Work Text:
Grace could see him from the living room window, sitting on the sand down below the cliff with his knees pulled close to his chest. Close to the sea, but keeping a safe distance from him and the water. He’d been going down a lot more recently, usually just taking a few steps out of the house the Eridians scientists had fabricated for him, which was a replica of Grace’s own. At least from the outside. It would be safe to assume it looked approximately the same inside, but Grace hadn’t dared to hope to ever visit.
His impromptu neighbour had arrived just days before. Rocky had come to tell him they had found what they had first thought was an empty ship floating in space, sending out a signal they hadn’t been able to understand. A distress one, if Grace had to guess.
“Maybe we’re not the only ones that were sent to Tau Ceti,” Grace had said.
“We found human inside,” Rocky had replied, the words ringing loudly in Grace’s head.
They had brought Grace outside of his biosphere and into the nearby Eridian burrow, which was always a fascinating and learning experience. There he’d found, yes, undoubtedly, a human.
To be precise, a human male. Grace can’t say he’d seen much of him under the Eridian equivalent of a life support machine. He was plugged in from everywhere with several Eridians monitoring his health. It was hard to describe him, most of his facial features hidden behind bandages and tubes, but from what Grace could tell, that was, in fact, a man. Around six feet tall, maybe around his own age. Dark hair framed the half of his face that was visible. Aside from his missing arm, the most notable thing about him was that he was covered in blood. And not action-movie-protagonist covered in blood, but completely-drenched-wet-cat covered in blood. Too much of it to be his, since he still seemed alive.
He identified the substance to the Eridians, who in turn informed him that the ship they found had also been covered in it. Every single surface.
At least it looked like blood. After a few tests, an Eridian scientist confirmed it matched a sample of Grace’s own blood. But it wasn’t the man’s either.
They had failed to mention that the exterior of the ship was also covered in this mysterious blood, which was the first thing Grace realised when they took him to it. The second thing he realised was that this ship was a very strange ship. Cylindrical, rusty, and mounted on two caterpillar carriers. There was a single porthole in the front, but it was sealed shut. At the back of the engine, he found, not an astrophage motor as expected, but something akin to a boat’s propeller.
Why, this thing looked closer to a submarine than it did a space-faring ship. There was a sour taste in Grace’s mouth, who felt that this was all somehow beyond his understanding.
He took a sample of the ship’s blood to his house and didn’t sleep at all that night, when, once under the microscope, he saw that it was human blood. Pure red blood cells. Nothing but it. It was viscous, a lot more than regular blood, and didn’t seem to ever dry.
Grace had given a couple of tips about human health and body, giving the doctors some of the supplies he had brought down from the ship with him on Erid.
It took the man a few more days to wake up and reach a state that the doctors seemed stable enough for a human. And — with Grace’s permission — they had placed him in the biosphere, thinking it best for his recovery. Fresh oxygen and all that.
The entrance of the man’s house faced Grace’s own large kitchen window, though there was about a fifty-meter gap between their houses. Every day, he stared at the door, wondering. Had Earth sent a second mission, unconvinced of Grace’s ability to succeed? According to his calculations, the Beatles hadn’t made it back to earth yet, but the man’s ship would’ve had to have been launched a few years after Grace’s forced departure. Which made no damn sense, since, by the look of it, it would’ve been impossible to ever launch a ship like this. It was man-made, no doubt about it. It had screws, a window, was made of metal that could’ve originated from Earth, and there was a distinct « SM-13 » painted on it.
The first time he had seen his new neighbour, the man had ripped the door open, taken once stop over the threshold and had fallen on both of his knees. His head was bowed, his singular hand shakily stretching to touch the grass that surrounded his house. Then he’d looked up, seeing Grace.
At least that’s what he first thought, but then the man rose quickly to his feet and started to run. He ran about five paces before crumbling down on the ground, his health perhaps not permitting a nice jog yet. From closer, Grace could see that he wasn’t looking at him at all, but that his gaze was turned toward the tree by Grace’s house. Half of his face was still bandaged, and so was his arm. Grace had seen very little else of him, but the rest of his body seemed as mutilated.
Then, after a few minutes, the man went back to his house and shut the door. Grace had stood in his kitchen, holding his second cup of coffee of the morning so tight that the edges of the handle dug painfully into his palm.
If he was running with the hypothesis that this man was from Earth (which was the most logical and grounded theory, ignoring some pretty big things pointing to the contrary), perhaps he hadn’t seen trees, or plants for that matter, in a long time. Perhaps the situation had gotten a lot more dire than they had predicted, and that is what prompted Stratt to send someone else into space. Except, they were quite far from Tau Ceti. For a ship to have gotten lost so far, yet so close to Erid, it couldn’t have been a coincidence.
Grace has so many questions, most of which are shared by Rocky, and yet no answers. The doctors had told him that the man had reacted erratically and violently upon waking up, thrashing the room they had put him in and ripping all of his bandages off. They had had to free a calming gas into the room to make him settle down.
So perhaps it was best to wait for him to adjust before throwing a housewarming party.
Grace knew that the man knew about him. He had seen him sitting on the front porch, watching Grace go down the cliff to his classroom on the beach.
On day four, he had been strong enough to make his way to Grace’s tree, which had been quite the scare when Grace woke up from his nap on his couch to the guy just standing there, under the tree. Touching it with his hand, feeling the trunk. He had pressed his forehead to it, taking a few deep breaths.
From here, Grace could see him more clearly. He had been cleaned of the blood, and his skin was darker than Grace’s own. He had facial hair, dark like his shoulder-length hair.
Definitely a guy. A human guy. He was tall and seemed muscular under the robe the Eridians had provided for him.
He had pulled back for a moment, and that was the first time they had made eye contact. He had stared at Grace through the window for just a few moments before turning back to his house.
He hadn’t come out for another two days after that.
Now there he was, sitting on the beach. He was barefoot and had dug his toes in the sand. It wasn’t a warm Florida beach, but Grace had asked for the Eridians to tweak the temperature of the water to be warm enough to swim in comfortably. They hadn’t quite gotten it, but they would in time. He was constantly amazed by their willingness to accommodate him and their capacity to do so.
The man had been exploring the area a bit more every day, steering clear of Grace’s corner, but it was his first time on the beach. He had seen Grace and Rocky take their daily walk from atop the cliff. He hadn’t seemed too shaken by the sight of a walking, talking sentient rock, but who knows. He hadn’t uttered a single word to Grace, and on the rare occasions they had found themselves outside at the same time, the man had quickly retreated to his house.
Today was the first day he had seen him on the beach. He’d been sitting for a good hour by now. Grace wondered if he felt the same concerning this fake sea. That, despite looking and feeling very real, it was only a reproduction of home. Though Earth hadn’t been synonymous with home for a bit. Could the same be said of this man?
Grace went back on his couch, opening his computer to do some work on his current class curriculum when he heard a knock at the door. Rocky was a bit early for their walk, he thought, but came by the door to answer.
He realised, by the looming shadow that could be seen through the door’s window, that it wasn’t Rocky knocking at the door.
His hand shook around the handle as he slowly turned it, all of his blood rushing to his head.
He wasn’t sure what to expect when opening that door. An attack, perhaps. It came to him that if this man had any ill intent, perhaps he wouldn’t have knocked.
"Good afternoon," was the first thing Grace said as he opened the door, giving his best smile despite his whole body shaking with a weird mix of apprehension, excitement and fear.
He was met with silence and a stare.
He hadn’t practised at all for this moment.
In Grace’s head, he would’ve been the one to go up to this man’s door, maybe not to knock but to leave some baked goods. Or some me-burgers. Or some ramen noodles left from the ship. As a gesture of goodwill.
This, on the other hand, was unexpected.
"Uhm…" he eloquently said after a few seconds of nothing but staring, "Would you like to come in?"
He moved to show the inside of his small but cosy home.
"Yes," came the unexpectedly quick response. The man’s voice was rough, from lack of use or from damage perhaps. He sounded unsure, but as Grace opened wider, the man stepped inside. At least he seemed to understand English. Another hint to where this man might be from.
Grace held his breath as the man walked past him and into the living room, his heart beating wildly in his chest.
The man took it all in, scanning the room from side to side before turning back towards Grace, a strange look on his face.
Suddenly, a sentiment of shame overtook the anxiety Grace felt. The room was messy; there were rings of coffee on the table, paper strewn on every surface, and several pieces of clothing littering the floor. It felt like the equivalent of having left dirty dishes in the sink.
"I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting anyone. Rocky finds it messy, but he doesn’t come inside, it’s too small for him to move comfortably," Grace chuckled as he rushed to pick up his papers and put them in a single pile, kicking his clothes away, "please, sit."
He gestured to his couch, swiping a lost pair of pants off the cushions. The man said nothing, as per usual, and sat softly. He looked around from his new vantage point of view as Grace grabbed his singular mug and rinsed the old coffee out of it.
"Would you like some coffee? I would offer you tea, but I don’t have any, sorry."
The man took a breath, watching Grace fumble over his words.
"Where are we?"
"Yes, of course. Yes," Grace said, coming closer to sit on the other end of the couch, keeping a comfortable distance between him and his guest.
"We’re on Erid. The alien life forms you might’ve seen me hang out with are the Eridians. They're the ones who found you and uh, patched you up."
"Found me where?"
Grace blinked. "In your ship. Close to their moon."
"My ship? I don’t have a ship. I… I don’t understand. After I sent the black box up, everything exploded. I shouldn’t be… I shouldn’t be alive."
He ran his hand through his hair. From the half of his face Grace could see, he seemed troubled. Very troubled. Grace remembered when he had first woken up. Confused, distraught, dysregulated. Maybe this guy was going through the same memory loss he had.
"We found your ship, intact."
"That’s impossible."
"What were you doing in there?" Grace asked, leaning forward. The man looked up for the first time, staring straight into Grace’s eyes. He looked, well, he looked handsome, is the first thing that popped into Grace’s head. Half of his face was handsome. What a terrible, terrible thing to think about at this moment. Grace stood and went to make a fresh pot of coffee.
"I don’t know how I ended up here," the man answered.
"But thank you. And to the Eridians. For patching me up… whatever is left of me."
"Of course. They’ve created this biosphere for me when I moved here. They’re a nice bunch."
Grace dropped the coffee mug in front of the man, coming back to sit.
"This seems so unreal," he said, staring blankly at the mug, "I’m not even sure this is real. Nothing felt real when I was under there."
Grace, instinctively, reached out and put his hand on the man’s shoulder, the one without the arm.
"It’s real. I’m real. You’re alive, and you are safe."
The man whipped his head up, his deep brown eyes widening. Grace dropped his hand, clearing his throat.
"It can feel pretty weird. When I first woke up from the coma, I couldn’t remember who I was or what I was doing there. Take your time."
The man nodded, picking up the mug to bring the liquid up to his face.
"It’s coffee. From Brazil. It’s good, I swear, try it."
"Brazil…" the other whispered, awkwardly lifting the mug to his lips. As he took a sip, he grimaced and put the mug down. "This is… It’s an interesting taste. Don’t think it’s for me. But thank you."
Despite himself, Grace laughed. "That’s alright. It’s not for everyone."
"The last thing I drank was rubbing alcohol, so this is better by far."
"Ookayyy…, Grace nodded, "I’m Grace, by the way."
"Simon," he said after a beat. "My name is Simon."
"Nice to meet you, Simon," he said, lifting his hand to shake the other’s.
Simon went to meet him, and Grace had to switch hands to properly shake hands with Simon, who only had a right one… He laughed, feeling a bit guilty.
"How did you end up here?"
"Long story short, I’m the one who was sent in space to find the cure to the Petrova line eating the sun. That’s where I met Rocky. That’s the Eridian who comes every day. He brought me back to Erid. We found the cure, by the way."
Simon gave him a weird smile and blinked.
"Alright. Nice to meet you, Grace."
There hadn’t seemed to be any recognition in his eyes, or that big of a reaction. Perhaps he hadn’t remembered about the Petrova line yet. Statues of him his ass. He was willing to bet Stratt had buried the whole thing. She would receive the Beatles in just a few more years. She was probably waiting for his confirmed success.
"What do you remember from Earth?" He asked, instinctively grabbing the mug to take a swig. That made it his fourth today. Oh well.
"Earth?" Simon answered with hesitancy.
"Yes, from your life, where you’re from, your family—"
"I’m not from Earth."
Grace nearly spat out his coffee.