Work Text:
For the second time in his life, Rocky found himself aboard a slowly dying ship.
There was a numbness creeping through his limbs that had nothing to do with temperature. It was a heavy static that made his footsteps drag as he moved through the ship in a haze.
The panic and helplessness that had been his reality for weeks was collapsing into this terrible feeling that Rocky didn't have the energy to change. He wasn't sure why he still wandered the ship, trying to fix things on autopilot. The silence was deafening, pressing into him from all sides.
He felt so alone.
You'd think after 46 years (yes, Earth units, Rocky couldn't seem to shake the habit) alone he would be used to it by now. But at least before he'd still held on to a small flicker of hope. Now he had none.
He stumbled to a stop next to the controls, only managing to avoid crashing into them on instinct in the zero gravity, checking the astrophage levels in the tank for the millionth time. Even lower than before. He probably only had days left before it was completely gone. Before the radiation could break in, killing him like the rest of his crew. If the life support systems didn't fail first that is.
He stepped away from the readings spelling out his death in the very near future, and he let himself collapse as best he could without gravity to the floor, legs splayed at odd angles that he didn't care to rearrange, half floating limply.
Something bled through the numbness then. Guilt and shame. He'd failed. After years and years of waiting, unable to do anything because he was so useless (why had it been him who'd survived? Why not anyone else? Anyone more qualified? Why him, why him, why him?) he'd finally been given a second chance. The chance to go home, to save Erid. To save Adrian.
Now they would all die. All because of a flaw in his design.
He remembered the day the leak had first occurred. Coming out of his first sleep alone again to the high pitched alarms that something was wrong wrong wrong. Scrambling to find the leak, to figure out why his fuel was disappearing, finding the taumoeba in the fuel lines, unable to fix it. He couldn't fix it. His one job was fixing things, and yet he couldn't fix this.
Grace would know what to do.
When the thought that the taumoeba had also escaped on Grace's ship had occurred to him, a few days into the crisis, and it had knocked Rocky to the floor. He'd comforted himself with the knowledge that if anyone knew what to do, it would be Grace. He would've fixed the leak. He would be able to go home. The thought was the one comfort he had in this terrible, hopeless situation.
Maybe after Grace returned to Earth and saved Sol, he would be able to save Erid and Eridani. Maybe he would be able to see that Rocky's sun wasn't getting brighter and could somehow send the solution to save his planet. It was the only hope Rocky had left that his failure wouldn’t result in the death of an entire world.
He thought about Grace often. Rocky missed him terribly. And not just because he knew Grace would be able to fix this. After years and years alone, the noise of the Hail Mary and its occupant had been such a relief. Compared to the empty silence of the Blip A, the constant humming and whirring of the machines had been so grounding. Adding to that were the sounds of Grace himself. He was so loud. Much louder than an Eridian. Rocky could hear all of his internal organs, something he'd found a little disgusting at first, but had begun to find comforting after a while. It was proof of life.
The first thing Rocky had noticed about the alien during their first ‘face to face’ meeting in the tunnel had been a steady thumping sound emanating from its center. It had been going fast then, and Rocky had first wondered if this was the alien’s version of echolocation. Later he'd learned that no, the alien could actually see light and had pretty abysmal hearing. No, the thumping he'd learned, was called a heartbeat.
Humans only had one circulatory organ, located in their chests, and it never stopped. Apparently it stopping was really really bad. An indicator of death. Rocky had grown used to the sound, constant and comforting. He'd noticed how it would speed up when Grace got excited or scared, and how it would slow to a calm rhythm when the human slept, a steady, constant reminder that Grace was still there. Still alive. Rocky would never have to wonder if Grace would never wake up again, not like his crew. He could hear his life’s rhythm. Always.
Rocky had begun to associate the sound with safety. It had been the first thing he would search for when he woke up. Proof that he wasn't alone. That someone was there to watch.
Now there was no one to watch. No heartbeat. Only the silence of a dying ship.
Rocky lifted one leg, heavy with exhaustion and despair, and began gently tapping a claw on the ground. Tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap.
He knew it was pathetic. A facsimile of comfort. Grace wasn't here. Grace was going home. Rocky wasn't. But it was all he had left.
He succumbed to the pull of sleep, tapping a fake heartbeat into the floor as his soul began to finally break.
When Rocky woke, alone (always alone), an unknown amount of time later, he didn't move. What was the point? There was nothing he could do. Maybe if he just stayed here he would starve before dying a painful death from the radiation the dwindling astrophage could no longer protect him from.
He let the numbness take over, feeling heavier than he'd ever felt before despite being in zero gravity. He couldn't even raise a limb to tap a rhythm on the floor. Instead he held on to the memory of the sound. Onto the memories of Grace. On how much he missed his friend. He let himself imagine Grace going home, saving his star, being hailed as a hero. Visiting the beach he loved so much, which he'd thought he would never see again.
At least Rocky had been able to do that one good thing. He'd saved Grace. Let him go home instead of dying in space. It was almost like he'd traded places with his friend. Rocky would not have been able to bear it if he'd left knowing his friend would die alone orbiting an unfamiliar star. If Rocky had to die so Grace could live, he wouldn't change that.
He only felt sorry that all of Erid would also die because of him.
He let himself wallow in despair for an unknown amount of time.
Thunk thunk thunk
At first, Rocky thought he was hallucinating. He'd finally lost it and was imaging a distant banging noise. Then as it happened again, he wondered if the ship was somehow falling to pieces. Would he get sucked out into the vacuum of space? Maybe that would be a mercy. A quick death.
Thunk thunk thunk thunk
The sound was louder now, and Rocky actually felt the distant vibrations of it through his carapace. Was . . . was something on the hull?
Without conscious thought, Rocky was up, pushing himself off the floor to glide through the Blip A, following the vibration to . . . the tunnel? He was definitely hallucinating, mind finally fracturing from all the stress, but he didn't care. The tentative hope was returning.
He pushed off in a leap straight into the tunnel toward the xenonite barrier at the end between him and endless space. He heard a faint sound coming from the end of it. Something brushing against the surface outside. Something pressing up against the xenonite. A very familiar shape.
Rocky pushed off one more time, landing on the barrier and listening closely. The shape came into better focus, sound vibrating through the points of contact with the barrier to show the entire outline. Tall, thin, four limbs, two pressed against the barrier, five claws on each.
Rocky couldn't believe it. He just couldn't. Grace couldn't, shouldn't be here. He should be going home. And yet, yet Rocky could hear him. Could hear the way his mouth opened in what he'd learned meant happiness under his helmet. He could hear his heartbeat.
Thump-thump,thump-thump,thump-thump
It was very fast, maybe from the exertion of the spacewalk, or maybe excitement, Rocky didn't know. He pressed a claw to the xenonite and found himself asking ⟨⟨You came back for me, question?⟩⟩
His notes were wobbly, and rough with disuse, but he watched Grace nod.
“I'm here buddy.”
Rocky had thought he would never hear that strange, monotone voice ever again, and hearing it now made him shiver as hope and relief rose up inside him. He was saved. Grace came back for him.
Rocky shifted his claw closer to Grace, placing it spread out against the barrier, and he heard Grace place his claw in the same spot, before he tapped it against the surface twice. A small gesture. Simple. Like the heartbeats Rocky had tapped on the floor in his loneliness. Rocky mirrored the action, before leaning forward to thunk his carpace against the xenonite. Grace mirrored the motion in almost the exact same moment, pressing his helmet in the same spot, and Rocky heard him close his eyes. Heard his breathing slowing down.
He heard his heartbeat. The steady thumps slowing as Grace calmed. As they both floated there, taking solace in the other’s presence. Rocky pressed himself closer to the barrier, taking in all of Grace's weird, loud, wonderful sounds. Rocky would not die. Grace had sacrificed going home to save him. Adrian and Erid would be saved.
Rocky made a promise to himself then. Grace would come to Erid with them, and Rocky would make sure Erid found a way to keep Grace alive, no matter what.
He would not let Grace die.
Rocky hummed softly as he pressed against the barrier, listening to his best friend’s heartbeat.
It was the most beautiful sound Rocky had ever heard.