned when I finally got a clear view of the wound he carried on his side.

"Is that where you were…?" He looks at me with his shirt half pulled down, and nods. I make my way over and slowly touch just above it, and he doesn't move, just breathes. Mark feels alive underneath my fingertips, and I revel in it for a few seconds for pulling away. He just pulls his shirt the rest of the way down, and watches me, eyes careful.

I shake my dark hair out of its long braid, and then cringe at the pain in my hips and lower abdomen. Damn it, that hurt like freaking hell. I slowly lower myself to sit on one of the chairs in the hab and pull my shirt up enough to show my lower abs and dear god, I know why I hurt so bad.

After edging my pants down the slightest bit, I saw that I was bruised down to my pelvis. The skin was several nasty shades of blue, black, and purple, and it looked pretty bad. I hear Mark come around, and his strangled sound of horror.

"Oh god, Harley." I look up at him and back down to the deep bruising, and gently press a hand to it, feeling gently for any broken bones or injured organs. Thankfully, there's nothing seriously wrong, other than the level of pain I was feeling. Mark came over offering Vicodin, and I gratefully accepted them, dry swallowing the pills.

He stared at the deep bruising lacing across my hips, and his face was unreadable. I cocked a brow at him, and waited for him to say something.

"Mark?" I asked, when he didn't say anything. He looked up at me, dark eyes worried.

"You sure you're alright?" Because dammit, if he was going to keep talking like that, that would be the death of me. He sounded so small and almost broken, as if he thought it was his fault. I sighed and dropped my shirt back down, standing with some difficulty.

"I'll be okay Mark. It's not your fault." I said, trying to resist the rising urge to hold him close and reassure him that it would be okay, even though I knew it probably wouldn't. We were totally stranded down here, with limited food, equipment that was our only life support, and no communications. He looked at me, probably thinking the same thoughts that I was.

"I know. We need a plan."

"Yep. Any ideas?" I ask, looking to him almost hopefully. He met my blue eyes with something akin to hope. He was dead set on keeping a positive attitude. I decided that it sounded like a fabulous idea and I stood straighter, regaining my usual proud posture.

"Did the communications dish survive?"

"Nope. Damn thing cracked in half."

"Well, fuck."

"Agreed."