Archive of Our Own

After years of nothing— nothing, literally and absolutely nothing, because they shot his twin brother into space without his consent— Colt had been more than a little shocked when he got a call directly from Eva Stratt herself.

At that point, he had only met her in person once, at a celebration-slash-memorial that had been held in Ryland’s honor after they shot him into space. The whole thing had been a fucking joke, full of people acting like they weren’t responsible for killing his brother, like they were sad he was gone, as if they had any right to mourn him.

He had hated the way everyone had looked at him, seeing Ryland’s face instead of his own everywhere he went. Some people started crying; others couldn’t look him in the eye. And Colt got to be the lucky surrogate for all the guilt, all the tears, all the emotions these people wanted to express to Ryland and now couldn’t.

Because they shot him into space.

He had been just about ready to leave that day when Stratt had approached him directly. She hadn’t fucked around, had just introduced herself, kept her hands clasped behind her back, and said to him, blunt and plain, “I apologize for what happened with your brother. You understand, there was no other choice if we wanted to save Earth.”

In that moment, he had wanted to hit her so, so badly. All he could imagine was how terrified Ryland must have been, his younger brother by five minutes, the kid who had always gotten shoved down on the playground, the teenager who wept openly listening to CDs in their shared bedroom, the young guy who stuck to his principles no matter the cost, the grown man he had become, a soft-hearted, kind middle school teacher.

Who they shot into space.

He wouldn’t have gone willingly, not like this. Not without even saying goodbye, to his students, to him. Colt is as confident in that now as he was then, as he was when he first heard that his brother had been shot into space at all.

The Ryland he knew would have said something, the Ryland who was at his side throughout his entire recovery, the Ryland who patched Colt up after every fight he got into, the Ryland who never hesitated to tell his brother he loved him, even when Colt struggled to say it back.

He had spit through his teeth, “Fuck you,” at Eva Stratt that day, and let Jody tear him away. Stratt had just watched him, unwilling to break their eye contact. He could see the sorrow and grief and mourning in her face, too. In that split second, he just— He wanted to see more than that. He wanted to see pain. He wanted to see guilt, and— and— and shame. He wanted her to know what she had done.

“You killed him, you know,” he’d called back after her as Jody attempted to continue tugging him from the ballroom they’d been hosting this stupid event in. Ryland would have preferred something outside; even this isn’t for him, this fucking stupid event with his name and face plastered everywhere.

“I know,” Stratt had said back, and that— that was just too much, and even worse when she continued, “But, if I did not, we all would have died anyway.”

Just like in the Star Trek movies Ryland used to love watching when they were kids, wearing out the tapes playing them over and over and over again. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one.”

Ryland always loved those movies. Now—

Colt didn’t like thinking about it then, and he still didn’t like thinking about it years later, when he finally heard from Eva Stratt again. He never liked thinking about his brother, his brother, the one they shot into space, just— floating around up there in some tin can, probably already burnt to a crisp or exploded or dead, just dead, how can anyone survive that?

He didn’t even know it was Stratt on the phone. He’d barely been paying attention to the line at all as he yanked the landline off the hook and tucked it between his shoulder and his ear. The last few years between the memorial and that phone call had only seen the world getting worse and worse, slipping further and further into an icy, dark chaos. Protecting Jody and their twin daughters had become a full-time job for Colt. Not much call for stunt performers when there aren’t any movies being made; he had entered survival mode swiftly, determined to look after Jody, Kyrie, and Dana as long as he could, as best as he could, before the world—

Well, he didn’t like thinking about that, either.

“Yeah, hello?” he had asked, his hands still busy stirring the stew over the fire he’d been making for his family’s dinner that night.

He was met with a long beat of silence on the other end.

With a sigh, he said, “Look, if you’re not going to—”

“This is Eva Stratt,” came the familiar voice down the line. He’d seen countless interviews with her, conferences, had heard her voice countless times, but he would always remember that voice most from the few words they exchanged at the memorial.

“Okay, and I’m hanging up,” Colt had replied, and was about to do just that when Stratt stopped him.

“We got them,” was all she had said.

His blood had run cold. “The— You mean he’s—”

“The probes,” she clarified, and his entire nervous system felt like it collapsed in on itself. Fuck her, fuck her, for giving him even a split second of hope that his brother had come home. “Ryl— Your brother sent the beetles back to us.” After only a brief pause, during which Colt had dropped his wooden spoon right into the stew, she added, “He came up with a solution. He did it, he saved us. He discovered how to destroy the Astrophage and synthesized a response. Your brother has saved the world, Mr. Grace.”

Colt had barely had time to back away from the fire before he was slumping to his knees right there on the floor. He had grabbed onto the phone, the plastic creaking beneath his tight grip, while his other arm had wrapped tight around his chest, trying to keep his ribs together, reminding his lungs to breathe.

“He’s alive?” were the first words out of his mouth. “He did it? How do you— What—”

“I am calling you to inform you of this, but also that there are tapes,” Stratt had spoken over his stuttering. “Recordings. He kept a log of everything he did.” She had hesitated. “Would you like to see the—”

“Yes, of course I do, what the fuck,” Colt had snapped automatically. Scrabbling to his feet, he had grabbed for pencil and paper, the phone tucked back between his ear and his shoulder. “Where am I going?”

He had scribbled down the address, told her he’d be there as soon as he could, and hung up before sprinting through the house, calling for Jody.

The second he had seen her, he had collapsed into tears. She had run right to him, trying to get the information out of him; it took far too much effort but, once she got the whole story, she had held him close in her arms, let him burrow into her and sob, before she wiped his tears and told him to get in the truck.

With their daughters bundled into the backseat, nearly immobilized with the sheer amount of cold-weather gear they had packed onto them, Colt had sped through the snowy streets, relying on his own dusty driving skills to get them there as soon as possible. There had turned out to be a massive facility out in the boonies; it looked as though it had once been a series of large warehouses that had been converted for whatever the hell Stratt had been up to in the intervening years.

Colt hadn’t even needed to show an ID when he pulled up to the exterior guard station, the single solitary entrance and exit, built into the towering fence that surrounded the entire facility. One look at his face, and the guard had sent him right in.

It went that way the whole trip through the facility. Every checkpoint, every guard, every employee he came across, they all just kept pointing him along, not needing any more identifying information than the face identical to the one they shot into space.

Colt knew then, just as he knows now, that he’ll never get over it. How could he? How could they?

By the time the four of them had been given high-clearance badges and escorted directly to Eva Stratt’s office, he had been at the end of his fucking rope. If he had to pass through one more guard, he would sock them, he just knew it. He was already vibrating with the frustration of it all.

Lucky, lucky him, the last door had been Stratt’s, and she answered on the first knock.

For a long, long moment, she had just stared at him. Took in his face. He knew she wasn’t seeing him, she was seeing Ryland, and for a vicious moment, he had thought, Good. You should see his face, furious with you.

“You still look so much alike,” had been the first words out of her mouth, that time.

That— That had drawn Colt up short. He had paused, taken somewhat aback, before he demanded, “Where are his tapes?”

“Your brother is the sole survivor of this mission,” Stratt told him, a non-answer but— still information he wants. “What he sent back— It’s going to save the world. He is a hero.”

“You told me, he’s saving the world, he’s amazing, I know that,” Colt snapped back. “I’m sure you’ve got a whole fucking Oompa-Loompa factory making more of whatever miracle fucking germ he made that will save the sun, you don’t need me for that. I want to see my brother.”

And, yes, later that night, Colt had practically collapsed with the relief he felt at finally processing everything— at understanding that his brother had actually saved the world, that this horrible, slow death he had been preparing for wouldn’t have to come, that Earth and the sun and everyone’s lives could be saved thanks to his brother and his stupid smart brains and his sacrifice. He had shook in Jody’s arms all night, unable to close his eyes without seeing Ryland’s face again as he appeared on the tapes, thinking over and over and over about how the world was saved, how things might get better, at the cost of his brother’s life.

But, at that moment, Stratt had just beckoned him inside her office. She had had a television set up on a rolling stand, just like one Ryland might have had in one of his classrooms.

“All of the recordings are here,” Stratt had told him, showing him several towering stacks of tapes. “They have been exhaustively labeled and sorted.”

Then, she had paused. Somehow, this had been the heaviest pause yet, and Colt’s attention had been stolen off the tapes for just a moment. It was rare for him to see Eva Stratt at a loss for words.

“I have to ask that you do not disclose to others what you see on these tapes until we have had a chance to hold a conference, and tell the world what has been discovered,” Stratt had told him.

“What, that he’s saving the world? Why?” Colt asked, already moving away from her, picking up the first tape, the top of the closest stack. The side reads Grace + Rocky, Experiment #347. “What—”

“Your brother did not just discover the Taumoeba,” she said, tossing out a word that was brand-new in the moment, and yet one Colt would hear over and over and over again in the years following. “He discovered alien life.”

Colt had nearly dropped the tape, staring at her.

“And befriended it,” she added.

For a long minute, he hadn’t known how to react. He had looked from her dead-serious face to Jody’s stunned expression, to his daughters’ faces— Kyrie looking bewildered, Dana delighted— and back to Stratt again.

“No shit,” had escaped Colt immediately.

“Yes, shit,” Stratt replied, drawing a startled laugh out of Jody. “It is all on the tapes. You will see soon enough.”

Colt had looked down, read the side of the tape again. Grace + Rocky. In an abrupt burst, he just— he knew, and he let out a strangled laugh of his own. “Of— Of fucking course he did.”

After that, he had all but shoved the first tape into the player, slamming the play button without a second’s more hesitation.

For the next few hours— and continuously, over the next several weeks, until he had watched every single second of available footage— Colt had, in some small way, gotten his brother back.

There was Ryland, looking scraggly and pathetic, trying to remember his own name. There he was again, committing the dead bodies of his crewmates to the vacuum of space. There he was again, slowly piecing himself together, bit by bit. And there—

And there he was yet again, just like Eva Stratt said he would be. Befriending an alien.

The existence of alien life isn’t exactly a surprise— he and Ryland always thought there had to be something out there, that the universe was too vast for them to be all alone, and they would speculate about what those aliens might be and what they might do if they ever did visit Earth someday. They would lay out in the grass, at angles with their heads close together, pointing out stars and inventing lifeforms that might exist there.

The fact that Ryland is the one who discovered it? That was probably the most surprising part.

The fact that he instantly befriended it? Significantly less surprising.

Nobody knew— knows Ryland like Colt does. There was a while there where they were practically one person, never one without the other. Nobody knows exactly what he looks like when he's truly, deeply excited, like he is in every shot of him with the alien— with his new friend— with Rocky.

Nobody knows what Ryland looks like when he starts feeling real affection towards someone. Nobody knows what he looks like when he’s trying— and usually failing— to flirt. Nobody knows what he looks like when he’s got a crush and pretends he doesn’t. Nobody knows what it looks like when he’s in love.

Nobody except Colt, who knows his brother’s face better than his own.

And— watching the tapes, he thinks, And Rocky. Because Rocky was witnessing it all in real time, every one of Ryland’s expressions, directed at him.

Colt had scoured through those tapes, watching them over and over and over again, taking in every drop of all that remained of his brother. He had been granted his own copies to take home, once the press conference announcing— everything had finally happened. Time and time again, he would watch his brother’s recordings, see him make the decision not to return to Earth, and curse his goddamn head full of marbles that he didn’t come home.

If he had, though, he wouldn’t be who he is. If he had doomed Rocky— whatever Rocky might have been to him— and his entire planet just to return to Earth, he wouldn’t have been Ryland.

Colt got it.

He was still pissed.

In the years since the tapes had been discovered, and the Taumoeba started to multiply and work, the Earth has been slowly healing. Thanks to his brother— and his brother’s alien— the sun is saved, the world is rebalancing, and life is… life is getting back to normal. Or, at least, a new normal. Their daughters are teenagers now, actually getting to consider options for college. He and Jody are making movies again. They even get to live in a house again, and not in a cottage in the middle of the goddamned tundra the Earth had started to become. It’s everything he didn’t dare to wish for or want during those years where the sun was being eaten a little more every day.

He just never got his brother back.

The one reason the world is saved, and he’s gone forever, lost for good.

The only comfort Colt has been able to take from Ryland’s tapes— his own documentation of himself saving two worlds and falling in love with a goddamn alien in the process— is that, somewhere out there, he still exists. As unlikely as it might be, he likes thinking that Ryland is maybe back on Rocky’s planet with him, and that he’s safe, and that he’s happy. Though he can’t find exactly where Erid would be in their night sky, sometimes he just picks a star and pretends that it’s Ryland’s and just— talks to him.

He has done his best to come to terms with it, with his brother’s loss, even though he never got to say goodbye, even though it’s been years now without him. Colt tells himself his brother is out there, on some alien planet, thriving, and that this was all fine, actually. Everyone got what they wanted. Yay.

And if he had been surprised by Eva Stratt's call years before about the tapes, he is actually shocked to get another call from her today.

“You need to write down this address and come here immediately,” she says, not even letting him get a “Hello?” out first.

“Stratt?” he asks, incredulous. “What the hell are—”

“I mean it,” she cuts him off. “Immediately. Do not bring your wife and children.”

“Whoa, okay, I don’t know about that,” Colt replies. “Do you know how suspicious you sound right now? I’m not letting you shoot me off into space next, I’m not smart like—”

“I’m trying to reduce the amount of possible contamination,” Stratt interrupts him once more to say.

The line goes silent. Neither of them speaks for the longest minute of Colt’s life— which, when he considers some of the longer minutes, is fairly significant in and of itself.

“What came back?” Colt asks her, not willing to ask “Who” instead of “What,” not willing to get his hopes up once again for the impossible.

There’s another stretched-out minute before Stratt says, “Write down this address. Come immediately.”

Colt scrambles for a pen and paper, jots the address down. Stratt hangs up before he can ask any further questions; he hangs his phone up with a growl of frustration, tapping the address into his navigation app.

What more could Ryland have even sent back? Another probe? Stratt would have told him if they were waiting for more, right?

Oh, like she told you about your brother’s quote-unquote sacrifice? his brain helpfully reminds him as he scribbles out a note to Jody and the girls explaining where he went, giving the exact address, transcribing verbatim what was said to him. Fuck Eva Stratt and her rules; if he disappears, he’s going to make damn sure someone comes after him before the same thing that happened to Ryland happens to him. He doesn’t know what they’d want with him, but he doesn’t trust these people, not even a fucking inch.

He turns the radio on in the car just to fill the empty silence with noise, but he can barely pay attention to a single song. His brain is buzzing the entire time, trying to think of what could be contaminated that Stratt would want him for. Maybe Ryland managed to send another message back? Maybe it’s, like— from Rocky’s planet, somehow, and that’s why it’s so dangerous? But why wouldn’t they wait, like they waited to show him the tapes off the probes until they had watched them all themselves, after they decontaminated and labeled and sorted all that remained of his brother?

He can’t stop thinking, and overthinking, so much so that his trip feels both like it takes five horrendous minutes and twelve stretched-out weeks. All he’s aware of as he finally pulls up to the roundabout before the address, marked with a little checkered flag on his phone’s map, is that the sun is beginning to set— and, once again, he doesn’t need to show an ID to get inside. His face is identification enough.

Unlike last time, however, he isn’t getting pitying looks, guilty looks, grieving looks. No— No, this time, instead, he’s getting looks of surprise, of shock, with too many people either openly staring at him or seemingly unable to meet his eye.

What the hell did you send, Ryland?, Colt thinks to himself as yet another guard leads him down yet another hallway. The whole place is clinical, cold, smelling sharply of antiseptic. It reminds him too much of his time in the hospital after his injury, sends shivers down his spine and goosebumps up his arms.

And that— that just reminds him of Ryland, too, the only one he let be close then because he simply refused to go.

“You’re going to have to trade your clothes for the suit,” the guard tells him when they reach the door at the very end of the empty hall.

“Sorry, no, I’m not giving you my clothes, what are you, insane?” Colt asks with a huff. “Just let me see what he sent. What is it, some— some space dust, or something? Rocks from Erid, what?”

“You have to wear this suit beyond this point for safety,” the guard insists. He’s holding out a mess of crinkly yellow, including a huge helmet piece with a mask. “Ms. Stratt will meet you inside once you’ve changed. You can use the restroom there.”

He nods towards one of many nondescript doors set along the wall. Colt hesitates, but he knows better than anyone how to play the game at this point. If it means he has access to one more piece of his brother, he’ll just have to— fucking suck it up and just do it, because they’re not going to bend for him. Honestly, he’s surprised he’s been called here at all.

“Fine,” Colt says in a sickly-sweet tone, taking the stupid heap of yellow from the guard. He’s going to look like a fucking banana. “I’ll be right back, then.”

The bathroom is single-stall and far too small for changing into this massive thing. It’s noisy as all hell, crinkling with every slight movement; the face shield is fogging up immediately until he tugs it down a little further, creating enough of a gap for the air filter to kick in.

“Jesus Christ,” he comments when he catches sight of himself in the mirror over the sink. He’s a dead ringer for all those pictures Ryland used to have of himself performing experiments. All he’s missing are his glasses and his giant, goofy, science-inspired grin. “I do look like a fucking banana.”

The guard takes his clothes when he pushes them into his hands with a warning not to lose them. The guard doesn’t really respond— doesn’t roll his eyes, doesn’t smile, doesn’t do anything except deposit his clothes into a bag and start walking again, this time through the door.

“Shouldn’t you be wearing one of these, too?” he asks, hating how he squeaks with every step thanks to the dumb yellow booties over his feet.

“I’ve already been exposed,” he explains. “A number of us were upon arrival.”

“Yeah, upon arrival of what, though?” Colt finally demands. “Because nobody’s telling me shit and I can only guess that my brother sent us something if anyone wanted me here at all. It’s not like we have a secret twin language or anything, if he’s writing in code I’m not going to—”

“Here,” the guard says as he comes to an abrupt stop in front of yet another door, an exact match to the others in the endless rows of identical doors. How he distinguished this one from the others, Colt has no idea. “Let me…”

He leans past Colt, taps a rhythmic knock into the door, then tilts back again, leaving Colt in the doorway when it rushes open and reveals Eva Stratt on the other side. Like the guard, she isn’t wearing any protective gear like Colt has been made to wear; whatever it is, she must’ve been exposed upon arrival, too.

“Good, you’re here,” Stratt says, stepping backwards to allow him inside. It feels like a strange funhouse-mirror reflection of the day she showed him the tapes, only this time, she’s leading him into a completely white room: walls white, ceiling white, floor white, everywhere white. There’s a long, white table in the center of the space, surrounded by white plastic chairs; opposite the door is a tremendous mirror, taking up most of the space on the far wall that isn’t occupied by the door set deep into the right-hand side.

“Are you interrogating me?” Colt asks, part-angry, part-bewildered. What would he even know? What the hell did Ryland do?

“No,” Stratt says as she motions to the guard in the door. He steps back, and the door slams shut in front of his face, seemingly of its own accord, leaving Colt alone in this strange room with Stratt. “I am going to show you something. First, I must tell you: the Hail Mary returned to Earth last night.”

Colt abruptly feels as if he has no control over his body. His hands start shaking at the same time his heart begins thundering in his chest. He doesn’t remember feeling like this since— since he found out they’d taken Ryland in the first place.

“What?” he demands. “What the— What the fuck, how?”

“That is what I have to show you.” Stratt steps backwards and taps into a panel set in the table. “Look into that mirror, Colt. Right there.”

He’s suspicious, his guard is still up, but— if she’s going to show him something that was on Ryland’s ship—

“How could his ship come back here if he went back for Rocky?” he asks as he takes cautious steps up towards the mirror. He looks at himself once again, just as he had in the bathroom: same exhausted face, same tired eyes, except now he’s flushed pink with hectic energy underneath the shine of the face shield.

In lieu of a verbal response, Stratt just presses a couple of buttons; he can hear the soft beep-beep-beeps behind him, can see her reflected in the mirror—

—before he can’t anymore, the mirror fading and disappearing to become a window into the next room instead.

A room with a single bed, a number of machines, an alien in some sort of bubbly form-fitting suit, and his brother.

The alien— Fuck, that’s Rocky, from all those videos, and—

“Ryland,” he exhales, immediately surging forward, pressing his gloved hands to the glass with a rustle of that stupid vinyl fabric once more. “Holy shit. Holy shit, holy— Holy shit, he’s— Holy fucking shit!”

The bundle of rocks at Ryland’s bedside moves, turning its— face? For lack of a better word? It’s the way he would always turn when Ryland would talk to him in the recordings, Colt knows that. He’s watched those tapes so many times over the years, he almost feels like he already knows Rocky.

Which means he does remember what his brother said in the recordings about how Rocky sees— or, “sees,” so. He can probably see Colt right now, straight through the wall.

“What the fuck?” Colt demands, pushing closer into the window. Ryland looks— horrible, like absolute shit, as if he’s spent the time since his last recording just— just wasting away.

“The being Rocky has been using a translator to explain while your brother is unconscious,” Stratt explains, coming to stand just next to him, looking through the window just as he is.

Well, not just as he is. She’s not desperate to claw through the fucking glass like Colt is.

“He explained to us that your brother was severely injured and became dangerously ill after rescuing Rocky from his own ship,” Stratt continues. “It was Rocky’s decision in returning to Earth. He stated his fear that Dr. Grace would not survive a trip to Erid, and so he utilized the remaining backup probes aboard the Hail Mary to send his own cure back to his home planet before returning here with your brother.”

“He—” Colt starts to say, but he chokes, can’t make more words come out. He’s already looking back towards the bed, towards his brother, unconscious, limp, looking starved and hollow and near-death, with that— with Rocky standing guard over him.

“If we are understanding Rocky correctly,” Stratt continues, sounding as strained as she ever does, “Dr. Grace was unaware of this choice.”

Colt can’t help but scoff, his throat thick at the same time. “So, once again, everyone’s making decisions for him.”

He can’t bring himself to say that he’s not all that upset about it this time, not if it means his brother is actually home, but—

But, Ryland is laying there in a hospital cot, hooked up to so many machines, connected to so many wires, everything beep-beep-beeping around him. An actual alien is standing sentinel over him— over Colt’s brother.

“Is he going to die?” Colt asks into the silence.

“We do not know,” Stratt replies. “We still are not even sure how old his body is, technically, when accounting for the way he moved through space and time. We know he is malnourished and suffering from anemia. His bones are rather brittle, and we have begun putting in work to discover what is blocking his lungs.” Every word is clinical, detached. Colt’s heart pounds furiously in his chest the entire time. “Rocky is working along with us, though he has so far refused to leave your brother’s side or to communicate with our scientists for very long. We hoped you might be able to speak with him.” After a pause, she adds, “And that you might like to see your brother, now that he’s home.”

“Home,” Colt echoes. He can’t stop staring at Ryland. It’s like he’s still looking at his own reflection, just— just torn apart. Almost reminds him of after his accident, the way he’d look when he saw himself in the mirror. “Is Rocky going to attack me if I go in there?”

“He has become… territorial over Dr. Grace,” Stratt says, slowly, as if there may have been another word she considered saying but decided against. “I wanted you to see your brother, of course. I also thought it might be beneficial for you to be the one to try and speak with Rocky, as he has not responded particularly well to our attempts thus far.”

“Oh, he doesn’t like that you’re immediately trying to wake my brother up and interrogate him after he almost died saving multiple fucking planets?” Colt snaps at her. His eyes are still glued to his brother. “Gee, I wonder why.”

“Yes, please feel free to say all of that to Rocky,” Stratt encourages him. “Would you like to go inside now?”

“No fucking shit,” Colt replies, already heading for the door. “Okay, let me in. I want to see him. I want to see both of them, actually.”

“I fear they are a package deal,” Stratt says.

She strides ahead of him, pushing the door in without another moment’s hesitation. Inside, over her shoulder, Colt watches as Rocky whirls, crouching as if he’s a predator animal ready to pounce and attack, releasing a string of chiming musical tones. His back legs stomp in irritation, and he ducks lower, like he might lunge at them.

“Rocky, I know you have not wanted to communicate quite yet with our officers,” Stratt says, her hands empty, palms out, arms up. “But I have brought you someone I thought you may want to speak with.”

Rocky just unleashes another series of chittering noises, shivering a little as he ducks. The moment Stratt steps aside and lets Colt inside, however, he’s straightening up in apparent surprise, music falling from him.

“Activate translator,” Stratt says into the apparent open air, and the notes singing out of Rocky suddenly manifest themselves into words instead.

“—Grace! Look like Grace! Grace brother, question? Identical to Grace! Amaze, amaze, amaze!” Rocky sprints for him, and it takes everything inside of Colt not to stumble a step backwards. If he hadn’t watched Rocky in the recordings for all those hours, he might not have felt confident enough to stand his ground, but—

But, he trusts that this— person? creature? being?— that Rocky would never hurt Ryland, and he still looks enough like him to get away with just being pat by Rocky’s stony hands against his chest.

“Yeah, I’m his brother,” Colt tells him. “And you’re Rocky.”

“Grace brother know Rocky, question?” Rocky asks. He takes Colt by the hand, warm through the different suits they each wear, and starts hauling him to Ryland’s bedside. “How Grace brother know Rocky, question?”

“I watched all the videos he sent back,” Colt says. “I never thought I’d see him again, I thought— I thought he was going to take you to Erid.”

“Grace try. Grace save Rocky, Grace save Erid, Grace save Earth. Grace Rocky save stars, statement.” Rocky pulls up beside Ryland again. He’s wearing a similar variant of that bubble he’d have on in Ryland’s recordings, only it’s form-fitting against his body, basically just a layer overtop his thick, pebbly exterior skin. “Rocky not let Grace die. Grace almost die, die, die. Rocky not let Grace die, Rocky fix. Rocky take Grace to Earth, Rocky help Grace heal.”

“But…” Colt trails off as he joins Rocky at his brother’s bedside. Ryland looks—

He just looks horrible.

“What did you do to him?” Colt asks, momentarily distracted.

“Rocky Armando put Grace in coma,” Rocky explains. “Mary help preserve Grace, protect Grace until arrive on Earth.” He seems to peer at Colt again for a moment before he adds, “Grace sibling identical to Grace, statement.”

“Yeah, we’re twins,” Colt replies. “You can just call me Colt, man. Uhh— Unless I shouldn’t call you ‘man.’”

“Grace call Rocky ‘Rocky,’” Rocky says, as if that’s any sort of answer. “Grace mention sibling Colt. Grace miss sibling, grieve for Colt.”

Colt’s throat chokes up slightly, and he murmurs, “Yeah. Yeah, I grieved for him, too. I really— I thought he was dead, or at least that I— I would never see him again, and they—” He has to speak around the lump in his throat. “I— They sent him to fucking die up there, and if it weren’t for you, he wouldn’t— And I, I wouldn’t—”

He can’t speak, can’t make more words come. All Colt can do is fold down to his creaking knees next to Ryland and clutch his hand, careful around the IV buried in the back of it.

“Earth send Grace to die,” Rocky rumbles. “Colt not want Grace to die?”

“God, no,” Colt spits. “That’s— I’ve been— I can’t tell you how mad I’ve been. It’s— They took— my family from me when they took him, and— And, yeah, he saved Earth, and I guess he saved your planet, too, and I’m so super proud of him, I swear, I really am, but I just—” Colt shakes his head, tightens his grip on Ryland’s hand. He can’t believe he’s actually holding him again, looking into his exhausted, worn face, the white streaks in his hair, the shadows under his eyes, the hollow curve to his cheeks, the cracks in his lips. “I wish it wasn’t him. They just— They just took him. And now— I mean, now look at him. If it weren’t for you, he would be dead, he—”

Colt can’t keep going, can’t speak any further. He just bows his head down, turns his brother’s hand over and buries his face in his palm. Even though he can’t touch him, just yet, he can feel him, and he’s— he’s still him.

His heart is still beating. His hand is held between his own. It’s more than Colt ever let himself hope for.

“Rocky save Grace,” Rocky rumbles at him in low tones. “Rocky love Grace. Rocky not abandon Grace, Rocky not let Grace die.”

For a long moment, Colt looks up at him. Tears won’t stop streaming down his face, clouding up the inside of his mask.

“Thank you,” he manages. “I just— I can’t— Thank you, Rocky.”

Rocky slowly moves to Colt’s side. It’s much slower than he knows Rocky can move; he’s watched how fast he can skitter in Ryland’s videos. When he settles next to Colt, he hums, then puts one of his arms around him. It’s one of the stranger experiences Colt has had in his life, but he still finds himself tilting towards him.

“Will you tell me what happened?” Colt asks quietly, studying Ryland’s sleeping face. He wishes he would wake up and just look at him, but— but, until then, he’ll settle for talking to his— to Rocky.

“Grace come back for Rocky after return plan for Earth,” Rocky says. His translated voice feels like it’s coming from right beside him. “Grace not let Rocky die. Grace give life for Rocky life. Grace…” He makes a soft, sad chime of a sound. “Grace save Rocky. Grace save Erid, Grace brave, brave, brave, statement. Rocky love Grace. Rocky save Grace.”

“You did that?” Colt asks him, glancing sideways at Rocky. “You gave up everything, you— you gave up going home just to bring him back here?”

“Grace do same for Rocky,” Rocky replies with a chittering trill. Colt catches a glimpse of one of his hands stroking Ryland’s thigh over the starchy white blanket tucked on top of him. He looks so unlike himself, so— so pale and washed-out and drained of passion and vitality and energy and life and everything that makes him him. “Grace try to die for Rocky. Rocky not let Grace die. Rocky send message to Erid. Home understand.” He pauses, then lets out a soft trill. “Rocky never forgive self if Rocky Grace go to Erid and Grace die. Grace mean more. Erid safe, Earth safe. Now Rocky keep Grace safe.”

Colt nods— then keeps nodding, can’t stop nodding, as more tears start to spill. A sob escapes him, and he curls forward, arms folded on Ryland’s bed, burying his masked face in his brother’s hand.

He tries not to do this, he really does, he has spent— spent years fighting not to cry over Ryland, but he— he thought he would never see his brother again, or that Ryland was dead out there in space, or that both were true, and now he’s— he’s here, he’s back, he’s home. It really does feel like Colt’s dreaming, like he’ll wake up and remember the truth and wish that this was all real and not just his brain conjuring up his deepest desires.

“Rocky,” he murmurs, and Rocky chitters at him, acknowledges him. “We can— I’m sure they can— They can send you home, if you want to go, he wouldn’t— He loves you, he wouldn’t want you trapped here—”

“Rocky stay with Grace,” Rocky insists with a couple of hard stomps backwards. “Rocky not go anywhere without Grace. Rocky Grace stay together.”

“Right.” Colt huffs a dry laugh, shakes his head as he looks behind himself. There’s a single chair there, and he pulls it up, sits himself in it. Rocky just watches him, studies every movement. “Right, he’s— You know, he loves you, too. Right?”

“Rocky love Grace, Grace love Rocky,” Rocky agrees with him. He hops up onto the foot of Ryland’s bed; the entire thing creaks, but it doesn’t give.

This would be more alarming an experience if Colt hadn’t watched all those videos of Ryland and Rocky together. He’s already come to terms with the existence of aliens— and the existence of one particular alien in his brother’s life, or what remained of it— so that— that is not as alarming as it might have otherwise been. It’s strange, that’s for fucking sure, but he’s not crashing out over it.

“I’m sorry, I just—” Colt lets out an incredulous laugh this time, wet, surprised, somewhat amused, more than a little shocked. “I never thought I’d see Ry again, and here he fucking is, back home on planet fucking Earth with an alien boyfriend. I feel like I’m fucking dreaming.”

Rocky makes a soft coo of a sound, then asks, “What boyfriend, question?”

Colt has to be fucking dreaming. This has to be a fucking dream, because what the fuck.

“It’s, uhh… I don’t know, like a partner,” Colt replies, before he remembers one of Ryland’s recordings. “You have a mate, right?”

“Adrian,” Rocky says, with a solemn descending hum.

“Right, yeah. Well, a boyfriend is… kind of like a mate here,” Colt explains, slightly hesitant. What is his fucking life, that his brother— his brother who was stolen and shot into space— is actually back, and he’s explaining what a fucking boyfriend is to his goddamn alien boyfriend. If Jody said she was making a movie with this plot, Colt would’ve thought it was unrealistic and ridiculous.

And yet, here he is.

“Grace Rocky mate, question?” Rocky asks with a commanding series of stomps and high trills. “Human mate, question? Boyfriend? Boyfriend? Boyfriend?”

“Well, Ryland’s not all that great with dating, if I’m being honest,” Colt tells his brother’s fucking alien partner over his unconscious body, Jesus Christ. “I just noticed— I mean, I watched all the videos. And I saw you with him, just now. Do you…” Colt tries to decide how to phrase this, his hands still clenched tight around his brother’s right hand, refusing to release him. “On Erid— Like, at home. Do you love your mate? Is it, like, an affection thing?”

Rocky makes a sad noise in response to that, curling downward a little. “Yes, yes, yes. Rocky love mate.”

“You sacrificed a lot to save him,” Colt comments, observing Rocky’s reaction. “Didn’t you?”

“Rocky sacrifice everything,” Rocky replies. “Rocky save everything. Rocky save Grace. Grace save Rocky.”

Colt nods again, returning his attention to his brother. Once, when they were kids, the two of them had been goofing off with some of their friends on the edge of an icy lake, and Colt had accidentally stepped on a layer that was too thin. The ice had snapped, then cracked open, and Colt had fallen right through. The next thing he’d known, he was flat on his back on the snow at the shore, Ryland dripping wet and panting over him.

He’d surged down and hugged Colt with everything he had, sobbing that he thought he lost him, that he was so glad he wasn’t hurt, that he loved him. Their friends had been shocked enough not to laugh, and Colt had just— had just reached up and hugged him back, embraced him tightly, felt him shivering.

For nearly a month after that, Ryland had been sick. Caught something after diving into the ice-cold, freezing water after his brother, while Colt had remained blissfully, surprisingly well.

Now, he looks a bit like he had when he was that little boy trapped sick in bed; he looks— looks small, and feverish, and weak. However much he’s aged, whatever it is he’s experienced, Colt thinks they are, at their cores, still the same as they always were.

And just like he had back then, Colt sits beside his brother, and clutches his hand, and thanks him for giving himself to protect him.

At least, this time, he’s not alone in his vigil.

“You gave up your life for his,” Colt mumbles, stroking up Ryland’s bandaged arm.

“Grace give life for Rocky,” Rocky replies. As if it’s that easy.

Maybe it is that easy. He saw the recordings; he heard Ryland talking about Rocky when he saved him before, when they tried to sacrifice themselves for each other the first time. If he thought either of them would ever let the other die, he’s more of a fucking idiot than he thought he was.

“You really do love him,” Colt says.

“Rocky love, love, love Grace, statement,” Rocky agrees. “Rocky stay with Grace, Rocky protect Grace from Earth human that try to murder Grace. Grace not safe without Rocky.” He hums again, a little vibration of a noise. “Rocky not leave Grace. Rocky protect Grace, Rocky protect Grace sibl— Rocky protect Grace, protect Colt Grace. Keep safe, safe, safe.”

“You don’t have to keep me safe, too,” Colt replies, tearful. “I can protect—”

“Grace family important,” Rocky interrupts him. “Colt keep Grace safe, statement. Grace tell Rocky about Colt, tell Rocky all about sibling. Grace love Colt. Grace happy when Grace see Colt, statement.”

“You think so?” Colt asks.

“Rocky know.” Rocky stomps a little again, the bed groaning beneath his tapping.

Colt nods, looking back towards Ryland again.

“Colt think Grace love Rocky, question?” Rocky asks after a moment. “Grace Rocky mates, question? Human mates, question?”

“I mean, yeah,” Colt replies. “He gets kind of stupid when he has a crush.”

“Grace want crush Rocky, question?”

“Nah, it’s kind of like… I don’t know, like, he likes you. In a— a special kind of way.” Colt can’t help but laugh. “Jesus, I’m not fucking explaining my brother’s crush on a fucking alien. To the fucking alien.”

“Fucking alien want answers, statement,” Rocky replies, and Colt’s laughing even harder— until he’s crying— well, half-laughing, half-crying, unable to hold any of it back. “Colt Grace okay, question?”

“Yeah, I’m— I’m amazing,” Colt answers honestly through the tears. “This is the best I’ve felt in— in years, are you kidding me? You brought my brother back, you—”

He’s choking again, and he folds over Ryland, clutches him close, his twin, his other half, the part of him he thought he’d lost and would never find again— except he’s here, he got to come home, all because he fell in love with an alien that fell in love right back, that refused to see him die, that would sooner give up everything else in his life than give up Ryland.

Rocky presses one of his hands to Colt’s back. It’s the same kind of touch Ryland would give when he was trying to comfort him, when Colt would get too worked up and Ryland would rub his back to calm him down and help him breathe.

“…Colt tell Rocky about Grace, question?” Rocky asks. “Infant Grace, question?”

“Oh,” Colt says through the tears, “I can tell you all about Ry when we were kids.”

Colt spends the next few hours bonding with Rocky in ways that he can honestly and truly say he never expected he would ever bond with an alien. Even when Ryland would play the Star Trek movies again and sigh over his crush on Spock.

Probably, Colt should have seen this coming.

But— How does anyone really see their brother falling in love with an alien coming?

He’s right in the middle of telling Rocky about the time Ryland broke his tailbone and his clavicle when he took a nosedive over the handlebars of his scooter as a kid when the monitor readings start to change. Rocky stops before he does, his attention abruptly shifting towards Ryland’s body in bed the moment before the heart rate monitor indicates an increase, his breathing starts to quicken, and his body twitches in bed.

“Grace, Grace, Grace,” Rocky chants, pushing himself up to stand over him. “Grace wake up, Grace healthy, Grace safe. Rocky promise, promise, promise.”

“Hey, he’s right, it’s okay,” Colt encourages him, squeezing Ryland’s hand between his own. “You’re okay. I’m right here, everything’s okay. You’re home.”

At first, Ryland doesn’t move any further. He just lays there, his chest heaving, and Colt starts to sit back, frustrated, just wanting his brother here with him again.

Rocky doesn’t lean back, though. He tilts forward, insists, “Grace wake up, statement.”

Ryland groans, lifting his weak, trembling left hand to swat at the empty air. “Five more minutes, Rock, c’mon,” grits out of his coarse throat before he coughs and starts to squint.

The first thing Ryland manages to lay eyes on is Colt’s face through the mask. He can tell the instant he realizes who he is— that he’s him, not his reflection, not a photograph, not a hallucination, but really, truly him— because he launches at Colt, almost ripping his IVs and plugs and stickers from his skeletal body in his quest to get to him.

“Oh, my God,” Ryland whispers near his ear, audible despite the crinkling, clutching him close. Colt just winds his arms around him in return, holds him as close as he can, lets him squeeze him. “Oh, my God, oh, God, oh, my— God, I’m here, you’re here, you’re—” He pulls back, holds Colt at arm’s length. His face is so haggard, so concerned, and so alive, Colt can’t stand it. His brother has been gone for so long, and yet— and yet— here he is, living, risen from the dead, and Colt can hold him again. “You’re not— You’re not— They didn’t send you up, too, right? Did— Did I—”

He’s already starting to cry. Of course he is. Colt yanks him back in, hugs him as tight as he can.

“I wanted Rocky to get home, I wanted him to go home,” he sobs into the yellow plastic over Colt’s throat. “Why am I here? I told him— I told him—”

“Rocky bring Grace home to Earth,” Rocky chirps from the end of the bed. Ryland jerks backwards, staring forward with shock before he’s sobbing again, incredulous and excited all at once, holding his arms open to Rocky. He doesn’t hesitate before spilling into Ryland’s embrace. “Grace awake! Grace alive, alive, alive!”

“Rocky, why did you do that?” Ryland demands, clutching at him. “You shouldn’t— We should’ve gone to Erid, bud, why did you—”

“Rocky not let Grace die!” Rocky cuts him off. “Rocky love Grace.”

“Yeah, I love you, too, Rock,” Ryland murmurs into his— his thorax, Colt would guess? “I’m so— I’m so sorry, I feel so bad, I’m happy being home but that means you’re not home and—”

“Grace is Rocky home,” Rocky says. When Ryland shakes his head, Rocky nods his whole body, says, “Yes, yes, yes. Grace is Rocky home, statement.”

He shoves himself further into Ryland’s arms, practically begging to be held. Colt runs his gloved hand through his brother’s hair, then sniffles, trying to hold it all back. He’s already cried way too much today.

“I should— You know, I should tell them you’re awake,” Colt says, jerking a thumb backwards over his shoulder. “They’ll— I mean, they’ll probably want to know you’re awake, but, like— the whole world is eventually going to want to know you’re awake. And that you brought an— an alien back with you.”

“Do we have to?” Ryland asks, sounding so much like himself that Colt just laughs and plants himself on the edge of his bed. “I really— I really missed you, I never thought I would see you again. I’m so sorry, I swear, I never would’ve left without saying goodbye, I felt so awful about it once I realized and I just—”

“Shh, shush, shut up, it’s okay,” Colt stops him. “I know, I knew you wouldn’t have. I’ve been pissed at fucking Eva fucking Stratt since I first saw your goddamn face on TV.”

“She was right—”

“You should’ve been given the choice,” Colt insists.

“But what if I chose wrong?” Ryland asks, and sounds genuinely afraid of the answer.

“You didn’t,” Colt says. “Look, you— you could’ve fucked up, or flaked out, or just given up at any point. I watched all of your fucking tapes, man. You could’ve given up a thousand times and nobody would’ve blamed you. But you— Fuck, you saved everyone anyway.”

“I wasn’t supposed to—”

“But you did.” Colt grabs him in a tighter hug, holds him closer again. Rocky wriggles between them, arms and hands everywhere. “You and your fucking rock alien—”

“What boyfriend mean, question?” Rocky asks Ryland. Colt could fucking throttle him, if he knew where his goddamn neck was.

Ryland’s quiet for a long moment before he asks, ridiculous with the tears still streaming down his face, “What?”

“Grace brother Colt say Grace Rocky boyfriend, statement,” Rocky replies.

“You fucking snitch,” Colt hisses at him.

“He said what?” Ryland demands, too much on too weak a throat. Still, he has the strength to whip his head around to face Colt again. “How long have I been asleep?”

“Rocky put Grace to sleep on ship,” Rocky replies. “Grace sleep through crash landing, through acquire from Grace murderers.”

“Sorry, who?” Ryland asks.

“Grace boyfriend, Grace brother protect Grace from Grace murderers,” Rocky promises him.

Colt points towards him. “Yeah, what he said. Is he, like, my brother-in-law now?”

“Colt, please, statement,” Ryland hisses at him.

“Sorry, you’re already—” Colt motions between the two of them. “You’re, like, mind-melding.”

Ryland goes red-faced, glaring at his brother, and it feels so much like old times that Colt takes the first full breath he thinks he’s been able to take in years.

“I’m so glad you’re home,” Colt tells him, and he regrets all that time he wasn’t able to say what his brother means to him, those years where he wasn’t able to say, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Ryland echoes, lurching for him again. Colt catches him, holds him close.

“I’ll— I’ll go get your doctor in a minute,” Colt tells him, hugging him close. “I just— I never thought I’d see you again.”

“Grace home with family now,” Rocky chirps.

“You’re my family, too, Rock,” Ryland mumbles in between them, trying to wrap his arms around both of them at once. His IV finally gives up and dislodges with one little tug too far, sending one of his machines rapidly beep-beep-beep-beep-beeping. “Oh, shoot. Whoops—”

“Jesus Christ, Ry,” Colt exclaims before he’s running for the door and pounding the side of his fist against it. “Can we have a doctor in here right now, please? Hello?”

The ensuing swarm of doctors, and scientists, and— fucking Eva Stratt, once again— is more than a little overwhelming, overstimulating. It’s a lot to Colt; he can’t imagine how this feels to Ryland and Rocky, who have spent the last years with nobody except one another.

When he catches another anxious look passed from Ryland’s face to Rocky’s— and when he realizes that he’s actually recognizing Rocky’s nervous look back— Colt decides to curl his tongue, stick his fingers between his lips, and whistle as loudly as he can, gathering the attention of everyone stuffed into the too-small room.

“Anyone who is not immediately looking after my brother, get the hell out of here,” Colt announces at the top of his lungs. “That means if you are not a doctor, a family member, or an— uhh, an alien, go wait the fuck outside until he’s ready for you. And I will let you know when, alright? Hearing that?”

There’s a moment of silence before Stratt adds, “You have heard him. Out, now.”

People file out fairly quickly, after that. She doesn’t even need to raise her voice. Colt doesn’t want to say he’s grateful for it— for her— he can’t. Ryland can forgive her if he wants, but Colt never will. These are the people who sent his brother to die. They’re just lucky he came back—

They’re all lucky he came back. They’re lucky that Rocky found him, that he loved Ryland enough to save his life.

Colt’s never felt so lucky in his life. And he’s had more than a couple lucky breaks.

“Hey,” Ryland calls, as the room filters empty. Colt looks towards him, catches his brother’s eyes, identical to his own. Even with how ill he looks, how bruised, how exhausted, he’s still lit up like he’s always been, exactly how he was in the recordings, and how Colt remembers him from before.

“Hey,” Colt echoes. He watches Rocky climb back up over his brother, settling over his lap, holding on tight even as a doctor tries to reattach his IV.

“Thanks,” Ryland tells him, and Colt grins, his eyes prickling, his insides burning.

“Thank you,” he replies. “And you know how much it takes me to say that.”

“So, so much.”

“Yeah, I haven’t changed,” Colt says around his smile.

“Oh, yeah, no, neither have I,” Ryland replies with a smile near to identical to his brother’s, and Colt’s never been happier to see his own reflection.