Chapter Text
Eva Stratt did not know if she still believed in God.
She had believed when she was younger. Or, more accurately, her parents had believed.
She had grown up going to mass every Sunday, dressed in her best little dresses while the images of Mary and the Angels watched her from the stained glass windows.
Her mother always told her, when she fidgeted, the stained glass would report back to God to let Him know she wasn’t paying attention.
Even then Stratt knew it was ridiculous. She believed not a word of it.
Even if she did try to keep from kicking her feet in the pews.
But those childish things were years ago. Years that feel as if they should be lifetimes.
Eva was older now. Much older. Wrinkles had started to line her eyes and lips. Not smile lines, but rather just signs of age. Silver had begun to peek through her scalp, and her hands were a little more wrinkled then they had been when the sun had started to die.
The sun was no longer dying.
And Eva was going to jail.
She knew it was inevitable at this point. The latest probs had come back with unanimous results.
The Petrova line was fixed.
Grace’s taumoeba cure for the pandemic had worked.
Not surprisingly, Stratt knew the man would save them. Whether he had wanted to or not, he had had it in him.
She had known that.
And she had been right.
But now that the world had been saved, there were questions. Demands. People wondering what had happened to the continent of Antarctica. People wanting answers.
Answers Stratt knew would land her in jail.
Audits had started just the week before. Digging into notes. Files. Recordings. The videos Ryland had sent from aboard the Hail Mary. Eva knew what would happen when they found certain items. When the leaders of the world whose asses she had just saved come together, and wanted someone they could pin all of their sins on.
An escape goat.
Eva had known from the beginning that was all she was meant to be. For the three sacrificial lambs thrown aboard the astrophage powered space ship they had sent hurtling into the void, there needed to be the three goats that would be sacrificed on the altar for the burnt offering.
There was her.
There was Carl, who upon learning that the audits had started, had told Eva he was leaving for somewhere warmer until the police came to find him.
And she did not doubt that from somewhere within the rubble and tubble of this investigation, eventually a third would be found and singled out along with the rest of the flock of the damned.
She had a list of people she hoped it would be.
She knew she was not blessed enough for it to be any of the people she wanted it to be.
Not that that mattered right now. Because Eva Stratt was on a mission. She knew she only had a few weeks, if even that, of freedom left. Before she was lead to the cross of the people’s judgment, and she heard them cry “crucify!”.
So, she was going to make the most of that time. Not in a selfish sense. Not in a way that she would hole up in some country with an extradition treaty and pray it would all blow over.
No.
She was on a mission to remember.
And that had started in the state of New Jersey.
Specifically at Grover Cleveland Middle School.
She admittedly hadn’t done much. She didn’t feel like she could, what with it being a school and all, and her technically being a criminal.
She had wanted to go in. To see what was once Dr. Grace’s classroom, a room she had now heard had been preserved and untouched since the day of the Hail Mary’s launch. A room that still held all of Ryland’s memory like a preservation glass.
She had ultimately stopped herself from going in, though.
In her mind, it felt far to much like threading on holy ground in sandaled feet.
Forbidden, somehow.
Like touching it would sully the last untainted trace of Grace left there on the planet he had saved and yet never got to set foot on again.
Instead, Stratt had lingered outside on a bench by the front lawn, within sight of the bicycle rack.
On that rack sat a yellow town bike, mostly rusted through from all its years of sitting there, complete with a nearly decomposed whicker basket and an equally rusted bell.
Grace’s bike.
It had never been moved since the fateful day that Stratt and Ryland had met. No one on the Hail Mary team had ever truly bothered with picking it up, despite Grace’s constant requests to.
After all, it felt redundant.
A team of scientists hell bent on saving the world from certain doom, and he wanted them to pick up a bicycle? How silly in the grand scheme of things.
It no longer felt funny to Eva as she sat on that bench with a cup of rapidly cooling coffee in her hand. The grey October sky and surrounding fog felt fitting for the mood of the moment, even if did little to fight off the chilling wind as she sat gazing at the old, rusted bicycle that was now laden with more offerings then it could hold.
Flowers. Drawings. Pinwheels. Tiny plush balls sewn to look like earth.
At the edge of one of the wheels sat a tiny toy space ship that would light up anytime someone stepped to close, sending red and blue lights up the side of the brick wall.
Grace’s students had all long grown up. Old enough to have graduated from college with their own PhD’s, to raise families, to have children old enough to be in what would have been Ryland’s classroom. All the people who would have had memory of the hero were gone. They had moved on with their lives.
But the school kept the memorial going. No one was allowed to touch the bike unless they had a gift to bring, or a legitimate reason, though that rule wasn’t stictly enforced.
Not with what Eva was seeing.
Stratt had watched throughout the day as children with intentions seemingly only known to themselves would approach the bike. They were always respectful, stepping with feather light steps as if they were afraid to disturb the very dirt and stones around it.
Some would simply bow their heads as they stood beside it, lips moving in words only they could hear.
Others would reach out to run their little fingers over a piece of the bike. Ranging from the seat to the handlebars to the spokes of the wheel.
Then, once contact was established, they would slowly turn their eyes up towards the sky, into the abyss of space, before running off giggling to themselves.
As if that one simple act had completed their entire mission.
Stratt had not made sense of it despite watching it happen all day. From the moment the school bell rang, to lunch, to recess, to even now, in the middle of the day. Children came constantly darting out the door on missions known only to themselves, simply to touch the bike, look at the sky, and go back inside.
She was trying, and failing to figure out what it meant.
Or at least, she was failing until a tiny voice had sounded behind her.
”Are you lost?”
Stratt had startled, almost tilting the cup of coffee onto the pavement beneath her, before barely managing to right herself. She’d turned slowly, raising an eyebrow at the little girl in a yellow rain coat with bright red glasses who had been standing behind her for an undetermined amount of time.
She had looked familiar. Eyes full of hope and interest. Glasses that hung a little to loosely off a face that would surely grow into them in no time, with wild blonde hair that kept getting ruffled by the wind.
The girl, for what it was worth, did not look the slightest bit bothered by Stratt’s fumbling as she continued to speak.
”If you’re looking for the office, I can take you,” She offered, reaching up to adjust the red frames that sat against wide, innocent blue eyes. “That’s where adults always wanna go when they come here.”
Stratt had offered the girl the best smile she could. She was never amazing with children. Not that she didn’t care for them, she just never possessed much of a maternal instinct, and so found it hard to engage with them.
”No,” She had said, her German accent softened over years of being away from her homeland. “I’m alright.”
Her eyes had turned back to the yellow bicycle, still unbothered. “I’m…”
She looked for a convincing thing to say to a child who would have no concept of Stratt sitting there, thinking of Ryland. She did not want to explain why she had come here.
Mostly because she wasn’t even sure herself.
So, instead of thinking something clever to say, she simply went with what felt right in the moment. “I’m… waiting for my friend.”
”Oh,” The girl had said, nodding as if that explained everything, before unceremoniously plopping herself down on the opposite end of the bench to Stratt. “Is that why you’re looking at the bike? So you’ll have something pretty to look at while you wait?”
Stratt had pressed her lips into a firm line. “No,” She’d admitted after a moment. “I’m trying to understand.”
”Understand what?” The girl asked, tilting her head curiously.
Right at that moment, from the shadows of one of the trees in the courtyard, a little boy in a blue sweater darted out. He didn’t look at anyone, or anything. He simply walked up to the bike in the same tentative manner the other children had, reached out, tapped the handlebars twice, and turned his eyes towards the sky.
Then for a moment, he just stood. Gazing into the rapidly darkening grey of the autumn sky. Then, with whatever confirmation he had received, he darted away, back towards the doors of the school.
”That,” Eva announced to the child, who was still watching her. “That is what I’m trying to understand.”
“Oh, you mean the tapping,” The girl said, nodding. “That’s for good luck.”
Eva turned to the girl, her eyebrow arching. “Good luck?”
”Yeah,” the girl said, swinging her feet to reveal a pair of red rubber rain boots on her feet. “Whenever you need good luck for something, you go to the bike and touch it, or tap it, or whatever.”
”But why?” Eva questioned. “It’s a bike. I would expect you to hunt for a four leaf clover or some other tradition for schoolchildren. Not… tapping a bicycle.”
”Because the star man is out there, watching over us,” The little girl says as plainly as if she were stating that grass were green.
When she notices Stratt still gazing at her with a confused expression, she sighs as if she’s exasperated by the woman’s lack of understanding before elaborating. “Mr. Grace went away to save us. But the other teachers told us, he’s still out there, watching over us from the stars. And when you touch the bike, he can hear you, and maybe if you’re lucky, he might send a little star magic your way to help you when you really need it.”
“Ah.”
It was Eva’s turn to tilt her head in fascination at the child, who rubbed her hands together against the breeze as multicolored leaves began to dance beneath their feet. “Shouldn’t you be in class?”
The little girl straightened as if the words made something click inside of her. Her eyes widened as she leaped up. “Oh right!” She announced to the empty courtyard, giving Eva a sheepish smile. “I forgot.”
She stood and rushed over to the bike, her boots clomping loudly against the pavement as she reached out tentatively, and tapped the faded seat twice.
Her eyes turned to the sky before shutting firmly, one hand lifting towards the clouds.
Silence filled the air for just a moment, when another gusty breeze blew through the courtyard. A pile of leaves that had been resting on the ground suddenly scattered, lifting into the air.
Eva watched as a particularly yellow leaf fluttered to and fro on the breeze, before being released and slowly making its way back down, brushing against the girl’s outstretched fingertips, before settling atop the collection of trinkets that sat on the bike.
The girl’s eyes popped open, a grin forming on her face as she touched the fingertips that had just been graced by the leaf to her heart, her hands curling into a fist as she giggled.
Seemingly satisfied with whatever she took that to be, she turned on her heels and made for the shockingly unguarded doors of the school, slipping inside and disappearing from view.
Stratt sat there in silence for a long moment, before looking down at the now cold cup of coffee in her hands. She was trying to make sense of what she had just seen, when another breeze came crashing through the courtyard, this one more violent then the last.
She instinctively brought a hand to her face to try and guard against the blistering cold, though it did to help. She shut her eyes firmly, feeling the stinging cold against her nose and eyes, making both water as she shivered.
When the breeze finally settled, Stratt lowered her hands. Only for her eyes to be caught by a pop of color that sat beneath her shoes.
Leaves.
Dozens of leaves.
All bright yellow, sat clustered around her feet.
Whether or not they had been there when she sat or if the wind had brought them, Eva had no idea.
But she felt something tighten in her throat at the sight regardless.
She set the white coffee cup she hadn’t drank from on the wooden slabs of the bench, and stood. She did her best to ignore the bright yellow backdrop as she reached into the thin grey coat she was wearing- she really was underdressed for this moment- and produced a simple list, written in hasty scribbled on crumbled notebook paper.
The kind of list one made in a hurry, or when they weren’t fully thinking, and simply shoved into their pocket before going out the door.
From the same pocket, Eva produced a pen, and drug it across the top item of the list. There were only three things written on the entire thing, so it took off a sizeable chunk of the entire thing, but still, it was gone now.
One down, Eva thought to herself silently as she turned on her heel and began to make her way back towards where she had parked the rental car she had gotten purely for this mission. Two to go.