Work Text:
Seven years later…
Eva stepped out on the porch and was greeted by the cold, wintry air.
Although it was June, there was a thin layer of snow blanketing the ground. She took a seat on the porch swing and sipped her coffee, feeling the warmth travel down her chest. Anything hot was a luxury these days.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, gazing around the front lawn. The trees surrounding the house were bare from the kind of cold they never evolved to withstand.
It was often quiet around this area, though she did not actually know where her house was located, only that it was somewhere in South America. But you would have never known considering the strange weather patterns. It was her fault, she knows that, but had she not acted appropriately (or ruthlessly, depending on who you asked), it would have been feet of ice around her.
Still, somewhere deep in her heart, she grieved what she had to do in Antarctica. That to help humanity and the world, she had to do her part in violating the sanctity of their planet. The thousands–no, the millions of lives sacrificed from her decisions were not lost to her.
The nearest town was four miles away but there was not much there to begin with. Most of the locals had already fled for greener pastures, if those still existed. Technically she was not allowed out of the house perimeters under any circumstances but after the guards warmed up to her, they secretly let her out once every two months for food and necessities from the handful of food banks that were still operational.
Looking up at the morning sun, her mind couldn’t help but wander to Ryland, as it often does. There has never been a day where she never thought of him. It would still be another five years before he would wake up at Tau Ceti.
Every morning, she thinks of all the things that could go wrong. All the critical failures that the machines could encounter. It would send her into a panic attack if she wasn’t who she was but thinking about these things helped calm her down. Any problem, once identified, could be fixed. That was her motto.
But on the days when her nerves got the better of her, she would think: God, if you are out there… Spare him. Please. Almost like a prayer.
Eva was not a religious woman, by any means.
Though her childhood was spent singing in the church choir, adherence to a deity never really took hold. It wasn’t a choice, not really. Rather it was just how the cards were dealt for her. She didn’t understand the appeal nor was she too interested to find out.
All she knew at the time was that she loved to sing. From her seat at the chancel, she had an optimal view of the congregation. She saw on Sunday mornings how moved people were when the choir sang. How they closed their eyes as they swayed and sang the lyrics as if it would solve whatever tragedy was looming over their lives. Young Eva liked to think she had a part in relieving some of their worries. She liked knowing she could help.
Years later, she started working for the European Space Agency as a project director. It wasn’t the career move she envisioned when she was a child but it made sense and her results were superlative. Rising through the ranks was neither a question of goals nor ambition. It was an inevitability. She was startingly attuned to people, which made her an effective leader. She knew how to read them and how to get them to do difficult things without having to break their will.
Her reputation rested on her godlike efficiency and lack of scandals. Simply, she could get shit done at half the time and always under budget.
A week before the news broke out about the Petrova Line, she got a memo about potential interterrestrial life forms. But when it was clear that the said life forms were somehow dimming the sun, everything changed.
No one cared anymore about humanity’s first contact with aliens. An onslaught of meetings followed soon after and never did she sit on so many that began with so much silence followed by a fusillade of questions no one knew how to answer.
“Within the next 30 years, half of humanity will die.”
“Surely, you’re exaggerating!”
The room broke out into arguments. About which nations could survive the longest and which ones would fall into chaos. The impossibility of rationing food. Nuclear wars. Famine. Everyone had an opinion on how the world would end and somehow the word ‘sun’ was the least mentioned. Everyone was yelling, no one was listening. It was everyone out for themselves. Not a single solution was offered.
Eva sat in her chair silently, discerning. She sighed, a migraine slicing through her head. Could people be this selfish? At a time like this when it was clear as day what needed to be done.
“Order! Order!”
The head of the agency repeatedly slammed a book against the oak desk until he got everyone’s attention. Eva noticed it was the Bible.
“Everyone calm yourselves!” And then–“Stratt, what do you have to say?”
Everyone turned their heads to look at her. She didn’t know why she was being singled out but considering she was probably the only one who was able to keep a modicum of composure, she won their confidence almost immediately. And they knew her reputation. She had no tolerance for bullshit.
A tense voice rang out from somewhere in the room, “What does this mean?!”
“It means extinction.”
The silence was deafening.
She continued, her tone even. “And not just for us. All life on earth will die.”
Later that night, she got a phone call. The United Nations had voted unanimously that she was to head the Petrova Task Force. She had been given full immunity, which meant she held god-like authority over the planet. Every military force and bank under her control, all ready to do her bidding without a question. Her responsibility? Ensure humanity’s survival.
When the call ended, she stepped out on the balcony of her apartment. The stars were shining above her. Suddenly she felt the weight of it all, the bloody pinpricks of the crown made of nails atop her head.
Eva had become the first sacrificial lamb.
…
“So, what do you think? You think you’re going to pull it off?”
“What, like the whole thing?”
“Yeah.”
“God willing.”
“Do you believe in God?”
“It beats the alternative.”
She had never expected to meet Ryland Grace. When his name appeared as an email subject line with his dissertation attached, he was just another scientist to recruit. Albeit, the most interesting one out of the bunch.
Publicly calling out a leading scholar of his field a waste of carbon at a UNESCO conference was bold, his reputation easily making an impression on her. She expected someone brash and cold. Someone who was shamelessly unapologetic. She prepared for the negotiation tactics she would have to employ for someone as immovable as herself.
So it was a complete surprise when the man she met carried none of those traits. Instead she stood in front of a socially awkward man who verbally vomited jokes left and right as a coping mechanism for his debilitating lack of self-esteem. Not that it made the negotiation any easier. After all, she had to chase the man to his bike.
Yet against her better judgment, she found him charming. And most importantly, he was as scientifically brilliant as she had hoped he would be. So she kept him on, shipped him from San Francisco to the middle of the Atlantic ocean and the rest was history.
Eva missed him, more than she had ever missed anyone in her life. The pain of losing him took her breath away. After the Hail Mary launched, it took everything in her power to will her face into stoicism as the world paraded her around from court to court.
The only time she let herself cry was when she returned to her cell after being sentenced into exile. It was a miracle but not unexpected, all things considered after certain sensitive information about her came to light, unbeknownst even to her at the time.
They relocated her from France to an undisclosed location and had given her a house in the middle of nowhere. She was guarded with security that worked around the clock. Although she surmised it was more for her safety from those who wanted her dead than for the likelihood of her escaping.
In the end, even when they had made her out to be the world’s most notorious pariah, they still needed her. When confidential documents about astrophage technology found their way slipped under the front door from time to time, it was clear. She knew the operation inside and out. At the miraculous possibility that the beetles were to return back to earth with the silver bullet in tow, it would only ever be her who could get a task force up and running just in time to save their planet.
But these days, she was just at home. For once in her life, she had every minute and hour at her leisure.
She often thought of him. His silly jokes when he was nervous or when he was trying to make her laugh. He was always doing that. They were his attempts at forcing her to relax and take a breath from the insurmountable weight on her shoulders. Or when he would bring her tea some nights instead of coffee. And though it irritated her, she found it was easier to fall asleep during those nights. She missed his off-the-cuff fun facts that swirled around the bottomless pit that was his brain.
And she missed his presence. Just the existence of his body in the same room she occupied was enough to calm her down. Sometimes when everyone else retired for the evening, it would only be the two of them burning the midnight oil, working in silence but never unaware of the other.
With every passing day, she fears about forgetting the little things about him. She had already forgotten what his skin felt like against her. She has pictures of him in a box underneath her bed, ones that she stole from his apartment. She goes through them sometimes for hours, making up stories about his childhood since they never really found the time to indulge in that kind of intimacy. But then she looks in the mirror and she is getting older while he stays the same in her memories.
When insomnia gets the better of her, she tries the good old method of self-pleasure. She replays those three special nights they had together after the accident in Baikonur. The way they moved in tandem as if they had done so for twenty years. She would imagine how he sounded like, his heavy breathing hot next to her ear as he moved on top of her. How he called out her name as if it was the only word he knew as he rode out his orgasm. The way his hands caressed every inch of her, had made her feel loved and worshipped.
And when he said he loved her and repeated it over and over until she reached her climax. It was the nearest thing to heaven she had experienced in her life.
Of course, until–
“Mama.”
Eva was pulled back to earth at the sweet sound of her name. She was hardly ever called Eva or Stratt these last few years.
The head of a little girl with sleepy eyes poked out from the front door. Her hair was delightfully askew from her sleep although it usually stayed like that long after. Eva didn’t have to think too hard where she got that from.
“Guten Morgen, meine Mäuschen.”
“I’m not a little mouse…” she whined.
Eva laughed and stretched out her arms. “Come here.”
The little girl padded across the porch and climbed onto Eva’s lap, snuggling into the nest of her arms. She kissed her little nose then her pink cheeks. Kissed her face all over until she erupted into tiny giggles.
“Guess how old you’re going to be in two weeks.”
“I will be seven!”
Eva laughed. “That’s right!”
“Mama,” she said, her little brow scrunched up with worry. “Will I stop having dreams when I get older?”
Oh, the questions she asks. Eva is not a stranger to being the one people turned to for answers but being a mother was the first job that had her constantly blanching. Most times she’s direct because that is her nature. But sometimes she tries to be more innovative with her answers to foster her child’s imagination.
“No, dreams don’t stop when you get older. Mama still has them.”
“Oh, thaaaank goodness!”
She lit up again. That was Ryland, alright. Her mannerisms were like pages taken out of his book. How long has she been worrying about that, she wonders.
Her little hand reached up to touch Eva’s face.
“Mama, what do you dream about?”
“What do I dream about?”
“Ja! You said you still have dreams.”
“All sorts of things. I dream of you running around in your green dress. Sometimes I dream of my old house where I grew up. And I dream of–”
“–I’m hungry, mama.”
Eva laughed, slightly relieved. She made it a point to always be honest to her about her father. After all, she never got the chance to meet him. There were photos of him framed all over the house, as her way of making him be a part of every moment in their lives.
But there were times when she was missing him too much and didn’t have it in her to talk about him lest she starts crying. Because she does that now. Cry. Motherhood was full of surprises. This morning was one of those times.
“Okay, let’s cook some breakfast.”
“Can we have pancakes with chocolate chips and sprinkles?”
Sprinkles on pancakes.
Eva had never in her life thought of such a thing. She never had a sweet tooth but of course, Ryland did. She still remembers all those requisition lists she would receive from his department, all those years ago when they worked side by side, and constantly finding requests for an assortment of candy goods. And another time when he had dared to ask for an ice cream machine for the mess hall for crew morale purposes, which with a roll of her eyes, she approved.
“Of course, darling.”
What would he think, she wondered, if he saw her completely wrapped around the finger of a little girl. She could never say no to her little face, the same way he could never say no to her back on the ship. He would have been putty in the hands of their daughter.
She sees so much of Ryland in her. Maybe not in appearance. She looks like the splitting image of Eva, her hooded blue eyes and red hair. He would love that. But in everything else was him through and through. Her lopsided smile was just like his and the way she gets excited by everything. She’s at that age now where she’s hiding under her blanket with a flashlight to read past her bedtime thinking she’s being sly.
The way she makes up jokes out of the blue:
“Mama, what do you give a scientist with bad breath?”
“I don’t know. What?”
“Experi-mints!!!”
And she could be so shy too but in her defense, the guards rarely let them out in town. Eva tries her best to educate and stimulate her, to make sure she has the world knowledge and social skills necessary to survive the world they live in. Every day, the world is taking a turn for the worst. Her exile was the best outcome she could have dared to hope for as it kept them safe.
The wind picked up and it started to get cold. Her little girl was only wearing pajamas and a jacket, her little feet exposed to the elements.
“Come on, let’s go inside.”
“Pancake time!” She giggled.
Eva kissed her cheek and secured her in her arms as she stood up with a groan. Her back ached a little from the maneuver. Her little girl was growing up way too fast. One day she would be too old for this, both of them would be. With one last, lingering look at the blue sky, she entered the house.
Eva hoped there was a heaven so she could tell him one day about their daughter. His daughter. And maybe even meet her.
She would tell him that her name was Hannah.
And that it meant grace.