And so their stay on the moon began.

The morning after their arrival, as the Schwabs finished their breakfasts and went to bring Barney some food, Quentin convened a meeting to distribute responsibilities.

Sander, persuaded to be the best (and obvious) choice for all manner of pulse-pounding tasks, was quickly disillusioned once Quentin’s meeting began... as it turned out, he was in charge of scrubbing the air-conditioning vents around the ship.

Evelyn, despite her technical knowledge, was better served by nursing her husband back to health, instead of taking on any additional duties… and Lori, still suffering from her shoulder, was asked to help Pavel in the garden´s greenhouse. As for the Russians, the extra manpower now allowed them to focus solely on their spacewalks, be it for construction, maintenance, trash disposal or scavenging.

“This officially sucks…” Sander complained, unable to hold back his disappointment any longer.

“I know it’s a little gross, but someone’s got to do it or we´ll all suffocate!” Quentin smiled back with a shrug.

“No, that I get… but I thought we were supposed to do something outside this afternoon.”

Thinking back to their talk the day prior, Quentin realized he might have over-promised and rubbed his neck.

“Oh, yeah… Listen, you’ll get to do all the stuff you want, trust me… but just wait a bit, OK? I mean, you don’t even know how to use the suits yet! So let´s do one thing at a time-”

“But we´ve already put spacesuits on, I came in one!” Sander interrupted hopefully.

“Well, my design´s pretty different… I had access to a factory, after all,” Quentin shot back, pointing to the pile of filters with a wink. “But hey, you´re almost done!”

Before Sander could find a way to prolong their exchange, the man caught sight of Sergei as he passed by and bolted off to ask him about their latest sortie.

As the Schwabs slowly got used to their new accommodations, the rest of the week passed rather uneventfully. Thankfully, Barney was healing nicely… and the Russians were quite happy to have fresh faces on board, spending most of their free time trying to play card games with the twins, and telling half-unintelligible jokes.

Quentin, on the other hand, barely left the cockpit. They would see him at meals and sometimes cross paths with the man in between chores… but it seemed as though even the moon wasn’t remote enough for their apparently depressive host, who despite an unfailing politeness when confronted with a conversation, started mingling less and less with his guests as the days went by.

These reclusive habits quite suited Sander, who had been worried that Quentin´s supervision would make life quite uncomfortable. But as he would soon see, there were plenty of other annoying adults for him to deal with… namely his mother.

After taking a page out of Quentin’s book, Evelyn had converted his day-to-day suggestions into a weekly schedule that -in her mind- occupied her kids enough that they “wouldn’t get into trouble”.

This means that, thanks to the alarm on Barney’s watch (which ironically was the only one that had survived their crash), Evelyn began policing Sander and Lori’s days, with quick little check-ins... And despite his constant protests, this continued far longer than Sander could handle.

In fact, by the second week of his mother’s intrusive behavior, Sander had even approached his sister in an empty hallway, with a plan to break the wristwatch and rid themselves once and for all of the asinine situation.

“OK, make fun,” Sander spat after her, as Lori walked away from his ridiculous scheme with a laugh. “Just wait ‘til you’re healed... She won’t leave you alone either!”

And how prescient those words would prove to be. Sure enough, as soon as Lori’s shoulder healed to a sufficient degree where she could take the sling off, Evelyn showed up in the garden to enforce her rules.

“OK honey, go help your brother. You’re not doing anything here.”

“Seriously?” Lori shot back, putting down one of the plants and resting her hands on her hips defiantly.

This started yet another fight, that eventually culminated with Lori explaining to her mother that she was already locked inside, with no phone, no friends and no TV.

“I’m already grounded,” She concluded sourly. “If taking care of dad isn’t enough, that’s not my problem. Go find some other way of feeling in control!”

“Where do you think you’re going?” her mother demanded, hurt by her daughter’s words.

“To hang with Sander. He can’t stand you either.”

With that, Lori left the garden.

Evelyn watched her daughter walk away, stunned to discover just how far apart they’d apparently grown in such short time... and returned to Barney’s side, lost in thought about everything Lori had said.

It was only that evening, after much coaxing from her husband, that Evelyn eventually revealed what had put her in such a morose mood.

“Look, babe,” Barney wheezed, shifting positions to take some of the strain off of his still-bruised diaphragm, “she’s kind of right...”

“And what, that’s it? We don’t get to be their parents anymore?” Evelyn blurted out, wiping away a frustrated tear.

“That’s not what I’m saying…”

Barney reached out and took her hand.

“Honey, remember how my dad always had advice for us? Remember?” he repeated, making sure he caught his distraught wife’s eye.

“That was annoying and awful, right? Well maybe this is one of those times-”

“So, you’re saying I’m like your father?”

“I- I’m saying…” Barney thought out the rest of his sentence, to make sure he wouldn’t hurt her feelings any more than he already had. “Look, we knew this was coming. Locking them up on the moon… They’re 15!”

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“Almost sixteen,” Evelyn added.

“Yeah, almost sixteen,” he smiled back at her gently. “Do you remember what you were like at sixteen?”

Thinking back, Evelyn shook her head tiredly and gave him a faint smile.

“I know I’d be going crazy, even being stuck in a little place like this for a week, let alone…” he stopped himself from saying forever, and instead chose lighter words “you know, the foreseeable future… Look, I’m always on your side. Always. I just think right now, they might need a friend more than a parent.”

He squeezed her hand, and she squeezed his hand back.

“‘Cuz I don’t think there are many other teenagers on the moon to goof around with!” he joked. “I’ve been thinking a lot... lying around here like a slug for the past few days...”

“Weeks,” Evelyn corrected.

“Weeks. Wow...” Barney answered, shocked to have lost track of time to thoroughly. “Yeah, well, I regret denying them that. You’re only young once and… I don’t know. I hope we did the right thing.”

Concluding on a sadder note that he had planned, Barney gave a little sigh and it was Evelyn’s turn to provide some positivity. She took his chin and softly tilted his downcast eyes back towards hers, taking care not to stress his neck in the process.

“Hey. Stop,” she nodded emphatically, driving the point home. “You saw how insane things were getting.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Don’t guess. We’re doing our best. It’s not our fault the world’s crazy… ”

Touched by her sincerity, Barney tried to sit up… but it was too difficult, and Evelyn fluffed his pillows instead.

“You’re right. Sorry… it’s this damn bed, I need to get out of this room. It’s eating my energy!”

“Well according to the X-rays, you can try... but it’s gonna be painful,” Evelyn warned, just as her kids came back from dinner.

“Hey.”

“Hey…”

The twins plopped a pair of plates down on Barney’s bed, having fallen into the routine of eating first and then bringing their parents some food, to spare Barney from eating alone each evening... But tonight, despite the delicious pasta sitting between them, a chill had filled the room at Lori and Sander’s arrival.

Feeling the tension between Evelyn and their children, Barney found the one subject sure to break the ice.

“So, we were just talking…”

Sander stiffened and Lori rolled her eyes, in anticipation of their imagined scolding...

“About what to do for your guys’ birthday.”

And the atmosphere shifted immediately.

“You didn’t think we forgot, did you?”

Exchanging a surprised glance, the twins realized that neither of them had any idea what the date actually was… and looked back to their dad, as he smiled back smugly.

“Three more days… well, two actually, this one’s almost done.”

“So, what do you want to do?” Evelyn asked again, taking a bite from her plate while helping Barney do the same.

“I- uhh…” Sander started, before realizing most of his requests probably wouldn’t be possible. “I guess there won’t be any presents?”

Their mom shrugged back apologetically.

“It’s fine…” he answered, slightly crestfallen. “I don’t know, can we make a cake?”

“We have avocados…” smiled Lori, as her brother scrunched his nose.

“We can try…”

The Schwabs spent the rest of the night trying to figure out the best way to celebrate the double birthday... and by the following morning, word had spread to the rest of the crew.

With a giant, congratulatory slap on the back, Sander was almost knocked from his chair as Matvey walked by and with a grin.

“Sixteen is big year! We will make big party!”

Apparently, the good mood was infectious, for even Quentin, who usually would take his meals to the cockpit, decided to stick around and share their table, hinting at how great the last celebration on board the Firmament had been.

“You’re going to like it... We can hook up some sound, cake... the whole nine yards!” he smiled, playing with the crust of his toast. “By the way, who was born first?”

Lori raised her finger in between bites.

“Nice!” Quentin continued. “Anyways, I mean... you’ll see. We’ll do it good... And last time, things even a little wild, huh?”

He leaned across the table and nudged the Russian man’s elbow playfully.

“Sergei doesn’t look it, but he can really hit the high notes!”

Realizing that they were talking about him, Sergei took out his earphones and laughed.

“What? What you say?” he interrupted “Don’t believe! That man… bullshit!”

“Yeah, yeah...” Quentin called back, before adding, “Just wait for the karaoke…” under his breath.

So over the next 48 hours, as if everyone had simply needed something to look forward to, to break out of their funk, the common area became surprisingly festive.

Without ever imagining that their birthday could cause such an uptick in morale, Sander and Lori watched Pavel and Quentin carry away piles of laundry, remove empty crates that hadn’t budged since their arrival, and rearrange the hammocks... until the Firmament’s de facto cafeteria was almost unrecognizable.

Then, having somehow found time between their spacewalk shifts, the remaining two Russians set up a large, blue banner covered in Cyrillic markings that the twins could only presume was in their honor.

By the time August 8th rolled around, the anticipatory buzz aboard the craft was almost palpable. Feeling the excitement, Sander got up a little earlier than usual and, without much to do, woke Lori up too… who wasn’t too pleased.

After a few groggy minutes, she knew that she wasn’t going to be able to fall back asleep in the stuffy room and ended up following him towards the central chamber.

“Let’s just get it done,” Sander nudged his sister as she wiped the sleep from her eyes.

He pointed to the whiteboard chart hanging on the wall, with their names scribbled under “TABLE DUTIES”.

The duo then began to set the table for breakfast and finished quickly, before sitting back down and waiting for the rest of the crew…

Sooner than they expected, Quentin emerged from his cockpit and gave them a sleepy nod, on his way to the bathroom.

“Birthday…” he managed to mumble, before closing the door behind him.

Then came the Russians, one after the other, stretching and yawning in their usual morning parade. Only this time, Pavel punctuated it with a hearty “Happy Birthday!” and came to hug them, while Matvey and Sergei waited their turns.

“Today we do-” began Sergei from behind his friend, before noticing they had already put out all the plates and cutlery. “Ah, they already doing!”

Noticing this too, Matvey released them from his embrace and lamented, “Ah, guys! That was present! We want to do you work, for birthday!”

“Oh, yeah… sorry man,” Sander grinned, turning to admire his handiwork. “But hey, you’re more than welcome to scrub the carbon filters, they’re pretty charred!”

“I think we help Lori first, da?” Pavel joked, as they all went to sit with a laugh.

Quentin reemerged with a towel around his neck and sat down to serve himself a tall glass of orange juice... until something caught his eye and lit up his smile.

“Well look who came to join us!”

Five heads all turned in unison to see Barney emerge for the first time from the infirmary, his arm wrapped around Evelyn’s shoulders.

“It’s good to be up!” Barney admitted, almost blushing at the sudden eruption of applause.

Having finally removed his cumbersome cast, he leaned over to kiss his wife and was soon pried away by his overjoyed kids, more than eager to have their dad healthy again.

“I’m good guys, thanks,” Barney grunted, as the huddle around him made their way to the table.

“Looks like, is good present after all!” boomed Matvey, setting down an extra plate for their father, and ruffling Sander’s hair (while almost giving him a concussion).

“Well, well, well… Looks like this really is a special day,” Quentin called out, raising his voice to be heard over the racket. “Hey! Look, I’ll make it brief.” He stood up and cleared his throat. “In honor of not one, but two birthdays, I think today is the perfect day to forget the schedule!”

More cheers… but Quentin held out his palm, asking for just a few seconds more of attention.

“Hang on- Just one last thing: Now, you guys already know…” he looked at the Russians. “But for the Schwabs I’ll say it again: for everyone’s safety -especially if we’re drinking-”

Pavel and Matvey pushed Sergei back and forth between them playfully with knowing smirks, apparently remembering something hilarious that had been done in a drunken stupor.

“As a fail-safe, I’m going to power-down the ship to her bare essentials. Which also means…” he waited for the men to quiet themselves so that he could be heard without interruption, “nobody goes to the lab, nobody goes below deck… and nobody goes outside. It’s all off limits until further notice. We good?”

Realizing he was mostly talking to them, the Schwabs nodded back.

“OK… then let’s party!”