Chapter Text
The interstellar train ride goes smoothly, as it always does. Grace is used to it by now, but he makes sure to check in on Eva as they go. The speed can mess with your head if you’re not careful.
They chill out on the bed because it’s the most comfortable place to sit next to each other on the ship. Grace brought his keyboard, and so Eva sits with it in her lap, practicing the same short section over and over. He’s assured her that, despite their past differences, the Eridians will welcome her when they land. She’s approaching her welcome message with an intense, methodical concentration nonetheless.
Eventually, he drags the keyboard out of her hands, promising that there will be time later on in the trip to practice. They won’t be meeting the delegation right when they land anyway. Grace figured it would be better to show her around the biodome first and let her get accustomed to the gravity and xenonite suit.
She’s put back in good spirits by his offer to braid her hair. He whistles as he works, gently parting her hair down the middle and Dutch braiding each side. In the back, he combines them again, and then pulls along the edges to loosen the weave. He thinks the scallops will go well with the Eridian jewelry he has back at the house.
“When did you learn to braid?” she asks, using her phone camera as a mirror.
“I had pretty long hair for a while.” Grace scratches the back of his neck and wraps a lock around his finger. “Got tired of braiding it every day, though.” He likes it long, but he’s happy with the shoulder length it’s at now. It’s just long enough that he can pull it back, but not so long that it gets in his way or gives him a headache (he’d learned that the hard way, when he grew it out initially).
When the windchime sounds as they get close to Erid, Grace leads her back to the pilot seats and they buckle up. The beautiful blue rings fill their view. “Welcome to Erid,” he says with a flourish.
⸻
Eva stares, wide-eyed, out the window. The rings around the planet look similar to pictures she’s seen of Saturn, banded in different shades of the same color. But these rings are blue to match the planet, and it’s such a striking color that she blinks rapidly as she takes it in. It’s somewhere between the light blue-green of Uranus and the deep blue of Neptune. It’s beautiful. And to think, she’s only the second person to ever lay eyes on it.
It’s terrifying, there’s no ignoring it. She’s been tense this entire week leading up to the trip, enough so that Julia sat her down and made her talk about it.
Funny, how she can save the world and ship three people off on a suicide mission without a sweat, but meeting an interstellar species is where her confidence ends. She’s pretty sure they all want to kill her, though. It’s not like she can really blame them. She tried to kill one of their most revered figures on the planet.
Beside her, Grace smiles, the brilliant rings of Erid reflected in his glasses.
All but one want to kill her. Back in the days of the Project, she’d been unpopular. People had tried to sabotage them, to sabotage her. But she did it anyway, didn’t let it get to her.
She is here for him. Here because his voice was quiet and hopeful when he asked if she would want to come back with him one day. Because he’d lit up like a Christmas tree when she said yes and immediately listed off all the things he wanted to show her.
Years ago, against the railing of the ship, she’d given herself just a few moments. Two minutes to let her guard down the slightest amount, to let her heart lead instead of her brain. A miniscule fraction of her life to follow what she wanted, instead of what she needed to be.
She wants to be there for him, present with him, the way she couldn’t be during the Project. To be alive in her own life and his and do things because she wants to, not because the world is in her hands.
Even if it terrifies her.
⸻
On the landing platform, Grace sees Rocky and Adrian waiting for them and waves. Like always, he runs to the airlock and holds out his arms, waiting for Rocky to run into him. Even though he doesn’t sense through sound, he still clicks his rings together as he folds around his best friend.
“It’s a pleasure to harmonize with you again,” Adrian greets off to his right.
Eva dips her head. “And you as well, Adrian.”
When Rocky’s done checking him over, he turns and stops right in front of Eva. They stare at each other in silence.
“You were right.”
“I’m always right,” Rocky trills.
“Right about what?” Grace asks.
Both of them turn toward him. Behind him, Adrian snickers. Grace puts his hands on his hips and raises an eyebrow, putting on his best Tell Me Now face of Disapproval.
“You drool,” Eva says.
“What?”
“Disgust,” Rocky says.
Grace splutters. He’s starting to think that maybe he shouldn’t have asked for interstellar texting, if they’re just going to use it to… make fun of how he drools in his sleep?
“Only sometimes,” Adrian adds (un)helpfully.
Grace sighs and starts off down the tunnel. “This way,” he says with a wave. “It’s not far to my house.”
⸻
After he shows Eva around the biodome, they head back to his house to have dinner.
Grace takes stock of his kitchen, frowning. “I should’ve brought some normalburger back from Earth.”
Eva turns to him, blinking. “What?”
Grace scratches his neck. “It’s fine, there’s plenty in the garden we can cook instead.” He opens a cabinet and rifles through it. “I brought back some pancake mix last time too.”
“Grace.”
He pauses his search with a questioning hum.
“What is ‘normalburger?’”
Oh. Oops. Grace closes the cabinet and stuffs his hands into his pockets. “Ah, you know, normal… burger. From cows.”
Eva raises an eyebrow. “What is… abnormalburger.”
Somehow, in all this time, he’s forgotten to mention a critical part of his survival on Erid. Now is as good as ever, he supposes. He opens his fridge and grabs out a wrapped item, holding it up with a flourish. “That would be a meburger.”
Eva stares at him (judgmentally?).
“You could try it, if you wanted.”
“ROCKY?”
“Yes?” Rocky skitters in.
“Send me back to Earth,” Eva says.
Rocky tilts his carapace between the two of them.
Grace tosses the burger back in the fridge. “She’s joking.”
Rocky chitters.
“You are joking, right?”
“If you’re not, that can be arranged!” Rocky chimes in.
Grace slides a finger across the low and middle-high strings on his bracelet in disapproval.
⸻
After a (meatless) dinner, Grace sits her on the couch to fix her braid. It’s still nearly perfect, but he opens a box and hands it to her as he sits down. Inside are hair pins and other jewelry. He leans over her shoulder and plucks them out one by one, carefully placing them along the edges of her braids. The pins have arcs on the ends that follow the curve of the hair, with smooth, dark blue chips flaring out like sunbeams.
He takes out an ear cuff next and bends it gently to fit, then does the same for the other ear. They have similar blue accents, and it makes Eva look (charmingly!) a bit like a frilled lizard. The bottom of the cuffs have chips that dangle, creating a pleasant tinkling sound when she moves her head. A necklace follows, a mix of metal and stone charms that sound like a wind chime, and finally a few bracelets that he divides equally among her left and right.
Right as the last clasp clicks, there’s a knock on the door.
“Perfect timing!” he calls, and a moment later Rocky scuttles in. “How’d I do?”
Rocky clicks at Eva, then whistles in approval. “It’s beautiful! It only took I∀ parties for you to learn!”
“Way to be sweet and brutal at the same time, bud.”
Rocky tugs on his pant leg. “Go get ready. We have to leave soon.”
Grace hurries off to his room to change. He emerges a few minutes later with matching ear cuffs, his in a golden brown, and the front pieces of his hair pulled back to show them off. He shakes his head so that the dangling stones tinkle and then spins, his skirt flaring out and the metal sequins along the bottom ringing. On his arms are bracers made from a stiffer fabric, something like Earth leather, and when he notices Eva looking at them curiously he holds his arms out side-by-side, showcasing the design carved into them.
Beside him, Rocky puts his own two arms together.
“It’s our family crest,” Grace explains. He traces the lines as he explains what they mean, looking over occasionally at Rocky for verification. “And this one,” he traces the last line, different from the rest because it is wavy, rather than straight, “is new.”
Rocky had explained to him the intricacies of family crests back on the Hail Mary. What his represented, and how they were created over generations. He’d traced each line as he explained the ancestors, the home they came from, and their positions in society that were remembered with each carving.
Grace had cried for a long time when Rocky had gifted him the bracers and explained the new line that matched a fresh carving on his own arm. A Petrova line, wound around the end of his generation’s mark and pointed up and to the left, in the direction of Earth according to common Eridian space maps. Representing that Rocky had made First Contact and saved Erid from the Astrophage. And, once Grace had stopped crying enough to put them on, that the line represented the same thing for Grace, and marked him officially as part of the family.
He’d immediately burst into fresh tears after that.
⸻
Grace hands her the keyboard with a smile. “You’re going to do great.”
Eva takes it, hands hovering over the keys. She sucks in a breath, counting down from five before releasing it, and then plays, “My name is Eva Stratt. Thank you for welcoming me to Erid. I am honored to be here.”
The crowd murmurs a reply, and a moment later an Eridian spokesperson steps forward, speaking into a translator.
She stands still and tall, waiting for whatever is about to come her way. They didn’t sound mad, but she doesn’t speak Eridian. She assumes that Grace’s lack of reaction is a positive one.
“Erid is pleased you arrived safely. We are happy to welcome a second human to our planet. We hope that you learn much about us during your stay, and that we may learn of your history, too.”
It’s been a long time since she’s regularly spoken in a diplomatic capacity. After the Project, she’d largely retreated from the limelight. She’d never wanted the attention in the first place, and especially not after, when it would’ve drawn attention to everything she’d done.
Nonetheless, instinct kicks in and the next several minutes are a blur. She hands the keyboard back to Grace and answers questions while he translates as needed. It seems like all too long and yet over quicker than she expected, when they finally have no more questions for her.
Their attention switches fully onto Grace, and so she watches as he answers. His fingers dance over the keys with ease, music pouring out and over her. He speaks as he plays, for her benefit. He’s always had a musical voice, since coming back to Earth from Erid, but the effect is even more pronounced now. His words swoop and sway with the notes, and rather than a lilt, it’s like he’s singing along.
He laughs and jokes with them in a way she never imagined he could do, given how many of the same meetings he’d attended with her for the Project. He’d always seemed surprised when someone wanted his opinion, and then he’d give his answer quickly and sit down.
There is a confidence about him that he never had on Earth. And there is something alien—Eridian—about the way he acts, even more so than usual. It’s unfamiliar to her, but it fits him, like he’s always been meant for this. It’s a shame he had to come this far to find it.
Eventually, Grace’s attention comes back to her, and he leads her out of the conference room and back to the house. It seems strangely easy and uneventful. She can’t help but feel like there’s a reckoning still coming.
⸻
He’s a natural. It shouldn’t surprise her, given that she’d appointed him to train DuBois and Shapiro and first met him in his own classroom. It’s different, though, seeing him in front of the Eridian kids (Pebbles, he’d called them) and the effortless way he interacts with them. He’s always been a little awkward, and that hasn’t changed, but there is a confidence that underlies it here, like he knows that this is where he’s supposed to be.
She imagines a similar energy about him years ago, in a classroom in California. The one she’d dragged him from, to never return. The one that would make his eyes light up as he spoke about his students, even when the bags under his eyes betrayed that he had stayed up working in the lab all night again.
My place is in the classroom.
She’d brushed him off, because she knew he was making excuses for why he couldn’t go on the mission. But there was truth in his words. He looked for all the world at home in his lab, tinkering with the microscope and the duct tape and all the other thousands of dollars of equipment they had, but he looks alive, here, eyes crinkled in a perpetual smile, gait lighter than it should be in this double gravity.
Not for the first time, and not for the last, she thinks about everything the Project stole from him. And how if she had to do it all over, she would choose him again and again.
What kind of friend does that make her?
⸻
“Stamp your feet for our special guest speaker!” Grace introduces, waving Eva over. She joins him at his side and waves. The Pebbles whistle and squeal, excited to meet their second ever human. After a moment, he quiets them down, and then gestures to her. “Why don’t you introduce yourself? Tell us where you live, what you like to do…”
He leans against his desk and watches her as she speaks, occasionally interjecting to ask a question to his students to test their Earth knowledge. Eva talks about Germany, and her house, and what she and Grace like to do when he visits. The Pebbles hold on to her every word, eager to hear from someone who isn’t him. Not that they don’t like him, but he has only so many stories he can tell.
Eventually, Grace opens it up for Q&A time. The first few questions are simple as they warm up to the idea, but then…
“Are you the human who tried to kill Teacher Grace, question?”
Grace chokes. He watches her startle out of the corner of his eye for just a split second—anyone who doesn’t know her wouldn’t notice—and then her well-practiced, perfectly neutral mask slides into place.
He frowns and plays a note of disapproval on his keyboard.
⸻
She pastes on a half-smile, eyes carefully blank. She’s not entirely sure what Eridians can sense, but Grace can certainly see her face.
Wolves target the weakest sheep, and here on Erid, she is quite literally weaker. It doesn’t matter if Grace protests. He is only one against all of them, painfully fragile in comparison. The same way she is, the same way they could kill her in an instant. They would give her the fate she has had long since coming.
It would break Grace’s heart.
She owes it to him to stay. To smile like every step isn’t a reminder of what she’s done. Like she belongs here, like she could ever belong here, because it makes him happy. To play along in this happy fantasy. Even if she deserves something much worse.
⸻
“Yes, the Hail Mary was not intended to return to Earth,” she says evenly. “But sending Teacher Grace on the mission was never a decision I made lightly.”
The Pebbles murmur amongst themselves, and Grace decides to put it to rest before it gets worse for both of them. “Remember our conversation last week about appropriate questions to ask guests? What are our rules?”
His students dutifully list them off, and then once he’s confident they will be kind, respectful, and not ask questions about deeply personal topics the guest didn’t agree to speak about, he lets them raise their claws again. The rest of class goes smoothly, but he lets them go a few minutes before time, because if he were Eva, he’d be done.
“I’m sorry, I told them beforehand that questions like that were off-limits,” he says as soon as the last Pebble has been picked up.
“It’s in their nature to be curious.” She smiles, but he can tell it isn’t her real one.
He sighs, and gestures for her to follow him. They walk slowly down to the center of the beach and take a seat. He watches her out of the corner of his eye. She stares out at the waves, lips pressed in a line.
“I’m sorry,” he says again.
She turns to face him. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
He opens his mouth. Closes it. “No?”
She raises an eyebrow.
“That—they shouldn’t have brought it up.”
She shrugs. “What I’ve done is not a secret here.”
It’s not an accusation, just a statement, but he flinches nonetheless. What’s the phrase, don’t kiss and tell? Don’t get killed and tell, if you want to bring the person who ordered it to visit.
Sometimes he’s reminded just how strange his life is.
“It is nothing I can’t handle.”
He stares at her for a moment. “You think you deserve it.”
She doesn’t respond.
“Eva…”
She’s stubborn, just as much as he is, and he knows there’s very little he can say to change her mind. But… he wants her to be happy. It was stupid of him to bring her here, of course it would just be a reminder of everything she’s done.
“You can go home,” he says.
She shakes her head.
He turns his whole body to face her. “It’s your life, Eva. You don’t need to do things for the greater cause. You can just… do them because you want to.”
“After what I’ve done?”
He blinks. “Saving the world? Yeah, I think you can.”
Her face remains passive, but he can see her thinking.
“You don’t have to stay.”
She looks down between them and gently draws a line and a dot on the back of his hand. “I want to.”
He dips his head, trying to meet her eyes. They’re steady, clear. “Okay.”
She shifts so that their shoulders are pressed together and turns to watch the water. The wind machine kicks on and provides a gentle breeze. It kicks up the back of his hair, tickling his neck. It catches hers too, much longer as it is, and a strand ends up right in his mouth.
She laughs as he spits it out, and he makes a face at her in return. Then he feels a stray one still stuck, and grimaces as he tries to fish it out of his mouth.
“Ith’s thstill in there!” he complains.
Eva just watches him with amusement.
“I’ll be right back.” He scrambles up and makes for the house to get some water, and finally gets it out.
She’s still grinning when he gets back and he makes a face.
“Never coming back to Earth with you again,” he huffs unseriously as he sits back down.
She hums in the way that means she doesn’t believe him for one single second. She tucks her hair around the opposite side of her neck before she presses their arms close again. It’s warm against her side, and it’s the perfect balance with the cool wind.
“Why do you keep visiting?”
“What?”
“You belong here,” she says simply.
He nods. “I didn’t have many people on Earth.” He looks out at the waves. “I had Marissa, I had my kids. It was enough.” He turns to her, waiting until she meets his eyes. They’re sad, and he wants to reach out and smooth the furrow between them.
“It hurt, Eva. I’m not going to lie to you,” he says quietly. “Rocky offered to send me to Earth for years before I agreed.”
“What changed your mind?”
“The promise of coming back.” He smiles out at the waves and the sky. “I have my Pebbles. I have Rocky and Adrian. Armando and Mary aren’t bad company either. I couldn’t leave this forever. It’s my home.”
Eva presses her lips together, and he can practically see the thoughts rolling through her head. They don’t bring up the launch very often, but today seems to be the exception. He knows how much it weighs on her, and even though they don’t speak about it, it’s always there, this complicated ethical dilemma they’d found themselves in, a hundred feelings left unspoken, all tangled up between them that they really don’t want to pull on.
It’s in her eyes and the way she hesitates, so uncharacteristic of the confident, unyielding figure he once knew. She treats him sometimes like his time with her is fleeting, as if the world is going to steal him away. As if one wrong breath will send him running, even though leaving her forever is one of the last things he wants to do.
“Earth was my home, once. I never thought I’d see it again.” He inhales. Biodome air is so different, even if he can’t explain exactly why. “You and Carl and all my old students. You gave me a reason to come back. You made it my home again.”
She looks up at him and he rests his hand on top of hers. “I have an interstellar family,” he says with a grin. “And I have you to thank for it.”
Eva holds his gaze, searching for something, and she must find it because something in her eyes softens, some sort of worry easing its hold. She drops her head on his shoulder and he pulls her close, pressing a kiss to her hair. They watch the sunset play along the horizon in silence.
⸻
He comes to Earth much more than she goes to Erid, but they both prefer it that way. She, too, is getting old, but unlike him, she hasn’t spent years in double gravity. They both enjoy the comforts of 1G, and the warmth of the sun streaming through the living room window as they nap on the couch.
Julia likes to tease them, but now Eva just smiles. All they have is this one life, and she’s spent too much of it cold. So now she soaks in the sun, and the heat of her friend beside her, and smiles a real smile. Because she’s happy, because she can.
You don’t even have a dog. No one to take care of, no one to care for you, and no one to miss you when you’re gone. It’s what she’d once said to him, once considered about herself. Necessary sacrifices for the good of the many.
She hadn’t ever imagined either of them here. As far as she’d been concerned, their lives ended at the Project. No use considering a future that wouldn’t exist, right? Why imagine a home, when it was surely metal bars for her and a metal coffin for him?
But here they both are, different and older but still recognizable. Better people than they once were, allowed space to plant roots and grow beyond what they both thought was destined for them.
“What’re you thinking about?” Grace asks, voice lazy with sleep.
Eva hums. “The sun.”
He smiles and taps out a pattern on her arm before tucking her head into the crook of his neck and closing his eyes again. His other hand finds her free one and she traces his rings, then his bracelet, thinking about Rocky and Adrian and Carl as their stones sparkle in the sunlight, amber and green set opposite a red and a deep blue, a warm golden yellow in the center. Grace’s family, Eridian and Earthen both. Her family now, too.
She lets her eyes drift shut, comforted by the slow rise and fall of his chest beneath her hand. They are alive, they are known, and they are deeply, dearly loved.