Chapter Text
Lying on your back you saw the simulated ocean stretch endlessly before you until it melted into the pale blue sky. The foggy horizon made the sky and horizon blur until they came one. The relaxing moment was somehow bittersweet in ways you couldn't quite place. Maybe it was because this beautiful illusion reminded you of everything you had left behind.
Closing your eyes you heard seagulls in the distance and the waves hitting the shore which carried an invisible breeze. If you concentrated hard enough, you could almost imagine the warmth of sunlight against your skin instead of the recycled air of the Hail Mary. The environmental screens were astonishingly convincing. They couldn't reproduce the scent of saltwater or the feeling of sand beneath your fingers instead of the hard metal beam your back was laying on.
You felt as if you could lay here for the rest of your life. If time stopped here, at this moment, you would be happy.
Your fingers tightened around the meal tube you had been given from the robotic arms. The robot, who you and Grace call Mary, had informed you that it was meal two, day seven. On today's menu it was some sort of heavenly spaghetti and meatball. Of course in tube format. It was basically baby food, since your stomach has not gotten used to whole foods. Grace had been awake two days more than you which means he gets to eat almost solid foods bynow instead of mush in a tube. You could only dream about the day when you could eat solid foods and experience textures instead of baby food.
Squeezing out the tasty puree into your mouth which had, to your surprise, started to include chunks of pasta as your digestive system recovers. Each little chunk felt like a luxury. After days of eating what was essentially astronaut baby food, even the smallest change in consistency was exciting.
Your eyes wandered toward Grace who sat beside you. His thoughts somewhere else as his gaze were focused on the horizon. He must be used to the beach, you thought, since you remembered that he lived in San Francisco back on earth. If it wasn’t for the hard metal platform you were lying on you could believe that the two of you were truly on a beach trip together.
Together the two of you had explored every nook and cranny of the ship, opening compartments that neither of you had known existed. You had helped Ryland familiarize himself with the laboratory equipment, laughing whenever one of his little test experiments became more chaotic than scientific. You felt proud of him whenever he discovered a memory of a lab instrument's name or fun facts about science. You found it interesting yet amusing whenever he remembered something from back on earth, and all the mathematical formulas he knew in the back of his mind. In return, he'd happily surrendered the cockpit to you, despite the fact that you already remembered every control and procedure. He still insisted on sitting in the co-pilot's seat while you walked him through flight systems, asking questions that occasionally made you wonder how he'd ever managed to become an astronaut since he seemed almost clueless about every control. All these hours wasted on extra simulator training.
During your search for new knowledge of the ship you discovered that every Wikipedia article had been downloaded to the ships database. Same with almost every book written, every song recorded and every movie filmed. The amount of media stored in the ship's digital library was enough to keep two people occupied for several lifetimes. You had spent most of your days reading and listening to music when you weren’t working.
You and Grace had made it a habit of sharing media with each other every evening. This in turn made you both discover new movies but also bond over already shared interests.
"You've never heard this one?" Grace asks as he puts on some niche Math rock song that probably has under 10 000 streams back on earth.
"No."
"Oh, we're fixing that."
Little by little your new life on the ship had started to feel ordinary. But beneath the new routine lived another feeling that you couldn't quite place your finger on.
Loneliness wasn't the right word, Grace had made sure of that.
It was something more physical.
Every contact with Grace before the coma had been professional. The kind of contact that meant nothing because it wasn't supposed to.
You thought about the last truly human touch you'd felt.
Your thoughts drifted unwillingly back to the burial.
Ryland's arms wrapped around you while your world fell apart.
Hearing his heartbeat beneath your cheek.
The steady warmth of another person reminding you that you weren't facing grief alone.
You hadn't realized then how desperately you would miss something so simple.
You found yourself noticing every accidental brush between you and Ryland.
His shoulder bumping yours while the two of you squeezed through a claustrophobic maintenance hatch.
His fingers briefly wrapping around your wrist to stop you walking into a low pipe while you are distracted reading a display.
The way he'd instinctively steadied you whenever your recovering muscles gave out.
Each touch had lasted barely a second.
But each one lingered in your thoughts far longer than it should have.
But were these feelings forming because of him?
Or would you have felt exactly the same toward any other survivor after a week of isolation?
Your mind refused to come up with an answer. Instead, it replayed moments you shouldn't have been looking back on.
Holding onto his steady forearm while trying to take your first steps after years of being in a coma.
His face only inches from yours as both of you leaned over the same display, completely unaware of how close you'd drifted until you looked up at the same time.
Falling asleep beside each other in the cupola window after spending hours watching the stars.
None of those moments had meant anything and you refused to become the kind of person who mistook loneliness for love. Ryland had been nothing but kind since the moment you woke and kindness certainly wasn't something you had any right to build fantasies around.
Your gaze drifted toward him yet again.
He was sitting close enough that if you stretched your free hand only a little farther your fingers could reach his.
Maybe your hands would simply rest side by side, maybe your fingers would brush and just maybe he'd lace his fingers through yours.
The thought made warmth spread through your chest before embarrassment chased it away just as quickly.
Don't.
You looked back toward the simulated sea.
Don't make this strange.
If you reached for him and he would pull away…
The memory would follow you for the rest of your life, and probably his too.
On the cramped ship there was nowhere else to go and it would be impossible to escape the awkwardness that would follow the two of you for the rest of your lives.
No.
It was safer to keep your hands to yourself.
Even if every part of you longed to close the small distance between them.
In the end you remained exactly where you were, your free hand resting quietly against the cool metal beneath the projection of sand, wondering if Ryland was fighting the same battle in his own mind, or if you were seeing meaning where there was only friendship.
The peaceful rhythm of the waves vanished in an instant.
ENGINE CUTOFF
Every screen in the room froze and displayed the warning in bold letters.
Your body reacted before your mind had time to.
The half-finished meal tube slipped from your fingers and bounced across the metal floor as you pushed yourself upright. The calmness you had managed to build over the past hour evaporated, replaced by years, well decades, of training taking over. Your pulse increased rapidly, yet your thoughts became clear.
Beside you, Ryland had already scrambled to his feet. The confusion on his face lasted only a heartbeat before his eyes found yours, instinctively searching for an answer he thought you had.
"What happened?" he asked, with a slight panic in his voice.
"I don't know yet."
You were already moving towards the latter.
"Come on." You demanded.
You spun toward the ladder leading to the cockpit, grabbing the rungs two at a time as your still-recovering muscles protested the sudden effort. Behind you, you heard Ryland mutter something under his breath before following immediately after, his hands slipping once against the polished metal.
"Little warning next time?" he called breathlessly.
"I'll schedule the emergencies better."
Despite everything, you heard him snicker under his breath.
"I'd appreciate that."
The familiar latter rushed past in a blur as your heart hammered against your ribs.The realization of sudden responsibility settled heavily in your chest as you ducked into the cockpit.
The compact flight deck felt smaller than you remembered, every display glowing with red warning lights while status reports scrolled across the consoles faster than your eyes could read them.
Without thinking, your feet carried you toward the right-hand seat.
The co-pilot's station. Your supposed station.
Your hand was already reaching for the restraints before your brain caught up.
You froze.
The movement lasted barely a second.
Then your stomach dropped.
No.
Not anymore.
That wasn't your seat.
Your eyes drifted almost involuntarily toward the empty command chair.
For one impossible moment, you expected Commander Yao to be there already. You could see him sitting calmly reading through diagnostics before issuing orders in that steady, reassuring voice of his.
You almost heard him.
"Pilot, status report."
The image disappeared as quickly as it had come.
The chair remained empty.
It always would.
A dull ache settled somewhere beneath your ribs. The second-in-command title no longer belonged to you.
Commander Yao wasn't coming.
No one was going to tell you what to do and no one was going to make the difficult decisions for you.
You drew a slow breath before deliberately changing course. Each step toward the pilot's seat felt heavier than the last even though it was barely two meters between the seats.
You lowered yourself into the command seat and quickly fastened the five-point harness across your chest with practiced efficiency. The familiar click of the buckle echoed through your mind.
The ship responded immediately.
"Pilot detected."
The robotic voice was clear and matter of fact. As though nothing had changed, as if it wasn't supposed to sit a whole other human being in the seat you're sitting in now. It clearly hadn't bothered the robot that the person occupying the pilot's seat hadn't once expected to spend the entire mission sitting one chair to the right.
You braced yourself for what's to come as the robotic voice counted down the last three digits.
The constant vibration that had become the unnoticed heartbeat of the Hail Mary simply vanished. The low hum of acceleration disappeared so abruptly that it felt like you had been shoved into a vacuum. Your stomach lurched as the familiar pressure pinning you to your seat melted away, your body suddenly forgetting which direction "down" was supposed to be.
The ship's synthesized voice interrupted the silence with its usual impossible calm.
"You are now entering Tau Ceti's orbit."
You barely had time to process the news before a loud yelp snapped your attention away from the displays.
"What the fudging fudge?!"
You looked over just in time to see Grace drifting helplessly across the cockpit.
He hadn't managed to strap himself into his seat before the engines cut out, and now he was rotating slowly through the air trying to hold onto his seat. He grabbed for the edge of the console, missed completely, and continued floating until his feet bumped gently against the ceiling.
"...Seriously?" he groaned as he pushed himself off the roof, only to send himself spinning the opposite direction.
You bit the inside of your cheek. Now was absolutely not the time to laugh but It became increasingly difficult not to.
Ryland finally caught hold of the back of his chair, clinging to it with both hands as though it were the last life raft on Earth. Unfortunately, the momentum he'd built carried the chair around with him, and the entire thing slowly rotated until the seat was facing away from you.
"...I meant to do that," he muttered.
"You've clearly mastered zero-g," you replied, unable to stop the smile tugging at the corners of your mouth.
"Oh, absolutely. NASA's going to use this in the training videos."
"'Here's what not to do?'"
"Exactly."
Despite the flashing warnings still dancing across the displays, a quiet laugh escaped both of you. You released the lock beneath your own chair and nudged yourself gently across the cockpit.
"Hold still."
"I am holding still."
"You and your chair are currently rotating."
"...Details."
You reached out, intending to steady the back of his seat before he could accidentally launch himself somewhere else. Your fingertips came within inches of his shoulder.
Your seat was close enough to his that you could see the tiny freckles across the bridge of his nose. Close enough to notice the amused smile he'd somehow managed to keep despite the situation.
For one second, neither of you moved.
His blue eyes met yours.
You realized just how little space actually existed inside the cockpit.
How close the two of you suddenly were.
Heat crept into your face before you quickly focused on the chair instead.
Professional.
Stay professional.
Just as your hand finally reached the frame, Mary spoke.
"Petrova scope operational."
Grace's head snapped toward the instrument.
"The scope!"
Before you could protest, he instinctively shoved away from his chair. He shot clean across the cockpit, both hands desperately reaching toward the Petrova scope as it extended from its housing.
"I got it!"
His fingers wrapped around the instrument just as his legs floated several feet behind him.
The sudden stop left him hanging almost horizontally in midair, gripping the scope with both hands as though letting go would send him drifting all the way back to Earth.
You couldn't stop yourself from laughing at the absurdity of the moment.
Ryland looked back over his shoulder with exaggerated offense.
"You think this is funny?"
"I'm trying very hard not to."
"You're failing spectacularly." He said as he continued to cling to the scope
"I know."
"I liked gravity." He sighed dramatically. "You think it'll come back?"
"Eventually." You replied.
"...Good."
You smiled to yourself as you pushed your chair gently, drifting after him.
There wasn't enough room inside the cramped cockpit for both of you to comfortably look through the scope at the same time, so you settled just over his shoulder, one hand resting lightly against the frame of his seat to keep yourself from drifting away.
You became acutely aware of how little space existed between the two of you. If you leaned forward only another centimeter, your shoulder would brush his. You resisted the temptation.
Instead, you focused on the blurry image reflected from the side of the instrument. Viewing it from an angle distorted the picture, making bright streaks smear across the lens in strange ways. Grace, meanwhile, had the proper view.
His eyes squinted in concentration as he viewed the image.
"It's Tau Ceti." There was unmistakable excitement behind the words.
Even after everything the two of you had endured, there it was. Humanities' last hope. You smiled despite yourself.
You made it, you thought.
Well, the two of you made it.
He adjusted the focus slightly.
"You have a Petrova line..." he murmured, more to himself than to you. "...but you're not dimming." His brow furrowed. "That doesn't make sense."
You watched him work through the problem almost visibly, every new observation rearranging the theory inside his head.
"It should be feeding..." he continued quietly. "If it's producing a Petrova line, then why isn't the star losing luminosity?"
You couldn't answer. Astrophage biology wasn't your field, flying ships was.
You leaned a little closer, trying to make sense of the distorted image from where you sat.
"I can't really see from this angle."
"Hang on..."
Ryland shifted the scope slightly, unknowingly bringing the two of you even closer together.
Your shoulders bumped.
Only lightly.
Neither of you moved away immediately.
"Sorry," he said as he left more space for you to look inside the scope.
For just a second, everything felt strangely ordinary again. Two coworkers puzzling over impossible data.
Then something caught your eye.
"Wait." Your smile faded. "What is that?"
Ryland stopped adjusting the focus.
"What?" He replied, his face almost leaning beside you to look into the scope.
"There." You lifted a finger toward the display, careful not to touch the optics. " You see that, on the Petrova line."
His eyes followed where you were pointing.
At first, it looked like nothing more than a tiny interruption, a dark speck crossing the brilliant ribbon of light. It could just be dust.
Then the object shifted and a brilliant reflection flashed across one side of it, catching the distant starlight before disappearing again.
Your heartbeat quickened.
"Grace..."
"I see it."
Neither of you spoke.
The tiny silhouette slowly resolved itself as the scope sharpened its focus.
It was moving.
Toward you.
The cockpit suddenly felt much smaller.
You and Ryland exchanged a look, neither of you needing to say what both of you were already thinking.
The Hail Mary's calm synthesized voice broke the silence.
"Blip-A detected."
The words echoed through the cockpit.
Neither of you looked away from the approaching object.