Chapter Text
Rocky had watched every single one of his crew mates die. They had let them go to sleep and then watched over until they’d all passed one by one.
After, when he was alone on the ship, they had gotten shorter bursts of sleep whenever necessary but had felt so unsafe from it. How were they supposed to protect themselves when there was no one to watch?
Grace is unlike their crew. Unlike any of the crew they’d had. He is driven, chatty and excited, all things which Rocky is too. It feels good to listen to someone, to be around someone.
He doesn’t expect Grace to agree to letting them watch him sleep, but he does. It was a custom for Eridians, but seemingly not for humans. Rocky can’t help but wonder why it wouldn’t be important, how crazy it would be to just feel safe enough to sleep without someone watching.
He waits for Grace to return, confused by the items he brings with him, and just watches him settle in the little nook in the xenonite. He pushes a little against what Rocky wants, but lets him do it anyway.
As Grace sleeps he takes the time to really consider the human in front of him. He can hear the thrum of the human heart, it’s not too loud but his hearing is much better than Grace’s hearing. It’s a steady thrum, calmer than before and grows calmer as they hear Grace’s breathing completely even out.
Rocky tries to practice the words with the portable human device, but they note when they do that it causes Grace to stir, his heart beat picks up again and then it settles. Rocky has so many questions about humans, and their sleeping patterns. He settles himself in close and watches, watches the rise and fall of the chest. The way he moves and stirs without waking, how on one occasion it looks like he woke up only to be right back asleep. Listens to the gentle noise which Grace makes as he sleeps.
Grace sleeps for 25200 seconds before he stirs, less than the amount he’d said humans need, but the man wakes. Rocky sits up when he does and watches as it takes Grace seemingly 300 seconds to go from waking up to actually awake and looking at him.
“Hey bud,” Grace says, his voice is lower than normal, but Rocky isn’t sure why it would be.
“Grace only sleep 25200 seconds instead of 29000 seconds he was supposed to,” Rocky says and he can tell that Grace’s face changes to a smile. He has certainly come to learn a little in the facial expressions on Grace's face and what is means.
“It depends, sometimes humans need less, I needed less it seems.” Grace replies and Rocky isn’t sure he understands humans at all.
“Humans are strange,” Rocky says and Grace laughs, which makes Rocky laugh too.
“You got that right, when do you need to sleep?” Grace asks them, and Rocky explains that they don’t need sleep for a little while, but when they do settle down for sleep, Grace watches over. Rocky had forgotten how nice it was to be watched over, to feel so safe.
Rocky sleeps soundly for the first time in 46 earth years and the bond of trust deepens. They would trust Grace with their life. He is a friend.
Moving into his spaceship just made sense, they needed to work together and they needed to work together closely. It was also much easier for Rocky to be on Grace's ship than the other way around and after so long alone in his shape he feels very eager for the 'change in scenary' as Grace might say.
They learn in moving in that Grace has nightmares, that his sleep wasn’t always settled, and he learns that sometimes Rocky just speaking in Eridian will help settle him. Grace never talks about it. Never mentions what he dreamt about, seemingly never really acknowledges that he has nightmares. Rocky was all too happy to ignore it, because Rocky didn’t have dreams, and they knew that human dreams weren’t actually real, though he didn't love the way Grace's heartrate would tick up or the sounds of distress that would spill from his lips.
But watching him, as he's supposed to helps him calm Grace down, and that's why it was important to have someone watch. He likes keeping Grace safe, Grace doesn’t super seem to care either way, but Rocky cares and Grace lets them.
Rocky learns with time the signs of Grace’s tiredness, learns the signs of Grace awaking, the signs of a rough awakening and of him growing weary and overworking.
He learns of Grace’s possible death when they complete all of this and cannot let it happen, they cannot imagine now a universe in which their friend, their Grace, would be left to die. They would suggest he come with them to Erid, but from all of how Grace talks about earth, they know that he loves it. Loves earth and they cannot be the reason he doesn’t go back.
Their plan works, until it doesn’t.
He's screaming, repeating Grace’s name over and over. He can sense that Grace's eyes are closed when they really shouldn't be. The man isn’t asleep, he is injured, but they can hear his racing heart and the way he can’t manage to get a breath in with the force of gravity. Rocky manages to break the xenonite, manages to settle the ship and drags Grace’s body to the medical area with the robot.
They can tell Grace isn’t just asleep, his heart rate is racing, his breathing laboured and he is seemingly half conscious. Rocky only remains a moment on his chest until they get down and slowly drag themselves back to his safe area.
From here they can still sense Grace, can tell that he’s still alive and breathing, but he feels so weak. They’ve never felt so weak in their life. They wonder if the crew mates felt like this as they succumbed to sickness. They know they’ll recover with rest, but Rocky knows he can’t possibly rest until Grace is up again. He cannot let Grace be unprotected.
The sleep Grace has as he recovers is too deep to be anything real, Rocky's not sure it even could be classed as sleep.
Grace heals surprisingly fast all things considered, it takes a day or two before they sense him awake, and then sense him right at the xenonite. The computer is lost, elsewhere, with his last message, but they know Grace understands. They fall asleep resoundly and absolutely, feeling so safe and watched over by his closest friend in the universe, who had promised he would.
There is no telling how much time passes until he wakes again, but when they do, Rocky feels a little worn out still but decidedly alive and better and Grace is there, asleep.
Rocky doesn’t mind that Grace slept when he was supposed to be keeping watch, he knew Grace needed more sleep than they did, and the fact he was there, Rocky knew Grace had been keeping watch over them. He takes a moment to tap the xenonite, and to just watch Grace sleep. The gentle rise and fall of his chest, the inevitable argument that would come from Grace sleeping in such a rough position.
It worked anyway. They did it.
They saved the stars, together!
They help fix everything on Grace’s ship, gives him the astrophage that he needs to get home and then says goodbye. Rocky knows they would never be able to forget him, knows that there would be nothing in his life that could replace the impact that he had made on it. The ways they have changed because of him.
Deeply it was like a piece of him was missing. He has a mate but this was something more than that. Something on top of all that, truly how lucky he was to have that.
Rocky’s journey continues steadily, he’s noting that the astrophage isn’t lasting like it should and whatever stops they put in doesn’t work, there’s a problem and the further he gets the more worried that they get. They have the answer to the problem to save the stars but there’s a problem and a problem that could doom his star.
He’s too focused on trying to figure out the problem to notice the approaching ship, until he hears the banging on the xenonite. It causes them to feel confused and to seek it out, confused and worried that this was the dreaming that Grace talked of. Since he was sure he could hear Grace and that was surely impossible. But it is him! Grace! Returned to him, returned to save him.
He gets on to Grace’s ship and listens to the explanation of what happened.
Rocky’s ship is lost, there is no saving it, but they decontaminate everything that they bring abroad, and they manage to save the last of the astrophage which hadn’t been eaten, enough between them that they know they can get to Erid.
“What about earth, question?” They ask with a double tap of one of their limbs.
“I sent my stuff on, it’s okay.” Grace says.
“Come to Erid, with Rocky,” They say as a statement more than a question, as assumption, it wasn't like Rocky would leave him there, not even if he could.
They journey back to Erid, slowly, steadily, but at lightspeed. Rocky realises as Grace begins to thin that there really isn’t enough food for him. Grace mentions it in passing, but he can sense the changes. It makes him sleep more, have less energy, and more nightmares. Rocky had never been bothered by Grace’s dreams before, but the bad dreams have increased seemingly tenfold. Bad dreams that leave Grace so exhausted it’s like he can’t rest properly, and Grace is already so exhausted.
“Tell Rocky about bad dreams,” He asks.
Grace turns his head towards him and he can sense when he then rolls his eyes.
“You don’t want to hear about my dreams, Rock.” The man says.
“We have nothing else to do,” Rocky replies.
“Fine. I just keep dreaming about how I left earth. This was a one-way mission, for me and two others, like I’ve said, but…my memories have been all over the place, disjointed, and I…I didn’t sign up to go. I was working on the astrophage, and I was involved in the planning for the mission, but….I wasn’t supposed to go,” Grace speaks tentatively, and Rocky feels worse with every word. They already knew their friend to be brave, to go on a death mission, but that he hadn’t or wasn’t supposed to go was worse.
“Importantly, I didn’t want to go. I, I don’t want to die you know, and I had nothing on earth but I had the kids in my classroom and I liked doing that and I didn’t want to die, alone in space, I knew I would suck at trying to kill myself. In the end, I didn’t get a choice. They told me I was going and I ran, ran until they held me down and forced me to sleep.” Grace says.
Rocky stays still and silent for a moment. They try to imagine anyone being forced on this mission. None of the Eridians who’d been with Rocky had been forced, they had all volunteered, and they had volunteered with a knowledge that it could go wrong but that should it go right they’d come back. To ask someone to do a mission that would’ve ended in their death was one thing, to force someone to do it was another.
Rocky was thankful for Grace, was thankful of all the humans it had been Grace that had been sent, their friend was clearly the best choice for this, the best choice for such a mission, but it pains them that they just didn’t even get a chance, they had had their memories taken from them, their agency taken from them, and were it not for Rocky, he would’ve died.
And he might still.
“I know you probably don’t think I’m brave now,” Grace says softly and Rocky makes a soft noise to stop him speaking.
“Grace still very brave, statement. Humans cruel to Grace, they…” he finds the word in Eridian, a rarely used one, and then Grace reaches for the laptop.
“Cause another’s death, intentionally,” Rocky describes and Grace gives the smallest smile.
“Murder” Grace supplements as he types it into the computer.
“Grace murdered by other humans, not make Grace less brave. You wanted more time with what you loved,” Rocky concludes.
One of their arms moving to Adrian’s mark, thinking of how he wouldn’t have signed up to a mission likely if there had been an exceedingly slim chance of success or living beyond it. He knew that he would've rather spend that time with the one he loved. But the mission he'd signed up for, had been one with enough food and fuel and hope. The deaths of his crew mates hadn't been inevitable as Grace's death had cleared been pitched as.
“Thanks, Rock. I guess the memories of what happened have been messing with my mind, with additionally everything else that has happened and is happening,” Grace says and Rocky lets himself focus on Grace.
Grace yawns loudly and Rocky presses in as close as is possible for him to do.
“Sleep, Grace. Rocky, watch.” Rocky says and they watch as Grace curls in closer towards his ball, how his eyes fluttered closed, and within minutes he can hear how Grace’s breathing has evened out.
Rocky has no idea what getting back to Erid will bring, he knows there is a chance Grace doesn’t make it, but Rocky also knows that he will never not be very happy to keep Grace safe and watch him sleep.
There is no one in the universe, besides his mate, that he would trust more to keep Grace safe as he slept than himself. Grace saved his life, possibly at the expense of his own and he will always work to repay that.
In time they reach Erid, in time they help nurse Grace back to health. In time they do spend less time watching Grace sleep, but he always remains close enough to be there for him when he needs it whenever he needs it, to help keep him safe.
In years to come, as Grace ages at a rate which Rocky both knew would happen and hated, they spend more and more time watching over him, keeping as safe as he can, until the day he slips from Rocky's grasp like his old crewmates into eternal sleep.
But for now in this moment aboard the Hail Mary, Rocky just watching him sleep and keeping him company and safe.