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It was finished. The Hail Mary and Blip-A parted in separate directions, and only once the Blip-A was swallowed by the vastness of stars surrounding him did he let stray tears slip from his eyes. Ones that welled and had threatened to fall, saying goodbye to Rocky, Grace silently thanked them for not exposing him in the moment. He didn’t have a clue on how to say goodbye to someone you were never going to see again — especially someone who shared the weight of saving the literal entire universe. But Grace had done enough crying in front of Rocky already. He didn’t need to add to the unspoken heartache that was lingering in the tunnel surrounding them. Their final conversation was echoing through his mind, and Grace wasn’t sure he knew where or how to compartmentalize it all.
“Grace?” Rocky had hummed, catching him before he started to cut away the tunnel.
“Yeah, pal?” They had been going back and forth, both stalling their parting as long as they could. Dancing, sentiment, jokes, you name it. Neither of them was quite ready to let go.
“Tell Grace mate, thank you when Grace go home.”
Ryland’s heart skipped at the mention of his once-lover, and he shifted his weight between his feet. “Stratt? What do you want me to thank her for?”
Rocky tapped his claws together for a moment in thought, as if trying to tread lightly. “Grace mate, very brave. Like Rocky once said to Grace. Grace mate hurt self to save others. No pain for Grace mate, no future for Erid or Earth. Rocky, thank Grace mate, for feeling pain on purpose.”
Grace had told Rocky all he could remember about Stratt when they started their mission. The way she scared the hell out of him at first, and seemingly still did — Rocky asked him once why Grace sounded scared of his mate. Stammering a response in his defense, he was in love with Eva Stratt. Look at the woman, who could blame him, right? The sharp redhead shared a strange kinship with Astrophage in the way that she could vaporize a room with one glance. She was simultaneously the most stunning individual he had ever laid eyes on, while also possessing the pure aura of authority no one would dare question. So, yeah, sorry if a guy gets a little nervous around the most powerful woman in basically the whole world.
Grace shared memories with Rocky as they continued to flow back through his mind. Rocky’s favorite topic to discuss quickly became Grace and his mate. How they danced around each other for far too long before Grace couldn’t do it anymore, and kissed her one night on the top of the ship. How she took the weight of the world onto her shoulders and bore it herself until Grace wriggled and clawed and fought his way past her steel-edged walls to help alleviate some of the heaviness. His favorite sound in the world was waking up to her humming a tune from the shower.
Weeks later into the mission, he sat in the mental health room. The memory of how he got here had stopped him dead in his tracks. He told Rocky, reluctantly, embarrassed, and full of shame. Anger. Heartache. Betrayal. Grief? He couldn’t decipher what the weight in his chest was. He was forced by the one person he loved more than anything to go to what was supposed to be his death.
Grace paced back and forth. He hated that he was here against his will, he hated what she did to him, he hated being angry with her, and he hated himself for being too much of a coward to say yes in the first place.
Rocky didn’t say anything for a long while. After an uncomfortable beat, “Rocky feel sad for Grace, but Rocky feel sad for Grace mate too.” Rocky rolled over in his ball to land next to Grace’s side, as if to extend an arm around his shoulder should that have been possible. “Grace mate had to save Earth. Grace is reason Earth can be saved. And Erid. Grace mate hurt Grace, but Rocky don’t see other way. Grace mate… need word.”
Sacrifice. The word was sacrifice. Eva had sacrificed the only comfort she had known in a very long time for the greater good of humanity.
Grace hadn’t slowed down enough to think about Stratt’s decision from her side. His own fear and shame clouded his mind, and while he felt sick to his stomach remembering his own pleas and screams, he never considered what it must have felt like for her to sacrifice him from her grasp.
“Don’t make this harder, please.”
Her voice echoed like she was standing behind him, and a shiver oozed down his spine. She wasn’t Stratt in that moment, she was just... Eva. Not the Taskforce Director, but the girl behind all of that, who was begging him not to make her shatter his heart.
He loved her deeply. That much was obvious to him even before all of his memories came back. Part of what he loved about her was that she had the tenacity to make decisions no one else could. But it was another ballgame to process being a pawn in one of those decisions.
God, he wished he were braver when she asked. He wished he hadn’t made her do that. She did what she had to do; he could see that now. It broke his heart to remember the shake in her voice that she never let anyone see, the fear in her eyes that anyone else but him would have missed.
He never thought he would have to learn how to hold hurt and betrayal, and love and grief at the same time. Yet, here he was.
He needed a fucking shrink.
They were never supposed to see each other again, yet he was on his way home to her now. How was he supposed to face her after everything?
As hurt as he was to have lost his autonomy at her hands, Eva was the one who lived with the baggage that her actions came with. By sending him, she gave up the broken-down walls that he chipped away at for years. Pieces of her that no other soul knew about, other than Grace. The inevitable loneliness that had to have come from that decision made him dizzy.
Maybe she moved on. Grace couldn’t tell if he hoped she did or not. Selfishly, knowing he was going home, he hoped she didn’t. How fucked up would that be, to come home from a once-promised death mission to see the love of your life, only to find her with someone else? Someone with a stupid name like Mark or something, someone who couldn’t read her the way he could. Every part of her soul he had memorized, and no one — no one would be able to love her as he could.
Then there was the selfless part of him. The part he’d come to know recently. In space. This part of Grace knew he’d be happy for her. Even if he had to search desperately in his gut to find it in him, he would. It was nauseating to think about what Eva had to live with after the ship left the atmosphere. Quietly, in the back of his mind, he hoped she let someone else in. That she didn’t share the burden of her actions alone. That Grace had broken down her walls enough that she didn’t have time or enough bricks to build them back up before someone new met her with gentleness.
Around three-fourths of the way through the journey to Earth, Grace rubbed his temple as Mary wished him a good morning. Lazily rising, he began to wander the Hail Mary like he had done countless times before. A little over a year left. He couldn’t tell if it had felt like six months or ten years. At least this time around, he didn’t have tubes shoved up his ass. Silver lining.
Grace rummaged through the boxes of items he had briefly scanned over when he first awoke from his coma. More of Ilyukhina’s vodka, along with a journal of hers that featured a list of “go to karaoke songs.” Some books, he remembered Yao mentioning one night in a common room on the Vat, among other personal items. He wondered what little things he would have brought with him had he decided to go himself.
Grace found himself in the medical center of the ship a half hour later. Maybe he could try Ilyukhina’s heroin, he thought to himself. Just for fun. After all, he had years to detox. He never had time to wonder about the suicide piece of the mission until now. Always figured he’d cross that bridge once he got to it, since he never wanted to die to begin with.
Did they pack straight-up heroin? Like… shit you buy from a dealer? Or was it mixed with the injection slurry ahead of time? He had to know this.
Grace approached the cabinet in which the end-of-life services were kept. He hadn’t opened it this whole time, despite it whispering, making its presence known every time he entered the room. He felt like Harry Potter hearing the whispers of Voldemort or something. Curiosity was getting the best of him now, or maybe it was the looming notion that he was confined to the ship for hundreds of days alone with his thoughts. What the fuck else was he supposed to do?
It almost felt like an invasion of privacy, observing the weapons that were supposed to kill his already dead crewmates. His hand hovered along the handle of the cabinet they were kept in, shaking ever so slightly before pulling it open. On the shelf inside were two medicine bottles filled with a powdered substance, each bottle labeled with the respective names ILYUKHINA and GRACE. So no straight heroin. Damn. Missed opportunity.
It’s for the best, he thought and shook his head. The hell was he thinking, trying heroin? Moving on.
Two boxes sat on the shelf below the death potions. Grace steadied himself with a breath and picked up the first box with Yao’s name on it. It was black and had a rough, plastic texture to the outside, and was held together by two latches. A small handgun was nestled inside with three bullets wrapped neatly below the barrel. A note was attached to the lid of the box that read in case there’s a change of mind.
Ilyukhina and Yao had always been up front about the way they wanted to die. Ilyukhina by injection, Yao by gun. Plain and simple, easy as that. Deciding as if they were ordering at a restaurant.
Grace didn’t have a suicide plan. He never needed one.
His stomach all but fell through his ass. That’s why there was both. This was Eva giving him a choice, in death. Bullet or needle. She knew Ilyukhina wasn’t going to change her mind and want the extra bullet. It was for show, to ease the unspoken discomfort of the three of them inevitably knowing he went against his will, not having a say in the way he went out ahead of time.
But, here it was, his small say in the mission. How he died.
Grace felt himself shudder as he closed the lid to the box and set it back on its spot on the shelf. His mind pondered each method of ending his life, wondering which he’d choose had Rocky not given him more fuel. Once there was nothing left to do. Nothing else left to say in the video logs, nothing left that he could provide the world with. Nothing more to think. Injection felt like the safe option, though the idea of sinking a needle into his vein made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. But maybe that would outweigh the cons, since he would drift off to sleep peacefully, never to wake up again.
On the other hand, the appeal of the hand gun made itself known by being quick, painless (probably? Unless he missed the shot. He was never good at sports. Then that could be painful. But how hard could it be to shoot yourself in the head?), and he wouldn’t have time to panic that this was it, the end of his life. He could very well see himself panicking in the last few moments before the injected poison put him to sleep. And living your last moments panicking didn’t sound like the best option, though it might have been on brand.
Grace ripped himself from his thoughts. Jesus. He didn’t need to be contemplating his hypothetical death that he no longer had to endure. He ran his fingers through his hair, sobering himself when his eyes landed on the second box next to the one that he now knew held a gun.
What else could there possibly be, he thought, brow furrowed. This box was smaller, with a smooth oak texture that was held shut by a gold clasp in the front. It hardly weighed much; Grace almost thought there could be nothing in it. He undid the clasp and lifted the lid when his mind started racing, new memories flooding his train of thought.
“Quick dinner before my next meeting?” Eva asked after placing a quick kiss on Grace’s jaw. She had been in meetings all day, running back and forth to every part of the ship. Grace hadn’t been needed in a majority of the meetings this week, so they had hardly seen each other.
“Hold on. You mean… I get to see my girlfriend? Face to face? Over food?” Grace responded, nudging her in the ribs.
“Girlfriend is a juvenile label, Dr. Grace. We are not in grade school.”
“Whatever, you love it,” He kissed her hair in response and took her hand as they started walking through the halls of the ship.
“Mmm, I don’t. I love you, though,” she replied dryly.
“Guys, I got an ‘I love you’ first!” throwing his arm in the air as if he was making a groundbreaking announcement. “From my partner, not girlfriend, to be clear. Even though it’s the same thing.” Eva rolled her eyes but failed at hiding her smile.
He listened to her recap of her day while catching the glances from those passing them in the halls. Two engineers side-eyed at each other and giggled beside them, while others quickly hushed their conversations as Eva trailed off her thoughts. “People are being weird today.” She raised a brow and glanced over at Grace, who smiled and shrugged.
“Isn’t our group always weird?”
“Weird-er. Anyways… it looks like we locked in some more funding for the project today. On stupid terms and conditions, but money is money,” Eva continued as she noticed more glances and mumbling when they entered the dining hall. “Okay, Ryland, seriously. What the hell is going on?”
Grace brought his hand to his forehead in embarrassment. No one on this goddamn ship can keep a secret. “Nothing,” he lied through his teeth. “It’s not… you’ll find out. Later.”
“If I interrogate enough of them, someone is bound to crack.”
“Uh uh,” Grace held a finger to her lips. “It’s a surprise.”
“I hate surprises,” she said through her teeth.
“That’s all I’m telling you. Let me have this one thing, I swear you’ll know about it soon,” Grace pleaded as he flashed his puppy dog eyes down at her and stole a kiss. She groaned in protest, but to her downfall, she melted into him. Once they parted, she continued, letting him off the hook to retrieve her food.
His stomach flipped in memory of how her lips felt on his. Warm, soft, and sparky through his whole body, her lips caressed his in a way that convinced him they were made for each other. Savoring the warmth in his core, the memory started to blend into another.
“Hey Kevin,” Grace knocked on the door to one of the project engineers’ rooms.
“Grace! What is up with my favorite science diva?” Kevin replied enthusiastically. A 27-year-old engineer, Kevin had developed quite a friend crush on Grace. He found it endearing, reminding him of one of his students back home.
“Don’t say that to me, Kevin,” Grace said deadpan, though not without fondness. “I need your help.”
“Help?” Grace heard a second voice from deeper inside the room. “I wanna help!”
Jordan was the second voice, Kevin’s partner. Jordan was also an engineer, and whenever they weren’t at work, they were finding something to do that drove Stratt up a wall. Grace found it the slightest bit amusing — they never caused any harm but knew how to get under Eva’s skin. Absurd email greetings and signatures (diva being a frequent one, no matter who you were), leaving things slightly out of place but not to the point of being incorrect, and teasing Grace and Stratt about their relationship, mostly at inappropriate times.
Jordan and Kevin rented out an antique booth at a vintage mall back home, Ryland learned a few weeks ago. It was one of Kevin and Jordan’s shared hobbies, finding beauty in the renewal of things once discarded by others. They sold vintage magazines, china, jewelry, clothing, filmstrips, you name it. One of the main items he remembered them talking about that they sold were rings, necklaces, and bracelets made out of spoons.
Grace invited himself into their room to see Jordan lying on his stomach on the bed, a deck of cards sprawled out on the comforter, clearly in the middle of an intense game of war. “Sorry to interrupt,” he started, “but I remember you guys talking about your booth. I need a… favor.”
“Go on, doctor, I’m intrigued,” Jordan replied, sitting upright.
“Okay, but you can’t like- tell anyone, okay? This has to be a secret,” Grace said, hanging his glasses below his chin.
Kevin smirked and raised his brow. “Uh oh. What’re you trying to hide from your girl?”
“Oh my God, Kevin, why would you assume it’s automatically something I’m hiding from Stratt?” Grace replied, throwing his hands up. Kevin and Jordan scoffed, casting each other a glance. “Okay, fine, I’m hiding something from Stratt, BUT I have good reason, and I just need you to promise me you’ll keep your mouths shut, okay?”
“Okay, okay, cowboy,” Kevin let out a laugh. “Our lips are sealed. What can we do for you?”
“Remember how you were telling me about those rings? Made from old spoons?” Grace fidgeted with two spoons in his hands that he swiped from the dining hall. His throat was suddenly very dry. “Well, I have an important question to ask, but I can’t ask it empty-handed, and unfortunately, there isn’t a jewelry shop on the ship.”
Jordan and Kevin vibrated with excitement. “I have a feeling some bets are going to be won soon,” Jordan chuckled.
Grace stumbled back from the impact of the memories he was receiving. He proposed to Eva Stratt.
Grace had rummaged through all the silverware on the ship till he found a spoon with stars etched into the silver stem. He always told her how her eyes put the stars to shame, and she’d roll them in response, telling him to shut up, unable to hide the smile that crept up on her lips.
Grace twirled the ring made from the spoon around his pinky finger in his pocket. His other hand rested on Eva’s knee as she sat crisscrossed in front of him. They were on her bed, sitting face to face with the lights out, except for the flashlight on her phone. They had the comforter over their heads, as though they were kids under a blanket fort. It was late, or very early, and neither one of them cared. Sidetracked by the fact they hadn’t seen each other all week aside from 15-minute meal periods here and there, going to sleep was not at the forefront of the pair’s minds. So here they were, sitting in the dark with a flashlight under Eva’s blanket, savoring the fleeting quietude.
Eva was going on about how stupid these businessmen could be, finishing her topic from earlier in the day. “All I’m saying is that if I were a man, this funding would have been completed by now,” she huffed, bringing his hand that was on her knee to her lips. “Sorry, I’m just talking about work. It’s been a frustrating week, but I’m glad to be here with you n-”
“Marry me,” Grace breathed, interrupting her. He had never heard her stop talking so fast in his life.
She blinked with an unsure laugh. “Grace. You’re sleep-deprived. You don’t understand what you’re-”
Grace pulled out the ring from his pocket, which elicited a gasp from Eva, stopping her mid-sentence. “I’m serious, Eva. Kevin and Jordan made this for me today, and apparently, the word got out, and that’s why everyone was being… weird earlier,” Grace confessed. “I told you that you’d know soon enough, so… surprise?”
Eva covered her eyes with her hands.
“I want to be with you till I die,” Grace continued. “I’ve known that since I first laid eyes on you, and I didn’t know what that entailed then, but I just knew I wanted you in my life forever. You are my favorite person in the entire world, and I want to marry you,” Grace rested the ring on his knee, gently took her hands from her eyes, and held her gaze. His tone was that of honesty so intimate the air felt thick around them.
Eva took a breath. Vulnerability was still a foreign concept to her. Grace knew that, as much as he cut through the unfamiliarity of it all. “I… being married to me is not going to be easy, Grace,” Eva replied, voice shaking so subtly that anyone else would miss it. “I am not the marriage type. I come with a lot of… this,” she gestured to their room, Grace noting that she meant the project in itself. “I vowed to myself that I would not bring another person into this reality of mine a long time ago because it is cruel and unfair.”
Grace smiled softly. “Well, you failed when you let me kiss you that night.”
“I know,” she said, closing her eyes.
“Let me do this with you, Eva.” Her name on his tongue sent a shiver through her body as he brought a hand up to cup the side of her face. “I know what I signed up for. I know you,” He grinned after a moment, “and you’ll never have to hear me call you ‘girlfriend’ ever again.”
She chuckled at that, letting her gaze return to his. “You stole ship property, Dr. Grace,” her voice returning to typical Stratt tone, eyes flickering to the ring. He could tell she didn’t really care, but was squirming at the piercing gaze he projected into her soul. “Do not go behind my back again.”
Grace couldn’t help but huff a laugh at her response. “Never again, m’lady,” he said, saluting her. “Now, can you give me an answer, please? You’re starting to freak me out. More than normal.”
Eva chewed the inside of her cheek. “Are you sure about this?” she asked delicately.
“I’m not sure about a lot of things,” he started. “But there’s nothing I’m more sure about than you. You are it for me, Eva.”
Eva squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. He watched as she took a full breath in and released it, followed by another.
Stratt opened her eyes and met Grace’s line of sight. “Okay,” she breathed.
“Okay?!”
“Yes,” Eva replied, unable to fight the smile any longer. “Yes, I want to marry you.”
Grace jumped up from the bed, ring in hand, pumping both fists in the air. “Let’s go!” he exclaimed, scooping her up in his arms. He spun her around once before letting her stand. Eva was laughing, a hand covering her flushed face. Grace descended onto one knee in front of her, and she looked down at him, the light from her flashlight sitting on the bed casting shadows across his face.
“Eva Stratt.”
“Ryland Grace,” she whispered.
“I will love you forever if you’ll have me. I mean, I’ll love you forever even if you don’t, but ideally I’d like to do it with you.” He held the ring up, waiting for confirmation with the extension of her left hand.
She pursed her lips in a smile before nodding. “I will.”
Ryland gazed at her with a smile and slid the spoon ring onto her left hand ring finger. His hands were trembling, and she took them, steadying his nerves. He stood, her gaze following his eyes upwards as he rose. Grace’s hands found the small of her back and pulled her in delicately. Nothing in the world could have been better than this moment.
Her breath hitched like it was the moment before their first kiss all over again. She rested her forehead against his, eyes fluttering closed.
“I love you,” she exhaled before her lips met his, gentle at first, then deepening it quickly after letting herself go. One hand snaked up into his hair while the other grabbed hold of his arm around her waist.
Grace fell into their kiss, letting the weight of her lead them back to the bed. “I- love you,” he mumbled in response between their lips. His hand ran through her fiery hair, tucking it behind her ear, and she purred in response. Pulling away ever so slightly, she let her eyes rest in his. “Once we’re off this boat, I’m buying you a damn ring. For real,” he grinned.
Eva shook her head. “This one is perfect.”
Tears stung in Grace’s eyes as his memories completed their return.
She was his wife.
Well, fiancé. Other events got in the way of the husband and wife part.
His vision came back to the box he was holding in front of him. The silver spoon ring rested inside it. A chill struck him to his core so deeply he could swear there was wind inside the ship. Underneath the ring was a folded piece of paper that had a single “R” written on the front fold.
Eva’s handwriting. Grace set the box down and stared at the paper in his hand. An uneasy feeling knawed at his stomach. There was no way of predicting what the note entailed or if he was even brave enough to read it. A tear traveled down his nose and landed on the note. Carefully, as if the paper could dissolve if he opened it the wrong way, he began unfolding.
Eva’s handwriting was scrawled on the page in front of him. Her penmanship had always been beautiful, halfway between typical script and cursive. The writing displayed before him though, was shaky and off balance. Grace stalled his mind, mustering up the courage to start reading. Squeezing his eyes shut, he hoped if he willed hard enough, he would wake up. That he’d be home, with his wife, and this would have all been a dream.
It was not a dream. Worth a shot. With a loud exhale, he began to read.
Ryland,
I never got to stand at an altar with you. I know that is my fault. Whatever karmic price I had to pay from a previous life was met with that decision. I don’t know if you will even want to read this. But I need you to hear me on this, so I am bypassing that with one final order.
My last order to you is that I would like you to imagine you are at the altar now.
These would have been my vows to you had the universe been kinder to us. While I couldn’t promise you for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, I do promise to love and to cherish you til death do us part. Even if I cannot physically do so.
I promise to talk to you every time I look at the stars.
I promise to sing, but only in devotion to you.
I promise to pause every time I see a rainbow and remember the feeling of your lips on mine.
I promise to wear the remainder of your stupid science t-shirts to sleep every night, for it’s the closest I’ll be able to get to feeling your body against mine once more. They still smell like you.
I promise to fight every day for the cause that you are serving.
The night you proposed, you told me that I was it for you. I wish I had told you that you were it for me. So, with that being said,
I do.
I left you my ring. I hope you’ll wear it and take it with you as you pass on. Though I do not blame you if you don’t. I do not deserve your forgiveness.
Lastly, before I go, I recorded a song that I think speaks louder than I can at this moment. Ask Mary, she will play it for you when you’re ready.
I’ll see you on the other side, my love.
- Eva
The silence was deafening. A high-pitched ringing struck through Grace’s ears, and he thought he was going to faint or vomit or both. Tears were streaming down his face like a dam had broken open, and he choked on his nose running when he remembered he had to breathe.
Hours had passed, or maybe it was just minutes. No, hours, Ryland recognized as Mary signaled the bedtime dialogue. Jumping at the ship’s voice, his eyes refocused on the letter in his lap in front of him. Tears had dried into the paper, running the ink ever so slightly. He was slumped against the wall now, a tight pain coming from his right hand. Glancing down, his hand was balled into a fist, knuckles white.
Releasing his grip, he found Eva’s ring in his palm. He wasn’t sure when he took it from the box. Eyes burning, he slid the ring with a shaky hand onto his left pinky. The only finger it would fit on. He felt a little closer to home.
“I do,” he choked, as if she could hear him. As if they could be pronounced husband and wife, 11.9 light-years apart. Grace brought the ringed finger to his lips and pressed a kiss to it. Oh, how much they had left unsaid to each other. Grace’s stomach felt queasy, unable to grasp that she wrote this letter as a final goodbye. She had no idea he was on his way back to her, that he could give the ring back to her. The Hail Mary seemed to hum in comfort around him as his mind started to settle.
Grace found his way to his feet and started the journey to ready himself for bed. Shuffling forward, he held the letter in his pocket as he moved, clinging to it as if it were Eva reincarnated. “Hey, Mary?”
“Good evening, Dr. Grace,” the ship replied.
“Can you play me Eva’s song once I’m in bed?” Grace asked, biting down on his lip once he said it. He wasn’t sure he would make it out alive after hearing her voice again. “Actually- uhm, maybe don’t. I-I don’t think… I don’t think I’m ready.”
“Music request cancelled.”
Grace lingered in the hall, inhaling a breath. He held it for a few counts before blowing it out. No. He needed to hear this, no matter how much it might hurt. He could be brave. He was brave, and he learned from an old friend.
After all, he knew now who he could be brave for.
“Sorry, Mary. I do want to hear it. Once I’m in bed,” he replied.
“Of course, Dr. Grace.”
Once he was settled, Grace lay flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling. Sounds of his own breathing engulfed him as he listened to his heart rate speed up in anticipation. “Okay. I’m ready.” Light piano chords started overtaking the Hail Mary’s speakers as he closed his eyes to listen. The recording picked up a whisper of Eva’s breath that brought goosebumps to his skin.
“Wish I could, I could’ve said goodbye
I would’ve said what I wanted to
Maybe even cried for you
If I knew, it would be the last time
I would’ve broke my heart in two
Tryin’ to save a part of you.”
Her voice filled the room around him, and he swore this is what it would’ve felt like to get hit by a semi truck on his bike. Grace never forgot what she sounded like, not fully — but listening to her here and now made him remember how much of it he was missing. The influxions, the way her accent coated specific words like honey to a sore throat. His eyes were hot and stinging again, but he breathed through it as he listened.
“Don’t wanna feel another touch
Don’t wanna start another fire
Don’t wanna know another kiss
No other name falling off my lips
Don’t wanna give my heart away
To another stranger
Or let another day begin
Won’t even let the sunlight in
No, I’ll never love again
I’ll never love again.”
“Mary, pause please,” Grace muffled from his hands covering his face. “I need a sec.”
The music stopped, and silence engulfed his senses. The weight of the cruelty of God or the universe or Mother Nature… whatever you wanted to call it, crushed his chest. He rolled over onto his side and rubbed his hands on his forehead, trying to equalize the weight of emotion.
They should’ve had more time. It wasn’t fair. They should’ve had more time. The thought repeated over and over again in his mind. It should’ve been different. All of his anger boiled back up to the surface, but this time it was pointed at what they could’ve had, what they should’ve had. It was childish to blame his anger on unfairness. A childlike concept, but he couldn’t help it. He hated God, not God, whatever force was at work here, for making him fall in love only to take it from them.
A man’s scream echoed in his ears. Where was that coming from? Grace brought his hands to his ears to try to block out the sound. It was agonizing, making his mind reel. He didn’t have time to process the fact that it sounded like him, that he was screaming, until his fist hit the wall.
“Physical distress detected.”
Searing pain shot through his pointer and middle fingers to meet his wrist. He cried out in response, white light clouding his vision. He broke his fucking hand. Armando was at his side instantaneously, beginning to wrap and splint his fingers. Grace scoffed in embarrassment, stunned as the anger simmered. The longing replaced it as the anger crept back to its hiding place.
After all, anger was always another emotion in disguise.
Grace steadied himself with a breath. “Mary, continue the song, please.”
“When we first met
I never thought that I would fall
I never thought that I’d find myself
Lying in your arms
And I want to pretend that it’s not true
Oh baby, that you’re gone
Cause my world keeps turning, and turning, and turning
And I’m not moving on.”
Eva’s voice belted into the chorus again, stronger than the first, as the words rang in his ears. He wanted to pause it once more, to catch his breath, but when he opened his mouth to speak, nothing came out. If he shut his eyes hard enough, it almost sounded like she was singing right beside him. For a split second, he swore he could smell her shampoo.
“I don’t wanna know this feelin’
Unless it’s you and me
I don’t wanna waste a moment
And I don’t wanna give somebody else the better part of me
I would rather wait for you
Don’t wanna feel another touch
Don’t wanna start another fire
Don’t wanna know another kiss
Baby, unless they are your lips
Don’t wanna give my heart away
To another stranger
Or let another day begin
Won’t even let the sunlight in
Oh, I’ll never love again
Love again
Oh, I’ll never love again.”
The song started to descend as Eva sang the final lyrics. On one of her last ‘I’ll never love again’ lines, her voice broke, and Grace’s heart broke right along with it. She caught her breath in the recording, but the notes were no longer smooth. He could hear that she was crying now, getting herself through the outro of the song.
“I’ll never love again
I wouldn’t want to swear I can
I wish I could but I just won’t
I’ll never love again
I’ll never love again.”
A shattered inhale pierced Grace’s ears. He listened as she held her breath before releasing it, shakily as the last of the piano faded out. The recording stopped, and he was met with familiar silence. Armando finished wrapping his right hand. It throbbed beneath the material, distracting him from the ache in his heart. His eyes found the silver ring on his left pinky. The promise of forever they once shared. Still shared, just… differently than they had hoped.
“Hey, Mary. What’s our ETA?” Grace asked, voice hoarse.
“Arrival time to Earth is one year, forty-seven days, nineteen minutes, and thirty-four seconds.”
Letting himself lie back once more, Grace shut his eyes, praying that sleep would take him. So close in the grand scheme of things, but this was about to be the longest year of his life.
“Entering Earth’s orbit,” Mary announced a little over a year later.
Grace shot up from his whiteboard doodling. He’d waited for what felt like a lifetime to hear those words. A literal choir of angels singing on heaven’s doorstep wouldn’t have sounded better. He sat back down quickly, lightheaded from the adrenaline. Breathe, he thought to himself over and over. In and out, in and out.
Everything was wrapping up the way it wasn’t supposed to. All he had to do now was park in orbit and transfer ships once someone got to him.
Holy shit. Was this really happening?
Grace shook his head. Maybe he was starving and truly just dying. Maybe this had all been a hallucination made up by his brain to cope with the end of his life.
Though it wasn’t a hallucination, and he wasn’t dying. He was almost home.
Grace fidgeted with the ring on his finger and ran his other hand through his hair, trying to fight the tears springing in his eyes. Eva was so close.
One of his fingers had healed crooked from the break, a constant ache living at the knuckle. He massaged it for a moment before realizing he was paralyzing himself in fear. Suddenly, the reality of coming home hit him alongside the head. All the fears, some stupid, some heavy, pushed their way to the forefront of his mind.
There wasn’t even a guarantee that Eva would be alive. No way of knowing what the state of the world would look like, if anyone would be waiting for him at all.
If she were gone, would this journey have even been worth it? Did he want to go back to Earth if she wasn’t there? When coming home wasn’t an option, grieving Earth was one thing. He processed that. Grieving Eva had still been a work in progress. Project Hail Mary taught him a lot of things and changed him in ways he couldn’t fully understand — bravery, selflessness, the ability to make peace with the notion he would never see Earth again. But no interstellar journey could conjure up the amount of peace needed to process losing her for good.
Shaking off the anxieties, Grace cleared his mind. Eva was going to be there waiting for him. It was the only option. And right now, he had a ship to park.
Months had passed. Grace had radio transmitted to home and spoke to another human for the first time in he didn’t even know how long. He waited (not so) patiently for someone to send up a transfer ship to rescue him from orbit, jumped from the Hail Mary to said ship, and began the descent down to Earth. Bringing all his findings with him, he learned from his new pilot, Scott, that Eva was right when she said half the world was going to die. The once green and blue planet that he called home was now icy and barren. He cried for the state of humanity, and cried harder when his escort down to Earth confirmed that Eva was alive. Scott briefed him on the news that she was stuck in prison and how she got out. He cried more for her. Grace had travelled 11.9 light-years away and back, and now here he was in a fighter jet on his way to her ship.
It was late into the night when his jet approached the launchpad of the vessel. Grace held back the nausea plaguing his senses. He couldn’t tell whether it was from the jet itself or the nerves that felt like needles in his body, thinking about stepping out to see Eva again. He had yearned for this for so long. It was indescribably haunting, healing, and gut-wrenching.
Grace couldn’t see anything out his window in the darkness, aside from the jet’s light that was cast below onto the landing platform. As they got closer to the ground, he could see crowds of people on the pad illuminated by the aircraft’s lights. The jet descended, and he felt the wheels touch the ground. His heart was pounding out of his chest now, afraid it would explode before he even left the aircraft.
The airstairs unfolded, creating his path out of the fighter. A trembling hand undid the seatbelt restraints, and he swallowed hard before pushing himself up to stand. There were dozens, if not hundreds, of unfamiliar faces on the launch pad. They were applauding, cheering, and some were even crying. He scanned the faces for Eva’s but couldn’t make her out.
Right, left, he thought, talking himself through how to step down stairs. He had never been so overwhelmed in his life, and he would be the one to fall down the jet stairs in front of everyone if he let his mind run away with him.
Five more steps till he was on the ground.
Still no Eva. His eyes shot back and forth through the crowd.
Four.
Everyone was still applauding, but he couldn’t hear it. Scott was saying something next to him, but the ringing in his ears drowned it out.
Three.
There were welcome home signs held up by some of those in the crowd. Maybe Eva was right when she said he would be remembered as a hero.
Two.
Grace’s eyes fell to his feet to watch his last step.
One.
His right foot met the ground, then his left. Looking back up, he stepped forward a few paces. Pausing, he started to turn in a circle. The crowd surrounded him, the jet, and he scanned it with his eyes, taking everyone in. It was still full of faces he didn’t recognize. He continued stepping, reaching a half circle, then completed it, the airstairs back in his line of sight.
There she was, against the side of the stairs. Her hair was a long mix of the ginger he knew, met with silver now. The years of scarcity reflected on her face in her cheekbones, but he was stunned. She was as beautiful as ever. Their eyes met, and his stomach dropped, feet frozen in place. All restraint he had broke open and before he knew it, tears were coasting down his face.
Eva was the one to step first, then Grace. Their steps fell into rhythm, cautiously at first as if the other was a ghost. Then, they were running. Eva all but crashed into him, her arms thrown around his neck. She buried her face between his neck and shoulder, and his arms wrapped around her waist. They both were unsteady and fell to their knees as they embraced.
A sob escaped his lips as he held her at last. Grace brought a hand up to cradle the back of her head. He wanted to say something, everything to her, but the words lost the fight against his cries. Eva’s fingers caressed his neck and wove into his hair as she pulled away to look at him.
Her icy, bright eyes were glistening with tears as she studied his face. Her mouth opened to speak, before she shut it once more. After a moment, “You are it for me.” Her hands cupped his face, thumbs brushing his tears away. A sound halfway between a laugh and a cry emerged from his throat. “Welcome home, Ryland.”
The crowd around them had erupted even more so now, but neither of them seemed to hear it. They were the only ones in the world right now. “Eva,” he breathed. Grace cupped the side of her face and pulled her in as his lips crashed into hers. Lightning struck through his body, and she melted into him, so foreign, but so familiar all at once. He brought his other hand to her waist, drawing her closer. It wasn’t close enough. Eva gripped his wrist next to her face and deepened their kiss, as if his lips were healing every scar she had endured since he left.
Trembling from desire, a soft moan fell from Grace’s lips before he reluctantly parted from her. Eva’s eyes were still closed, her forehead on his. He brushed a finger under her chin to lift her face to his. She fluttered her eyes open, and it seemed as though she was shocked to see him still there in front of her. Like, none of this could be real.
“Marry me,” he stated. “For real this time.” Grace slid the ring from so long ago off his pinky and returned it to its rightful spot on her ring finger.
Tears fell from Eva’s eyes once more as she looked at her hand in his, then back to his eyes. “I love you so much,” she promised in agreement.
He had so much to say, so much to tell her, show her. He captured her lips in his once more, and they stayed intertwined on the launchpad for a long while. By the time the sun was rising, they were tangled in her bed, just a sheet surrounding them. Ryland lay on his back with Eva propped up on his chest.
“For better or for worse,” she whispered, the sun peeking in and casting onto her hair. She traced a finger alongside his jaw.
“For richer or for poorer,” Grace hummed in response.
“In sickness and in health,” Eva continued, smiling softly at the tears welling in Ryland’s eyes.
“To love and to cherish,” he breathed.
“Till death do us part,” she finished. A stray tear of her own slipped past her waterline and fell onto his skin. “I do.”
“I do,” Ryland breathed. He smiled at her gaze and pulled her down to seal their vows with a kiss. Eva brushed her thumb against the ring around her finger. They had much to dissect and repair as they relearned each other’s touch, but they now had the luxury of time that they had never had before.
Who knew what tomorrow brought for them, but for right now, everything was perfect. They had survived the impossible. If it meant traveling through space and time all over again to get to this very moment, he would do it all over again. This time, he would be the first to volunteer.
Grace breathed in the scent of her hair and drank in the view of the sun rays warming her features. He committed her to memory, confident that this moment he would never forget. Finally, they were each other’s to have and to hold.