Chapter Text
His face burned where Stratt had touched him, the memory of her hand seared into his flesh.
It was the first time he’d been touched since…
Well, Rocky had touched him while they were in space—or rather he had touched Rocky. And of course, he’d touched Rocky and Adrian and their children through the xenonite suits that made them able to enter each other’s environments.
But before that, the last time Grace remembered being touched was when Stratt ordered him to be restrained and drugged before she sent him to space to die.
He fucking hated her.
He hated the way she’d betrayed him. The way he’d used their private, secret connection against him. The way she’d called him a coward.
The way she’d been right about it, too.
He hated that she was here. That she’d come halfway across the universe to Erid, to this place that had insulated him from his past mistakes and his past regrets.
He hated how old she was. How she didn’t look like the woman in his memory any longer. Instead, she looked fragile, breakable even, something he’d never imagined Eva Stratt could be. He hated that he was old now, too. He needed a cane all of the time now, and the Eridians constantly worried about the state of his weakening body. He was no longer the young, brilliant scientist that he remembered him to be.
But most of all, he hated that he missed her.
He’d fucking missed her.
He missed the way he used to be able to tell the difference between each of her different frowns, each of the micro-movements in her facial muscles demarking if she was worried, angry, disappointed, annoyed or bored.
He had missed her voice, how it could go from harsh and direct to soft and sweet. He missed the tone her voice had taken on in the small whispers they shared in his quarters.
He still missed when she believed in him, when she thought they were more similar than they were different.
Most of all, he missed when he didn’t hate her.
Even though Rocky had left hours ago, he knew he wouldn’t sleep. Not tonight at least.
He let his hand wander up to the spot where he had touched him. The skin there was hot under his cold hand like her touch had ignited something new and almost forgotten in him.
The next days went by in a blur.
In the daytime, Stratt was ferried by Rocky to the Science Center for further questioning. In the first days, the Eridians had asked him not to attend, worried that he might interfere with their questioning of the new arrivals, but after the first three days, they invited him to attend their discussions.
He politely declined.
Instead, he spent the days with his students, continuing their lessons on Earth biology. He was trying his hardest to not think about the woman who would be waiting for him at home each night, quietly tidying his house while he was away.
In the evenings, they would quietly eat together, mostly shakes and me-burgers, though the Eridian clone technologists were working on creating new delicacies for them from the leftover foods that had been packed on Stratt’s ship. The prospect of new flavors and foods from home was something they discussed occasionally over their strange tense shared meals.
Other times, she gave him updates on their shared friends.
He loved hearing about how Dimitry had gone totally off the grid after what happened to him, choosing to spend the cold years of waiting with his family. He was surprised to hear that Dr. Petrova was still alive—she must be ancient now—and even more surprised to learn that Dr. LeClerc had taken up knitting.
She told him about new discoveries in science since he was gone. One night they discussed a young Bolivian scientist, who had discovered a way promising way to restart the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, which collapsed after they bombed Antarctica all those years ago. Another night, she shared a story of a young girl from Arizona, who had invented a device that could create threads that conserve body heat two times more efficiently than wool.
From the outside, it might seem like they were reconnecting—reigniting their former collegial relationship.
But any time the conversation turned too personal, Ryland shut it down, stating that it was time for bed, and since that first day, he never got close enough to Stratt to allow her to touch him again.
“We’re worried about you, Grace,” Adrian sung as she set out a vitamin shake for him on the table like rock in the center of their home. “Rocky says you are not sleeping.”
Rocky finally had convinced him to leave the biodome for the first time since Stratt arrived, and while he was glad to be away from her, he also couldn’t stop thinking about her. She’d traveled the universe for him, and he was hiding from confronting what that actually meant.
“It’s been a lot,” Grace said, choosing his words carefully.
It didn’t help that he and Rocky had been fighting since Stratt’s arrival, too. His friend was certain that Stratt planned to hurt Grace, take her final act of revenge upon him for not dying when he was supposed to. Rocky thought they should have eyes on the woman at all times, watching her for any ill intent, but Grace had shot that idea down.
He knew she wasn’t here to hurt him, even if he wasn’t sure why or how she was here at all.
“Stratt tried to kill Grace.” Adrian paused, clicking slightly as she considered her next sentence. “But Stratt loves Grace. This I know.”
The laugh that bubbled up from his chest was sudden. “She doesn’t love me.”
Adrian considered Grace for a long moment. “She left Earth just for you with no plan to return and no knowledge that you were still alive. She sacrifice her whole life just for the chance to honor your memory. Why do this if not for love, question?”
He had nothing to say in response because he knew that Adrian was right. No use arguing with the giant Eridian about the facts of the matter. Instead, he replied flatly, “She sentenced me to death.”
Adrian hummed in acknowledgment. “22 Eridians and two Earthlings die on trip to the stars, but one Eridian and one Earthling was all that was needed to save everyone.”
He was frustrated, the lack of sleep making him agitated. He snapped, “I’m aware. I was there.”
“Without this woman, maybe all Earthlings and all Eridians die.”
“I know!” He shouted, slamming his xenonite-wrapped fist on the table. He didn’t like shouting at Adrian, her large, gentle demeanor was antithetical to his anger, but today it burst from him unbidden.
“Then why angry, question?”
“Because she reminds me of how much of a coward I was. She reminds me of my greatest shame. When I look at her, I am once again the selfish man who picked himself over the entire world.” The words tumbled out of him against his will, dredging up misery and guilt with them.
“Tell her that. Tell her how she makes you feel. Tell her what you went through.”
“It won’t change anything,” he replied shaking his head.
But even as he said it, he wasn’t sure if it was true.
Adrian hummed disapprovingly, a noise he’d heard her make at the pebbles many times before, but she didn’t say anything else on the matter that night.
That night, Rocky and Adrian convinced him to stay at their place. They took turns watching him sleep in the mini-biodome there, but once again, sleep did not come easy.
“Why did you come here? To Erid?” Grace finally asked Stratt the next day.
The question burst out of him now with unrelentingly force. It wasn’t as accusatory as before, but an unspoken hurt lay just beneath the surface of it.
“Sit,” she said, patting the gravel beach beside her. He’d come to confront her here at the place by the sea where he’d spent many hours looking out onto that very same horizon.
It was sunset now, the second of the day, and she was resting right along the gentle slope of the shore. He lowered himself down beside Stratt and fixed his gaze forward on the endless horizon in front of them.
“I spent most of the time after you left in prison. More than 20 years of solitary confinement.” He hadn’t known that before now, but he’d known that she had assumed she would serve as the world’s scapegoat after the launch of the Hail Mary. “I had a lot of time to think, while in there. A lot of time to be angry.”
“Angry with me,” he supplied.
She shook her head. “Mostly with myself, but a little bit with you and astrophage and the whole fucking world, too.”
The sun was smaller and redder on Erid than on Earth, and as it dipped lower and lower, the sky burst into a bright, bloody red.
Stratt continued. “I remember telling you once how I didn’t believe in regrets. I’d never regretted anything in my whole life before. I didn’t regret the boys I didn’t kiss, or the friends I lost for being too focused on my career, or anything else I gave up to get where I was.
“But then you came along, bright and brilliant with the ability to fill up the whole room with your personality. You, the man I sentenced to die, were the one thing I regretted. I regretted bringing you onto the project, offering you a spot at the helm, testing your genes, bringing you with me as we traveled the globe, all of it. I regretted how you lit up my world, how you made me dream that there might be a future for me after everything.”
She was squeezing her hands into fists, emotions plainly written across her face. “But most of all, I regretted that the world had put us at odds. I’d become the Judas to the Earth’s savior, the final executioner.”
The sun was hidden halfway below the horizon now.
“You know it—” he began.
“Please let me finish,” she interrupted, her eyes fixed straight ahead. He quieted down and let Stratt speak, even now deferring to her judgement. “They offered me a deal, in exchange for coming back and leading the Project Hail Mary task force again, they’d give me one wish. Anything that I wanted.”
She picked up a small, round stone and threw it into the water. It didn’t skip, sinking immediately beyond the depths. He wasn’t sure if that was on purpose. “The only problem was that the only thing I wanted was you. And you were gone. Blasted off to the other side of the universe, thanks to my command.
“So I settled for the next best thing. Coming to Erid. Spending time with the creatures that knew you in your final days. Learning everything there was to learn about the friend, whom I’d betrayed for the planet I loved.”
“That’s it?” He wasn’t sure he believed her. “You sentenced yourself to death just to see my grave and trade stories with Rocky?”
“I suppose I did. There wasn’t anything left for me on Earth. No family, no children, not even a dog. ” There was a little bit of mirth under the syllables of her response, like she understood how ridiculous it all was. “How lucky I was to find you alive. Never, in my wildest dreams did think you’d be here, living and breathing.”
“Easier to receive absolution from a grave,” he offered, half joking but knowing that there was a sick truth beneath the surface of the words.
“It is,” Stratt replied with a sigh.
The sun was almost completely below the surface of the sea now, the golds and reds of the sunset transforming into the deep darkness of Erid’s night sky.
“I’m not sure that I can forgive you.” The words left his mouth as a quiet confession, none of the earlier anger or resentment lacing them. He felt his cheeks heat, red with a flush of blood.
And in those last moments of sunlight, Stratt turned to him, her white-ish hair reflecting the dying embers of the sun so that it almost looked the same shade as it had when they’d been on Earth together. There was an intensity in her gaze, so much so that every defensive instinct in his body was screaming at him to look away.
But he couldn’t. He found himself being pulled in, closer and closer to the gravitational pull that was Eva Stratt.
“Ryland,” she said, finally breaking the silence that grew cavernous between them.
“Eva,” he replied in kind, building a bridge between them.
“Perhaps there is nothing that I could ever do to earn your forgiveness. I cannot unmake my many mistakes in this life, and even after the torment that betraying you has caused me, I would never choose differently, even now.”
“I understand.” And he did, but that didn’t take away the hurt. “I always understood, even in the moment, why you did it. But I had my whole life. I had the whole world. I never got to say goodbye to… anyone.”
“I know,” she replied with a nod. There was no begging for forgiveness. No trying to explain her rationale. She respected him enough to not talk down to him in those ways.
He took a deep breath, readying himself to say one of the many secret and terrible and forbidden things that haunted his heart. “I didn’t even get to say goodbye to you.”
She frowned slightly, the final moments of sunlight casting long shadows over the ridges of her face. He wondered at what she was thinking in this moment, sitting side by side with the man she’d sent to die.
“You don’t remember, but I said goodbye to you right before they buckled you into the Hail Mary.” Her voice was hollow, like she was no longer here but instead back in that memory.
“What did you say?” The words were out of him before he could stop them.
“I said I was sorry, but that I believed in you. That I believed that you would be the Earth’s salvation, and I would make sure that the world never forgot your name.”
He rolled a rock back and forth with his foot, the sound of it scraping against the other small stones filled the space between them until he spoke. “I guess you held up your end of that deal. Now there’s two worlds who won’t ever forget my name.”
“I suppose so,” she relented with a small laugh. ”You know, I might not have known that you would be alive when I arrived on Erid.” She paused, pursing her lips. “But seeing you again, alive… I never thought that an old woman like me could deserve to feel that kind of happiness again.”
“It’s a miracle really,” Grace said, trying to push the painful memories of his first years on Erid out of his mind. “That I am alive that is.”
“I know. I am thankful for the people of Erid for saving what I could not.”
The sun had completely disappeared beneath the horizon now. All he could see was the outline of Stratt. Her hair tousled slightly by the continuous breeze in the biodome and her eyes reflecting the small light provided by the stars.
He swallowed hard. Afraid of the thing he knew he had to say next. It was one of the many reasons that he’d been avoiding speaking to her since she crashed into his Eridian life.
“Stratt, I have to tell you something.”
She blinked, the starlight disappearing and reappearing in her irises as she did. “Yes?”
“I’ve had a lot of time to think. More than 30 years even.” His mouth felt dry as he spoke, all the moisture suddenly sucked dry from him. “In the first horrible years that I was on Erid, I was dying. My gums bleeding, my thoughts slow and muddled from the confusion, my limbs aching from lack of nutrients and the increased gravity, I wished so many times that I could just have died in space.”
She nods slowly, taking in the words as he said them.
“In those long years of starvation and weakness, I hated you most of all. I hated that you had done this to me. I hated that my life, my body, my sanity were the price for saving the world.” He closed his eyes, and he could feel the skin crawling discomfort of every vitamin deficiency wash over him from his memory.
“That must have been very hard.” Her voice was soft, and the way she spoke made Grace believe that she’d thought of this reality often. Though in her imagined version, the story ended when he finally succumbed to starvation.
He nodded. “But then the Eridian scientists perfected the vitamin shakes, and Rocky and his team finalized the first iteration of the biodome. I regained my muscle mass, my strength and my mind.”
He let his eyes find Sol and the constellation he’d named Mother Mary all those years before.
He took a breath and continued, no louder than a whisper. “After I started feeling better, something changed. I… I started missing you.”
“Missing me?” Shock reverberated through her voice like she didn’t believe it was possible.
“The reason I hated you wasn’t only because I was betrayed. I was because you betrayed me. My friend, my partner, the only person I’d ever imagined having a future with. In all my dreams of what life was like post Project Hail Mary, you were there. We could’ve gone on the run together or settled together in LA and become teachers or moved to just outside of Leipzig in your childhood home or lived together a thousand of the other daydreams I’d cultivated in our years together.”
“I didn’t realize that you’d thought of me that way,” she replied quietly, looking away from him and back over the horizon.
“As a kid, when the hero returns home, they are showered with gifts and honors and everything they wanted. Yet, when it was my turn to be a hero—a real live one at that!—I got none of that,” he tried not to let his voice sound as bitter as he felt.
She laughed coldly. “That’s because at the end of all stories, villains are always punished more than the heroes are rewarded. Heros may get gold, glory and girls, but they also return changed beyond recognition. But the villain? The stories always make sure they receive the ultimate punishment. I was always the villain of the Earth’s story, which meant that fate would ensure that I wouldn’t get anything that I wanted.”
He let those words mull around in his head before asking, “And what did you want? What were you denied?”
She turned back to look at him, her eyes flashing bright as she did. “You, of course! All I ever wanted was you.”
They sat in silence. The forbidden quality of their admissions leaving them breathless.
His heart was pounding, practically beating out of his chest.
“I guess in the end you weren’t the villain, after all,” he finally said.
“Why do you say that?” She asked, quietly, almost like if she spoke too loudly, she’d break whatever magic had given them this moment together.
“You traveled across the universe, changing yourself beyond recognition until you arrived here and found me. Because in the end, you got what you wanted.” He swallowed hard before reiterating. “You got me.”
In all their years together, he’d never seen Stratt cry, but in that moment, starlight—maybe even light from their own Sol—reflected on the tear that slipped unceremoniously down her cheek. “I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve you.”
Two paths stood before Ryland Grace in that moment.
One, where he allows the bitterness that bites at his heart to devour him, pulling him and the women beside him deeper and deeper into misery. On this path, Grace never forgives himself for not choosing to go to space. He punishes himself at every turn, ensuring that that part of him that is filled with pain and regret can grow wild and unchecked until he withers away into a husk of himself. On this path, he pushes Stratt away. He punishes himself by punishing her.
On the other path, Grace finds peace in the choices that he and Stratt made, the choices that led them both to the dark and strange planet of Erid. On this path, there is a hope that something good can grow. It will take work. It will take effort. It will take grace.
Only one of the paths was worth choosing.
And so, Grace let himself do something that he’d wanted to since she arrived.
He placed his hand on hers.
Her skin was warm under his touch. It was thinner and older than he would’ve thought but still filled with life. It felt right that he allow himself to be close to someone again. That he allow himself to be close to Stratt again.
“I don’t care about what either of us deserve,” he said, giving her hand a little squeeze. “And I know that neither of us has a lot of time left—I mean it’s hard to know with all the time dilation, but we have to be in our mid-70s now!—but I know that after everything, I want to spend the rest of my time with you.”
Stratt smiled, her face now illuminated brightly with Eridian starlight. “I would very much like that. To spend whatever time we have left together.”
Somewhere behind Stratt’s left shoulder, Grace knew that Sol was sparkling at the center of Mother Mary, but for the first time since the night sky was added to the biodome, Grace’s eyes were not drawn to the place he once called home. Instead, his entire focus was on the woman in front of him. His once betrayer, who had travelled all the way across the universe just for him.
Everything on Earth was just memories now. All of the most important things in Grace’s life had made it to Erid.