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My heart hammers in my chest. I slam the airlock shut behind me after all but crawling inside the ship. I almost just died out there! Not a tragic, sudden death, but the thought of floating out into the lone darkness of space as the Hail Mary disappears from my eyes grabbed me by the throat.
I need air. The inside of my helmet fogs up with as hard as I breathe. As soon as the airlock has repressurized, I rip my helmet off. That doesn't help at all, though. I'm just hyperventilating.
My teeth chatter even though I know I've gotten hot as hell and sweating in my EVA suit. My hands are full on tingling in the big, heavy gloves. My body just dumped all the adrenaline into my bloodstream to help me get myself back into my ship, but now that I'm in here that excess has flipped to being absolutely useless to me as I lie in the airlock, trembling.
As I try to focus my eyes on darn-well anything, the other side of the airlock pops open. I'd like for my focus to be on Rocky, but as he barges in he keeps going in and out of my field of view, rolling in his ball. I try to tell him to stop moving but my mouth just hangs open as I stare at him. I lift my head but slump back hard. Ouch. I'm going to feel that later.
"...eek! Please speak!" Rocky squeaks. He just watched me slam my head against the ground for no reason and probably thinks I damaged by brain, fragile as my skull is compared to all of his body. I shake my head, or more like roll it side to side, and resign myself to just lying there.
I know he doesn't stop moving, even as my shut-out senses quietly beg him to. He keeps bumping his ball into my side, trying to make me move, urging me to crawl to within the robot arms' reach or something.
When I come to some more, Rocky is still humming and whining into my ear. I feel so bad in all different ways. One, I definitely scared him. Doesn't even matter how scared I was myself, I should have reassured him rather than probably concussing myself on top of everything else. Two, my arms and legs feel all floppy now, like jello. I tensed all my muscles at once and now they've got no power left to move on command. Now that I really want to, I'm probably not going to be able to move very well.
Just like when I woke up from my coma, though, I think to use that last bit of panic that edges into my being to sit up, at least. Rocky helps me when he realizes what I'm trying to do. He pushes himself against my side gently now. Ironically, that already hurts more than when he rolled into me hard, moments ago, now that the adrenaline is draining out of me.
"Is good," he finally warbles. I nod. We stay like that for a whole while.
Eventually, I get just irritated enough to peel out of my suit. A mix of that irritation and weird grief roll over me in a big wave. I rub at my eyes before they leak. "Um," I stammer, "I think I'll go sit in the lab." Rightfully, I should go lie down in my bunk, but...
Rocky sees me stand up sort of straight. I have a hand on the airlock wall, but I drag it along with taking a step forward. "Keep company."
"Yeah." Yes. Please. I don't want to be by myself after all, and at this point we're both moving a lot more calmly together. He nudges his ball against the back of my legs, if I fall he's going to catch me.
"Eridians feel like that?" Biology is all my brain can go for, but I say what I mean weirdly and not as eloquently as I intend to. "Scared, question?" Rocky offers after a pause where I don't manage to clarify.
Ugh... being scared makes me stupid also. No, I meant, after fight-or-flight stops do they feel wobbly and weak and... Well, we talked about predators and evolution and... Warm notes cut off my rambling thoughts.
"Yes. Very scared you die. On Adrian also."
I don't know what to say. Once we make it to the lab and I sit, I just put my arms around his ball to hug him. Rocky leans into the Xenonite, too.
At the end of the day, I get another lesson in Eridian biology. My brain isn't good for anything else until I get to sleep on almost-dying again, though.