Rocket Man

So there was no way that anyone would prevent me from being there to greet my husband when he came home this time either.

I guess over the years my frustration and anger at the situation continued to climb. It was probably a couple of years ago that I started going out. At first, there was nothing to it. I went out with the girls, but kept my eyes on the news for any and all information about Jack's missions. The nights out got wilder and began to include men from time to time. However, I never so much as danced with one.

Then one night, I looked up on the news, and they were running it. IT, the it. They were talking about Challenger just before my husband was blasted into space yet again. I got so angry that I lost control. Losing control led to me getting drunk. Me getting drunk led to me getting fucked by a man other than Jack for the first time ever in my life.

I was unfortunately so drunk that I didn't remember a moment of it. I was consumed with guilt for months. And then with the logic and legal double talk that all lawyers use, I was able to convince myself that if I didn't remember it, it probably didn't happen. I also told myself that Jack probably wouldn't throw away thirty-five years together, twenty of them married, over a drunken fling. He would be very angry, and it would take time, but Jack loved me and he WOULD forgive me. Or he would have of, had he found out. But he never did.

I also reminded myself, that every marriage has its ups and downs and that one or both partners having a slip was common nowadays. And that was all it had been. It had been a slip and a drunken one at that. Jack and I would be together forever and perhaps many years down the line; we could talk about what happened and why.

And then, about a month ago, Brett began his pursuit of me. At first, I didn't recognize it. He was always around. He was always polite and very complimentary. However, he was also always with another woman.

"Most of them are only friends," he said. I guess that was his way of luring me into becoming friends too. That led to working lunches, collaborating on a case or two and inclusion on his team on the last case we did. My first ever corporate case and the biggest I had ever been a part of.

Of course working together meant more working lunches, a few non-working lunches and a few nights out with the gang. Then it was stopping off to have a drink and then stopping off for dinner with a friend was better than going home to an empty house and an even emptier bed.

The thing that should have tipped me off was the fact that Brett always asked about Jack. He seemed to be in awe of him, but at the same time he tried to belittle his accomplishments. Now that I know what an asshole Brett was, I understand that he got his jollies from screwing the wife of a man who was far better than he would ever be. It was like some strange collection that Brett had. I later found out that he had also enjoyed speaking to the husbands of the women in the office that he had fucked. I was glad that he would never get the chance to do that to Jack.

Jack was great at reading people. He would have knocked Brett on his ass first and asked questions later. And Jack was famous enough to get away with it. Sure Brett had connections with judges and a few politicians. But Jack had even stronger connections, and he had genuine fame. Brett would have come out on the losing end both physically and reputationally in that battle.

I made my way to the airport as I had a thousand times before. I presented my ID at the registration desk that Sue had texted me. Her timing as usual was perfect. The flight left only twenty minutes later. I went to the terminal with my freshly printed ticket and boarding pass.

Usually, all I had to do was present my ticket, and I was waved through the security checkpoints. Being the wife of an astronaut carried a lot of perks. However, this time I had to go all the way up to the inspectors. Since I didn't have any luggage, I figured it would be quick. But I was pulled out of line almost immediately.

A fat Asian woman looked me up and down and then shook her head. I heard them calling my flight. And told her I needed to go.

"Look I haven't done anything," I said. "You didn't even run me through the scanner."

"I know ma'am," she said.

"Run my record," I said. "I have a clean criminal record. I have never committed a crime. I'm an officer of the court. My husband is an astronaut. I have to get to Florida, so I can ..."

"There are no astronauts on that mission named Dixon, Ma'am," she said skeptically.

"When we got married, I kept my maiden name," I said loudly and wishing for the umpteenth time that I had taken Jack's last name. It had hurt him a bit when I didn't, and it took me months to get him to understand that I wanted to make it in my legal career on my own. I didn't want to get ahead because I was the astronaut's wife.

I grabbed my purse and showed her the pictures of Jack and I during his training for several missions. I even showed her our selfie taken in front of the shuttle with Jack in full gear.

"My husband is Jack Daniels," I said. Her eyes bugged open.

"The Rocket Man ..." she hushed so loudly that everyone in the airport turned towards us. I nodded.

"I'm sorry Mrs. Daniels ... I mean Ms. Dixon, I thought it was unusual when I looked up your records ... Shit! ... Your marriage is even here in your records. They're probably doing this to protect you ... I mean with everything going on and him probably being ... Uhm ..."

I looked into her eyes and understood. She felt badly for me.

"Doing what to protect me," I asked.

"Ma'am you're on the no fly list. No airline is going to fly you anywhere. If they do they'll be subject to massive fines. They'll sell you tickets all day long. They'll take anyone's money, but you are not going to ever get on a plane. You will not pass any security checkpoint in the country."

I walked away from the desk in a daze. "Good luck, Ma'am," she called out cheerfully as I left her.

As much as I wanted to tell her to stuff her luck up her fat ass, I didn't. My parents didn't raise me that way. I was supposed to be a lady no matter what the situation. Besides it wasn't her fault.

I didn't think it was Jack's doing either. Shit Jack had been on the launch pad when Brett, and I got together and by the time Brett and I fucked; Jack was in space.

I was pretty sure that a certain senator was flexing his political muscles again to punish me. And as much as I hated to admit it. I deserved to be punished. After all, I was having dinner and sex with another man while my husband was risking his life, and as it turned out, sacrificing his life in space. I deserved everything the senator could throw at me and more.

They were already planning some sort of memorial for Jack. And It was pointless. My husband was Teflon coated. Nothing could kill Jack Daniels. Jack had pulled a miracle out of his ass more times than I could tell about. It wouldn't surprise me if this was the time when we first made contact with aliens, and they did it to bring Jack home. I could see the headlines now. "Huge spacecraft lands on the White House lawn bringing home famous astronaut."

The second reason that I didn't think Jack was dead was the fact that my own heart was still beating. Jack and I have a connection that goes beyond normal love. We have been together for so long that if anything had happened to him, I would know about it.

So I got back into my car and punched the launch facility into my navigation system. The senator couldn't stop me from driving to Florida.

* * * * * *

Jack

"Rocket Man, burning out his fuse up here, alone."

I was falling again, slower but still falling, and then I hit it. Actually, I glanced off of the side, and I scrambled to grab the static line trailing from it. This time I actually grabbed and disconnected the harness. I thought about nothing except for getting that harness on for the next few moments. Once it was fitted, I tried Johnny again.

"Jane, how do I stop this crazy thing?" I asked.

"It's automatic," he chirped. As soon as the air is thick enough to support it, the chute will deploy. Good L ..."

"Johnny why didn't you just have me ride the balloon down?"

"Balloons float, Jack. From your altitude, it would take you a half-hour or more with the fastest safe landing we could calculate with the balloon. You're only about a thousand feet from when your chute will deploy. Once that happens, you'll be on the ground in about sixteen minutes. It took Baumgardener fifteen minutes to land. We've calculated that you only have enough air left to last you thirteen minutes. You're going to be in some distress when you land."

And he was right it was a rough trip and just when I could make out the fact that I was coming down over a fairly dense forest, I had no air to breathe. Johnny was wrong. Either that or my fear of heights caused me to use up oxygen at a faster rate. I held my breath until I blacked out.

I probably would have died if it wasn't for those fucking trees. A branch from the tree I landed in smashed a hole in my visor and scratched the shit out of my face. I was lucky it missed my eyes. On the other hand, I scraped my ribs and broke my left leg.

By the time the search crew found me, I was cursing about my leg, but glad to be alive. The emergency med techs stabilized my leg for the trip to the hospital, and I was loaded into an ambulance. Despite the fact that the whole operation had been a sort of secret, there were hundreds of reporters at the hospital when we arrived.

Before my X-Rays were done, there were thousands of people gathered throughout the hospital for a glimpse of me. My leg was a clean sharp break and didn't require surgery. They brought in the hospital's chief orthopedic surgery to handle a reduction that any resident could have done. I was X-rayed again to ensure that the reduction was done correctly and then transferred to a room.

That was the story given to the reporters and others. Actually, I was whisked out the back door of the hospital and into an unmarked SUV. I was driven to and secreted inside of a well-known hotel downtown.

I was placed on the softest most comfortable sofa I had ever been on in front of a huge TV. Moments later, Johnny arrived.

We were both grinning at each other like two Cheshire cats. A tall nerdy looking guy who reminded me of Jeff Goldblum stood behind him. I was pretty sure he had to be Jim Beam.

"I can't believe you pulled that shit off," grinned Johnny. "You have to be the toughest son of a bitch, I have ever met."

"Or the luckiest," threw in Jim.

"So ... Rocket ... You're on top of the world. What do you want," asked Johnny.

"I want a phone call," I said.

"Shit, Rocket. You can do that yourself," he laughed. "You're back on earth. You can call anyone on the planet. I'm pretty sure that Justin Verlander would give you Kate Upton's phone number. However, I know who you want to talk to. So go ahead ET, phone home."

"Johnny, I don't want to talk to or see Beth under any circumstances," I spat. "I want to talk to the people on the station. I need to let them know that we're all thinking about them, and we're busting our asses to get a ship up there to bring some or all of them home as quickly as possible."

He looked startled at the double revelation. No one who knew us would believe that I didn't want even to speak to Beth. After everyone had left the room presumably to allow me to get some sleep, I got my iPad from my belongings and looked for my family lawyer's number. He was really shocked to hear from me.

"Hey, Jack," he said. "I'm not sure you can sue NASA, but I'm glad you're back."

"There's no easy way to say this Ted. I need a divorce. I need to have it accomplished as quickly and painlessly as possible. I'd like the customary 50/50 split. We're both in great careers, so we should be able to just each take our personal property and move on. If you have to sweeten the deal, offer her the house. It's worth nearly three-quarters of a million dollars, and she loves it. It should be a pretty quick and easy thing to do. I just want this over with so I can start getting over her."

"Are you sure about this?" he asked. I gave him a single nod.

"Make it so," I said.

"What the hell does that mean?" he asked. "Who says shit like that?"

"Jean-Luc Picard," I said.

"Who the hell is that?" he asked. I was shocked. The man was obviously not a Star Trek fan.

"Just handle it, Ted," I said.

* * * * * *

Liz

My shock was off the charts. I guess shock isn't really a good word for it. I'd known the whole time that my hubby would be fine. But when faced with the actual facts, it was awesome. I found out by listening to the radio in the car. Jack had supposedly pulled off some sort of impossible stunt and lived to tell the story. He had supposedly suffered some sort of injury to his leg but was expected to fully recover. Hearing that made my day. I still had to get to Florida though.

Another thing that still confused me was the fact that Jack hadn't answered his phone. I had called him at least ten times, and he hadn't answered or returned my calls. Upon thinking about it, I realized that he was probably in the hospital and was being kept away from people while he was being processed. They would want to know the details of everything he could tell them to help the astronauts who were still in space.

About that time I also remembered that Jack couldn't call me from his iPhone and he couldn't answer it either. His phone was still back at our house. That made me feel better.

As I drove, I heard part of an interview with Jack on the radio. He even answered questions for some of the callers. One man asked why they didn't use the same method that worked for Jack to get the other astronauts down.

Once Jack explained exactly what he did, there was dead silence over the airwaves. It quickly became evident exactly what my husband had gone through and how unlikely it was that anyone else could survive it.

Suddenly seeing Jack became the most important thing in my life. I needed to see him and hold him and make sure he was okay. At the same time, I felt a tinge of guilt about what I had done. But I was done with that life. I came too close to losing everything ever to risk it again.

The senator didn't outline any kind of punishment for me. He didn't need to. I intended to give it all up. I had no idea whether or not the senator's plan included reporting me to the ethics committee as they had Brett. It didn't matter. I was done with being a lawyer. Whether the senator intended to see me disbarred or not, I was done. It was time for me to settle down and just be happy to be Jack's wife.

I would take his last name if he still wanted that, and we could even try for a baby. I was a bit old, but it really wasn't out of the question.

After a day and a half on the road, with only a few hours at a cheap motel to grab some sleep, I reached the launch facility. I could tell almost immediately that something was off. I was put on hold and made to wait while person after person juggled me off to the next person on the list.

Finally, Johnny Walker came out to talk to me. He looked nervous as he shuffled from foot to foot. And he never looked me in the eye.

"Uhm, Elizabeth, Jack isn't here. He's been taken to a different location to recover from his injuries. You should probably just go home and wait for him to contact you," he said.

I was floored. But what he said did make sense. Jack would have expected me to be at home waiting for him. I should have thought about that from the beginning. I had just panicked after the whole incident with Brett and the senator.

I got back in my car and prepared for another day and a half of driving. However, I did it with a sense of relief. It all made sense. Every time Jack went into space, he had to stay at NASA for a couple of days after he got back. They gave him a thorough medical check-up and a long debriefing.

They had to make sure that he was physically okay and hadn't picked up any bizarre bacteria or infections. They also wanted to make sure that the time spent in zero gravity hadn't damaged his bones or muscles. The debriefing part was so that they could find ways to improve the next mission. Tiny things that had occurred during a mission could have a far-reaching impact on the next one.

Even on this mission, the things that had gone wrong were things that needed to be examined to ensure that there were no further incidents. This time there was a death. I might be lucky to see Jack in the next two weeks.

Jack was always telling me that space was filling up with junk. There were decommissioned satellites and pieces of old rockets and all kinds of things orbiting the earth. They all traveled at high rates of speed and any one of them impacting a ship could cause untold damage or death.

NASA had known about the problem for years, but until this mission, they had been lucky. The odds of a piece of space junk hitting a ship were considered minimal at best. But it had happened, and a man had died from it. The same space junk had damaged my husband's ship to the point where it was extremely lucky that he even made it back home.

My guilt over what I had done while my husband was on a mission was what made me feel so bad. What if Jack had died while I was at home fucking Brett? I don't think I'd have been able to live with that.

About halfway through my trip home, I got a call from Sue. I expected to hear from her.

"Hi, Liz. I just called to tell you that they have officially fired you. They don't even want you to come back to the office. They are sending a messenger to your house to notify you by certified letter that you have been terminated. They haven't told anyone the reasons for your dismissal, but I'm pretty sure that you guys fucked up that Chamberlan case didn't you? I'm pretty sure that has to be it because you worked on that case with Brett, and they fired him too. I've never heard of them firing anyone just because they lost a case, but Chamberlan is an important client so ..."

"Sue, don't worry about it," I said. "I'm fine. My husband is alive. I'm gonna spend the foreseeable future getting him back on his feet again. But thanks for calling and thanks for the warning." I hung up. I could tell that she was angling to get more information. The office grapevine was probably speculating like crazy about why both Brett, and I had been terminated. I wondered if they would go after my license as well. But none of it mattered.

I got home even earlier than I thought. Maybe it was because I drove faster on the way back, or because I did the trip back non-stop, but it took me far less time to get back than it did to get to the launch facility.

It was in the early evening when I got home. Surprisingly enough, the senator's men locked the house up. There seemed to be no damage done to anything. The house seemed to be just as we left it. The coffee cups that the two bruisers and I used had even been washed and put in my drying rack. Other than that though, the place appeared to be untouched.

I was so tired from driving that I immediately went to bed. As soon as my head hit the pillow I was out. I don't normally dream. Or if I do, I don't remember them. But I've heard that times of high stress and guilt can help us to remember our dreams. In any case, I dreamed of my wedding day. Jack was so handsome. Our honeymoon was perfect. We had known each other for most of our lives, but somehow that was the start of the most special phase of our lives.

The dream was so vivid. I could feel the material of my dress. I could smell the flowers. I was really pissed when the sound of my doorbell awakened me. I threw on a robe and stomped down the stairs. I threw the door open to find myself twenty years earlier waiting for me.