Work Text:
Serena watches the video with her entire family, tears streaming down her face. She makes no move to wipe them away. Her attention is on the screen. She feels numb from feeling everything.
Dr. Grace made it to Tau Ceti, alone. Dr. Grace met an alien. Dr. Grace and his new alien friend saved the world. Then, Dr. Grace gave up the chance to come home to save his alien friend and its entire planet. So he’s dead.
Serena mourned for him a long time ago. His addition to the Hail Mary’s crew was sudden and violent, and as the rocket launched all she could feel was grief. Commander Yao and Ilyukhina were always supposed to be on that ship; and while their loss is significant, they had made their peace with it and everyone on the Vat respected that.
Dr. Grace had less than 24 hours of preparation. How could he possibly have made peace with it?
She wondered if he was scared. She wondered if he was in that rocket wearing that grin of his: the one that always put her at ease because if Dr. Grace was excited, real progress was being made. She wondered if he even fully realized what he was doing, or if his brain had shut itself off in self-preservation. If so, what would he feel when he did realize? That he was going to die?
She knows now. As he explains the beetles and the Taumeoba, about the leak in Rocky’s ship, Dr. Grace doesn’t look scared. He doesn’t sound scared, which is more important. He was never able to hide anything with his tone, the voice always gave him away.
Dr. Grace sounds calm. He sounds ready. He sounds like he is 100% absolutely certain of his decision.
Serena weeps. She hasn’t thought about him in a while; it happened so long ago but the memories are somehow still tender. Now Dr. Grace is right in front of her eyes, looking exactly like she remembers him and telling the entirety of humanity that they’re going to live. That he’s saved them. That the Project they all gave everything they had and then some, and Dr. Grace most of all -
It worked.
“It worked,” Serena sobs, and her sister yanks her into a fierce hug.
“Rena, you just helped save the world,” Catra says into her hair, voice choked with emotion. “You did it. Thank you.”
It’s absolute hell to organize, with them all spread across dozens of countries and time zones, but they’re the goddamn Petrova Taskforce. They make it work. They meet in Dresden, every single member of the Project that’s still living and able to travel. Eva Stratt is not able to travel, but they send her an invite anyway. They end up renting a convention center to do it. 179 people descending on a local restaurant would be a nightmare and a half.
Dr. Saruhito Katsuki walks with a cane, but he’s still spry enough to climb the steps himself. He enters the building and turns left down a hallway. He enters a conference hall.
There’s a projector screen set up in the middle of the room. Dr. Katsuki smiles at several people in greeting, then takes a seat. They aren’t here for each other, not really: they’re all here - together - for Dr. Grace.
There were four hours of camera footage on the beetles. They’ve all seen parts, because it’s everywhere, but no-one has been able to bring themselves to watch the whole thing. But they owe it to Dr. Grace. They owe him far, far more than that.
The lights dim, someone presses play…and there he is.
“So, I met an alien…”
Katsuki laughs, shaking his head in amazement. The whole world knows about the Eridians by now, but all he can think is: of course. Of course Dr. Ryland Grace made first contact twice. He always was the best of them.
They all watch Dr. Grace befriend an alien. They watch Dr. Grace and Rocky work together on the Astrophage Problem, and smile as Dr. Grace complains about his “new roommate” constantly. He isn’t fooling anyone. He is over the moon to be working with an alien to save the world. Maybe he’s just happy not to be alone. Every now and then he’ll crack a grin, and something in Katsuki both eases and aches.
They’re about an hour and a half in the first time he does The Clap.
“There it is!”
“Dr. Grace, you could not have waited 20 more minutes? I just lost 200 euros!”
The entire Taskforce is laughing, some through their tears. A few point to the screen in excitement. More than a few clap in imitation, making the people around them laugh harder. This is Dr. Grace’s legacy. A room packed with some of the brightest minds on the planet, and he has them acting like rowdy schoolchildren because he clapped.
It’s nothing new: he always did have that power over them, and he never abused it, not once. The Petrova Taskforce sat in the palm of his hand, and they did it happily. It was comfortable there. It’s the easiest thing in the world to settle there once again.
The first time Dr. Grace says, “My hand is up,” the room snaps into attentive stillness for ten entire seconds. Then someone laughs.
“Twenty years and damn near 12 light years away, and he’s still got us whipped,” she groans, lighthearted. The voice sounds like Mar Ortega, from the flight team. She’s not wrong. Even after all this time, the answer is the same. Where, when, and how high? If he asked, they got it done. They’d find a way to move heaven and earth for him. They did.
Dr. Grace and Rocky explain their ‘fishing trip.’ Then they make chain. They make chain for a long, long time. It’s pretty boring to watch after a while, so Katsuki can’t imagine how mind-numbing it was for Dr. Grace to actually do it. He definitely looks miserable.
“Rocky hate chain. Rocky hate Astrophage for reason Rocky and Grace make chain. After fishing Rocky never hear chain ever again.” The computerized voice states from Dr. Grace’s laptop contraption, overlaying the sounds of clicks and chords.
“You said it, Rock.”
The shift is abrupt: Dr. Grace is making chain, as per usual, then the camera cuts and his face fills the screen. He’s smiling, and there are tears in his eyes.
“Eridians don’t understand relativity,” he says. It’s non-forthcoming what that has to do with anything, but they’re all well-versed in his speech patterns by now. They’re patiently silent. “They gave Rocky’s crew too much fuel; like way too much. So, uh,” Dr. Grace sniffles. “When I’m done here, looks like I’m comin’ home!”
It hurts. It is deeply painful to see his relief and his joy at getting to live, getting to come home, while knowing that he didn’t.
He was never supposed to die in space. He was supposed to be here, with them: teaching his students and telling bad jokes and accepting the Nobel Prize they’d awarded him for his work with Astrophage. He’d hate the attention, he’d probably try to refuse; but he’d be alive.
“Um, I’m still gonna record stuff, just in case…uh, redundancy, I guess. And so you guys can have plenty of footage of Rocky, since he’ll be headed back to Erid when we’re done.”
He sighs and leans back in his chair as best he can in 0g. “Anyway, I gotta go make more chain, so…see you guys on the other side, I hope!”
Someone sobs.
Here they are on the other side. They can see Dr. Grace just fine, but he…he can’t see them. He won’t see Earth ever again. It hurts.
The Hail Mary’s orbit around Adrian and what follows is a difficult watch. It’s chaotic, and terrifying; and Dr. Grace is shouting and the Mary is spinning and Rocky is being flung around his enclosure like a pinball. Then the pilot seat breaks.
Dr. Grace is suffocating under the weight. The Taskforce watches in quiet horror, and wonders how the hell Dr. Grace is going to survive this.
Rocky, is how the hell. Of course he is. And he’s burning. Dr. Grace rushes to him, burning himself on Rocky’s carapace; and the translator laptop rings out with four words.
“Save Earth. Save Erid.”
Now, they’re all wondering how Rocky survived this. But of course, the answer is Dr. Grace. He screams as the ammonia sears across his skin and drags himself to the med-bot, Armando.
(Dr. Armando Beliz - one of his engineers - cries the first time he addresses the robot as such.)
Dr. Grace loses consciousness almost immediately afterwards, the med-bot already working frantically. It is the first time they see both he and Rocky asleep at the same time, and it feels wrong. If they’re both asleep, who’s keeping watch? Who’s keeping them safe?
‘Good night, Dr. Grace. Good night, Rocky.’ Several people flinch at the sudden sound of the Mary’s digitized voice. ‘Monitoring crew rest cycles as primary directive, as of now. Effective until cognition is restored.’
The engineers and programmers responsible for the delicate intricacies of the Mary’s processes share stunned, baffled looks. “Monitoring rest cycles” wasn’t something the ship itself was meant to do, after the crew woke from their comas. It wasn’t in the programming. Certainly, the Mary was meant to learn and adapt to her crew, but not to such an extent that it could change its own primary function to do so.
“First aliens are real, then the ship develops sentience,” that’s Ossric Brenning, one of the head programmers. He laughs helplessly, shaking his head. “He never did do anything in the usual way, did he?”
No, no he really didn’t. The camera cuts after about a minute, but the silence and stillness - so rare in these logs - doesn’t feel quite so harrowing after the Mary’s statement. She’s the symbol of all their hopes: their sweat, blood, and sleepless nights. She’s the greatest scientific achievement in history, designed and built by the people in this room. She’s their prayer.
As difficult as it is to see Dr. Grace and Rocky so badly hurt; they all find themselves relieved, some even smiling gently. Her crew is two instead of three, and one of them isn’t human, but she’s the Hail Mary. Nestled next to her primary circuit board - lovingly engraved in tiny, unnoticeable letters in twelve languages - are three words: ‘Make it work.’
Dr. Grace and Rocky will wake up. But until then, Mary will keep her crew safe.
Out of respect, they skip through the footage between Dr. Grace waking up and Rocky following. Even in 2x speed with no sound, winces can be seen throughout the room. Dr. Grace is doing the best he can, but he’s overwrought in a way they’ve never seen before. He’s worried about Rocky, bandaged all to hell, and dealing with 29ATM of superheated ammonia to nearly his entire right side, and likely his lungs as well.
He wasn’t allowed so much as Benadryl on the Vat: it made him ‘loopy,’ as he said. Not a soul would begrudge him the painkillers, but -
The image of Dr. Grace painstakingly gluing small, multi-colored squares of paper to his side of his and Rocky’s airlock goes on for a noticeable amount of time - even in 2x speed - and someone shouts, “Wait, wait! Go back, just - just to the beginning of this part.”
With some fumbling, the footage is wound back. Dr. Grace pulls out a small, off-white suitcase and unzips it. With a slow kind of reverence he reaches in and pulls out three thick stacks of somewhat frayed paper: multi-colored and heavily resembling -
“Post-it notes,” Dr. Rodriguez breathes. Not loudly, but the people around her hear, and the ripple effect is only accelerated by others drawing the same conclusion. The low hum of chatter spreads throughout the room. It’s the loudest they’ve been since The Clap. Then Dr. Grace clears his throat, and the silence falls like a blanket.
“I, uh…I can’t do this without you, bud.” His voice cracks but there are no tears, even if his voice is a little watery. “I’ve been trying, but…it’s kind of impossible? So…I really need you to wake up. For me, and for Erid, and Earth.”
He holds up one of the stacks of post-it notes in indication, almost exactly the same as he had the ill-fated tape measure. “Sooo I got something for ya. They kept me going when I first woke up, so…”
Dr. Grace shrugs, a bit helplessly. “I guess I thought some ‘words of encouragement’ wouldn’t hurt.”
They watch as he methodically and carefully affixes the notes to xenonite. Occasionally he’ll linger on one and laugh, or just stare with a baffled kind of fondness. About halfway through the process, his breaths begin to shake. Dr. Grace sits heavily on the ground and stares at a lime-green note with wet eyes. His mouth moves, a whisper too faint for the camera to pick up. His brow furrows, and several people twitch as his gaze swings up to lock with the camera.
Dr. Grace gets to his feet and walks towards them. He sits down in - what he has dubbed - ‘the vlog chair’ and hesitates. He rubs one corner of the green post-it gently between his thumb and forefinger. The room is respectfully silent as he gathers his thoughts, then says, “You knew me.”
Some small muscle in his face twitches, but no-one is watching for that. They’re watching his eyes, clear-water blue and trying to hold back a tsunami with window glass.
“You knew me,” he says, with an equal mix of wonder and frustration. They don’t really get the emphasis, until - “So why don’t I remember you?”
Silence. Absolute, full of the sort of abject confusion born of sheer alarm. Not a single person finds their voice before Dr. Grace stutters and says, “I - I want to. Gosh, sometimes it feels like the memories are right there, y’know? But I just can’t,” he gestures vaguely with his good arm and blows a raspberry, “remember.”
He shrugs in a ‘what can you do’ kind of way, then sobers. His eyes flicker to the camera and hold. He smiles, the expression equal parts nervous and gentle.
‘But even if I can’t remember your faces, or what I did to…to make you all think so well of me,” he clears his throat, eyes gleaming, “I know how much these notes mean to me. How much all of you mean to me, even if I don’t remember exactly why.”
“I remember how hard you worked to get me here, how much of your lives and yourselves you gave to make this mission work, and…” Dr. Grace takes a deep breath, then lets it out slow. He stares into the camera and says, “We won’t let you down.”
Each and every one of them pride themselves on being professional. There is no such thing, in the face of Dr. Grace’s words. The crew of Stratt’s Vat - a title that’s been obsolete for nearly thirty years - cling to each other with vice-like handholds and fierce embraces. Everywhere, there are tears.
Dr. Grace does not remember them. And yet -
There was always discussion of the crew experiencing temporary amnesia, but nothing like this. And yet -
Dr. Grace woke up alone - 11.9 light years away from home - with no memory or help. And yet -
Three hours after Dr. Grace glues the last post-it note into place, the otherworldly, melodic trills of Rocky’s voice filter through the conference hall’s speakers.
The room erupts into cheers.