Chapter Text
There are bright lights lurking on the other side of my eyelids. I don’t want to open my eyes, because I know it’ll sear my eyeballs. I’m in enough pain already, I remember…
Rocky!
I scramble out of bed, and promptly fall on the floor, right onto my left arm. A gasp of pain escapes my lungs. Right… Eridian atmosphere plus Grace equals bad. That’s why I’ve been asleep for so long, healing.
Groaning, I use my good arm to help myself to my feet. Armando hovers nearby, always the concerned nanny. Immediately, I go to check on Rocky.
He’s still not moving. Why isn’t he moving? What if he never moves again? I try my best to calm myself. He normally doesn’t move while asleep. Maybe he just needs to recover from my evil, oxygen-filled atmosphere. I can’t handle the alternative right now.
Funny… both of our atmospheres left burns when we tried entering the wrong one. I almost start giggling. No, Grace. Don’t lose it now. It’s not that funny.
My arm hurts. A lot. Now that the initial rush to check on Rocky is over, the momentum from that moment spent, my injuries are the next focus. Pain throbs through my arm suddenly, and I make a high pitched sound of pain. Not my best moment.
“Armando,” I gasp out. “Painkillers.”
After making sure my basic needs are met, with the help of Armando, and locating my glasses, which were slightly bent when I found them but miraculously intact otherwise, I sit down and take a moment to think. Pain still lances through my arm, not fully dulled by the painkillers, a constant pull on my thoughts as I put my right hand to my head, going through my memory of the incident.
I had reeled in the collector, managed to get it back into the ship. Then I’d set course away from Adrian, escaping the gravity before slowing down. For a moment, I’d let myself be relieved, thinking the mission wrapped up, but there’d still been a problem. A leak in the fuel tanks, forcing me to eject three of them. Doing so had sent the ship spiraling. My mind still struggles to process that part fully. The painkillers are likely affecting my cognitive capabilities, I’m aware of that. I also took a knock to the head when the pilot’s chair ripped free from its supports and slammed me into the screens.
The memory of the chair crushing me against the control screen makes me shudder, and for a moment, I feel like I’m suffocating again, like my lungs can’t expand enough to bring in air. It… was not a pleasant experience, especially with what happened afterward.
The following memory, of Rocky going still, not long after I regained consciousness once I could breathe again… well, that might be even worse than the suffocation. It… also reminds me of waking up to find my crewmates dead. I don’t know how or why I ended up on this mission rather than Dubois or Shapiro, but my days were far worse when I was alone, knowing that, through some twisted luck, I had woken up from that coma while Ilyukhina and Yao… didn’t. I still don’t know what exactly happened. It’s something I’ve chosen to avoid thinking about, since I don’t know enough to come to a believable conclusion. I’d just drive myself mad theorizing.
Meeting Rocky is what saved me from a lonely spiral, and I don’t know what I’ll do if he doesn’t wake up. Tears fall from my eyes, a few at first, then more, until I’m absolutely sobbing. I can’t do it. I can’t do this alone.
Time passes like a buffeting wind as I sit there, just bawling my eyes out and getting nothing done, but I’m eventually distracted by the pain in my arm. The painkillers aren’t doing much other than making me delirious. More tears spring to my eyes.
I need rest. I need to figure out how to help Rocky. First, though, I need to inspect our catch.
A weak smile comes to my face as I remember telling Rocky about fishing, and how excited he’d been to learn about the earth practice, but then I remember the state he’s in. A cold, miserable feeling spreads through my core. I force myself to get up anyway, retrieve the collection device from the airlock, and bring it into the lab.
If something has happened to the predator, or if we somehow failed to collect any… well, I’m not sure how many more tears I can shed before I run out. Kind of a silly thought, but surely even I, Ryland Grace the leaky space blob, can’t go on crying forever.
Trying to ignore my arm, I carefully– or what passes for carefully in my current state– move the samples from the collector to a simulation of Adrian’s atmosphere. I don’t get much further, because from there, my arm starts throbbing harder. I need more painkillers. As I pass the collector I notice that, in my delirium, I failed to move over the entirety of the sample like I intended. The ball shaped collector has spokes all over its surface, part of a remotely controlled mechanism, and the collector tubes are separate, a safety measure in case the integrity of one or more of them was compromised. We didn’t want to put all our eggs in one basket, as the saying goes. Or… this time, we didn’t want to put all our alien microorganisms in one collection tube.
I had left one of the now sealed collection tubes, carefully designed to seal so that they kept the ship’s atmosphere out and Adrian’s atmosphere in once the sample was collected. Grumbling in annoyance, I pulled out the last collection tube…
With my left hand.
Pain throbbed through my burnt arm at the sudden movement. I’m not even left-handed, but it was closer to the collector. I promptly dropped the tube, and dropped myself as well as I scrambled to catch it. Fumbling around on the floor, left arm still hurting like… like it had been exposed to some very hot gas, which it had been, I managed to find the tube…
With my knee.
I yelped as I slipped and crashed the rest of the way to the ground, tube rolling away. I scrambled madly to grab it, and sighed in relief as my hand closed around it. My right hand this time. My fingers started to close around the tube, which was shaking, maybe from being knocked around so much.
Then the tube dropped out of my hand again, and exploded.
The explosion was small, but it had knocked me back through some mix of surprise and, well, explosive force. The gravity in place at the moment was very light, as I didn't want to stress the ship by accelerating too much before I could check the damage, so there was less static friction keeping me in place as a result of the reduced normal force.
My first thought, after the initial burst of shock, then frustration, was that this didn't bode well for the upcoming experiments on the rest of the sample. One tube had just exploded in my face for an unknown reason, so I couldn't predict whether the others would do the same.
My second thought was five second rule, but it had already been more than five seconds, and I would have a hard time collecting exploded microorganism bits off the floor anyway.
I didn't reach a third thought, because my arm started hurting again. Not that it ever stopped, I was just momentarily distracted. The tube is done for. That's why we have backups, anyway. I don’t like that it happened, but there's nothing I can do about it.
For now, since the rest of the sample is safely stored, I have to do something about the pain in my arm and figure out how to revive Rocky. He must be healing naturally, in his current state, but I can’t stand the thought of taking my chances just… leaving him.
After strong-arming Armando into giving me more painkillers, I sit next to the whiteboard and start brainstorming. By the end of it, I’ve decided to start by making a heat lamp. If he doesn’t get better soon from there, well… I don’t know enough about Eridian biology to help much, but I have a few other ideas to try, only as a last resort.
I have to believe he’ll make it. I can’t be alone again.
The days have been rough, I’ll admit. I’ll ask Rocky a question occasionally, then wait for an answer, but get none. Then I recall the reason. My only real conversational partner is myself, so I find myself talking out loud, every thought an external dialogue, with the occasional OW inserted into the words. The painkillers aren’t working as well as they should. The pain has started to change, feeling less sharp and more like my arm has a headache. That doesn’t really make much sense, but it’s the best description I’ve got.
A good portion of each day is spent watching Rocky. The concern is increasing within me. Surely there has to be some way I can awaken him. I could try my idea…
With the way Rocky burned in my atmosphere, I’ve figured ash must have clogged his radiator. Perhaps cleaning it out would help him recover faster, since his radiator would have better function.
My knowledge of Eridian biology is not extensive, however. Any action is a risk. Furthermore, my mind isn’t at its best at the moment, between painkillers and worry. At least I’m aware enough to realize that. It’s like a leash that I’ve got on Stupid Grace, preventing myself from doing anything that’s, well, stupid. It’s an idea I’ll have to wait to implement, for now.
There’s a lot of other ideas floating around in my head that are probably pretty stupid. I’d sleep it off, but there is so much to do that feels urgent, and it’s making it hard to lay down and relax.
Now, I sit with my back against the xenonite wall dividing me from Rocky, the very thing that kept him safe from my atmosphere until he had to go in to save my pathetic life. Nearly killed by a chair… and, well, quite a few Gs. Was there any way I could have prevented that from happening? A million, maybe. The fishing mission was a very risky maneuver. Maybe if I’d been smarter, come up with a better plan, a way to protect the ship… if I’d had the foresight to know what would happen… if I’d managed to lower the force in time… none of this would have happened, and I would be talking to Rocky right now, perhaps answering his questions about weird human biology. I’d been a very leaky space blob since I first woke up after the whole incident. No doubt Rocky would lightheartedly tease me about it. Goodness, I… I miss him.
“Please wake up bud…” I sob. I’m back to being a leaky space blob.
How could I ever forgive myself if he doesn’t make it? If he dies because of his efforts to save me? Erid would be doomed. Probably Earth as well. I’m just a middle school teacher. A teacher, who ran away from the academia scene because I couldn’t handle criticism. I don’t belong in space. I don’t belong on this mission. Why am I the one that survived? Why did I even volunteer?
A memory tugs at me, but flits away before I can fully grasp it. My lungs feel tight again.
I stay with my back to the xenonite for some time. It’s about time my bandages were changed, but I don’t want to move from that spot. Maybe if I stay here long enough the world will snap back into place again. Everything will be as it should be. Rocky will be awake.
The sudden sharp tingling in my injured arm is what snaps me out of it. Soon, I feel it in my right arm too, centered on the lesser burn left by Rocky as he was rescuing me. There’s also a slight echo of the tingling on my nose and forehead, where my face hit the screen.
It’s not something that’s ever happened to me before, and not something I’ve heard of, either. The only theory my addled mind can muster is that the painkillers are causing it somehow, perhaps because they’re wearing off. What should I do? Wave it off? Search up my symptoms? There’s a wealth of information on the Hail Mary, after all. Stratt pirated… basically the entire internet.
The sensation goes from tingling to complete numbness, then back again. I’m not really sure what to think. Have I gotten some sort of infection? No… the Hail Mary was supposed to be pretty sterile, and the team working with the crew did their utmost to ensure that there was minimized risk of any pathogens making it onto the ship. Anything that infected me would have had to make it past the decontamination process. So, that’s not plausible.
My left arm is shaking slightly, I realize. The motion had gone unnoticed to me until now. Worry inflates like a balloon in my chest. Maybe this is more of a cause for concern than I initially thought. First the tingling, now involuntary shaking. Would Armando be able to take care of this? That nannybot has really “come in clutch” for me, as my students would say. My students… who are watching as the sun fades, who will watch the world collapse around them if I fail on this mission. If something is wrong with me I have to deal with it quickly.
I get to my feet, and the room sways around me. Black spots crowd my vision for a moment, before my circulation catches up and they clear away. After they do, I find I’m still standing,but leaning against the xenonite wall for support. I stood up too fast. That could have gone way worse. At least I didn’t fall and injure myself.
I look back at Rocky, wondering what comments the Eridian would make about poor design. He would’ve been right. He–
Rocky is moving.
He’s moving!
“Rocky!” I press myself closer against the xenonite.
Rocky says some words, the notes echoing in low tones. I recognize my name, and some other words sound familiar, but I’m used to relying on the translator. There’s been no need to keep the setup powered on with Rocky asleep, so I’ve left it somewhere on the ship.
“Just- just a moment. I need my thinking machine.” I find myself imitating Rocky’s phrasing sometimes. Hurriedly, I search for the translation setup, walking right past it at first, then finally finding the tablet attached to the computer. I’d had to reattach it after the incident at Adrian, and there’s a glitch on the computer screen, but it’s still usable. I boot it up as I walk back towards Rocky.
“Grace okay, question?” Rocky asks.
“You’re asking me that?” I said incredulously. “I’ve been- been waiting for you to wake up!” I pressed myself closer against the xenonite wall.
“Grace not taking in air. Rocky afraid.”
“I’m breathing now, buddy.”
“Grace not die, statement. Grace alive.”
“Yes. I’m alive. You’re alive. We’re alright.”
That was all I could focus on, at the moment. The fact that both of us were okay. I hardly noticed the worsening tingling at the places where I had sustained injuries during the whole ordeal. I forgot, at that time, about my plans to go to Armando for a checkup on that. My mind was focused on the still living being in front of me, and the feeling of relief that came from his awakening.
.