Three
Leighton gets home on a Tuesday. It’s not the most spectacular day of the week, which is fine because it’s not the most spectacular arrival. Their module splashes into the Pacific Ocean around four in the morning in November, but Leighton is wide awake when the Navy comes to retrieve them. She is shuttled to a military base in San Francisco to undergo a routine examination and to make sure she hasn’t contracted radiation poisoning.
While she’s being looked over, one of the officers brings Leighton her phone; an out of date iPhone but they made sure to keep it charged and updated, so she doesn’t have to wait before she calls Alicia and Tatum. Both her partners are in the city, but protocol insists that Leighton undergoes three days of isolation to ensure none of the astronauts came back with a mutated disease.
She understands the protocols but that doesn’t make it any easier knowing her partners are closer than they’ve been in the last four years. During the quarantine period she debriefs with what feels like the entirely of NASA and the United States military, but finally, on Thursday night, she’s told she can leave and that her wife is waiting for her.
Leighton is practically vibrating while she fills out all of the discharge papers and then when she walks through the halls, she gets yelled at by a few soldiers to slow down but she can’t because as soon as she gets to the mess hall she’ll see her partners in person and she’ll be able to hug them as tight as she can.
The doors slam against the wall as she pushes through them and then there. Tatum and Alicia are sitting at a table by themselves, wrapped up together and they look the same as the last time Leighton saw them but they also look so different but Leighton is home.
Alicia pops her head up at the noise from the doors and Leighton can see the grin explode across her face like time has slowed down. Her grin starts at the left side of her face like always, reaching her eyes from the very beginning of the smile and it makes Leighton smile back before she’s running across the room, dodging tables, to get to her family.
For the first time in a long time, Leighton is wrapped in an all consuming hug. There’s a second impact shortly after the first with Alicia, and Leighton can smell Tatum’s perfume – the same after all these years and it makes the tears start falling. She’s not sure now much time passes while the three of them embrace and for the first time in four years she can feel time passing; now that Leighton has returned to the two people she orbits around, time can function in its normal and calculated ways.
When she finally takes a step back, it’s only far enough to kiss Alicia and then Tatum, which sparks a sarcastic battle they’ve had thousands of times.
“I can’t believe you’d kiss her before your lawfully wedded wife. You know the one you swore to love and cherish until death do us part?”
“It’s only because I know how much you love to watch us,” Leighton says with a smirk.
Alicia barks out a laugh, stepping back to allow Tatum the space to kiss Leighton hello. “You’ve been listening to Charlie too much if that’s the attitude you came home with.”
“Sue me for wanting to flirt with my partners after a four-year absence. Besides, if my memory serves, you were the one who couldn’t wait to get me into your bed upon my return.”
Before any further discussion of their sex life becomes public knowledge, Tatum grabs both Alicia and Leighton by the wrists and practically drags them out of the mess hall and across the base to the officers suite that Leighton has for the next week.
“Put your money where your mouth is and you’ll do more than flirt with us, Leight.” Tatum whispers in her ear as they walk through the halls, causing Leighton to stumble. She wants to make a snide comment about now Leighton knows Tatum would rather have her mouth than her money, but her brain can’t make the words come out of her mouth, and instead she feels the blush creep up her cheeks like it’s her first time seeing a naked woman.
“Tatum, please refrain from killing Leighton with embarrassment, we did just get her back and I want to fuck both of you for the first time in four years.”
The candor from Alicia causes Leighton to practically combust on the spot in the middle of the courtyard on base. “Can y’all please keep it in your pants for five minutes?” She begs. Tatum and Alicia share a familiar look and then Tatum is throwing Leighton over her shoulders like she weighs nothing and is running off to the barracks.
--
It takes them a week after Leighton lands to get back to their home in New York. NASA had been kind enough to give Leighton two uninterrupted days with her partners, but on the third day, Tatum and Alicia helped her put together her outfit for the day of debriefings, and it became a routine for the next few days but now, Leighton was back into comfy clothes and packing a bag for the private jet that would take them directly from the base to JFK, where James would meet them.
Leighton didn’t have much to pack but as she was getting her belongings together she made sure to include her flight suit with its pockets of mementos and the picture Charlie had taken during their first spacewalk together. There was a weird sense of nostalgia as she packed her bag, and Leighton isn’t sure if it’s because she’s preparing to leave two more partners behind or if it’s because her mind keeps replaying this same moment from four years ago.
She can almost see her hands as they packed her back pack all those years ago, fingers that look the same grasping a zipper and pulling it to seal the picture of her, Tatum, and Alicia. Instead, this time, she’s zipping up a picture so black the only thing to see is the tiny specs of astronauts. She can see herself moving to the door exactly like she will in a few seconds even down to how she’ll turn and sling her bag over her shoulder, so when she actually does move she knows to expect the door opening from the other side before it does.
“Are you ready?” Tatum asks, just like Leighton knew she would.
“Yeah,” Leighton sighs out as she grabs Tatum’s outstretched hand. They find Alicia talking to Antonio, who’s come to say goodbye, and after he gives Leighton a hug that reminds her of her father, she grabs Alicia’s hand and walks with her partners at her sides. The trek to the plane from the hangar building where she said goodbye is short but loud. It’s not quite as loud as the engines of their spaceship, and for that Leighton is grateful, but she pulls out her headphones regardless, hoping to bring back some of the silence of space.
Before they board the plane, Leighton gives a tug of her hands, pulling her wife and her partner to face her. It’ll be difficult to readjust to being back on earth, arguably harder than it was to adjust to being in space, but Leighton is eternally grateful to be back. So, with one last kiss to their foreheads, Leighton looks at Tatum and Alicia and declares,
“I’m home.”