Work Text:
“Is like Grace classroom on Earth. Question.”
Ryland sets his hands on his hips, scans his and Rocky’s setup. “Pretty close, yeah,” he agrees.
“Close not enough. Needs perfect.”
“Perfect?” Ryland laughs and glances down at Rocky. “Who said my setup on Earth was perfect? I’m pretty sure the desks were like, thirty percent chewing gum.”
“Is chewing gum. Question.”
“It’s… not important. I don’t want that here anyways.”
Rocky relaxes, and skitters around the amphitheater-style seats. “What is important. Question.”
Ryland spins around slowly, trying his best to recall his classroom from Earth. The walls had been wallpapered over at least twice — with funny posters, scientific brochures, images taken by the Webb Space Telescope — but there are no walls here. No need for boundaries of any sort, no need to hang his credentials around him in every language his students and admins might speak.
Here, he’s got the sea at his back and Rocky at his side. He’s wrapped in the safe embrace of the world he helped save, the souls who trust him, and the life they’ve all built together.
His classroom on Earth wasn’t perfect, but this one is.
He has his answer by the time he’s facing Rocky again. “Students,” he says. “The only things missing are the students.”
“Twenty students signed up.”
Ryland started smiling when he was reunited with Rocky, and hasn’t stopped since. His cheeks are sore. “I can’t wait to meet them.”
-
“Grace is microbiologist,” says one of his students after class, a green little bugger whose name Ryland’s chosen to interpret as Roman.
“Grace is teacher,” Ryland corrects without looking at them. Carefully, he places the xenonite puppets he’d used for the day’s lesson back in their case. “Microbiology was my old job on Earth.”
“Understood,” says Roman. “Grace is not pilot.”
Ryland snorts. “Did Rocky tell you that? I did pretty well for myself!”
Roman skitters on their feet. “Grace not know astrodynamics. How Grace find Rocky after goodbye. How Grace pilot. Question.”
That’s… fair.
Ryland snaps the case closed, squats down to look Roman head-on. “Sometimes, you just need to do something,” he says. “If it’s important enough, you figure it out. Besides, astrodynamics is just gravity.”
“Is gravity. Question.”
Ryland laughs, pats Roman on the head. Of all his eighth-grade Eridians, Roman might be the youngest, at forty-three. Their curiosity burns bright as an accretion disk, hungry as a star. “We’ll go over that next class,” he promises.
Roman bounces away, satisfied.
Ryland stands and watches them go. He’ll have to change his lesson plans, but that’s not an issue — he may only have a passing familiarity with the Keplerian elements, but he knows gravity. Knows the force of its binding to a planet that’s never loved him; inertness born of ignorance. Knows its pull towards the one thing in the universe that does, its perpetual motion as desired as the fountain of life — both impossible things Rocky has proven true. He’s confident he can impart a complete picture to his students.
-
“Grace is lonely on Erid. Question.”
“What? No, not at all.”
“But Grace is only human on Erid. Statement.”
“… yeah, sometimes it felt like that on Earth too, buddy.”
It’s Ryland’s lunch break, and as always, Rocky’s trekked out to the beach so they can spend it together. Today’s lunch is sandwiches for Ryland, and… some kind of unspeakable horror for Rocky. Literally unspeakable, because every time Ryland tries to assign a word to it, he gets caught on his own gag reflex.
“Elaborate.”
Ryland sighs.
“I dunno,” he says with a shrug. He sets his sandwich beside him and rests back on his arms. “I just… I like people. Y’know? I had my students, and I had some colleagues, but I never… it always felt like something was missing.”
“Mate?”
Ryland laughs. The question sounds so innocent, coming from Rocky. And it doesn’t hurt like it used to, because it’s Rocky. Because Rocky loves like Ryland loves. “No, but see, that’s the thing,” he says. “Everyone else thought I was missing a mate. And if I just found one… then that’d be that.”
Rocky shifts.
“So… no one ever thought to… be what I was missing. To be that kind of friend for me.” Ryland elbows Rocky; Rocky leans into the touch. Ryland, for the five-hundredth-time, wonders when rocks got so damn soft. Probably around the time up became down, right became left, xenon became solid. “Until you.”
There’s a long pause before Rocky says anything. Ryland doesn’t break the silence; he watches the tide ebb and flow before him, listens to it break gently against the sand, his feet, Rocky’s legs.
It’s ironic, really. The people on Earth were right about one thing — water is essential for life. Ryland can accept that truth, even as he becomes more sure of his own. Water is essential; some other things aren’t.
“Is no word for Grace-friendship on Earth. Question.”
Ryland frowns in thought. “If there is, I haven’t heard it,” he admits. “Not one that describes the type of guy who’d eat lunch every day with a friend, rather than a mate. To most of them, I’m as much of an alien as you are.”
From the corner of his eye, Ryland catches sight of one of his students — Hubble — wandering back to the classroom. Lunch break’s nearly over; he should head back soon.
Rocky, however, has other plans — and Ryland has never been able to put up a fight against those. “Does not understand.”
“Heh, okay. Think of it, like — ” Ryland glances around ‘til his eye catches on Rocky’s right arm. “Like, how you say goodbye. Like this,” he says, as he makes the motion Rocky taught him.
Rocky imitates the motion, and his signature scraping noise cuts through the air.
“You hear that sound?” Ryland asks. Rocky nods. “That’s — on Earth, we have an instrument called the güiro. It makes a sound like that. But most people, if they hear just that sound — without any melody, or accompaniment — they wouldn’t think of it as music. But… I do. And you make that sound, so… it works.”
“Confuse.”
Ryland laughs. “Yeah, sure is. I don’t know if I fully understand it, myself.”
Maybe that’s part of it, though. The idea of goodbye itself is a contradiction; how could a parting with a loved one be good? And how could Ryland feel less alone on a planet with no humans than he did on one full of them?
“So Grace is not lonely on Erid. Question.”
“Not in the slightest. I’ve got you, buddy.”
Rocky skitters from side-to-side, like he’s not sure if he’s satisfied.
Ryland is, though. Satisfied, complete, full of warmth and affection in a way he’d never been on Earth. Welled up to the brim with happy contentment, threatening to spill over. His own ocean, inside and out.
“Is enough. Question.”
“Is more than enough.” Ryland tilts to the side, rests his head atop Rocky. Rocky holds steady. “And always will be.”