Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The day Ryland Grace proves the Carl Hypothesis and discovers how to breed Astrophage, a probe is spotted in the outer regions of the solar system.

He doesn't find out about it right away. Even Stratt doesn't find out right away, because there's no indication at that point that the probe has anything to do with the Petrova Taskforce or Project Hail Mary or even Astrophage itself.

Stratt does not, in fact, find out about the probe until it's recovered and the words TO SOLVE ASTROPHAGE PROBLEM are found written on the outside. The words look like they were written by a kindergartner, but they're legible, and below them is written in slightly smaller text, Deliver to Ryland Grace.

Which is when Grace finds out about the probe.

"I don't understand," he says when Stratt shows him. The probe is sealed inside an airtight container for now, because they decided it was more important for Grace to see it than to check for contaminants, so he can't get as good a look at it as he'd like. But that's definitely his name. "Why me? Where did this even come from?"

"NASA is looking into it, but it seems to have originated outside our solar system at the very least," Stratt says, and then brushes right past that revelation, unflappable as ever. "So you don't recognize this at all?"

Grace shakes his head. His head is spinning just a little. "I – how would I? I don't – I don't even know how whoever this is knows my name."

And then, because someone has to bring it up, "Are you saying aliens sent it?"

"I don't know," Stratt says. Helpful. "It's not impossible. We already know alien life exists, after all."

Yeah, Astrophage. Sapient alien life is a whole different ball game. Sapient alien life that knows Grace's name and sent him a package –

"So when do we find out what's in it?" he asks instead of pursuing that line of thought any further, for the sake of his own sanity.

"Right now." Oh, they're totally going to shove him in a hazmat suit in another sealed off room full of argon, aren't they? "We have someone on site ready to open it. You will be supervising, of course."

"Wait, why am I not just opening it myself?" Grace asks, and Stratt looks at him like he's lost his mind.

"You won't be in the room, Dr. Grace. You'll be watching with us, from outside. We can't afford to risk you."

Oh. Huh. He's been upgraded from expendable to… whatever's the next level up from there. Fun.

"Alright," he says with a shrug, because he knows better than to argue when Stratt tells him to do something. "Let's go, then."

There are aliens inside the probe.

Well. Not the (maybe) aliens that sent the probe. They're not visiting. Probably. But there's a container inside the probe that has a little tank inside it, and inside the tank are a bunch of little amoebas that Grace desperately wants to get his metaphorical hands on to study.

It turns out they eat Astrophage, by the way. So that's pretty cool. Earth is basically saved once they manage to get the little buggers to Venus, and Project Hail Mary will be over almost before it began. It would feel almost anticlimactic if not for the elephant in the room.

They still don't know who sent the probe.

The tank isn't the only thing inside the probe, but the rest of the contents aren't particularly helpful. They pull out something that, upon closer inspection, turns out to be a recording of what sounds like whale song. And then a few more recordings to boot, and then there's a little figurine of a human with its fist in the air. Grace, presumably, since the whole thing was addressed to him, or maybe just a random generic human.

Grace does not get the figurine. Stratt orders some other scientist to study it, because the material it's made out of looks pretty strange, and they discover that it's made out of solid freaking xenon.

At this point, Grace decides he will no longer be surprised by anything, just in general. There is absolutely nothing that could shock him more than what has already happened.

Which is, of course, when someone on the team who happens to have a minor in linguistics slams her hands down on the table and announces that the whale song is probably a language.

The maybe-language is incredibly difficult to decipher, if not impossible. Which makes sense, since they have absolutely nothing to go off of. The linguist and her newly-formed team come to Grace every so often to ask his opinion, and he's really not sure why, because he's established already that he has no idea what's going on here.

But he supposes that the probe being addressed to him has probably given a lot of people a lot of ideas about his level of involvement in things, so he resigns himself to being bothered every five minutes for the foreseeable future.

The only thing he can actually help with are the Astrophage-eating amoebas, so he stays in that lab as much as he can. He ends up leading the team that's researching them, he's the one that discovers they can't survive in high concentrations of nitrogen (and almost loses the entire tank as a result), and he's there when they wave goodbye to the ArcLight II as it heads off to Venus. And then –

Well. Then he goes home.

It feels wrong, because there's still so much they don't know. But Stratt had understood that he really didn't have anything else to offer, that he had no idea why the probe was addressed to him, and most importantly, that if she decided she did need him back after all, she could just show up and kidnap him again.

(That last one is not Grace-approved, just something he knows as fact. Whether he likes it or not, Stratt gets what she wants.)

So she lets him go home. And he goes back to teaching and watches the news, and finally, finally, finally, the sun goes back to normal.

And that, in theory, should be the end of it.

NASA detects the alien ship a little over half a year after the probe showed up.

Communication is… difficult at first. Nobody ever really managed to decode the whale song language (though, confirmation! It was in fact a language!) so they can't communicate verbally, even if the aliens seem to have a decent understanding of spoken English.

But then someone remembers the words written on the outside of the probe and suggests text-based messages, since the aliens can clearly also read and write English, and that goes down a lot smoother.

They want to know if things are ready for them. The response to that takes a good few hours while people run around panicking very badly. Was the first message in the probe instructions to prepare something? A request for things they needed to survive? A message to give humanity advance notice that they were coming to visit? Had the aliens said they expected to rule over Earth in exchange for saving it from the Astrophage, and now they're here to collect?

Okay, it probably isn't that last one. The aliens seem pretty friendly so far. But it's still a good idea to be cautious.

NASA apologizes profusely, just in case, and says that they were unable to translate the message. They also ask, very careful not to sound accusatory, why the aliens did not just write the message in English, since they're clearly able to.

The response to that one takes quite a while, and when it comes, it answers none of NASA's questions and brings up at least eight more.

Where is Ryland Grace?

"What?" Grace asks, utterly baffled. Getting a probe addressed to him was weird enough already, but it's not every day the head of NASA calls you up and tells you aliens are asking to talk to you.

"They want you to be there when they arrive," the aforementioned head, Irene Collins, tells him. "How quickly can you get to Florida?"

"Why Florida?" Is that where the aliens are landing? It's all the way across the country. Grace doesn't mind travel, but couldn't they pick somewhere a little closer if they wanted to talk to him, specifically? They know his name, surely they can find out where he lives.

"That's where we'll launch from," Collins says, and no thank you actually he would very much prefer not to.

"I'm not an astronaut," he tells her firmly. "I'm not launching anywhere. No way."

"They can't land their ship." Collins doesn't sound thrilled about it either, to be fair. "We will need to transport them down, and that may take quite a while considering the requirements they've given us for their survival. They have also…"

She sighs, and Grace feels his gut drop. "They have refused to dock with the ISS unless you are there. And I would really like to avoid potentially triggering an interstellar war over this, Dr. Grace."

Grace collapses into his chair, shoving his head into his free hand. This is – this is just insane. What could the aliens possibly want with him?

"Do you think they've read my paper?" he asks suddenly, realization hitting him all at once. It would make sense, wouldn't it? Actually, it's kind of the only thing that does make sense, because outside of that paper Grace is a complete nobody. There was that crash out in Denmark, but he seriously doubts an alien is going to care about that. And even then, that still ties back to the paper, if not directly.

"I have no idea, Dr. Grace," Collins sighs. She's pretty clearly exhausted, and Grace wonders if he shouldn't just go along with this to cut her a break. But still. They want to ship him up to the ISS? "Please just get to Florida. They will be here within the next two weeks, and there is training you will need to complete beforehand. We will pay for your plane ticket and any other expenses, so no need to worry about that."

Well. He hadn't been. He'd gotten a pretty decent payout for his work on the Petrova Taskforce, even if he didn't end up actually doing much in the end. So he could've covered it, but it's nice to know he won't have to.

… Wait, is he seriously considering this? Actually? They're planning on shooting him into space! Sure, it's just temporary, but that's still just… not something he can do.

Except…

"What happens if I say no?" he asks cautiously.

There's a soft thud that sounds very similar to someone dropping their head onto their desk, before Collins says, "Someone will pick you up. I'm sorry, Dr. Grace, but this is not optional."

Okay.

So Grace goes to Florida. He gets a very condensed crash course in astronaut training, and he gets briefed on everything NASA knows about the aliens. They're from the 40 Eridani system. Their ship uses Astrophage as fuel (which, good to know it would've worked for them, if it had come to that). They are nearly fluent in English, but they can't speak it with the vocal system they have.

And, of course, they really want to talk to Ryland Grace.

"They didn't say why?" Grace asks while he's busy with all the last minute checks and preparations. Collins shakes her head.

"They didn't say much of anything once they found out you weren't with us. Just let us know that they're friendly, what they need to survive, and that they won't talk to anyone until they talk to you."

"Great," Grace sighs. He supposes he can ask them once he's up there, but he'd really like to know going in! He's under-informed, and it's making him very nervous, and he was already pretty nervous to begin with so this is not helping. "I guess I'll just wing it, then."

Collins pat him on the shoulder supportively.

"You can do it," she says, and maybe even means it.

Grace makes it to the ISS.

The trip wasn't that bad – okay, no, that's not true. It was terrifying. But it's not that bad now that he's here. The zero g (or, well, weightlessness in this case) is weird, but he had that training, so he can handle it without throwing up. And everyone is really nice.

He's been assigned a babysitter, though they call her a guide – Miranda Lang, a very nice young woman who will, essentially, be following him around the whole time he's here to make sure he doesn't break anything.

Honestly, given the fact that he somehow manages to trip over himself the second he steps onto the station, Grace thinks that's pretty fair.

They arrive a little before the aliens dock, so there's time for a tour and lunch. It's really weird making his way around in weightlessness, but he manages. The food is… okay. Not terrible, but definitely not something he'd want to eat daily. He does not envy Lang and her fellow astronauts that.

And then it's finally time, and Lang brings him to an isolated room connected to an airlock. Grace can just barely see what looks like a tunnel beyond it, but it's really dark, so he can't make very much out.

"Aren't there going to be other people?" he asks, when the door closes behind them.

"The aliens really wanted it to just be you," Lang tells him with a shrug. "We had to negotiate for them to let me in too. They wouldn't even let Collins in, even if she took the time to make the trip up here."

Oh. Great. Okay. He's about to meet aliens. Aliens that asked for him, specifically, and refused to meet with anyone else.

No pressure.

The airlock cycles, and one of said aliens steps through.

It's… absolutely nothing like Grace would've imagined. Science fiction doesn't know crap about aliens.

It looks like a rock, for one, if a rock had five legs. Or arms, maybe? It's brown, and maybe the size of a large dog. No features, really, but it does seem to be wearing a suit of some kind, meaning it probably has a different atmosphere. That would be Grace's guess, anyway, but it could be for a different reason too.

"♫♩♬♫♬♪," says the alien. It looks like it's trembling.

"Um," says Grace.

The alien takes a step forward, and Grace flinches back before he can remind himself that they're trying to avoid causing an interstellar war, and implying you're terrified of your alien visitors could very easily be taken as rude.

The alien goes still.

"♪♬," it says. "♪♫♫♩."

"I'm sorry," Grace says, feeling like this is his fault somehow. "I'm – I don't understand what you're saying."

The alien doesn't speak for a minute. It looks – and this feels so weird to say about a being without a face, but there's really no other word for it – unsure.

Finally, it says, "♪♬."

And then it turns and leaves.

Grace is going to get such a bad grade in first contact.

After a few minutes of him and Lang standing around and looking at each other awkwardly, a different alien comes out. Only for a moment – it holds up a finger (they have fingers!) and then goes back in without saying a word.

"… What?" Grace says, baffled. "Was that – did it just tell us to wait?"

"I think so," says Lang, who seems equally stunned. "Unless that means something else for them. But they're – they can write English, they know who you are, so they probably know human body language. Right?"

"Maybe?" Grace shrugs. "I guess we're waiting. You got any cards?"

Lang, it turns out, does not have any cards, so they end up just sitting there and talking while they wait. Lang is curious about the whole Petrova Taskforce thing – what it was actually like working on it, beyond the stuff the media released – and Grace has to tell her he only worked there for, like, a few months. He's happy to talk about the time he was there, but only if she'll tell him what it's like living in space.

So they talk about that for a little while, and then Lang asks why he thinks the aliens are so focused on him, and he has to tell her that he has no freaking clue, so they start bouncing increasingly wild theories back and forth.

"I think it's because they heard I was really good at teaching middle schoolers, and they're here to kidnap me and make me teach whatever passes for middle school on their planet," Grace says, and then he hears the airlock cycle and snaps to attention.

Another alien – actually, Grace is pretty sure it's the first one, from earlier – steps out. It's holding something. A long, thin black box that Grace's brain, for some reason, decides is definitely a bomb.

Oh, crap, I accidentally insulted them and now we're screwed, Grace thinks hysterically, and then the alien speaks again and Grace just has time to think that he would really like to understand whatever threat it just gave, before –

"Hello," says the box, and Grace yelps and jumps. Or tries to, but he's sort of floating, so it doesn't work very well.

"Holy shit," slips out before Grace can censor himself. The alien jolts backwards, like Grace was the one who startled it. "I mean, crap. Don't – don't use that word. Uh – you made a translator? How?!"

The alien hesitates. Tilts its head – well, not really a head, but Grace isn't sure what else to call it – like it's thinking. Then says something else.

"Not many word," says the box. The translator. Wow. It sounds kinda like a Vocaloid now that Grace listens to it, which he supposes makes sense. They probably don't have human voices to base it off of. "Hard explain. Can put more later. Was need fast."

"I – yeah, that's fair," Grace says. He feels kind of dazed. He's talking to an alien. He's having a conversation with an alien. "I mean, this is – even just this is incredible, wow."

The alien shifts from side to side and makes an odd trilling sound that doesn't seem to translate to anything.

"Thank," it says, before straightening up like it's standing at attention. "Name Rocky."

That's –

Grace blinks. That's a very human-sounding name. Though, more likely, the alien – er, Rocky – just picked a human-sounding translation for something that didn't really have a proper translation to English.

More to the point, it sounds very much like the kind of name Grace would give.

Weird.

"Um. Nice to meet you," Grace says, brushing that aside. At least for now. "I'm Grace. Though I guess you… already knew that."

Rocky lowers its carapace. His? It feels weird calling Rocky an it now that Grace has a name to call him. And he doesn't exactly know if these guys understand pronouns. Though he supposes he could always just… ask.

"Yes," Rocky says, and if Grace didn't know any better he'd say the alien sounds almost sad. "Found Grace paper. Is good."

Holy crap he was right. He was right. He'd mostly been joking about the paper thing, but – he leans forward, excited. "Wait, does that mean – are you guys not water-based?"

Rocky hesitates. "… Little. Sorry. Goldilocks zone right though."

Yeah. Yeah, okay. He'll take it. It's something.

"Good enough," he says, trying not to show the disappointment he can't help but feel anyway. And then, before he forgets, "Hey, total non-sequitur, do you guys have pronouns? I'm – I don't want to assume."

"Need word," Rocky says, and Grace blinks. They seem to understand English really well, but they don't know the word pronouns? If they don't have pronouns that's one thing, but Grace thought they'd at least know the word.

"Uh, pronouns are words we use to refer to –"

"No," Rocky interrupts. "Know that. Word three."

Oh thank god. Grace thinks back to what he said, trying to remember which was the third word – oh, right. Yeah, that's a fair one to be confused about. "Non-sequitur? That's just something you say when whatever you're about to say has nothing to do with whatever you said before it."

"Understand," Rocky says, and then, "He."

"Like, you use he/him?" Grace asks, just to be sure. Rocky bobs his – carapace, maybe? – up and down like he's nodding. Huh.

"Yes," he says, in case Grace was confused. Cool. That's settled, at least. Now they can work on having an actual conversation, about things like why the aliens are here and what they want with Ryland Grace, specifically. It can't just be because of his paper, right?

And then – he stops. Thinks back.

"… Wait a second," he says slowly. "You said you read my paper."

Rocky shifts his weight. "Yes."

"That doesn't make any sense." He hadn't really thought about it before, way too excited about possibly being proven right, but the timeline just doesn't match up. "Unless you have some way to get instantaneous access to our Internet – in which case, how – there's no way you could've seen my paper before you would've had to leave to get here."

"♪," Rocky says. It goes untranslated.

"40 Eridani is 16 light years away," Grace continues, folding his arms. He really wishes there was gravity here, he feels like he needs to pace right now. Get this restless energy out. He doesn't like this. He doesn't like this at all. "I wrote that paper 12 years ago. Heck, even if you did somehow manage to read it the second I published it, you would've had to already be en route. That just – it doesn't add up."

"Grace," Rocky says, sounding almost nervous, but Grace isn't done.

"And I don't understand why – like, why me? You said it yourself, I wasn't even right about the water thing, at least not with you guys. There's a million other people you could've – and the Internet is so massive – how would you even know I existed?"

"Uh, Dr. Grace?" Lang says. Out of the corner of his eye Grace sees her push herself to her feet.

"And that's not even getting into the question of how you got access to the Internet in the first place!" Grace might be hyperventilating. Just a bit. These aliens know his name, they know about his paper, they called for him specifically and he doesn't understand why but he is officially freaked out. "Maybe your tech is just way beyond ours, I don't know, maybe you've known we've existed for years and have just been watching us this whole time but I –"

"GRACE!"

Grace stops.

Rocky's fidgeting, looking away – well – he doesn't have a face, but the side of him that's usually been faced forward isn't anymore. He looks, suddenly, very small.

"Sorry," Rocky says quietly. "Was not paper. Grace not… Grace not think real if Rocky say."

Grace gestures around himself. "I'm on the ISS talking to an alien who knows my name and sent me, personally, a present to help Earth deal with the other alien problem that was eating our sun. Try me."

Rocky hesitates.

"Not many word," he says. "Hard to explain. Wait, question? Will put more."

Well. They've waited this long, right?

Grace looks to Lang, who shrugs. Then back to Rocky. "Yeah, okay. Do you know how long it'll take, though?"

Rocky thinks for a moment. "Four hour." A pause, and then, "Earth hour."

Well, Grace had kind of assumed Earth hours, but now he feels like a bit of a jerk for that. He'll have to ask about the differences in their systems of time later, to make up for it.

"Alright, deal." He gives a thumbs up. For some reason, Rocky shudders. "See you then, I guess."

"Yes." Without another word, Rocky turns and makes his way back to his ship.

Grace waits until he's out of hearing range and then a little bit longer for good measure, then turns to Lang. "Okay, do you have any idea what the heck that was about?"

"You're asking me?" Lang gestures at him. "You're the one who crashed out on an alien!"

"Because he was clearly lying! Look, I get we have to be diplomatic, but if we can't trust them to tell the truth –"

"We can at least be polite about it," Lang says. "Unless you're trying to start a war here?"

"I'm not!" Grace folds his arms. "I just – wouldn't you be freaked out?"

Lang hesitates. Then nods. "… I would. I just… hope he's gonna be honest this time."

"Yeah," Grace says. "Me too."

They wander around the ISS for a while. Get another meal (this one's a little better than the last, but still no comparison to Earth food), and then make their way back to the room with a few minutes to spare.

Rocky shows up right on time, translator-box in tow.

"Okay," he says, setting it down next to him. Unnecessary, in Grace's opinion, given he has so many arms, but he can do what he wants. Maybe he needs them for something else. "Should have enough words now. Please do not interrupt."

"I won't!" Grace maybe takes that a little more personally than he should. He's worked really hard on not interrupting people. He used to be a lot worse at it. Not on purpose, he just… gets excited sometimes and his mouth moves before his brain can catch up. It doesn't happen that much anymore, because again, he's worked on it. But this alien just assuming that he will –

"Not about Grace," Rocky tells him, like he read his mind. Oh, god, Grace really hopes that's not actually what this is. That would be humiliating. "Just… will be shock. Want to get through whole story before questions, or… or say not believe."

Grace wishes he could promise that he'll believe Rocky, but he can't really do that, can he? He's still a little distrustful, given that the guy already lied earlier. He wants to believe him, but… well. He'll listen. He can at least promise that much.

"Okay," Grace says, and Lang nods in agreement too. "No interrupting."

"Thank." Rocky shifts back and forth, like he's trying to decide where to start. Finally, "Is not first time Rocky Grace meet."

Grace opens his mouth to protest. Then closes it again. No interrupting, right. But – how is that possible? He's pretty sure he'd remember meeting an alien.

"Will explain," Rocky says. Again with the possible mind-reading. "Earth Erid both had problem. Astrophage eat both sun. Erid send Rocky, other Eridians to Tau Ceti because it not dim. Rocky crew… Rocky crew die. Only Rocky survive. Rocky alone for long long long time."

Despite himself, despite not fully trusting the guy, Grace can't help but feel sympathy for him. What a horrible thing to go through. And his own planet was dealing with the Astrophage too? That must be how they knew what the solution was – because they found it for themselves first.

"Then Earth send Grace," Rocky continues, and Grace freezes.

"That's not right," he says before he can stop himself, and then claps his hands over his mouth. "Crap. Sorry."

But it's not. He was working on the Project, sure, but he was never on the crew. He never would've volunteered to be on the crew, he's nowhere near brave enough. Heck, he barely even managed to talk himself into coming up to the ISS, and that's with knowing it was a round trip!

Besides. They didn't even need to send anyone, because Erid fixed the problem for them. So what is Rocky talking about?

"Will explain," Rocky repeats. "Grace tell Rocky: not meant to be on mission. Last minute accident, both scientists die. Grace was backup. Did not know. Was sent."

Rocky's silent for a few moments, then adds, voice quiet enough that Grace can barely hear it beneath the translator, "Was forced."

The words punch the air out of Grace's lungs. That – he – Stratt wouldn't –

No. No, she would. She'd do anything it took. One man's life against the entire world?

She wouldn't even hesitate.

"And… and then?" Grace asks, mouth dry, completely ignoring the no interrupting rule.

"Then…" Rocky's posture loosens, just a little. "Then Grace Rocky meet. Find Taumoeba. Save stars. Rocky have extra fuel, give Grace. Both go home."

Oh.

There's something stuck in Grace's throat, and he can't quite swallow it down. He doesn't – can't – believe what Rocky is saying, because it just sounds nuts. None of it happened like this. But there's a part of him that doesn't actually care if it's true or not, just how it makes him feel, and that part is really close to crying right about now. The idea of thinking he was going to die, and then being told no, actually, you get to go home, you get to live –

"But," Rocky says. Grace goes still. That's not the end of the story, apparently. "Taumoeba escape. Rocky fault. Flaw in tanks, get through xenonite. Grace safe, fix problem, but Rocky…"

Rocky pauses, and Grace hates that he can see where this is going. "Rocky whole ship xenonite. No way to stop. Could not do anything."

Despite himself, Grace almost reaches out to comfort the alien. But he doesn't. He still doesn't… believe any of this. And even if he did, aliens probably have a completely different way of showing comfort. Maybe a hug is the worst insult imaginable, to them. He has no way of knowing.

Still, Rocky soldiers on. "Thought Rocky die. But then – then Grace come back. Grace give up go home to bring Rocky to Erid. Save Rocky, save Erid."

"What?" Grace's voice is nearly a whisper. That's – no. That's not right. Even if any of this was true, he's not that brave. Even if it meant someone else would die, even if it meant a whole world would die. He's just… too much of a coward. He couldn't make that sacrifice – couldn't imagine doing it.

"You just need to find someone to be brave for," echoes in his memory in a voice he's never heard, and Grace shudders.

"Erid save Grace. Build dome, make food. Grace live on Erid. Grace –" And Grace can just barely hear Rocky's voice underneath the translator box, still can't understand it at all, but it sounds so pained somehow. "Grace die on Erid. Long life, for human. Still not enough."

It aches. Guilt, for something that never even happened, but Rocky sounds so heartbroken over it that it pulls at Grace's heartstrings anyway. He still doesn't know where Rocky is getting this from. Did he dream it up? Some weird form of precognition aliens have, or something? It sounds crazy, but Grace has no idea what explanation wouldn't be.

"Then Rocky wake up day of ship leave," Rocky says, and Grace's mind goes blank. What? "Did not know why. Still not know. Go to Tau Ceti, save crew, get Taumoeba, save Erid. Wait, then send Taumoeba to Earth with message for Grace. Did not think to send translation. Thought… thought Grace remember, thought Grace understand."

Rocky's silent for a moment, and then, quiet enough that the translator barely picks it up, "Apology."

Grace blinks. Stares at Rocky for several seconds, processing all of that.

And then shakes his head and says, "No."

"Grace –" Rocky says, but Grace cuts him off.

"No," he repeats. "Sorry. Just – no."

There's just no way Rocky is telling him he time traveled.

He'd thought about it being precognition, sure. Heck, he'd even been considering mind reading earlier, so time travel shouldn't be off the table. But it's different.

He doesn't know how aliens work. If they have some sense that allows them to read others' brain waves, or see the future somehow. It'd be really weird, but could probably be explained away as an 'alien thing'.

But time travel? That's just – scientifically impossible. On any planet.

He feels a little bad, because Rocky had said Grace wouldn't believe him, and here Grace is proving him right. But he just – he can't. He just can't, no matter how hard he tries.

"Grace," Rocky says again, voice high under the translator, which keeps the exact same tone and lack of emotion as always. It's a little unfair, but Grace really can't think about things like that right now. "Grace, listen –"

"No!" Grace shouts, panic starting to fizz in his chest, and Rocky flinches back. "I – you can't just expect – there's no such thing as time travel. This is – you said you were going to tell the truth!"

"♬♫ is ♩♪ truth!" Rocky yells, half of it going untranslated. "Promise, ♫♩♫ not lie! Not to Grace!"

Grace barks out a laugh. "How can I believe that? You already lied once – you admitted to it! How can I trust that you're telling the truth now?"

"♫♩ – Grace –" and Grace can't do this. He's probably going to get in trouble with NASA, maybe going to end up starting an interstellar war because Rocky is mad that Grace won't listen, but he doesn't care anymore. His heart is pounding way too loud and Rocky already lied to him and Lang is looking at him like he's lost his mind and he still has no idea what Rocky even wants and he never even wanted to be here in the first place and he wants to go home. He just wants to go home.

"Sorry," he manages, and pushes himself off towards the door.

"Grace, ♪♬♫♫ –" Rocky pushes off the wall, towards Grace, and Grace doesn't have the momentum and can't reach another surface in time to get away, and Rocky reaches and wraps his hand around Grace's forearm and it burns even through the suit and Grace screams –

– remembers.

"Oh my god," Grace chokes out.

Rocky lets go and scrambles back, suddenly alert and concerned and too far away please don't go – "Grace okay, question? Sorry. Sorry sorry sorry. Should not have – sorry."

The translator overlays most of the words, and whatever part of Grace isn't desperately drinking in the sight of Rocky kind of wants to throw something at it, because it's saying Rocky's words but it's obscuring Rocky's voice and he doesn't ever want to hear anything but Rocky's voice for the rest of his life.

"Oh my god." He can't breathe. He's drowning, he can't breathe. His lungs inflate but the air doesn't come, and he brings a shaking hand to cover his mouth. How could he forget Rocky?

"Grace?!" Rocky's hands flutter in the air, frantic, desperate to fix but not knowing what's broken. It's so familiar it hurts, and Grace can't take it. "Grace, Grace, what wrong?!"

"Rocky," Grace's voice cracks and he pushes off the ground and lurches forward, wrapping his entire body around Rocky, his best friend, and everything else vanishes around them like they're the only two things that exist in the entire universe anymore.

Rocky goes completely, utterly still.

For a second that stretches far too long, Grace flashes back to spinning red hot arm burning alone too still wake up please please please – and then three of Rocky's arms come up and around him, clutching him nearly tight enough to break his ribs. The Eridian lets out a long, low keen that drags a sob up and out of Grace's chest, and Grace breaks.

"I'm so sorry," he gasps through the tears. Sorry he died, sorry he forgot, sorry he didn't listen, sorry sorry sorry it doesn't matter what for.

"Grace," Rocky wails, again and again, and Grace could listen to Rocky say nothing but his name forever. "Grace, Grace, Grace."

"I'm here, buddy." It took too long, way too long, and he nearly screwed it up completely, but he's here. He's here. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Grace here," Rocky repeats, warbly, like he's reassuring himself too. "Grace not leave."

"Never," Grace promises around the lump that's suddenly stuck in his throat. Rocky technically doesn't need to use the simplified language for the translator anymore, because Grace can understand him again, but he is anyway.

Just like before – how sometimes, even years after they landed on Erid, he'd slip back into the habit of talking the way he did on the Hail Mary. It was comforting for both of them, familiar, and Grace is so, so grateful because he desperately needs that right now.

Rocky probably does, too.

"I'm sorry," he says again. His voice breaks halfway through, but it doesn't matter. Rocky will understand him. He always does. "I'm so – I'm so sorry. I didn't – god."

"Is okay," Rocky says, and Grace is already hugging him as tight as he can but he somehow finds the strength to squeeze even tighter, just for a moment, because that is the biggest load of crap he has ever heard. There's no universe where it's okay. Grace didn't have the knowledge to understand the complex tones and emotional indicators Rocky was using ten minutes ago, but even then he could tell that Rocky was upset.

Now that he remembers? It's devastating.

All he can think about is Rocky's quiet, broken sorry that first time, before turning to go back into his ship, to walk away from Grace. He thinks it'll be burned into his mind forever.

"… Is not Grace fault," Rocky tries instead, and. That's debatable, too, honestly. But at least it's better.

"What even happened, question?" Grace taps a finger twice on Rocky's carapace, automatically slipping back into Eridian speech patterns. "I don't… I don't understand why we're back here. Or why I… didn't remember right away."

Rocky shifts at the reminder of Grace not remembering. Pulls him a little closer, nearly crushing the air out of Grace's lungs. "Not know. Think maybe Grace not remember because… side effect of amnesia last time, question?"

"Maybe." It makes some sense, but not a lot. He had lingering memory issues for the rest of his life, but that was because of the drug Stratt had given him. It shouldn't have carried over, he doesn't think. But it's about as good an explanation as any. "But what about why we're here?"

And then, almost immediately, "Never mind, it doesn't matter. Maybe the universe just decided we deserved a do-over, or something."

He's still curious, but if Rocky doesn't know either, then they'll probably never find out. And all that really matters is that he's here and Rocky's here and he is never letting go of Rocky ever again.

Maybe it's a little codependent. But he doesn't see Rocky complaining.

"Now what, question?" Grace asks, after who knows how long of hugging. They've ended up in one of the corners of the room, still wrapped around each other, and Rocky has finally turned that dang translator off. Lang, Grace is pretty sure, left sometime during the sobfest. Probably to go call up Collins and tell her Grace has officially lost it. Whatever.

Rocky hums in thought. "Was expecting dome to be ready when arrived. Now have to wait. How long Grace think it will take, question?"

"Uh," Grace says. He's not an engineer, he has no clue how long this kind of thing takes. Well – he knows how long it took to build his biodome on Erid, but that was with Eridian engineers who knew how to work with xenonite already, and also it was as rushed as it could be while still being safe. Grace somehow doubts Earth is going to be in quite as much of a hurry, given the stakes aren't nearly as high. "Maybe… six months to a year?"

Another hum. "Rocky and crew live on ship until then. What about Grace, question?"

Grace blinks. He'd just kind of assumed he would be staying wherever Rocky was, honestly. "I figured I'd just stay here…?"

"On space station?" If Rocky had eyebrows, he would be raising them right now. And – yeah. Okay. Fair. Grace, before he remembered, had been very against the idea of coming up here at all. Staying for months, maybe even a year? Absolutely not.

But that was before he knew his best friend in the universe was here. And also before he remembered that he's been in space before, for quite a long time, and survived just fine.

Well. Not really 'just fine'. But that was because of other factors, so it doesn't count.

"Yeah, on space station," Grace says, raising his eyebrows right back. "It's not that bad, Mary was worse. Uh – don't tell her I said that. But there's more space here. And other humans, and actual food. It's basically luxury in comparison."

"Is still space," Rocky points out, and Grace shrugs.

"Worth it. Besides –" Grace moves just enough to poke Rocky in the carapace, before immediately going back to clinging to him like a limpet. "Don't act like you don't want me here."

Rocky shudders and presses closer, but doesn't say anything.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Anyway, what about after the dome is done? Is… how long are you planning on staying, question?"

He's a little afraid to ask. He certainly hopes Rocky will be here for the next several decades. Ideally until Grace dies. But he probably has a lot of things to get back to on Erid. Maybe Adrian, if they're not part of the crew for this mission, but definitely responsibilities as one of Erid's saviors. There was no end to those last time around.

"Was thinking." Rocky shifts, and Grace can hear his claws tap tap tap together behind Grace's back. Nervous. "Will need much time to establish relations with Earth. More than last time, because Earth has no prior knowledge of Eridians. Much time for diplomacy, exchange knowledge, culture. Maybe 50 or 60 years."

A pause, and then, with a teasing note in his voice, "Earth years."

"Always Earth years," Grace says back, and despite having cried himself out earlier he can already feel his eyes filling with tears again. 50 or 60 years is… about his remaining lifespan. Longer than it was on Erid, since he's staying on Earth and won't have to worry about all the health issues he dealt with last time.

He might even end up living longer than that, if he's lucky. Depends how far medical science progresses in the coming decades. But he has a pretty good feeling that 50 or 60 years is an estimate, and Rocky will happily extend his trip if Grace winds up sticking around longer than expected.

"That sounds good to me," Grace says with a sniffle. He doesn't bother fighting back the tears streaming down his face. He already knows it won't do any good.

"Leaky, leaky, leaky," Rocky says, but his voice is fonder than anything, and so unbearably soft. Like Grace could wrap himself in it and stay there forever, safe and warm and home.

He doesn't need anything else.