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Grace pokes at the faint mark on his knee. He’d run ahead of his mom’s outstretched arms, but his little feet, still unsteady on dark hardwood, couldn’t handle the uneven sidewalk.
He'd chipped two of his little baby teeth; the sidewalk had a pinkish tint to it for the rest of summer where he'd torn up his tiny knee.
The neighbors had thought he'd broken something with how he was wailing.
That little mark is the only sign left of how messy his knee was. He remembers picking at the scab and his mom slapping his hands away from it.
He's got a million of these flat little spots on his skin, the ones Rocky can't 'see'.
One on each arm from being stabbed with a pencil–Jenny L. and Matty in third and sixth grade, respectively. Jenny L didn’t mean to stab him, and they both cried over it. Matty would have just stabbed him a second time if he’d cried, so instead Grace had yanked the pencil out and set it on Matty’s desk.
It’d bled a lot for such a small wound, but the look on Matty’s face was really funny.
Grace traces a couple more on his legs–several are from falling off of his bike. Racing with the other kids had been fun, but they’d all taken their turns way too fast.
Mild burns from spilling hot water, oil splashes, and chemicals getting through his labcoat without his knowledge.
He had his appendix out when he was twenty-one: his first-ever surgery. He’d been more worried about missing class and assignments than the potential of sepsis and death.
He’d been so focused, then, on his goals. Before they changed entirely after he was laughed out of academia and went back to school for his education degree.
There’s a pinkish L-shape on the inside of his left wrist from the end of his first year teaching, when his students had rushed him on the last day of school. Turns out, when faced with the pressure of twenty-eight thirteen year olds, the marker rack under a whiteboard can do a bit of damage.
In the grand scheme of things, Grace doesn’t have that many scars. He nicks himself shaving, sometimes, but those don’t leave anything visible behind.
Even the appendix scar healed up nicely, leaving a thin diagonal line on his right side. He runs his fingers over it, but through his shirt, he can’t even tell it’s there. It must be warmer in here than he thought, or maybe he’s just sweating a lot today, because his fingers come away damp.
He pokes at the weird spots in the back of his mouth with his tongue–his wisdom teeth came in fine, but they must have removed them before they put him on the Hail Mary.
Does that count as scar tissue?
He can’t decide.
Grace inspects his arms again for anything small that he might have missed.
Nothing.
He runs his fingers over the biggest scar he’s ever had–the one he loves the most, because it means Rocky had been able to save him.
The one he hates, because it means Rocky was hurt saving him, and he hadn’t been aware of any of it until after.
He keeps his touch light. Anything more would be overwhelming.
Grace has an extensive first kit, but even he doesn’t have all the proper burn care materials.
He’s never needed them before.
This scar hasn’t quite lost its shine yet, but it doesn’t hurt anymore. He doubts it will fade in the way the others have–it will stay raised and angry.
Rocky can ‘see’ it better, that way. Grace hasn’t asked him if he prefers the raised scar tissue to his normal skin yet.
That’s the last one. The biggest one, the worst one.
It’s not the only one that matters–the kids in his first class are all grown up now. Some of them are probably dead. Some of them might have kids. Most of them probably don’t have the career they wanted when they took his class, but maybe a couple of them do.
Even the kids he left behind to work on Project Hail Mary are adults now. He doesn’t have any scars from them, though. So the L-shaped scar has to represent all of the classes he ever taught.
Would he still be teaching if he were on Earth? It seems unlikely he would be able to return to his previous position, with the way he took off in the middle of the school year, but maybe he would have found another school if he’d stayed.
Or maybe he would have gone into hiding, never to be seen again. Stratt probably wouldn’t have broadcasted his cowardice to the whole world, but she certainly wouldn’t have covered for him.
Grace lays back and lets his hands settle over his stomach now that he’s finished going over his scars. He’s always achy these days, but looking over his scars helps some. It stretches his muscles out, loosens things up. Moreso when he’s standing than when he’s sitting, but he’s too tired to stand today.
“Grace, why are you leaking, question? Not from head, statement.”
“I’m fine, Rocky,” Grace waves him off. He’s not leaking… he’s not so tired that he wouldn’t notice wetting himself.
And he’s not crying, either, but he touches his face just to confirm.
“Grace leaking, statement.”
“Grace not leaking, statement,” Grace mutters back. He can hear Rocky moving closer in his ball.
“Grace side leaking,” Rocky says, getting as close as he possibly can, “Grace has not gotten out of bed today. Why Grace leaking, question?”
Grace is not leaking. He’s just gotten comfortable, barely, so he doesn’t want to get up and prove it to Rocky that he’s fine.
“I’m good, Rocky. Just one of those days.”
“No. Grace not good. Grace needs to stop leaking.”
Grace sits himself back up with more effort than he’d like. That’s what he gets for only eating slurry these days.
When he can stomach it.
He pats himself down again, quickly, just to show Rocky that he’s not leaking. His hand comes away wet again on his lower right side, but he’s just warm and sweating.
“Grace! Leaking!” Rocky taps hard on the inside of his ball, like he can force Grace to see something that’s not there. “Leaking there! Side!”
Grace looks at his wet hand.
It’s red.
Huh.
It’s not supposed to be red.
“Grace!” Rocky is going crazy, now.
Right.
He’d known this might happen.
“Remember when I explained scurvy to you, bud?” Grace could let Armando handle this, but it’s one spot. He’ll be fine. “One of the consequences of scurvy can be that old scars and wounds reopen. The collagen doesn’t hold up anymore.”
He’ll have to refresh himself on scurvy again–it feels like he read about just the other day, but he needs another crash course if he’s going to continue like this.
He lifts up his shirt to get a better look. It takes him longer than it should to peel it away from his appendectomy scar, which means it’s been bleeding for a while.
“Grace leaking!” Rocky screeches.
“Yeah. I’m leaking,” He stares at it for a few seconds, or maybe it’s a few minutes.
He feels the now-familiar slide of a needle into his arm, and he doesn’t get to figure out how long he’s been watching himself bleed before he’s unconscious.
Unlike the first time he woke up–months or maybe years ago now–Grace doesn’t immediately remove the IV from his arm. There’s a tautness to his right side that tells him his wound has been bandaged, but he doesn’t care to check it just now.
“Grace wake, question?”
“I’m awake,” Grace says, slowly. He’s too tired for this. He’s always tired, now. Cold, too.
Rocky has noticed, of course, but it’s not like Grace wants to tell him that too much more of this might actually kill him.
Going back into a coma until they get to Erid isn’t possible, either. It would be cruel to Rocky. Rocky can’t make his taumoeba slurry, and he doesn’t have enough food left without it.
“Grace is not well.”
Rocky doesn’t even say statement this time. That’s okay.
“Grace was leaking from side. Grace is not supposed to do this.”
“It’s alright now, buddy. All patched up.”
“Grace get up.”
“Later, Rock. I should probably go back to sleep.” And let whatever IV he has in run its course. Antibiotics, he suspects, if they still have any left. An infection out here, right now, would be a death sentence for him.
“Grace get up. Statement.”
“I’m fine, Rocky.”
“If Grace fine, Grace get up.”
“I’ve got an IV in, I’m going to let it finish.” Grace explains, hoping that it will satisfy Rocky.
“Then Grace get up.” Rocky’s not going to let this go, so Grace sighs and agrees.
He brings his blanket with him–the one Rocky likes, because he can ‘see’ the raised embroidery patterns.
“Grace… hurt self? Why Grace leaking?”
“Okay, where did you learn about self-harm?”
“Mary reads to me when you are sleeping.”
“Alright. Good to know. No, I didn’t hurt myself. I had to have an organ taken out–it’s fine, it wasn’t crucial–and the place that was bleeding is where they cut me open to remove it.”
“Yes. Scurvy. Mary explained this again too. But you eat.”
“I do eat, yeah. But I’m missing some nutrients.”
Rocky rolls his ball back and forth. “Grace eat right nutrients, statement.”
“I can’t, Rocky. We don’t have them, and I can’t make them.”
“Grace going to get worse, question?”
He can only lie to Rocky for so long.
“Yes, probably.”
He doesn’t have that many scars. The flat ones, the ones that have mostly faded away–he doesn’t think they’ll open up again. But he can’t be sure.
Once Rocky goes to sleep, he counts his scars again. This time, none of them open up.
Grace's assumptions are correct: most of his scars, the flat, long-healed ones, don't reopen. A very good thing, because he nearly runs out of gauze to pack the appendectomy scar on his side. The L-shaped scar on his wrist oozes blood when he’s working with his hands a lot, but not enough to be an issue.
The constant tang of blood in his mouth only makes eating more difficult–Grace is nauseous all the time, now–but he manages, if only because Rocky worries. Loudly. Frequently.
He gets a few new cuts while he's working on Mary before they get to Erid, and none of them heal.
The wound on his stomach–because he can’t keep calling it a scar when it’s stayed open–only heals up properly again once they’re on Erid and he’s recovering from his malnutrition. It’s a lot easier to eat when he’s not swallowing blood every other minute, and when it's not the taumoeba slurry.
His new scar is a lot messier. Thicker, raised, bumpy even to his eyes.
Rocky hates it.
He won’t say that outright, but Grace knows him well enough by now to know it’s true.
If Grace isn’t wearing his jacket, then it’s ‘visible’ to Eridians through his shirt.
Even through the barrier, it’s easier for his young students to ‘see’ him if they can grasp onto a shape. Most of them track the scar on his arm, because it’s still bigger than the appendix scar. The other little scars on his arms help with that, too. They're not nearly as large or well-defined, but they stayed open for so long that healing cleanly was impossible.
He doesn’t get hurt much on Erid. There’s not much in his bubble that can hurt him.
Grace isn’t a fan of pain. He didn’t know many people who were, on Earth. Not personally, at least.
But he knows that Rocky wants him to meet more Eridians–what good is that if they can't see him?
The first few really are accidents. The water temperature in his bubble is a little too high, at first, and he gains a new burn scar on his arm when it splashes him as he stands on the shore.
He's trying to get used to the weight of the new cutlery set the Eridians have made him when he slices his forearm open.
He's unsteady on his feet, even in the soft ‘sand’ as he takes his first steps in the bubble. Rocky tries to catch him, but his round ball doesn't make that easy. He splits his chin open in the initial fall; his shoulder when he tries to push himself back up and falls again.
The scar on his chin is tiny, but there. All of the others are slightly raised, and Grace notices quickly what a difference they can make. Rocky, who knows him well, can always track him now. Adrian and his ‘care team’ suddenly have less trouble determining where his limbs and face are when he's in motion, and he’s sure it’s because they lock onto the scars.
But it's not until he realizes that his students are doing the same thing that he gets the idea.
And, well, Grace is a teacher. His job is to help his students as best he can. So he hatches a plan that any psychologist back on Earth would tell him not to go through with.
Too bad for them, because he's on Erid now.
Grace takes great care not to cover up any of his old scars, especially not the ones from his childhood on Earth. He has to take it slowly, too, or Rocky will get suspicious.
He starts with his legs–easier to hide, since he's almost always wearing pants. He makes little patterns out of the cuts. Grace can't get tattoos on Erid, so all he's really doing is DIYing it.
That's what he tells himself, anyway.
He does notice a difference in his students’ focal regions after that, and continues his plan as the old cuts heal into scar tissue.
His upper arms are next–his lower arms have scarring on them already.
Again, there's a shift in focus as his students register the new texture on his body.
Grace acts like he doesn’t notice.
He slows down for a while–Rocky hasn't brought it up yet, but Grace isn’t naive enough to believe he hasn't noticed.
There's no physical or emotional relief for him, when he creates the scars. It's all clinical. Grace is–has to be–sure of his place on Erid, knows that Rocky and Adrian and his students want him around.
It's not dangerous. He’s not trying to kill himself.
There's no reason for anyone else to be concerned, so Grace deflects, blaming his clumsiness when Rocky or Adrian or anyone on his care team asks.
If he tells them the real reason, they'll make him stop.
“Grace hurt,” Rocky says, not entirely out of the blue, because this has been coming for a long time. Grace has just been trying to avoid it.
“No, I’m alright, Rock,” Grace tries.
“Grace has new scars.”
“Humans scar pretty easily.” Especially compared to Eridians.
“You did not have this many scars on Mary.”
“New environments, even on Earth, are always a learning curve.” The last thing Grace wants to do is make Rocky feel like this is his–or the other Eridians’–fault in any way.
“Scars are neat. Not random. Accidents would be random,” Rocky points out, stubborn as ever, “I have read some human papers. You want to die, question?”
“No, Rocky, I don’t want to die. It’s not like that. It’s–have I told you about tattoos? Those are made with a needle and ink. They’re not always colored, but they can be.”
It’s so easy to slip into teacher mode–it’s not something he’s always been to reach for, but it’s helpful now. It’s a steady feeling, one that lowers his heart rate a little. That’s something Rocky will notice for sure.
“I can’t get tattoos here, of course. People get them for all sorts of reasons, sometimes to mark a big event. And my life, lately, has been a bunch of big events right after the other, yeah? So I’m kind of DIYing my own makeshift tattoos.”
“Grace is lying, statement.”
Well, fudge.
“I’m not lying, bud, that’s what I’m doing.”
“Grace is baby, statement. Babies do not get tattoos.”
“I’m young by your standards, Rocky, but I’ve been an adult for a long time by human standards.” He’s not even sure how long. How many people died on Earth before the Beatles got there?
“You are not giving yourself tattoos. You do not like needles.”
“Well, I’m not using a needle.” And he’d never trust himself with that, even if he had the supplies to tattoo himself properly.
“Give utensil,” Rocky pokes at his leg, “Stop lying or no more, statement.”
“Rocky, I’m not giving you my utensils. I’m fine.”
“Truth, truth, truth.”
Rocky doesn’t repeat many words thrice anymore.
Grace closes his eyes. Rocky can tell when he’s lying, better than anyone Grace has ever known. Of course he’s not buying his excuses.
He should have practiced in the mirror.
Somehow, Grace doesn’t think it would have mattered.
“Truth, statement.”
Grace breathes, as deeply as he can–when he first moved into the bubble, he’d done it as often as possible. He could sit for hours just watching the waves and breathing until chest ached from over-expansion.
Then he exhales on a low note.
“It’s so you can ‘see’ me better. You and everyone else.”
Grace explains what he’s noticed–he has notes, as well, because what kind of scientist would he be if he didn’t write his observations down?–and how the scarring helps his students focus on him. Helps his care team.
“Does not help Grace,” Rocky says, when he’s done explaining. Grace hasn’t even described his charts yet.
“It serves a purpose,” Grace says.
“No. No purpose. No more. Do not need scars to find you.”
“You don’t, Rocky, but you know me really well.”
“No more scars, Grace. Promise promise promise.”
“I–” Grace doesn’t know why he hesitates. It should be an easy yes. “I won’t. I promise.”
“No crossed fingers?”
“No, my fingers aren’t crossed, see?” Grace does jazz hands, but Rocky doesn’t reciprocate like he usually does, “No more scars, I promise.”
“Rocky watches.”
“I know you will.”
It’s harder than Grace thought, at first, not making new scars. But Rocky stays true to his word and inspects Grace every day for the next month, at least.
He’s not sure how long it takes–the day and night cycles in his bubble vary from the day and night cycles on Erid itself, to keep things as similar to Earth as possible for him–but he eventually wakes up and doesn’t think about his scars at all.