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It was during an all-hands-on-deck type of meeting that Olesya Ilyukhina managed to slide into the only available open seat, right next to Grace near the front of the overly large conference table. She grinned at him as she slipped in under the wire right as Stratt stood up to begin, dark curls threatening to spring free from her low ponytail. "Hello, science boy."
"Cutting it a little close," he said, tilting his head in Stratt's direction.
Ilyukhina shrugged smoothly, grin unwavering. "What's she going to do?" Ilyukhina asked. "Punish me?" The second half came out sounding more wistful than Grace was strictly comfortable with.
"Somehow, I don't think that's your best option." He shifted in his seat and grimaced when he caught Stratt's disapproving eyes on them. "Great, now you're going to get both of us in trouble. Shhh, already."
The cosmonaut's grin grew impossibly wider and she winked at Stratt, who merely turned her attention from them again. Once Stratt was more fully engaged in her presentation, Ilyukhina leaned in so close that Grace could feel the puff of her breath on his neck. "That's my wife," she whispered admiringly.
Grace almost successfully suppressed his snort of amusement. Stratt flashed a stern look in his direction and his amused expression returned to its previous grimace. Right.
Stratt's Vat was far from small, but even so, life on an aircraft carrier was cramped. Which was to say, it was easy to overhear things. So when Grace was walking past a couple of scientists who were talking about troubles with a married couple on the ship, he swiftly tuned it out. Whatever was going on was none of his business. He beelined for his lab, put his head down, and got to work. Stratt had him on a deadline and he still had some numbers to run before getting her his report by the end of the day.
Two days later, there was a group of engineers clustered into a group, very clearly gossiping. One of them caught sight of Grace trying to pass by unnoticed and waved him over. Reluctantly, Grace trotted over. "Is something wrong?"
There were a series of conflicting head movements, and Grace blinked. "Oh-kay," he said, drawing the word out as he frowned at them.
"We want to ask you something about Director Stratt." The engineer who stepped forward was a woman around Grace's age, curly red hair, familiar face.
"Saoirse?" he asked, pointing to her.
A grin broke over her face. "Yes," she replied, nodding. "We want to ask you something about Stratt–Director Stratt, but some of us were worried that you would tattle," she said, looking pointedly at some of the other engineers in the group. A few of them glanced away sheepishly. "I told them that we're all adults and that we just want to confirm or deny a rumor and that you seemed like you'd be a good sport about it."
Every word made Grace tense more in apprehension. "What is it?" He realized he was white knuckling his coffee and raised it to take a sip.
"Is Director Stratt married?"
Grace inhaled the coffee he'd meant to swallow and ended up half-choking, sputtering coffee down his chin and dripping it down the front of his shirt. "What?" he asked once he'd recovered enough to speak. "No? I–No, I don't think so? I'm gonna be real with you, it's never come up?" He wiped at his chin and his shirt ineffectively with his hand. "Why?"
Saoirse shrugged. "There's a rumor."
He raised his eyebrows. "That's the rumor? That Stratt's married?"
The engineers shifted their collective weight, and Saoirse wiggled her hand qualitatively. "Well, not exactly."
"The rumor is that she's married to one of the astronauts," one of the other engineers—Alexya, Grace thought—specified.
Grace frowned. "To one of the other–" he cut himself off and put his palm to his forehead. "Oh my god. Which one?"
Saoirse looked at him with a quizzical smile, confusion in her eyes. "Does it matter?" she asked, clearly thinking Grace just wanted the dirt.
"Yes," he said with a sigh. "Just–" He waved his hand for her to get on with it.
The engineers all looked at each other and shrugged. "Ilyukhina," Alexya answered.
The groan that Grace let out echoed through the bay and caused several heads to turn their way. Grace ignored them in favor of pulling out his phone to bring up the spreadsheet of schedules. He squinted, but the screen was too small for him to effectively read it, so he put his phone away again. "Thanks for the heads up," he said as he rushed away. "I appreciate it, oh and don't spread rumors anymore, thanks!"
"Wait, so is it true?" Saoirse called back, but Grace was too far away to respond.
Grace had to get a handle on things before word got back to Stratt, but he had no idea how long the rumor had been circulating or how far it had gotten. Knowing the Vat, it was entirely possible it was too late to do anything much by way of damage control, but he could still try. The second he got to his desk, Grace pulled up the schedules on a larger screen and pinpointed Ilyukhina's location. Perfect, she was close by.
Close by ended up being three halls over, one level down, and more difficult to find than Grace had expected. The Vat still managed to surprise him by coming up with areas he'd never seen. He lingered outside the small conference room while he waited for her engineering meeting to end. They were going over some part of the Hail Mary's systems and as much as Stratt would probably want this rumor nipped in the bud, she wouldn't want his actions to interrupt any part of the mission.
After what felt like millenia, the door opened and one Olesya Ilyukhina stepped through. Grace immediately intercepted her. "Can I talk to you for a sec?" he asked. If he was Stratt, he would've demanded it, and he could hear her voice in his ear telling him to be more commanding, but he ignored it.
"Sure, I was just heading to eat," Ilyukhina said easily. "What is up?"
Grace grabbed Ilyukhina's arm to hold her back and allow the other occupants to get a head start. After they were a decent distance away and hopefully out of earshot, Grace and Ilyukhina fell into step beside each other. "If we get there and all of the good options are gone, I will be very unhappy," Ilyukhina grumbled.
Their footsteps echoed quietly, the only sound in the corridor, until finally Ilyukhina looked over at him expectantly. Grace sighed and cleared his throat. "Okay, okay. There's a rumor," Grace started.
Ilyukhina's expression brightened immediately. "Ryland Grace! You want to gossip?"
Grace threw his hands up between them and shook his head. "No, no I do not. Ilyukhina have you been telling people that you are married to Director Stratt?"
The cosmonaut burst into laughter. "Married to Stratt?" Her laugh echoed in the confined space. "Is that the rumor? I love that. I am never ever going to deny it."
Grace made a sound of distress. "Are you the one who started that rumor?"
Ilyukhina was still gasping with laughter as she tried to answer. "Oh, I do not think intentionally. I say all the time that she is my wife. You know, casually, the way you do with women you want to, um, admire." A mischievous grin spread across her face. "Is internet thing, yes? Slang?"
"I am…not sure that counts as slang," Grace said with a sigh. "Internet thing, yes. Ilyukhina, I don't think everyone realizes that it's a joke."
"I think you are more upset about this than I am."
"I think Stratt's going to be more upset about this than you are," Grace said, running one hand over his face.
They'd reached the mess by then and the noise was loud in the quiet between them. Ilyukhina paused, a thoughtful expression crossing her face as she turned the situation over in her mind. Then her ever-present smile returned, just bordering on a smirk. "Okay, so I fix it," she said, shrugging.
"I thought you just said that you'd never deny it?" Grace said suspiciously, falling into step beside her again.
"I am allowed to change my mind," Ilyukhina said, raising an eyebrow at him. "Is for our own good, no?"
Grace blinked and choked out a laugh. "Our own good?" he parroted.
"Yes," Ilyukhina nodded. "I said to you first, no? And you did not say anything?"
Grace's jaw dropped. "You– Are you–?" He came to a stop and watched her approach the door to the mess.
Ilyukhina stopped and turned to look at him over her shoulder. She gestured impatiently. "Well? Hurry up, there are many people in here right now and it will be good to get all of them in one go."
Grace scrambled to catch up as she stepped through the door. "What do you mean, get all of them in one go?" he hissed at her back as she wove toward the center of the room, completely ignoring the food line.
Instead, Grace watched in horror as she stepped up on a bench to stand on top of one of the tables. "Attention everyone!" Ilyukhina shouted over the noise. She clapped her hands twice after, drawing all eyes to the sharp sound.
"Ohmygod," Grace muttered, dropping his face into his hands.
"Do you know what this is?"
Grace jumped a mile at the voice so close beside him and turned to see Stratt standing at his shoulder, eyebrows raised as she took in the sight of Ilyukhina on the table. "Ohmygod," he said again.
Stratt's grey eyes drilled into him. "Well?"
A whimper rose in Grace's throat but he cleared it away. "Um." Why wasn't she in her office or in a meeting? How many times had he practically dragged her to eat and now, at the worst time, she was there under her own volition? Maybe the universe had it out for him.
Grace waited too long to answer.
"I regret to inform everyone that there has been a misunderstanding," Ilyukhina announced without any shame whatsoever. "Stratt and I are not married. Saying that she is my wife is internet joke, and not serious." To Grace's horror, Ilyukhina kept speaking. "If she was my wife, she would be much, much less uptight. So please, do not spread rumors about us together. It hurts my feelings that people think I would not treat her right." Ilyukhina pouted with such gusto that it was visible from the door.
A strangled sound escaped Grace as he dropped his face back into his hands. Then he jerked his head back up and whipped around to look at Stratt.
She had laughed.
It was very quiet, the smallest chuckle in the history of the universe, but it had happened. Grace's jaw dropped again, and at this rate he was going to start catching flies. Stratt's mouth was turned up, just at the corners, as she watched Ilyukhina climb down from the table. One hand lifted to cover her mouth after a moment, when it became apparent that she couldn't manage to school her expression back into neutrality. Stratt shook her head.
"You're– You're not mad," Grace said, breath rushing out in relief. Then he squinted at her. "You knew."
"I have told you before, I am not oblivious to what happens around me," she said, an amused edge to her voice that Grace only recognized from some of their more ridiculous banter. "She is quite confident, yes?" Stratt tilted her head in Ilyukhina's direction, but her eyes were on Grace.
Grace opened and closed his mouth wordlessly.
"Director!" Ilyukhina's gleeful voice sounded as she approached them. Her grin could only be described as 'shit-eating'. "I clear everything up, no one will think we are married anymore. Is all good!"
Stratt arched her eyebrows and glanced around the mess. Every single person dedicated themselves to pretending they hadn't been watching the interaction. "So much for slipping in and slipping out," Stratt said.
Ilyukhina opened her mouth but slowly closed it when Grace shot her a desperate look. Instead, she wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. Grace swung his glasses down so they were hanging off one ear—turning the world into a comfortable blur—and pinched the bridge of his nose. The pressure was grounding and a good alternative to pinching his arm—hard—to determine whether or not this was actually some strange and horrible dream.
To his continued horror, Ilyukhina turned to Grace. "Is satisfactory?" she asked. "Because I am hungry and line is long."
Stratt turned to face him in one slow motion, eyebrows still arched high on her forehead. Grace nodded, fingers tightening enough to bruise. "Yeah, yep. All good. Perfect. Well, uh, well done. Thanks."
"Now that is no longer rumor, if you ever need stress relief…" Ilyukhina turned her million-watt grin on Stratt and did her horrible suggestive eyebrow wiggle again before darting off to the line.
Stratt sighed. "That is who we are depending on to save our sun." Despite her neutral tone and expression, Grace was familiar enough with her to notice the faint flush on her cheeks.
"Ohmygod," he said before he could stop himself. "She flustered you. Were you even upset by the rumor?"
The din around them had grown again as people moved on from the spectacle, but there were still glances thrown their way from curious people at tables close by. Stratt moved them to the end of the line as well, now several people down from Ilyukhina's position. "It seemed to help with morale," she said with a dismissive shrug. "And it was not harming anyone."
"Uh huh," Grace said, giving her an evaluating look.
Stratt stiffened. "What."
Grace shook his head slowly. "Nothing," he said, a grin growing on his face.
She gave him a suspicious look, but her cheeks were still pink and she was steadfastly not looking in Ilyukhina's direction, though she kept darting little glances as though she couldn't help it.
Satisfied, Grace rocked back on his heels. "Nothing at all," he repeated.