Chapter Text
Days till Erid: Two
It had been years since Grace had seen fog. He missed it. As a kid Grace's life was never consistent, he was constantly moving through various foster homes, no one seemed to want to keep him for more than a few years.
"He talks too much." "Hes never satisfied." "He doesn't seem to know what's appropriate to say in different situations." ,were a few reasons he heard constantly before graduating high school and leaving for college.
But one thing that always stayed the same was the fog.
Almost every morning Ryland would wake up to the fog. He would wipe off the condensation on whatever room's window he was staying at at the time and look out at the fog covering the street or the bay, depending on the location of the foster home.
Now Grace had the Rocky.
He would wake up in the morning to them, they were always nearby. It was part of their culture, Eridians would watch each other sleep. It was a safety thing for the species.
Other than the fog there were other things Grace missed, out of all of them he missed his students the most, most of them would be adults now. Whenever Ryland felt hopeless like his life was worthless he thought of his students, their lives were in his hands. Their survival was in his hands. No, in Rocky and his hands, because he wasn't alone anymore. It wasn't him against the wide unknown, he had someone to help him save the world.
Even if that person wasn't a person at all. Even if they made fun of his music taste (The Beatles are incredible, thank you Rocky).
Grace had limited supply of music on the Hail Mary, each member had their own cd collection with music. Yao's music included quite a bit classical for some reason, at first when Grace had listened to it he had been expecting soft melodic strings but was met with intense fast suites. Olesya's music was calmer indie music, Mitski and some other artists. Grace didn't mind her music but found it slightly boring.
Grace's cds however were a collection of ABBA, The Beatles, and Queen. He didn't know who had chosen his music but he loved every single album that had been sent. Except… There was one album, he had assumed it was Olesya's but when he opened it he found a sticky note that read "For Dr Grace". It was Harry Styles. He remembered the karaoke night before the launch. He had a feeling he knew who had left the cd.
He hadn't listened to the cd. It was her fault he was in this mess. He never wanted to go to space. He had always preferred his feet on the ground. He hated swimming, ropes courses, elevatores, roller coasters, anything like that. He liked feeling safe. Space, however, was NOT safe.
Rocky and Grace were almost to Erid. Rocky was getting to go home. Rocky told Grace there was no fog on Erid. However they said it was easy enough to create artificially with the right atmosphere. Rocky told Grace all about their mate Adrian. They said they were an engineer as well and they could work together to make Ryland an enclosure with an atmosphere he could breathe in and even daily fog if he wanted.
🌎☄️🌀🪐🛰️
Days till Erid: Zero
Grace stepped on solid ground for the first time in years.
He couldn’t kiss the ground, obviously, since he had his EVA suit on, but he would have if he could.
There was a crowd of Eridians that had come to greet Rocky’s return. They waved their arms, all making various chirps and whistles. The aliens are all different shapes and rock types.
Suddenly the crowd parts, letting through an eridian almost twice the height of Grace. Ryland had to crane his neck to look up at the turquoise eridian. The other eridian didn't stop running until Rocky was crushed by them. Ah. Adrian.
Grace smiled at the cheerful reunion. Rocky was whistling and telling the story of their journey. A few minutes in, the Eridians started to notice the weird blobby creature that Rocky had brought with them, Grace. He wasn't quite sure how the Eridians would react to the discovery of aliens so he just stood awkwardly waiting for Rocky to explain.
Rocky hadn't seemed that surprised about Grace when they met. They said they had not met any type of other alien but the Eridians had predicted there was other life somewhere in the universe.
Grace heard Rocky hum his name and Grace turned as they started gesturing at him. The Eridians all started whistling and pointing. Grace assumed they were asking a lot of questions.
He looked at Rocky. They were huddled in a ball obviously overwhelmed by the stampede of questions.
“HEY,” Grace shouted. He knew they wouldn’t understand but he needed to get the attention off of Rocky.
He started to dance. The Eridians turned from Rocky and grew silent, confused. Eventually they started moving in time with Grace's moves.
Grace was going to like it here.