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Grace knew from the moment that he stepped off of Mary that things were going to be different.
It wasn’t a bad different, per se, just an adjustment. Adjusting to being on Earth gravity again, adjusting to feel solid ground under his fingertips again, adjusting to living in a home again instead of a ship.
There were a lot of adjustments he had to make. His teachings, his friendships, his language; to be sacrificed was one thing, to relearn himself was another.
Oh. He was still using the wrong language. Sorry - she was learning to relearn herself.
That was also a new development, along with the language. New terminology, new assignment, a long time coming. Still getting used to it. Her pulling herself up on it wouldn’t make her feel any less guilty, but she couldn’t help herself. She always felt guilty, even when she was a kid, before the doctorate and thesis and college and growing up.
Even then, she knew just how much Rocky cared more than other people had, more than other humans had ever dared or would dare. after all, Rocky hadn’t cared, she wouldn’t be here right now and she wouldn’t look like this.
Walking past the mirror was still something she was getting used to. She always expected to see that scraggly, bearded man; the lamb to the slaughter that haunted her for years, decades, a shadow out of the corner of her eye that she felt but she couldn’t see.
Of course, that was far from who was in the mirror anymore. Armando always passed the coffee not to that man, but to her. Dirty blonde waves that decorated her shoulders, glasses that perched on top of her head, ill fitting baggy shirts that used to go to her knees, but now swished around her waist, thanks to the top heavy weight on her chest that had grown in the time since, her lower half curved and doing its valiant best to cling to the boxers that she still owned despite having Adrian offered to make her something a little bit more… her.
Sometimes she missed the facial hair; most of the time she was thankful it had disappeared along with most of her body hair. That or the hormones may have blonded out enough to the point where she just couldn’t see it.
Point was, she was happy. For once in her life, despite everything and the fact that she may never see her home world again, she was happy. It wasn’t like there was anything left on Earth for her anyway. Stratt had been devastatingly right about that fact.
Her job as a middle school teacher was low paying, her apartment was small at best and a broom closet at worst despite her being in New Jersey and nowhere near New York where it was bedlam to even try and get decent housing. She didn’t even own a pet at that time (though she had contemplated getting a cat at one point), having only come back from grief leave literally before getting recruited thanks to her parents passing away a day apart from each other back home in South Carolina.
(God, she hopes that their graves aren’t too lonely, sitting there with Court’s from a few years earlier. She’s thankful that they were together in the end; given her mother had dementia and her father was her sole caretaker after Darwin, Luke and Colt - the triplets - all decided to go into stunt work and fuck off to Hollywood while she and Holland stuck around a little longer.
She hopes they’re okay as well; as much as she hated having brothers when she grew up, she did miss them here and there. She hopes Holland doesn’t feel too guilty looking in the mirror and seeing a face that everyone thinks is dead.)
Still, she was alive. She was here. She had friends, (even if they were crab like rocks), she had a family (Rocky, Adrian and their many pebbles) and she had her job (who knew rock kids could be so curious?) and that was all that mattered.
This, what she had built, was all that really mattered.
“Grace okay, question?” She looks down, peering over her glasses with a smile directed Rocky’s way as he taps on her shin bone where her trainers meet her ankle.
“Yeah.” Her voice now is more melodic, musical as she says it, meaning it for once.
“Grace okay, statement.”