Chapter Text
There's a knocking at the door, a loud metal thud. He shook Ilyukhina awake where she was dozing on his shoulder—a bit surprised that the noise didn't wake her.
Rocky, in a ball, excitedly scampering into their ship. “Hello friends Rocky here now.”
Foreign body detected. Yes Mary, he knew.
“Hey buddy!” Ilyukhina greeted, sprinting after him like she wasn't just unconscious—sometimes he's jealous of how high energy she could be.
“Why are you here?!” Grace startled at the sight of his friend's faster movements.
“Grace and Ilyukhina and Rocky do big science to kill astrophage together.” He ran off with the laptop that Ilyukhina forgot about, barely catching how many things Rocky kept spitting out.
“Dirty dirty dirty, this room messy.” Their sleeping pods, specifically his, not his fault he was too busy with Rocky to clean up after himself.
“Well, I wasn't expecting visitors!”
Ilyukhina agreed, “I've been trying to tell him that,” exaggerating the roll of her eyes, “boys.”
There's chaos, Rocky unaccustomed to his ball, slamming into everything. Grace lost count of how many things he's had to catch, Ilyukhina trying to contain him, skipping ahead to block Rocky from breaking anything.
“What's this, question?” Rocky asked after ramming into everything.
And then he heard an alarm.
Eye movement detected.
Oh no, his eyes widened, a new sort of fear struck into him. He caught Ilyukhina's expression, a similar grave look.
Commander Yáo.
They've been waiting for what felt like forever for their pilot to wake, and Grace regained some memories of him. He knew he was a fiercely loyal man, always boasting about his wife and child, he had a particularly soft spot for Ilyukhina's ways. But he also remembered him scolding the flight teams when they weren't paying attention, of the stern and powerful once military man.
He may not know the language, but he presumed Ilyukhina cursed in Russian, before saying, “of all times Yáo!”
Neither knew what his reaction would be to an alien being on his ship.
“Third human wake, question?”
“Uh yeah bud,” he stammered out.
“Amaze, Rocky meet new friend and we save stars!”
Grace felt a headache coming, there's too many things happening at once.
He heard Mary again, body movement detected.
Now, he's really trying to slow Rocky down, but there's little they can do against his faster pace. There's clangs and heavy banging as their little alien friend moved, Grace felt extra tired as he attempted to hold onto his ball, it's like trying to wrangle his younger children in phys ed. He did not expect the sheer strength Rocky had, it took both him and Ilyukhina's efforts to keep him in the room.
Another thud, noises from Armando buzzing about, mutterings in Mandarin, the footsteps nearing them.
A creak in the floors, he turned around slowly, feeling as if he were deer caught in headlights.
“What is going on?” And there's Yáo, hair still long, beard untamed, already dressed in his blue jumpsuit. Was he the only one unable to walk after the coma—and how was he already changed? The wires stuck out underneath, like he rushed over here, distantly, the medical robot arm following.
Rocky decided to roll himself forward, bumping into the ladder, “amaze amaze amaze.”
The room fell into a hush, all except Rocky and his computerised voice.
“Grace, Ilyukhina, what is this?” He sounded a bit out of it, expected from the coma, his tongue still catching up to his brain, yet his commanding tone was evident.
“Hey commander, you're awake!” was all Grace was able to muster out. He glanced between the three others in the room, where would he even begin.
Yáo gave him a pointed stare, realising he probably wouldn't get anything useful out of him and switched attention to Ilyukhina, “explain.”
“We met an alien!” she nervously chuckled, “meet Rocky,” gesturing at the Eridian who's still excitedly exploring.
“We go Petrova Line, we collect astrophage, we study, we go home, save Erid, save Earth!”
Grace decided then that was a good time to butt in, pinching his nose bridge, “yeah that explains it.”
And then Rocky's off and nearly colliding into Yáo's legs.
“Apology, apology, apology. Rocky new to ball.”
Okay, this was definitely getting to be a bit too much, he raised his hand for them all, “my hand is up.” It's been so long, he almost forgot his teacher voice.
“You can't just show up unannounced bud,” he spoke to him cautiously.
Rocky repeated the last words he said, and he doubted he was actually hearing anything he said. But at least Ilyukhina and Yáo stopped in their tracks too, there's a semblance of calm before Rocky exclaimed.
“Where my bedroom!”
Yáo spoke again, “all humans, come with me.” He did not wait for a response before turning up the ladder.
-
Up in the control room, as far from Rocky as they could get in such a small space, he and Ilyukhina did their best to give the commander a run down of the events.
Yáo had to sit down as he explained that Rocky was alone, that he was the only one left of his twenty-three. Still, he's wary of letting an unknown variable aboard, considering their space was quite limited. And Grace could understand that, but if he's also being honest, he didn't feel right leaving Rocky by himself, especially since they didn't know why he was the only one to live.
“Look, commander, I get it, but he's part of the team now, we can't just kick him out.”
Yáo considered his words, he nodded, “Ilyukhina, what are your thoughts?”
She stood next to him, hand slipping into his, and he knew how attached she was to him as well, “Rocky is smart—a mechanic like me, I vote we let him stay.”
“Okay,” the commander nodded, “if that's your consensus, then Rocky stays.”
Grace let out another breath, nodding, “I uh, have something to confess—don't be alarmed commander but I may have lost my memories.”
Static. Yáo did not respond for a second too long, his gaze shifted between his and Ilyukhina's, brows furrowed.
And again, he considered himself lucky that Ilyukhina was with him, “Grace has retained some basic memories—he knows how to do his science in any case, it's the in-between he hasn't remembered.”
Still, he swore he could see Yáo's internal thoughts, the way the wrinkles of his forehead became more pronounced.
“Muscle memories then?” The commander finally responded.
“Yeah, something like that—look I remember enough about the project, but yeah like Ilyukhina said, it's the events leading up to,” he waved around vaguely, “this, that I don't recall.”
Yáo, to his surprise, had taken that news with less composure than when he had first seen an alien. His hand clenched where it sat on his knee, looking away from Grace. He spoke to Ilyukhina in his Mandarin.
And he tried to pick up what the two were speaking about through their expressions, but all he could see was the pinched look in Yáo's eyes. Soon enough, the man turned to him again, standing as he laid a flat palm to his back.
“Dr. Grace, I am sorry you awoke to this, I know it must be difficult for you.”
Tears started stinging at the corners of his eyes, “yeah, it is a lot…I'm terrified to die you know.” He had to tear his face away from the concern of the other two, Ilyukhina reaching for his hand to squeeze it.
“But,” he swallowed against the lump forming in his throat, “I guess I found something to be brave for, like you said commander.” He tried giving to the two as best of a smile as he could manage.
“You are a good man.” Yáo lowly said.
-
Minutes later, the three found Rocky still sitting in the lab, Grace tried introducing him properly, “okay rock, Commander Yáo's our leader, and if you're part of this team, you got to listen to him.”
“What word, question?”
“Leader—that's the one who's head of the mission,” Ilyukhina continued.
“Oh understand, Eridian leader strong, but scary scary,” Rocky chirped, “Rocky do best to follow order.”
Yáo crouched down, hands raised as a sign of trust, “not scary—”
“Ehh, little scary,” Ilyukhina slightly shuddered, though Grace could tell she was just exaggerating by the grin on her face.
“Only when I have to be,” he glared at the engineer, “you are our guest, and a valued expert, as I've heard.”
A deep purr, “Rocky like this human!”
Grace laughed, the display between the two somehow making the military commander appear softer. “Hey, you didn't say that to me!”
Rocky rolled behind his legs, circling the three in a way that reminded him of a cat, “Rocky has no favourite yet.”
“Oh so it's a competition now?” Ilyukhina beamed, and part of him vied to receive that unofficial title.
-
He's holding the vlog camera, whispering with Ilyukhina, “we have a roommate now—he's very what's the word, bossy, tells us how and why and where things should go.”
“Ya, he has crazy good hearing, and he sees through walls.”
She looked back to where Yáo was distracting Rocky, keeping him from terrorising Armando, both of them hiding behind a wall even though it did nothing to block them from the insanely good Eridian vision.
There's another crash, he saw her wince, “I should go back—he's making us construct a bedroom for him.” She told the camera.
He reentered the frame, “which makes no sense, why move from a small ball into a bigger ball to sleep, he doesn't even use a bed!” Exasperation heavy in his tone.
“Who humans talk to, question?”
“No one!” They both called out.
“Rocky heard friends question Rocky, statement, friends lie.”
Yáo appeared, trying, and failing to roll the Rocky ball away from them, “you voted for this,” he reminded them, sarcasm in his grin, sparks in his eyes. Their commander had already gotten used to Rocky's ways, and somehow, he suspected that he even enjoyed Rocky's presence.
“Humans grumpy, when last sleep, question?”
Mary of course, had to make herself known, “conflict is normal amongst crew members.”
Ilyukhina, in an even more strained voice, “yes Mary, we know.”
Even Armando started waving his little arms around.
-
“So pointy end goes out or in?” Grace was holding another panel to the amalgamation that overtook a portion of their bedrooms.
“Pointed end on left, what not understand?” Rocky rolled around, bonking his legs.
Ilyukhina laughed, though she was not in any better position, seeing as she was made to hold the lower panels until their alien companion deemed it good.
“I don't understand why these weird shapes! Why not use nice equilateral triangles!”
“Eridian know xenonite better than human statement!” Rocky made a series of what Grace could only describe as colourful noises.
“He's not wrong,” Yáo nodded with his arms crossed, supervision he said, totally not an excuse to get out of helping.
Grace swung around, the large xenon piece moving with him.
“No no no, wrong way.” And when the engineer laughed, Rocky rolled over to her side, limbs poking at the ball, “friend hold panel too low, bad bedroom design.”
That made him groan, “you still don't need a bed!”
“Well Grace need bed now, statement. Grace dumb stupid dumb when no sleep.”
He repressed his urge to breathe out the casing sigh stewing in his lungs, “I would sleep if you figured out where you want your tunnels to go!”
Rocky flopped dramatically backwards, almost in exasperation, but Yáo patted the ball, “Dr. Grace, perhaps you leave this to Ilyukhina.”
“What—hey I need to sleep too!” she protested from her spot on the floor, but her own shifting moved the xenonite she was holding in place.
The room around them was a complete mess, too many tools strewn about. There was no way he could even rest as it was.
The commander observed him and the crew, then nodded rather decidedly, saying, “perhaps we all need a break, you included Rocky.”
“Let's eat then,” Grace decided, it felt too long since he had a proper meal.
-
“Humans look disgust when eat,” Rocky declared as the humans sat around in the central room.
He scoffed a little, more half hearted as he asked, “then show us how you do it,” as he was slurping up a noodle.
“Rocky eat beautifully!”
But the image of his companion was too much for him—as it was for the other two. Ilyukhina stifled a gag, as Yáo looked away. Grace tried to not frown, lest he accidentally cause a dispute between two worlds.
“Wow, that's exotic,” he commented, while Ilyukhina muttered about Rocky deep throating his meal.
-
Grace worked out why Rocky's crew died, they didn't know about things like relativity or radiation. When he told his friend, he heard a long and deep chatter, like the pull of a violin's bow, sorrow.
“The astrophage must have protected you bud,” he laid his hand over the ball.
“You couldn't have predicted this,” Ilyukhina also affirmed. That did not stop Rocky from mourning.
-
They finally had some bit of ‘alone’ time, Rocky sleeping as the three sat outside his newly constructed xenonite barrier. He and Ilyukhina were munching on some beef jerky, while Yáo was still on the slurry.
“Is Rocky aware we aren't returning to Earth?” Yáo broke the silence.
He shook his head, “I don't think we should, he's happy, we're working just fine and when we find out the solution, we'll just send him off to Erid.”
“He deserved to know, Dr. Grace, as you've said, he's a member of this team.”
“It would break his heart—”
“—do Eridians even have hearts?” Yáo asked.
“Doesn't matter,” Ilyukhina continued, “he already lost so much, what harm does pretending do?”
The man sighed, “I don't agree, but if Dr. Grace disagreed, then I'll drop the matter.”
“Wait, hold on, why does what I say matter? You're our commander here.” He expected more of a push back from his pilot.
Yáo cocked his head, “I am commander when it comes to the main mission, yes, but,” he stopped, “you were the second in command on the Vat.”
That made Grace pause, that can't be true, he was a scientist sure, and maybe the one to make first contact with alien life, but him? How could he have had such control? And Yáo was such a stoic man, it felt wrong to ever try and order him around.
“Dude, you didn't know that?” Ilyukhina kicked his shin, and when he frowned continued, “you were literally always at Stratt's side—why'd you think I let you take your helmet off? You know, you'd get away with a lot more things than the rest of us.”
He had another thought then, a smile that only he could procure, the light in her eyes, a voice she'd use only for him.
Eva, she'd let him call her by her name. Phantom touch, ghosts in his head, fingers running through his hair.
Where was she now? Alive, he'd hoped, somewhere the Sun could touch her back, she's always hated the cold, where the wind would blow and rustle the leaves, somewhere safe.
Another hand on his arm, Yáo this time, “Grace, are you back?”
He didn't miss the look of concern, but he pushed back any lingering feelings, he didn't like causing his team to worry.
-
“Do you know how to braid hair?” Ilyukhina requested.
He thought for a second, there were times he helped his students, the ones with longer hair, but only ever in a simple ponytail. “Sorry, don't think I do.”
“Come,” Yáo called over, he's taking the first watch, allowing them some undisturbed hours to finally catch up on their sleep.
She squealed, “ohh Grace get the camera, he's never done this before.”
“That isn't necessary for our logs.”
“Maybe, but it's fun, let a girl live a little before she dies,” she brought over her comb, settling on the floor in front of Yáo's legs, “afraid the world would see our fearsome commander being soft?”
Yáo shook his head in amusement, “how many hours have you filmed already?”
Grace watched the scene, the vlog log propped up, how relaxed his two crew mates have been. It's domestic, sweet, Yáo brushed and parted Ilyukhina's hair with ease, a practised movement clearly, and when he asked about it, Yáo beamed to talk about his wife and daughter.
If he were to close his eyes, he could pretend this was another normal night. That they were back on the Vat, sharing drinks in the lounge, that they'd wake up tomorrow to the heat of the Sun, the smell of ocean breeze. To solid ground and their fellow compatriots.
It reminded him painfully of what they're fighting to protect, these moments of life and love that belonged solely to humanity. Their oasis of life.
He let himself believe that whatever this was wouldn't come to that eventual end.
“Grace, it's your turn.” Yáo called him over.
“What, my hair isn't long enough?”
Ilyukhina scooted aside, patting the space she occupied, “no, but I don't think I've seen you brush your hair once.”
“I did when I cut it,” defending himself, yet he still moved over, not about to deny the rare moments of Yáo's cuddly side. Hands started running through his hair, okay maybe it was a lot more than tangled.
Ilyukhina extended her legs to lay in his lap, “and how long ago was that?”
-
They're huddled in the lab, the model he and Ilyukhina made of the star system on display.
“Do puppet show, statement.” Rocky demanded.
“No, I don't want to,” Grace squatted to his companion's level.
He started thinking out loud again, about the interception they wanted to do, but they'd only have a few seconds of contact time within the actual Petrova line considering that the ship would be in constant motion as well as the solar system, and they don't even know what they'd encounter, so they have to be quick with it if they wanted to collect a decent sample.
“I want puppet show too.” Ilyukhina said, a whine in her voice as she stood at Rocky's side, “slow down science man.”
“Come on guys, I don't—”
Yáo raised his hand, “you've been outnumbered, do puppet show, command.”
“So now we're talking like Rocky?!”
A resounding note of joy, “Rocky talk beautifully!”
He did the puppet show.
-
“We could just orbit the planet,” Yáo suggested, still making him use the xenonite figures.
“Yes, use planet gravity to move with line.”
The commander and Rocky both looked smugly as they said that, Yáo high fiving the xenonite barrier, darn it, Grace did not think of that.
“Rocky, Yáo smart, Grace not.”
-
In bed that night, he heard a whisper.
Ryland, the voice called out, he's groggy, and his limbs protested the excess movements, but he opened his eyes to see her pinned under his arm, her rubbing sleep from her eyes.
He was there, in her room, a sacred moment of respite, they, in each other's arms. Eva.
Her voice whispered his name, sweetly, softly, like his name belonged to her lips.
She held on, nails dragging the length of his spine, his head laid in the crook of her neck.
He didn't want to get up, her body a flame, and he, a moth. Warm, she smelt like home, and he'd give anything to be in those arms again.
When he properly awoke to Rocky's chirps and Ilyukhina's laughter, he felt a tear roll down his cheek, an empty cavern he couldn't fill.
-
The Hail Mary was accelerating at one hundred and sixty-two kilometers per second, making arrival time to Tau Ceti E at just over eleven days. There's a lot of spare hours to kill, the deaths of their stars, and the only people here to solve it must sit around still waiting to arrive.
Grace noticed that when they're all a bit too tired, language between them devolved quickly into primitive points and grunts, like cavemen learning fire, many meal times spent huddled around each other, no other words spoken.
Who knew space travel further than any human made object ever went would have taken so much energy out from them. He caught Ilyukhina on her third coffee in the five hours she woke.
He's also noticed that his friends’ accents all got thicker as the hours they spent up increased, even Rocky sometimes didn't understand, especially as words started stumbling.
At some point, Ilyukhina took that as an incentive to switch the language software to Russian, teaching Rocky so that she didn't have to translate herself.
Darn his American schooling system and their inability to introduce second languages. How did he live on the Vat surrounded by multicultural people and only pick up their swear words.
Trying to stop Rocky from repeating those curses reminded him again of his students and their impressionable little minds.
There's another time when he stubbed his toe on one of the metal table legs in the lab. Grace kneeled over on the floor, letting out the highest pitched yelp. For all the complexities of the human design, being rendered useless over the smallest phalanges was not a good part of it.
“Why Grace on floor question?” Rocky rolled over to where he laid.
“I hurt myself bud, it's alright.” It was not, his toe flipping hurt.
“Hurt not okay, why hurt?”
He just groaned again, the little traitor of his bone flaring up his foot.
Yáo answered for him, “humans are little clumsy sometimes,” crouching to where he clutched his toe, hand ruffling his hair, “but that is also why we have shoes, Grace, and why we don't walk around barefoot.”
“Why humans soft, question? Rocky design better, statement.”
The next day, Ilyukhina cut her finger on a sharp edge of xenonite, prompting Rocky into saying, “human design bad bad bad, always leaky.”
Which she responded with, “wait till you hear about female anatomy.”
-
“Annie would've loved you,” Ilyukhina said one day, watching him and Rocky talk about their biology.
“DuBois too, though I can't imagine what his reaction would have been,” Grace smiled at the memory of the two astronauts, how analytical DuBois had been, how little seemed to phase him. How Shapiro jumped at the chance to learn more, another ball of sunshine on the Vat.
“More humans, question?”
“Yeah bud, friends that didn't make it.”
Yáo walked over, “Martin was afraid of spiders, he might have needed some time to warm up to you, Rocky.”
“Rocky not spider, Rocky has five legs.”
“You look alike though.”
“No.”
“Yep,” he popped.
“No, statement.”
“Ah but you are my spider,” Ilyukhina laughed, to which Rocky conceded.
-
“Wait—Eridians have five hearts?” Another day of waiting meant more biology lessons between the two.
“Yes yes, one at each joint, support mercury blood in body.”
“Interesting, on Earth, some animals have multiple hearts too—like octopus.”
Ilyukhina perked up, “oh! I know that one, they have three right?”
“Points for you,” Grace high fived her, “you'd fit right in with my students.”
And they talked well throughout the midday meal Yáo forced into his hand—which made Rocky leave the room for a brief moment as he proclaimed loudly that human eating still disgust.
But as they finished, the conversation continued—shifting naturally into digestion and food.
Rocky tried explaining the conditions of Erid that led to their evolution of their waste expulsion system—which made Ilyukhina declare then that Eridian design weird—which then led to another small argument between the two species.
Grace couldn't disagree with her either, having to expel waste through the same orifice as they eat was certainly not…appealing to hear. He could however appreciate the energy maximisation.
“So what does your food taste like?” He tried diffusing the two.
Rocky considered for a momemt what to say, “Eridians do not taste like human, Eridians like texture of food.”
“Humans do too, but we do appreciate taste much more—even if the food isn't particularly good for us.”
“Explain.”
There were a few examples he could think of, he gestured to the cup of coffee Yáo was holding, “that contains caffeine, a compound we can drink in small doses, but excess can lead to overdose—on a technicality it's kinda like poison.”
A sound of low horror, “humans poison themselves, question?”
“Humans do a lot worse than that—we eat things with capsaicin, which does hurt us.”
“Bad bad bad,” Rocky pulled back in the tunnel, then shook his carapace, “why hurt self.”
“For fun,” Ilyukhina giggled at the dramatic display from their alien friend.
“You two are terrible at explaining human culture to him,” was all Yáo had to say.
-
They spent a lot more of their time in the don't kill yourself just yet room, Ilyukhina's name for it, showing Rocky scenes of Earth. So far, forests were his favourite part, mountains a close second, Grace tried pushing his beach agenda, but Rocky wanted to see more of the streches of land.
Ilyukhina then found a microphone, which lead to serious karaoke battles between them.
It's honestly a bit silly and carefree in a way he didn't expect he'd experience at the end of his life. Yáo had a decent voice, switching between Mandarin and English songs, dueting with Ilyukhina when she requested.
She played a lot of Cats the musical, he's more of a Hadestown guy himself, but they find common ground with Anastasia and Hamilton.
That then evolved into questions about home, their loved ones, and even mates.
“I miss my mate.”
Grace pushed himself off Rocky's ball, craning his neck as he heard what his friend had just confessed. “You have a mate?”
Ilyukhina gasped, she was always one for the scandals and ship gossip, “what's their name?”
And Rocky let out a beautiful song of long whale like whistles, a softened purr, chimes in the wind.
“Friends have mate, question?”
Yáo responded quickly, boasting proudly of his wife, their twenty years of marriage, he even went to retrieve his photos, describing them in full to Rocky. The trills and happy clicks resounding.
Ilyukhina answered next, hers more melancholic, “I cut all connections after being chosen,” she laid on her back, eyes distantly staring into the canopy background. “My family would be dead in the time it took us to do our mission, my father was already old, so.” She shrugged again, “but it's okay, I do this for them anyway, for all our people.”
She diverted her response by poking him with her foot, “does Grace have mate, question?”
And he hesitated, he's not even sure himself, what was his relationship with Eva?
“Maybe, at some point, but I can't really remember right now,” yet he knew that wasn't the full truth, not when his heart sank at the thought of her.
He wouldn't get to see her again, would never truly know what they were or what they could have been.
Ilyukhina sat up again, gave him a very pointed gaze, like she knew something he didn't, before pulling his head into her elbow to tousle his hair. Even Yáo clasped his hand to his back, the contact seeped warmth into his skin.
“But enough of that guys, Rocky you have a mate,” he pointed to his ball, “how long have you been together?”
“One hundred and eighty-six point three years.”
How long did Eridians live? That's older than all of their ages combined.
“Honeymoon phase," Yáo joked, smiling as he recovered from the shock.
“No understand.”
And he chuckled softly too, “he means that's a long time bud.”
Rocky raised one claw to run over the embedded stones in his other hand, the two that intertwined, “is not enough.”
And again, he felt an ache in his chest, the hurt of wanting more. He didn't get that time with her, and he wondered if she thought of him kindly too.
-
“What are those markings on your body?” Grace asked before the crew went to bed.
Rocky inched forward in his ball, settling between his legs so that he had a better view, he pressed two limbs together, “family name and tribe.”
“Ohh, that's what you were telling us when we met.”
“Yes yes yes! This is Rocky mate stone, mate has matching.” His friend excitedly waved that arm, causing the other two to come nearer.
Ilyukhina crossed her legs, sitting right next to Grace, Yáo now in front of them. She made them roll their sleeves up. “We have something similar, though not for mates—look matching tattoos!”
“What word, question?”
“Humans sometimes choose to inject ink into their skin,” he pressed his arm against the xenonite, “can you see the pattern?”
“Blurry but yes—swirled with lines, what mean?”
Grace pulled his arm back, staring at the ink at the base of his right hand, he hadn't yet unlocked that memory.
Yáo patted his shoulder, “before we came on this mission, Ilyukhina suggested we all get something to commemorate our time in the Petrova taskforce.”
“We got Stratt in on it too—you don't remember?” When he shook his head she waved at him, “it'll come back—she liked this sun design, so that's what we got. And for what it means, it's just a reminder of what we're fighting for.” Ilyukhina smiled brightly, she may as well compete with the sun.
A flash of that moment came back, his hand gripping Eva's own, her fear of the needle, she, the last to receive the tattoo. How Ilyukhina even convinced her—playing the suicide card, but it was only him and her together, the other astronauts heading off to dinner before him and Eva.
He blinked again, realizing he was staring off into the wall.
“Wait, I thought Roscosmos didn't allow that?”
“Seemed you remember—what could they do, I work for the world, not just them,” his friend nudged his shoulder, before turning back to Rocky pointing to another one of his limbs, “what's this one?”
And they took turns asking each other about their respective species, until Yáo forced them all to sleep, commander's orders.
-
It's even later that he remembered the crew in the bar. How alive they all felt as their world was coming to a slow conclusion. How he sought her out atop the deck, how awkward and nervous she rendered him.
She sang so beautifully, her walls coming down as she did this for them, for him. The room stilled for her, everyone under the trance that was Eva Stratt singing. Her eyes looked for his, and he caught them without thought, she bared her heart empty for those short minutes.
Remember everything will be alright, we can meet again somewhere, somewhere far away from here.