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Dr. Ryland Grace, fired Molecular Biologist, kidnapped Middle School science teacher, more-than-a-little amnesiac and solo crew member of the Hail Mary didn't know anything about alternate dimension theories. He barely understood time dilation and how anything and everything he knew and loved about Earth (that he could recall of course) would already be changed if he somehow made his way back in an instant. What little he did know only served to muddy the waters that was his overtired, beyond stressed, and borderline hopeless feeling brain as it tried to compute what he was now seeing.
He had been taking a break in the mental health room. Panels and panels of screens all stacked to create the largest IMAX screen he could hope to burn his retinas with. He had been asking himself if he would have enjoyed watching any particular sports on such a wide screen, but as soon as the thought appeared he was practically laughing at himself with how off it seemed.
Cross off 'Sports Fan?' on the whiteboard, then.
His entire sense of self was still narrowed down to his immediate predicament of being in actual literal SPACE, and his apparent vast knowledge of all the lab equipment stored within the metal ship hurtling through endless nothing. Oh, and of course his love of science puns and whimsical musicals, if the T-Shirts in his bag had anything to show for themselves.
He wasn't wearing one of them now though. He was still dressed in his yellow flight suit, which had seemed appropriate for the impromptu funeral he had just held for his fallen crew members. Looking through their photos to try to recall any information about them to properly eulogize had only gotten him a few snapshots of grins, muted conversations of preparation meetings, and a lot of walking around a base. Nothing that seemed as personal he had felt they deserved.
'You were very loved.'
It couldn't have been a lie, but it did make him wonder about himself. Was he loved? Was there anyone who had fought to keep him on Earth?
And now he was alone. More alone than he could ever have dreamed he would ever be.
'I wish I was doing a better job, I just…'
Just what, exactly? What else could he do other than sit here and wonder how fast or slow the end would come? Did he really think so highly of himself that he thought he could actually DO this?
Looking out at the screens in front of him, now changed to a peaceful seasside, he was momentarily distracted from his self-depreciating by recalling how much he liked the beach. Not the hot, sun-shiny, sweat your butt off kind of beach day though. No, he liked to be dressed for fall, unable to see farther than 100 feet out across the top of the ocean thanks to the clouds and fog as he listened to the rhythmic sounds of waves.
His sight started blurring slightly as he looked out as far as he could around him through the screens. The sound of waves seemed to overpower any other sound as he looked towards his right, caught in the moment of looking down a rocky coast.
Strangely, he saw a man walking towards him, face tilted down towards his own feet as he walked down the beach towards him. Ryland was mid 'who could they have recorded' thought before he felt waves crash over his entire bottom half.
He jolted with a gasp, but all at once realized he was neither on a beach, nor on the Hail Mary's media deck. He was sitting on the edge a modest but comfy full sized bed, neatly made with a familiar multi-colored quilt. The room around him was simple but architecturally nothing like anything he had ever seen before.
Was he hallucinating? Had he finally cracked? Was Armando going to have to put him down for his own safety? Oops, sorry Earth, but your one last hope for survival couldn't cut it and devolved into an oddly detailed fantasy of a roomy apartment with soft natural lighting.
No harm in trying to wake himself up from whatever daydream his had Inception-ed himself into. He stood from the bed slowly, arms out slightly as if the simple act of standing would throw the whole world off kilter. Even slower steps moved him through the rooms of the apartment (house?), where he periodically recognized pieces of equipment from the Hail Mary, or objects of his own. Did he live here? How? Since when? Oh gosh what if these were trophies of some Space Pirate raid he had somehow blacked out from and they would be back any second to finish the job.
He was distracted by the Atomic Resolution Scanning Electron Microscope sitting nonchalantly in it's own alcove when he heard the unmistakable sound of a door opening and closing. He looked all around the room for a place to hide, even at the ceiling and the floor in case there was somewhere he missed.
A space pirate didn't walk into his line of sight though. There were white pants that looked oddly similar to his white flight suit, his favorite fox cardigan, glasses that only had more trouble staying straight on his nose as they got older, and a wind ruffled mop of dirty blond hair.
Himself. He was staring at himself and himself was staring right back, sea storm blue eyes wide with shock.
Dr. Ryland Grace, both of them, let out a long, loud, high pitched scream.
The man wearing his fox sweater found words first. "Why are you a person!?"
"Me?" Ryland yelled, marginally offended and oddly embarresed at how many times he had asked himself that exact question before. "You're a person, aren't you?"
"Well, why are you wearing my old flight suit? What, are you cosplaying as Past-Me?" He asked with emphatic air quotes around 'Past Me'.
"Yours?!" Now this was getting ridiculous. "This is MY flight suit."
Grace 2.0, as he claimed to be, huffed a small clearly disbelieving laugh. "You're Dr. Ryland Grace?"
"Uh, yeah. Kinda only one me, so…" The other man looked down at himself then looked back up at Ryland with face that couldn't read as anything but disgruntled bewilderment.
Ryland felt himself make a noise that may have been a groan as much as it was a whimper.
The other Grace, Future Grace apparently, looked up towards the ceiling. "Mary! Why didn't you tell me there was an intruder??"
The ship's calm voice echoed through an unseen PA system, making Ryland jerk with surprise. "The only life form currently within the Grace household is Dr. Ryland Grace."
"How helpful," the sweater wearing man groaned as he gripped at his hair and making it stand up wildly. "And I suppose you were going to offer him a coffee, Armando?" He turned around to accuse the robot positioned behind him, which managed to look guilty as it held the cup in its grasp.
Ryland's jaw dropped, "Oh my God he was actually going to offer me a coffee."
"To be fair it's not really coouuu-wait!" the explanation was cut off with a head shake and waving both arms. He spun around and pointed directly at Ryland. "If you're really me, tell me something only I'd know."
"Shouldn't I be asking you that??" Ryland asked, but wracked his brain to try to come up with anything. Pressure was decidedly not conducive for memory recall. His students would surely be rolling their eyes at him with a bored 'duh'.
Future Grace pressed a hand to his mouth in thought while the other crossed over his chest. After a moment of thinking he clapped his hands decisively.
"What's our middle name?"
"Huh?"
"Middle name. Go."
"Dude, I barely got the FIRST name reloaded and now you want the middle one?" Ryland shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he unconsciously prepped to start pacing.
Grace shrugged and made a face that read 'I don't make the rules'.
Ryland heaved a heavy sigh and looked at the floor in thought. Whenever he tried to recall something post-coma he normally could sense if there was a hole in his knowledge, whether or not he actually ended up remembering in that moment. Now, he could sense well and truly nothing. Which was so odd because everyone had a middle name it was what people did, except-
"We don't have one," he whispered to himself in awe. He looked up at his equally surprised looking doppelganger. "We don't have one," he repeated. "Because mom thought it was dull and boring that everybody gave out middle names willy-nilly."
Grace put his hands on his hips and a slow awe struck smile stretched across his face as he nodded. "You really are a past me, huh?"
Ryland looked around and shrugged. "I guess, I mean… I don't know where I am, or how I got here. I was just on the Hail Mary, and now I'm in some kind of, what, bohemian dream house?"
Grace looked Ryland up and down, his eyes narrowing in recognition and then softening in realization. It was odd to see how obvious his own emotions were.
"You just had the funeral, right?"
Direct hit right to the gut. "…Yeah," Ryland replied shortly, throat getting tight again as he thought of it. "Thought it was the least I could do, ya know."
Grace nodded and offered a small smile, which somehow didn't feel placating. Ryland supposed that came with the territory of speaking to someone who actually knew what you were going through. He wished he could say the same.
They moved further through the house, Ryland trying to stop himself from staring at all the small bits and bobs he couldn't recognize decorating the space. The living room they arrived in had a large floor to ceiling window, but to Ryland's surprise and delight, he could barely see out of it thanks to the dense sheet of fog covering the world outside.
"Woah! Are we at a beach?? Can I go see-"
"Wait!"
He had already been moving to the door when his wrist was gripped tight and the sharp word made him pause and turn. His future self looked conflicted at best as he furrowed his brow at the ground, and seemed to be running a million calculations in his head before looking back up at his face.
"I'm thinking we should try to, uh, avoid any…."
"Oh. Right. Spoilers?"
"Spoilers," Grace nodded with a small laugh. "Though I guess you've already gotten some by talking to me, huh?"
"I won't post on the Reddit page, I swear." Project Go Outside firmly canceled, Ryland decided to take a seat in the lone chair by the coffee table and keep looking around the room. Grace stayed standing, but moved about the room at an easy pace that Ryland found himself recognizing as his 'I'm pondering' pace from his (their?) teaching days. Does he still get to teach?
Future Grace kept moving but crossed his arms again and addressed him. "I know you have no idea how you got here, and probably equally little idea of how to get back," he said stated as a prompt to get the conversation started.
Ryland nodded in agreement. "One second I'm wasting time in the media room and the next? Home invasion."
Grace paused and asked, "Does it count as a home invasion if it's technically your home?"
"Says the guy who berated Armando for trying to be a good butler." Matching giggles escaped the both of them, though Ryland couldn't help but notice how easily Grace's came. There were subtle lines appearing around his eyes and mouth that got all the clearer as he grinned. How often had he gotten to laugh in however long between Ryland's own reality and this future one?
Come to think of it, when was the last time Ryland had laughed? It must have been back on Earth, but exactly when he couldn't place. Even if his memory was intact, which it assuredly wasn't, it would still have physically been years since his body had used those specific muscles. He tried to wrack his brain for any clue as to the last thing he could recall before going under but it was still depressingly blank.
He looked down at his lap and fidgeted with his hands. Grace was still talking into the space about possibly trying to math out some kind of event occurrence that could help trigger something something something oh what the ever loving heck, Ryland had no idea what to do. Why should he even try to pay attention?
If he was being honest, he couldn't fathom how this was supposed to be his future self. This version seemed so calm and sure of himself even while navigating this wildly unknown turn of events. He was rattling off possibilities and factors for a reason for why it happened in the first place and confidently providing hypothetical solutions.
Ryland felt smaller than ever. He barely knew what he was doing on the Hail Mary to begin with, certainly couldn't imagine knowing what to do once he got to where he had been intending to go, and now he had somehow managed to take an inter-dimensional detour. Was time still passing on his side of things? What was the time dilation between…. time itself?
Oh goodness gracious, what if too much time had already passed? What if he missed his chance to even TRY to help Earth? Earth was well and truly doomed all thanks to him.
He leaned over his lap and pushed his glasses up on to his head. He felt his breath hitch as he pressed his palms into his eyes in an attempt to delay the inevitable. He had never been great at holding back his emotions once they got the better of him, and every waking moment since he heard Mary ask 'What is 2 plus 2?' had been plenty to push him over the edge.
"Woah, woah, woah. Hey," he heard Grace say before the sound of feet shuffling across the stone floor brought him closer. "Buddy, it's ok. We'll figure this out."
"Maybe you can," Ryland choked out through his already spilling tears. "Not me. I have no idea what I'm doing here or in space at all. The best I've held down a solid job was when I started at Grover Cleveland, but even that's only been a couple years now. I'm a washed up researcher that's so busy thinking he's right that he can't handle when a problem actually comes up, and has to defend his theories with witty quips and performative nonchalance! I'm not a genius! I'm not a hero! I can't DO this, I can't-"
Warm, slightly callused hands gripped the sides of his face and pulled to make him look up. Grace had knelt on the ground in front of him and was certainly looking over his pathetic past self with confusion. Ryland's tears were falling steadily now so he could barely see the face in front him, but he knows how he'd feel about it at the moment so he had to assume.
"S-sorry," he apologized instantly, more to an Earth he couldn't see than the man in front of him. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I- mmMP!"
Any other apologies or self depreciating statements were cut off when Grace leaned forward, connected their lips in a perfect kiss, and put Ryland's brain into what he could only register as a Blue Screen of Death mode. Okay that's a bit dramatic. What's more zen than a Blue Screen of Death? Lucid dreaming? Mindless meditation?
It was hard to think of any appropriate comparisons when plush lips were massaging his. The light scratch of a beard against his own had him shudder from how ticklish it made him. As Grace pressed closer, his mouth opening slightly to suckle gently at Ryalnd's bottom lip, the energy in the room became anything but laughable.
Grace pulled away briefly, breath already heavy and eyes slowly opening as he looked over his past self.
"You," he whispered, "have nothing to apologize for. There is nothing about your situation- OUR situation that you could have or should have done differently. You are exactly the person you need to be, even if you can't see it yet. I can finally see it, and I have never been more grateful. If you remember nothing else remember this… Dr. Ryland Grace is going to figure this out."
Ryland was stunned. He had received praise before in his life; academic awards, professional accolades, 'Best Teacher' mugs, the works. He had never, not once, looked himself in the mirror and told himself exactly what he needed to hear before. The fact that the 'mirror' in this case was the one doing the talking only increased the effectiveness of the exercise.
Brain and body not able to respond any other way, and instantly missing the intimacy of close physical contact, he raised his own shaking hands to lay them over the ones still clutching his face, and leaned forward to restart the kissing. Instantly the energy between them grew even more heated. Ryland surprised himself by being the one to open his mouth first and attempt to coax the other's tongue out to play. When he felt the hot, wet muscle press and wrap around his own, the whimper that escaped his throat was involuntary.
Grace moaned quietly in response, pulling back again and laughed when Ryland tried to keep him close by biting at his lips.
"I don't think I've ever understood what people meant when they called me a whiner, but now…" Grace commented with a smirk, pupils blown out behind his own slipping glasses.
Ryland felt his face heat up and squeezed the wrists still in his grip. His thumb tucked under the cuff of Grace's sweater and caught on a bracelet. It felt like thin metal with small stones embedded in it. He turned his face slightly in order to get a view of the jewelry while Grace laid gentle kisses up and down his cheek and temple.
He couldn't place the brown metal that was used, nor the bight bluish-green stones that were flawlessly inlaid within the thin band. Even still it was beautiful. Ryland had never been much of a jewelry wearer, but if the faint tan line on his other self's wrist was anything to go by, he never took this one off.
He tried to move his head more in order to better inspect the unfamiliar bracelet, but Grace pulled him back in for another hard kiss.
Probably a spoiler anyway.
There was no telling how long they kept kissing. The easy back and forth pull of each other's hands in clothes and hair, of teeth, and lips, and tongues, of inhales and exhales that all felt and tasted remarkably familiar, all had the pair of them pretending that there was nowhere else they needed to be.
Go figure that it was when Ryland was finally relaxed that that was when he thought he could hear the Hail Mary's alarm system in the back of his head. He pulled away with a gasp for air and looked around, trying to determine if it was actually the house. The alarms got louder, and his vision started to fade in and out, the sight of his future self slowly disappearing in exchange for the cold metal of the ship.
"Wha'za matter?" Grace slurred slightly, face flushed as he also panted lightly.
Ryland felt dizzy. His fingers found their way to the shoulders of the worn fox sweater, probably wearing the stitching out even further on accident. He couldn't care less in that moment.
"Don't leave me," he begged through his renewed tears. "I can't do this by myself."
His future self let out a breath that sounded like a laugh as much as it did a sob. He pressed their foreheads together, and reached up to squeeze one of Ryland's hands just as tight as the fingers on his sweater.
"I'm not going anywhere," he whispered. "And I promise, you won't be alone."
As quickly as he had realized he had appeared in a strange bedroom, Ryland found himself back in the Hail Mary's mental health room. The screens were still on, but now the alarms going off completely overpowered any sounds coming from the video.
He took a moment, trying to parse what had happened, but Mary's calm but serious "Approaching Tau Ceti orbit. Prepare for engine cut off" drove him to stand and swiftly climb the ladder towards the cockpit, shouting new questions and concerns all along the way.
Unfortunately, as he would shortly come to find, there would be little free time to sit and consider the strange temporal anomaly he had been subjected to. Like trying to remember a dream, it got fuzzier with each passing hour, and only grew harder to recall the more time passed, the more events took place, and more memories of his actual past came back into his mind.
Despite that though, no matter what challenges and triumphs he experienced he always had a voice in his head, confident and full of gratitude telling him:
Dr. Ryland Grace was going to figure this out. He just had to start somewhere.