Chapter Text
Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary,
that never was it known
that any one who fled to thy protection,
implored thy help,
or sought thy intercession,
was left unaided.
Inspired by this confidence,
We fly unto thee,
O Virgin of virgins my Mother;
to thee do we come, before thee we stand,
sinful and sorrowful,
O Mother of the Word Incarnate,
despise not our petitions,
but in thy mercy hear and answer them.
Amen.
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"What's two plus two?" Were the first words that Ryland Grace heard when he woke up on the Hail Mary. And after discovering bodies of his dead crewmembers he believed that the feminine robotic voice would be the only one he would ever hear before his inevitable death in space. Of course, not like he discovered all this at once. His mind was empty, leading him more on muscle memory than anything that he could remember.
After commanding two bodies to the stars, there was only one remaining. There was a fourth bed, right next to the now empty three. The body was laid on it, but the small monitor was reading "stable" on the green background. When Grace got closer to the woman he couldnt remember, there was something he felt. A weird sensie of familiarity. He didnt recognize her features, but was able to name her nationality, more or less. She was tanned, her hair was thick, black and curly. Face a little round, but her jaw still square. Ryland couldnt see her eyecolor, but he could swear it would be brown. She looked european, as if that said much. Maybe like someone from around Mediterrean Sea? He wasnt sure how did he know that, but he did. Maybe she told him or just looked like it.
While staring at the womans expressionless face, covered with oxygen mask and tube, his brain was trying to grasp some memories. However, just when he thought he was getting somewhere, everything was becoming blurred again. There was no pictures in his mind. But there were feelings. She was... Warm. Softest of them all. But this was it. He didnt know who she was, and what was her name. He also didnt know when will she wake up. If she ever will. Still, he got hope - she wasnt dead.
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The sea was stretching endlessly, blending with the clouded sky above. Everything had grey tint, the weather was windy and it looked cold. A distant figure stood at the shore, the waves were washing their bare feet, sinking in the sand. The person was facing the water, all I could see was her long and curly black hair. They didnt move, while the wind was playing with their dark strands. I also couldnt move. Everything felt heavy and... Odd. Like all this wasnt real, but at the same time was unsettingly realistic. I couldnt move my gaze anywhere other that at this person. I tried to move. Everything ached and my body still felt like it was tied to the ground. I couldnt even feel the sand texture below my feet.
After some time, that I couldnt actually name, I tried moving again. I made a step. Then another, and another. My whole body ached as if muscles forgot how to operate. Every movement was slow like I tried to walk through deep waters, or something more dense. The struggle was painful and terribly slow. But I was pushing forward, untill I have reached the waves and mysterious person. They were within my reach and slowly I lifted my heavy arm to touch their shoulder. When I did, they immediately turned around and the womans face was right in front of me, staring through my soul. She grabbed both my shoulders.
"Wake up, Lessie." She said and despite finding this moment unsettling, her voice felt familiar in the same way as her face. Everything started to become blury and then completly dark, as I started to fall onto my back. A single convulsion ran through my body the same way it sometimes does when your brain thinks you are dying while falling asleep too fast.
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"Heart rate elevated." The feminine robotic voice sounded through the ship, which immediately caught Rylands attention. Whos heart rate was elevated? Then he remembered the mysterious woman laid in the bed next to his long gone crewmembers. He jumped in place and then immediately stormed back into the room where he himself previously woke up.
"Eye movement detected." Mary spoke again, the same as she did with Ryland when he first regained his consciousness.
"Whats two plus two?" He heard again, the first question that reached his ears a couple of "days" before. Grace leaned against the edge of the bed and looked carefully across the womans face. Her eyelids were twitching, so her eyes were indeed moving. But she didnt open them, at least not yet. If her heartrate was increased, she certainly had to be awake. She couldnt open her eyes, but probably could hear him. It could happen during waking up from medically induced coma. Grace experienced it himself, not able to regain control over his own body for a longer while when he woke up. He was excited not to be alone anymore, but at the same time the scientist in him was screaming at him to calm down.
"Hey, listen to me, I know you might be confused and scared ans probably tired, but you are safe, okay? You were in coma, your body needs to adjust to itself again. Dont fight it, everything will be alright." He explained quickly, hoping that she could understand english. Well, it would suck if she couldnt but it was also highly not likely. Obviously, he saw letters in four languages when he was inside Marys control room - english, chinese, russian and italian - but he assumed it was just for more comfortable understanding of more complicated technical vocabulary. The crew had to understand at least one common language, right?
"Heart rate decreasing. Heart rate stable." Ryland left out relieved breath after hearing robotic voice. Incresing heartbeat was normal but to a certain point. She was certainly panicking but his reasurrance let the woman ease down a little. She still didnt oper her eyes, but when he himself woke up, at first he fell back asleep. It took him a while to adjust, and its going to take her some time too. But he was glad she was alive and awake now.
"Oh dear, you dont know how happy I am you're alright. At least I think you're alright, I mean- you look good. Well, fine. Well- you know what I mean, at least I hope you do. Anyway, everything will be okay, just... Take your time to wake up and dont mind the robotic voice at all. She might be pushy sometimes. Especially about math questions. But dont worry, you will be able to talk soon, when you regain your ability to breath on your own. Gosh, Im talking too much, but Ive been alone for some time." It wasnt actually that long, only couple of "days". In the meantime he managed to remember about the Astrophage and his own name. And the fact that he was a schoolteacher. That explained why he needed to talk so much, he used to do it in front of class filled with teenagers. He had to be a yapper to be a teacher, but it wasnt something he remembered fully yet.
"Okay, so... You just slowly go back to yourself and I will be there this whole time. Like, not right next to you but... Around, lets say. I wont explain anything yet, because I dont know how much you remember. But we will get there eventually." He made a few steps backwards, giving the woman space she might want or need. Every individual was waking from coma in their own pace. If it took him relatively short time, it could be a lot longer for her. He had nothing else to do than wait.
"Im going away, but like I said I will be around." Ryland stood there for a moment longer, just looking at her face covered in freckles. No memories of her came yet. Maybe they will, maybe they wont. In the best case scenario, she will just remember more than him and they will talk about it. But not yet.
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Everything was dark. I kept waking up and falling back asleep. At least I think it was sleep, because there were different... Things I kept seeing. Maybe memories? Not really dreams, still with the same woman whom Ive seen before, so I assume she is someone close to me. But Im not sure who. When I was awake, there was only darkness before my eyes and a voice. Two voices, actually. One kept asking me what is two plus two, question so short and simple I heard it without any problem. The other voice was a lot more chaotic and definitely male. He kept... Rambling and rambling and I couldnt really place about what. My head was only aching more and more.After couple of series of waking up and dreaming, I could finaly open my eyes and, oh wow, wiggle my toes. Who would have thought I would ever be so happy to wiggle my toes.
"Eye movement detected. Whats two plus two?" Something about hearing this question for God knows which time irritated me. But that was about it. Until I recognized a feeling inside my throat, an uncomfortable pressure which forced me to take a manual breath. That was when I started to choke.
"Proceeding with the extubation." The feminine voice said and weird robotic arms descended from the ceiling above me. Then I noticed that everything was white... But not the hospital sterile white, there was a lot of grays too. Some pannels, weird steel-or-whatever materials and textures. It wasnt a normal room, it felt more like my fathers garage but paint it white. Wait, how do I know that?
The arms reached me and pulled up the oxygen mask from my face along with the endotracheal tube, which name's I did not expect to know. Immediately after that, my body was forced into coughing up PFC liquid. I was in coma, that one was certain. But that also meant that despite remembering myself in a very foggy way, I still had my knowledge... Whatever it was? Something biological maybe, I remember the full name of this irritating fluid in my lungs and its whole purpose.
I began to look around a bit more, trying to understand what the hell was this place. Nothing was comming into my mind about the surroundings and still I couldnt really see much. My head wasnt cooperating with my mind yet and it didnt want to turn to any side. Not even a milimeter.
"Whats two plus two?" The robot said again and my gaze returned to the arms in the ceiling. I kind of felt like in some car factory because of that.
"Ughm..." A pathetic mumble escaped my throat but that wasnt surprising, considering the E-Tube.
"Icorrect. Whats two plus two?" I swear to God- My manual breathing barely came back to me and Im supposed to talk immediately after? Yeah, sure, seems reasonable enough. My next desperate attempts to at least rise up a hand were met with more failures. Which was frustrating, despite being entirely normal. Why was I in the coma in the first place? I dont think I had an accident or something, but Its easy to say when I dont really feel anything nor have control over any muscles. And this place still didnt start to look like a hospital, so... I dont know, an experimental facility and I was kidnapped.
"Fffyghh..." I tried to speak again, my throat was sore which was another not surprising thing here. Not really a progress.
"Incorrect. Whats two plus two?" Ive had enough of this bullshit, the voice was so irritating I just couldnt take it anymore. How many times did she have to ask??
"AAAAGHHHHH!" I just yelled, because there was not much else to do in my current state and place. The robot asked me once again the same stupid question, but I didnt even manage to stsrt to cry when someone deffinitely ran into the same room where I was. My eyes couldnt see them entering, but a blurry face quickly hovered above me.
"You're awake! You're really awake! Oh, wow, Im so glad." I blinked couple of times and caught myself being able to squint. The man had dirty blond hair and blue eyes hidden behind croocked glasses. Still, no words left my mouth.
"Okay, listen-" he started. "I know you cant move your limbs yet, so we gonna do it the easier way, with blinking. Blink twice if you understood what I said." He moved away a little, not hovering anymore but still in my looking range. I didn blink twice, in fact. He was talking in english, but the accent was... Basic? Really easy to understand and quite plain. It was his first language in contrary to me. My thoughts were in italian all this time, but I didnt question it when the robot asked me about this stupid equation in engish. It came to me naturally, so I was fluent in both languages, that was certain.
"Okay, cool. So, two blinks are yes, and one blink is no. Do you remember anything?" His voice was filled with hope, which made me feel suspicious. Should I remember anything or not? Did he remember anything? I wasnt sure what should I remember, but certainly I did remember something. Just didnt know if it was relevant. So the answer was yes, and I blinked twice. Relieved exhale left his lungs and I just knew he thought I meant something more than foggy pieces of my own life, unrelated to this weird canister we were in.
"Great. Do you know who am I? Do we know eachother?" He asked another question and without giving it a thought I just blinked once. My mind had no memory of this cute guy, whoever he was. Although, the same weird sense of familiarity was present around him. Before he could ask me another question, my eyelids began to feel heavy. I got tired and sleepy again, but it had to be my body not handling being awake for such long time after being in coma for... God knows for how long.
"Ahh, not now- Alright, you should rest more. Im sorry, I shouldnt just squeeze information from you like this. We will talk when your body will be adapted better." He ran a hand through his messy short hair, leaving it still messy. He understood the aftermath of coma because he was some sort of scientist, or just because he went through it. Both were very likely.
Everything became blurry and then just dark.
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