Work Text:
Stratt was packing her things to move into the new house she’d found; the rest of them didn’t have very many things to pack.
“You should at least let Carl help you if you won’t let me,” Grace tried to protest as Eva assembled another cardboard box.
“It is nice to do some physical work for once, schätzchen. Don’t worry about it. Carl can carry the furniture to the moving truck later.”
“The World Prime Minister, packing her own things,” Ting Yí whispered to herself in Mandarin, shaking her head in disbelief.
“Well, I’m not going to let movers in here, and Carl is the only person on my security team I trust to be normal around our celebrities,” she responded to Yao’s wife.
“She has good point,” Ilyukhina piped up. “Internet is going crazy since alien press conference yesterday.”
“Geez, Oly,” Ryland grumbled as Olesya stared at her phone on the couch. “I’ve seen middle schoolers less addicted to the things than you’ve been the past few days.” Rocky had xenonite-walled the linen closet so he had a place to eat and sleep, and once he’d finished eating, Yao had opened the door so they could watch him during his rest cycle.
“I have lots of internet to catch up on,” she defended. “Current project is going through entire archive of viral tweets from launch to present. Very entertaining.”
“Very dumb, more like,” Eva snorted and rolled her eyes.
“You are just possessive because whole internet thinks Ry is ‘thirst trap’ Olesya cackled, making air quotes.
“Excuse me?” Grace demanded, making a face. Olesya turned her screen to show him the current thread that had captured her attention.
“Disgust!” Ryland made a face. “I miss them dearly, but I could live an Eridian lifespan and it would still be too soon to hear about DuBois and Shapiro’s sex life.”
“How did the internet even know about that?” Yao asked.
“We used some of the more lighthearted security footage from the carrier to make a small documentary after the launch of the Hail Mary- a PR move, really. Nothing classified,” Eva answered.
“Like The Office?” Ryland asked, ever the millennial.
“Eh, kind of,” Carl shrugged, wiggling his hand in a so-so motion. “There were no personal interviews or anything like that. More of a ‘found footage’ type of deal. People really loved it, though.”
“They were especially charmed by the way you anthropomorphized your lab equipment,” Stratt said. “All of the footage of you was early days, of course; we didn’t want anyone questioning why we sent a visibly ill man into space when we needed the world to have hope in the project. But there was enough of it to make for good viewing.”
“Stratt, tell me you didn’t put any of the footage of me talking to Rosie,” Ryland groaned. “I’m literally begging you.”
“Well, I could lie to you, if you’d really prefer that.”
“Why, Eva, why? This is such a betrayal!”
“You knew you were being filmed, liebling; the security cameras were always on. If you didn’t want me to publicize your long conversations with ‘Rosalind the DNA sequencer’ about the genetic makeup of astrophage, you shouldn’t have had them in the first place.”
“I swear to Ada Lovelace, Stratt… oh no, that’s so embarrassing! Today’s middle schoolers won’t have watched that, right? I need my street cred.”
“What street cred?” Olesya snorted, still scrolling twitter.
“Hey, I’ll have you know, I was the coolest teacher at Grover Cleveland Middle School, and I plan to be again!”
“It’s actually Ryland Grace Middle School now,” Carl informed him. Ryland looked at his friend with an expression of horrified mortification.
“What- no! Make them change it back, command! I can’t teach at a school named after me; it would be weird weird weird!”
“If you don’t like it, you can start a petition to change it. That can be your personal project for the next three months, because you’re not going back to work until at least 8 weeks after your implantation surgery,” Eva informed him, pursing her lips. “Frankly, I’d rather you took an early retirement, but I’m being very indulgent.”
“Yeah yeah,” Ryland rolled his eyes at her. They’d already had this conversation several times. “I can’t believe you’re going to make me take Carl to work with me every day; I thought he was supposed to keep you from getting shot at.”
“I’m retiring within the next few months, and with the success of the project, I no longer need to be quite as worried; I will be fine with a less skilled security guard. You, on the other hand, are currently the biggest celebrity on the planet, and you want to go gallivanting around a middle school, of all things. So, you either take Carl or I put an entire security detail around your classroom- your choice.”
“Fine, Carl can come learn middle school science,” he sighed.
“And keep you from getting mobbed,” Yao added.
Grace rolled his eyes again.
“You literally went out to Trader Joe’s the other day by yourself,” he argued.
“I am an upper-middle aged Chinese man and I was wearing a hat while walking with my wife, who has never taken press interviews. It was very easy to pass under the radar, and Director Stratt had us tailed anyway; they were just giving us a little space.”
“How come I never get a little space?” Grace protested.
“Because you were the one who found and engineered solution. We were, in eyes of the general public, just sidekicks,” Olesya pointed out. “Very sexy sidekicks, but still sidekicks. Also, we are in America, and you were American astronaut. If we go to Russia, then I will need more security. If we go to China, Li-Jie will need more security. Is way of things,” Ilyukhina said.
“You guys aren’t my sidekicks, that’s ridiculous,” Ryland scoffed.
“Your aggressive humility will not keep you from getting stampeded by people who want your autograph,” Eva told him. “Carl is your shadow now. Deal with it.”
“Isn’t Carl also kind of famous- I mean, it’s called The Carl Hypothesis for a reason!” Grace waved his arms around and nearly upset a vase of begonias on the side table, one of the few decorations that hadn’t been there 30 years ago.
“Yeah, only the Vat really called it that,” Carl replied. “It’s officially referred to as ‘Astrophageal reproduction theory’.
“Unbelievable, statement,” Grace mumbled. “They don’t even respect my naming rights!”
“There, there,” Olesya soothed in a monotone, patting him on the head. “Words of comfort.”
___________
“Rocky want human pet,” the alien demanded almost the instant they’d settled into their new home. “Sunny show Rocky cat photos on internet; want cat, statement.”
“I’ll make some calls,” Eva sighed. It was very important to Grace that she and the alien ‘got along’ and so she was trying her best.
“You two should go pick it out together, as a bonding exercise, suggestion” Olesya encouraged, her grin positively gremlinesque.
“That’s a wonderful idea, statement,” Ryland agreed from near the ladder Carl was standing on. “Rocky seems really impatient, and Carl and I are going to be decorating most of the afternoon,” he continued, as he handed the man the scale model of Venus to hang on the ceiling.
“I should have left you in Kazakhstan," Eva muttered in German in Ilyukhina’s general direction. Carl snorted. He had picked up some basics over the past three decades or so of guarding Stratt.
“When are you going to teach us German, Eavie?” Ryland asked her.
“We did not discuss that nickname, sternchen,” she replied, deadpan.
“Everything is always such a discussion with you,” he laughed, ignoring her raised eyebrow of displeasure. “This is our home, not politics. Just roll with it.”
Eva just muttered sharply under her breath in German and turned to Rocky. “Come; let’s go collect our feline.”
_______
The shelter was empty except for the head of the shelter, who had signed an NDA and was giving strict instructions by Carl not to freak out around Rocky before the other two got out of the car. Eva held the translator as they wandered the enclosures.
“Ohhhhh, so cute! Пупсик,” Rocky cooed at nearly every cage.
“It has to be a shorthair,” Eva warned him. “Cats shed enough without adding more fur.”
“Grace like short hair cats,” Rocky agreed. “Grace short-term guardian have short hair cat, past tense. Grace love cat very much. But then human guardianship tribunal return Grace to evil egg-parent, past tense. Rocky dislike dislike dislike. Much anger, exclamation!”
“Agreed,” Eva hummed. She had spent a lot of work reforming family court in the past few decades. Biological ties no longer held nearly as much importance when it came to assigning guardianship, and even younger children had their opinions heavily weighted by judges.. Although, with universal birth control and abortion rights, there were far fewer unwanted children these days.
Even many people who had wanted children had held off due to the state of the world. And anyone who would have wanted to take advantage of social programs on their own behalf by having a child learned very quickly that it would not grant them an extra meal ticket; all families were required to take their rations in communal cantinas to ensure that parents didn’t steal from their children for extra calories. Of course, some new births were necessary to keep the population from declining at a rate that would be detrimental for a continuing functional society, but parenthood by and large was no longer something that could serve any selfish purpose in the world Eva Stratt had presided over since the Hail Mary launch, and there was much more oversight. ‘Parental rights’ be damned; Eva Stratt was quite a tyrant when it came to ensuring the wellbeing of children, even if it came at the cost of a ‘nanny state’ for parents.
“What Tsarina thinking, question?” Rocky tilted his carapace. He had slowly started being more talkative with her since he saw how much she fussed over Grace brother. And it was important to Grace that they got along, and so Rocky would try his best.
“About the past, I suppose…” she murmured.
“Past finish, past tense. Present now. Get cat,” Rocky demanded, very cautiously bumping against her leg with his xenonite suit.
“You are not incorrect, Rocky,” she agreed. “I can see how my astronauts must have benefited from your wisdom.”
“Yes, Rocky very wise,” the translator declared. “Very useful when Grace sleep-stupid. Sometimes Sunny too, but mostly Grace. Grace bad bad bad at sleeping.”
“Indeed,” Eva agreed. She turned to the shelter worker, who had been following behind in a sort of awestruck silence as the World Prime Minister and the Eridian wandered the hallways. “Do you perhaps have a cat that enjoys sitting on laps? Preferably long enough to trap a scatterbrained scientist in one place long enough to fall asleep?”
___________
“Grace Sunny Commander,” Rocky chirped, bursting into their new living room, which now had a full model of the solar system hung up on the ceiling, along with several packets of glow-in-the-dark stars. “Rocky Tsarina bring home cat!” His carapace was vibrating with excitement as Eva followed at a more sedate pace holding a medium-sized orange male.
“Oh, he’s so cute!” Ilyukina squealed, sticking out her hand to be sniffed. The cat didn’t seem to mind, but Stratt looked as though she certainly did. Olesya did not seem to care.
“Name is 🎶🎵🎵🎵🎵🎶🎼” Rocky declared proudly. Grace burst out laughing- his best friend had named their new addition the Eridian equivalent of “small squishy fur pebble”.
“And his English name?” Yao asked, holding back his own snicker.
“Faust,” Eva declared. “I’ve had him microchipped, and it’s already on the paperwork.”
“Thank fuck you named him before you came home; Sappho knows what Чепуха Ry would have come up with.”
“I am being defamed, statement,” the scientist pouted.
“Is only libel if false,” Olesya laughed.
“Rocky think Grace great at naming, exclamation!”
“Aww, thanks bud,” Grace replied as Eva brought the cat to him to be introduced.
“Your naming skills are being endorsed by the alien who came up with the name ‘medium-rough texture circle planet’,” Yao reminded them. “That’s not a compliment, statement.”
“I am going to live-tweet entire conversation, very funny!”
“Oly, I swear that I am going to go back to space just to shove that stupid phone into the void,” Grace groaned.
The only answer he received was a flash as Olesya captured his disgruntled expression on film. Her followers were going to love this.