Chapter Text
pen·ance
/ˈpenən(t)s/
noun
voluntary self-punishment inflicted as an outward expression of repentance for having done wrong.
"her penance was constant and excruciating, despite not being the one to commit the guilty act"
If there was one lesson Louisa Stratt had constantly learned throughout her life, it's that guilt perseveres.
Not that Louisa had much to personally feel guilty for. She hasn’t necessarily done much of negative significance during her life, despite having lived a full forty years. But guilt doesn’t have to be homemade to still be experienced. Unfortunately, it can be inherited, which was the source of Louisa’s near-constant discomfort.
All of her life, Louisa had been internally justifying her mother’s choices and the effects they had on Planet Earth. The controversy that Eva Stratt gained after the launch of the Hail Mary in 2023 was colossal. For twenty-seven years, the Earth darkened and froze and struggled, and Stratt was constantly under fire for the decisions she’d made leading up to that. Paving the Sahara, detonating Antarctica, and the conspiracy theory that haunted her for the rest of her years: sending Ryland Grace into space without his consent.
Of course, Louisa was only a child when this was all still considered interesting news. Louisa was five years old and living in a children’s home in the Netherlands when the Beetles touched down on Earth. It was a month after Earth was officially saved from the Astrophage threat that Eva Stratt, notably elusive to interviews, agreed to be interviewed by BBC. She was asked point blank: “Did you send Dr. Ryland Grace on the Hail Mary against his will?” And for reasons unknown to anyone but Eva herself, she replied, “Yes. I did.”
A couple months later, Eva Stratt adopted Louisa. And Louisa became very aware, very quickly that her mother was a famous figure, and not necessarily for the right reasons.
Despite all of Eva Stratt’s achievements, it often seemed like her entire existence was boiled down to “the execution of Ryland Grace,” as many of the more polarizing news outlets put it. One of Louisa’s earliest memories was her newly adoptive mother rewatching Dr. Grace’s video diaries. Louisa later realized that Eva watched them long before the public had access to them. Despite being a publicly disgraced figure, Stratt never had a shortage of strings to pull. Louisa remembers seeing Dr. Grace on Eva’s computer, the bespectacled man with shaggy hair and a five-o'clock shadow, red jumpsuit tied around his waist, and right next to him, an alien. That was a huge deal at the time, learning that aliens were real; it was a cultural event that imprinted in Louisa’s mind, despite how young she was when it happened.
Louisa didn’t watch those videos of Ryland Grace on her own until she was eleven. She did it in secret– on her phone, under the covers of her bed, in the middle of the night. There was nothing wrong with watching them, but for some reason, it felt a little shameful. By this time, Louisa was fully aware of what her mother had done to the man. But nevertheless, Louisa ate them up– video diary after video diary of Grace explaining that he’d met an alien that he called Rocky, that they were learning to communicate, that they were going to travel to the Petrova Line and discover why Tau Ceti wasn’t dimming. Someone had kindly posted them all in a Youtube playlist titled: “Ryland Grace Hail Mary video diaries full uncensored,” which made bingeing them particularly easy.
And then the later videos– the disaster of the fishing incident on Adrian, which Grace recounted while heavily bandaged and clearly on large doses of pain medication. That one was age restricted, so Louisa had to make a fake account just to see it. And then the final videos: Grace’s goodbye to Rocky and his “return to Earth.” Grace’s decision to find Rocky and his launch of the Beetles.
“This is Dr. Captain Ryland Grace, reporting from the Hail Mary. Or as the Eridians say…”
Eleven-year-old Louisa had a tightness in her chest when she finished the last video. She couldn’t help but feel like she’d just been left on a cliffhanger of her favorite series. What happened to Ryland Grace? It was a question that haunted Earth for years.
There were theories abound: did he ever make it to Erid? Did Rocky survive? Did Erid survive?
It wouldn’t be until 2067 that telescopes confirmed that Erid’s sun had returned to full luminance, which once again set Earth into a tailspin. This practically confirmed that Grace had made it to Erid, which was huge news. Ryland Grace had likely been the first human to visit an alien planet! Of course, he definitely wasn’t able to survive there, with Erid’s uninhabitable conditions for humans and Grace’s lack of food supply. But what a way to go out, even if he was sixteen light years from Earth.
And then, thirty-five years later after Earth was saved, the unthinkable happened. When the Cassandra Satellite orbiting around Neptune picked up the message being transmitted from the Hail Mary, no one could believe it. Despite NASA’s attempts to keep it underwraps, the news was just too hot and soon enough, every headline was blasting: DR. RYLAND GRACE ALIVE, RETURNS TO EARTH.
It didn’t seem possible. Dr. Ryland Grace, Earth’s “Saving Grace” (as he had been appropriately deemed by the entire planet), was long considered to be dead. He’d taken off in 2023, and the Beetles arrived back in 2050 with news of his journey. Everyone knew that Dr. Grace couldn’t survive out there for very long. He had a limited food supply, space travel was dangerous and difficult on the human body. Even if he made it to Erid, it wouldn’t be habitable for him. It just wasn’t possible.
Yet against all odds…
The tightness in Louisa’s chest was suffocating as she watched the President’s press conference about the return of Ryland Grace. It was a tightness reminiscent of her eleven-year-old self watching Grace’s tapes, a tightness that wouldn’t vacate for the following several months. It fed off of every snippet of news about Grace’s reacclimation, and then the big whoop: Grace’s first speech to the people of Earth.
Louisa smoked a cigarette on her couch with her eyes glued to the television as Grace explained the details of his trip to Erid, his survival on the alien planet’s surface for nearly twenty years, and finally, his decision to return to Earth, the Eridians accompanying him for the journey. She took a deep drag of the cigarette, tapping the ash into an empty mug. She didn’t make a habit of smoking inside, but she was clutching this particular cigarette with trembling fingers. Thank god Scout was at their father’s for the weekend, she didn’t have to worry about the smoke indoors. She’d light a candle later.
Despite the landmark achievement of aliens visiting Earth for the first time, Louisa’s thoughts rarely went to the Eridians. She just couldn’t stop thinking about Ryland Grace. She couldn’t even complete a task in a single sitting without her mind going to him. It was a hyperfixation, an obsession that her mind latched onto, and she just couldn’t shake it.
When she started losing sleep over it, that’s when Louisa started to get severely anxious. Most nights she’d lay in bed staring at the ceiling, thinking about Grace on the Hail Mary. Thinking about how he must have gone kicking and screaming. Thinking about her own mother drugging him, sending him into a coma and packaging him onto the ship and just shipping him off. She also thought about Grace on Erid, without human company for years and years. It all made Louisa want to cry.
Despite willing the tears to come, Louisa’s numbness blanketed her day to day. She felt like she was staggering around with a bag of bricks chained to her. This crushing weight, her constant companion. She couldn’t even begin to explain or justify it– why did she feel so awful? Why did the thought of Ryland Grace make her want to curl into a ball? And more importantly, was there anything she could actually do about it? Anything that would make her feel normal again?
Louisa didn’t come to the decision to reach out to Grace on her own. Scout gave her the idea.
She was watching yet another broadcast about Grace. It was a talk show that Grace wasn’t featured on, but his photo was onscreen, and the hosts were speaking about his newly appointed position as the human ambassador for the Eridians. Louisa’s laptop was sitting on the kitchen counter, the voices emanating from the speakers. She was making lunch, but she continuously found herself distracted from the veggies she was dicing, eyes magnetized to the screen.
Scout sat at the bar, typing up some essay they had due in a week, and they were repeatedly groaning about sources and citations.
Louisa’s eyes drifted from the cutting board once again, glued to the picture of Dr. Grace on her screen. But her hand kept moving, and the knife sliced straight into her fingertip. A hiss of pain escaped Louisa’s lips. The sound made Scout shut their laptop and turn their full attention to their mother.
“You should reach out to him,” Scout said, as casually as saying, we should watch a movie tonight.
Louisa’s eyes darted from her finger, which she was now cleaning under running water, to her attentive child. “What?” She asked breathlessly, cutting off the sink and pinching her finger to stop the bleeding.
“Mama, you’ve been obsessing over that man for the past few weeks. You’re not going to feel any better about it by just watching the stupid news over and over.” Scout crossed their arms on the bar and rested their chin on top, wide eyes staring up at their mother. They looked incredibly innocent while suggesting that Louisa do the number one scariest thing in the world.
“I can’t just reach out to him,” Louisa scoffed, making her way to the bathroom just off of the kitchen so she could get the first aid kit.
“Why not?” Scout hollered from the bar. That was one thing about her child that came straight from their father– Scout’s willingness to raise their voice and make their presence known was not a genetic trait that Louisa possessed in the slightest. She favored quiet power, a skill she’d learned from her mother.
“He’s the most famous person in the world!” Louisa replied back as she fumbled for a bandaid from under the sink.
“Need I remind you, moeder, that you are on the board of the most powerful scientific organization in the world?” Despite being only twelve, Scout was startlingly articulate. It was the first thing that most people commented on when they met her child. It wasn’t a surprise to her; Louisa was a linguist, and she’d be damned if her child wasn’t well-spoken.
“It’s an honorary position,” Louisa brushed off as she returned to the kitchen, taping the bandaid over the cut as she walked.
“Oma’s name still has sway. It wouldn’t be hard to get his info,” Scout continued, raising their eyebrows suggestively.
“I don’t even know what I would say!” Louisa realized she was getting defensive as she picked up the knife and began slathering it with soapy water. “And there’s no reason he’d want to speak with me.”
Scout gave their mother a look that said, are you serious? “Ma, you are the daughter of the woman that doomed that man to death in space. If he can’t get his hands on her, he surely would like to pick your brain about it.”
Some part of Louisa must have realized that her anxiety was related to Grace’s definitely-negative opinions of her adoptive mother. But it took Scout saying it out loud for her to fully come to terms with it.
Eva Stratt had sentenced Ryland Grace to death, sending him on a suicide mission against his will. Eva Stratt had answered for her crimes a thousand times over during the last fifty years of her life, with prison, exile, fines, and worse. And yet, people still spit on her grave and prayed that she was rotting in hell. Eva Stratt was surely the first person that Grace had wanted to speak to after his return to Earth, and she was six feet under. There was no one left for him to hurl his hatred at.
So what? Louisa asked herself. I’m supposed to be that person? What kind of sick inherited punishment am I expecting?
The pit in her stomach grew.
Louisa placed the knife in the bottom of the sink and leaned forward against the counter, her hands clutching her face.
“Mama?” Scout asked. Their tone was worried. They were concerned that they had taken this too far. They had just made Louisa realize, all at once, why she felt so horrible about the whole thing.
“I don’t know, moppie,” Louisa whispered, pushing her bangs out of her face and looking up at her kid with a sad smile. “I need to think about it.”
Scout didn’t say anything for a long time, their eyes scanning Louisa’s face with uncertainty. “Okay,” they nodded. And they left it at that. They reopened their laptop, scrolling mindlessly.
Louisa rose, wiping her hands against her pants. She shut her laptop, cutting off the news report. She finished cleaning the knife. She kept making lunch. She went on with her day, and week, and her thoughts were still ruled by Ryland Grace.
For a few more weeks, she thought about it. All that thinking, and Louisa still couldn’t make up her mind. What was she so scared of? Actually facing the man, and having to say, “Sorry my mom forced you to commit suicide for the greater good?” Why did she need to apologize? Why did she feel like she needed to apologize?
After a while, Louisa tried drafting an email. She just wanted to see what she would say. If she would ever actually send the thing was a different matter.
Dear Dr. Grace, she typed.
She stared at the screen. That was an appropriate way to address him, right? Not too formal, not too casual. She pinched her lips together and backspaced. She thought for a moment. She eventually retyped the words.
Dear Dr. Grace,
My name is Louisa Stratt. My mother was Eva Stratt, who you once knew as the leader of Project Hail Mary. As I’m sure you have heard, my mother passed away some years ago now,
She paused. Would he have heard? Would this be his first news of Eva’s passing? Surely he had looked up his past associates once he returned. He’d been planetside for three and a half months now, and he was surely curious about the status of his old associates. Louisa frowned at that. How horrible, she thought, to return to a world where everyone you once knew is dead or dying.
She edited it slightly.
As you may have heard, my mother passed away some years ago now. My mother was very secretive of her past while I was growing up, but I’d have to be a fool to pretend I was ignorant of the ways she hurt people.
Louisa stopped, pressing her fingers to her lips. That was too forward. She wasn’t trying to give Dr. Grace a dissertation on her childhood trauma right off the bat. She backspaced.
As you may have heard, my mother passed away some years ago now. While she denied claims that she forced you onto the mission, it was always a conspiracy that haunted her throughout the rest of her life.
There is only a degree of truth to this. She had eventually admitted to forcing Grace on the Hail Mary. But this was perhaps unnecessary information for this initial email. This was something Louisa should probably tell him in person.
After typing and deleting and retyping and stressing for nearly an hour, Louisa ends up with this:
Dear Dr. Grace,
My name is Louisa Stratt. My mother was Eva Stratt, who you knew as the leader of Project Hail Mary. As you may have heard, my mother passed away some years ago now. I cannot imagine the unhealed wounds surrounding her that you may have. My mother was a secretive person even in her personal life, so I cannot promise that I can provide a breadth of information about her, but I cannot shake the feeling that I could provide you even an ounce of closure. If you would be open to meeting with me, please respond to this email and we can coordinate.
Thank you,
Louisa Stratt
The email sat in her drafts for an entire month. Occasionally she’d open it, stare at the words, retype a phrase, and eventually revert it back to her original phrasing.
Louisa still didn’t want to send the email. But for some reason, she wanted to know that she could, if she wanted to. So she asked for Grace’s email.
It ended up being very easy to get his contact information, despite Ryland Grace’s current power and position. She would barely call it pulling strings. She simply had to ask the president of her mother’s company and a few days later, she had his email address and even a phone number.
In preparation for the day that she was finally brave enough, she attached Dr. Grace’s email to her draft. All she needed to do now was press send.
But she didn’t. It sat like that, perfectly ready to go, for a few more weeks.
But the decision to reach out was ultimately made for her.
She didn't even realize until a reply appeared in her mailbox one day.
The name of the sender knocked all of the air out of her lungs.
Ryland Grace <[email protected]> 3:42 PM (0 minutes ago)
to Louisa Stratt <[email protected]>
We should meet.
Grace
--
From: Louisa Stratt <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, February 2nd, 2085
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: Please Respond
(…)
Louisa stared at those three words for nearly twenty minutes. Twenty full minutes, and they still weren’t sinking in. How had he replied to an email she never sent? Had she accidentally sent it off without realizing? Definitely not, she’d been ultra-cautious every time she reviewed it Had it auto-sent somehow? Was it a glitch in the system?
When Scout arrived home from school, they found her like that, leaning over her phone at the kitchen counter, head in her hands. Scout dropped their bag and sidled up next to their mother, peeking at the phone screen. A huge grin stretched across their face.
“This is great!” Scout announced, grabbing their mother’s bicep. “I told you it would be easy!”
Louisa only processed her child’s appearance when they touched her, and she turned her head to take in Scout’s beaming expression. A realization hit her.
“You sent the email,” Louisa said, her words coming out whispered.
Scout grinned, nodding. It is only when they discerned the seriousness in their mother’s face that their smile faltered.
“Well, I changed it a bit.” Scout admitted sheepishly.
Louisa had been so frozen by the reply that she didn’t even think to scroll down and read the actual message that had been sent to Ryland Grace. Frantically, she scooped up her phone and revealed the email.
From: Louisa Stratt <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, February 2nd, 2085
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: Please Respond
Dear Dr. Grace,
My name is Scout Weatherly, my mother is Louisa Stratt and my grandmother was Eva Stratt. My Oma died when I was very young, so I didn’t know her very well, but you’d have to be an idiot to not know about Eva Stratt. Oh yeah- you haven’t been on Earth in a while, but let me tell you, some people consider her to be second Hitler. What a family to be born into, huh!
Let me get something out of the way- I’m not emailing because I can offer you anything, you’re kind of rich and famous now, so I don’t really think there’s anything you need from us that you can’t get from NASA or the U.S. government or whatever.
I’m emailing because my mom wants to talk to you. I don’t know why, but she doesn’t feel very good about the whole thing, that’s for sure. My mom is one of the best people in the universe (which you’ll realize when you meet her- aliens have nothing on her) and I don’t like to see her upset. I’m hoping that talking with you will maybe clear her head, and I’m sure you have questions about Oma that she might be able to answer.
Please respond to this email when you get it. We live in San Francisco, so we’ll have to figure out where we should meet. You can probably just come to our house.
See you soon,
Scout (they/them)
P.S. My mom doesn’t know I sent this, and if you never respond, I plan for it to stay that way. I quite like not being grounded, thank you very much.
P.P.S. Grounded means something different to astronauts. To clarify, I mean that I’d like to maintain my phone privileges.
Louisa was going to have a panic attack.
She could feel it bloom in her chest when she read the words second Hitler.
Her phone clattered back against the counter, and Louisa sank to the floor.
“Mama?” Scout asked hesitantly, crouching down next to her and taking her elbow in their hand. “Mama, take some deep breaths.”
Louisa tried to nod, but it looked more like she’s trying to get a bug off of her face. She took a shaky inhale, and on the exhale, it sounded like her entire body was evaporating.
“Oh, dammit.” Scout swallowed their words as they came out.
“Language,” Louisa barely managed to say.
“I’m sorry, mama,” Scout said, their face scrunching up like it always did right before they were going to cry. “I didn’t think– I just wanted to–”
The sight of Scout near tears made Louisa get it together. Yes, she was unimaginably fearful of meeting Ryland Grace, and that train was already cruising down the tracks without her control, and that was terrifying. But Scout was going to cry, and Louisa never wanted to be the cause of that. So she steadied her breathing slowly, taking deep breaths, and then finally, she smiled.
“It’s okay, love,” Louisa said, placing her hand against Scout’s cheek. “I’m okay.”
Scout seemed to be judging the truth of that statement. Finally, when they accepted it, they nodded, the smallest comforting smile they could muster appearing on their lips.
“But could you enlighten me,” Louisa started, and Scout’s smile shriveled. “Why you thought it was a good idea to not only send that email, but to send that email?”