Chapter Text
Stratt was a woman that was difficult to surprise. She had to be, really. The weight of the world rested on her shoulders, she couldn’t afford to flinch and drop something.
It didn’t mean, however, that she was impossible to surprise. She’d been shocked before, a couple of times. Reading Grace’s dissertation for the first time, for example, had shocked her. What an interesting thesis, and what a weird way to present it. Ballsy, even. More surprising had been the man himself. She had half expected a bitter, resentful man, who fell into teaching because he needed the money, but hated it like many did. She did not expect the shy, sweet man who had decorated his classroom so lovingly and spoke of his students with such warmth. It had been an incredible boon, to get the leading expert on non-Goldilocks Zone life and a great science communicator in one.
And now, Doctor Grace was surprising her again.
“Time travel?”
Grace nodded “Either that or I’m going insane. I thought I should let you know either way.”
“Do you have any… proof of this time travel?” Oh God, her lead scientist had a mental breakdown. Shit, she should have known, should have seen the signs before he broke. Were there any signs? She hadn't noticed, but maybe she just hadn't payed enough attention. She didn't let her panic show, but she truly had no idea what she was going to do if her second in command had to be removed from the Taskforce.
“Kinda? I know stuff you don’t want me to know, but I suppose it wouldn’t be impossible for me to figure them out at this point.”
“Oh?”
“I have the coma gene and you are more than willing to send me up there, even if you have to use the French amnesia drug to do it.”
The fact that he was the tertiary wasn’t known by anyone but her. Hell, she had never even written it down anywhere! So either Grace could read minds, or he had time travelled. Thank God and all the Angels, he wasn't insane. Or, any more insane than before.
“Oh”
“Am I right?” His eyes were wide, and she realized that he was doubting himself too.
“Yes”
He leaned back “So time travel is real”
“It seems so.”
“Y-you” His eyes filled with tears and his breathing picked up speed. “I- I didn’t-
“Doctor Grace, breathe.” She ordered.
He took a deep breath. It sounded strained, but it did the trick. “I’m so sorry.” He gasped out.
“Sorry?”
“DuBois and Shapiro died in a lab accident. You asked me to go. I said no.”
Oh. So that’s how he knew about the French amnesia drug.
“I wouldn’t sacrifice humanity for you” She said, keeping her tone carefully neutral.
“You didn’t. You were right, I was the best choice. I’m sorry, I was selfish a-and a coward. I didn’t want to die.”
“I forced you to go”
“You shouldn’t have had to. I should have said yes.”
She took a deep breath. She could fall apart later, after the Hail Mary launched and her job was done.
“How did DuBois and Shapiro die?”
“An accident with the Astrophage. They were given too much of it, there was an explosion.”
“I will tighten the security measures around Astrophage doses then. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.” She grabbed her cup of coffee, but it just made it noticeable how hard her hands were shaking, so she put it down. “I truly am sorry you had to go on the Hail Mary. Rest assured, we will prevent the accident and you won’t go this time.”
He sniffed, wiping his tears, and looked up at her. She was startled by the conviction shining in his eyes. “I’m going.”
“Doctor Grace, you were the third choice for a reason. You could still do a lot of good down here, and both our science officers are more than qualified to do the mission. Especially if you coach them on what they will find at Tau-Ceti.” Really, they barely needed a scientist at all now. If Grace had found a solution (and it seemed like he did), it would be more of a fetch quest than a scientific exploration mission.
“No. No, I need to go. Please.”
Stratt narrowed her eyes “What did you find up there?”
“Life” He breathed “And someone to be brave for.”
It stung. Grace, in his original timeline, hadn’t cared about anyone on Earth enough to give up his life to save them, but apparently cared enough for an alien to die twice. There was a part of her, buried so deep she could barely tell it was there, that felt betrayed. She thought they were friends, but it wasn’t enough.
She betrayed him too, a different part of her whispered.
“Oh” She said simply “Are you sure?”
He nodded "I won't change my mind. You need me up there. Besides, wouldn't it be the best bet to send someone who already knows the answer?"
He was right. It didn't matter that she wanted him to stay the third choice, he would have been the primary even without the time travel, had he volunteered. Now, it would be downright stupid not to promote him.
“Well then, in that case, welcome to the Hail Mary Primary Crew. I leave the job of telling the others to you.”
“Can I tell them about the time travel?”
“Do as you will”
Time travel was real.
Well, time travel was always real. Olesya knew all about relativity, and technically that was a form of time travel, but she didn’t know you could travel backwards.
“How does that work?” DuBois asked.
The crew members of the Hail Mary were sitting in Stratt’s office, having just been informed of the change of lineup. And of the time travel.
“I don’t know, actually,” Grace shrugged. He didn’t look all that worried. “I closed my eyes, fully believing that was the end of my life, and suddenly I woke up here. Heck of a shock, I’ll tell you that.”
“So you went on the Hail Mary?” Olesya asked. “Why?”
“There was no one else. DuBois and Shapiro were in an accident, they died a few days before the launch.”
“What about Cesares? Or anyone else in list?”
Grace shrugged, “I’m a better choice.”
“But you did not want to go” Yao said “What changed your mind?”
“What makes you think my opinion mattered?” Something dark passed over Grace’s eyes, startling Olesya.
“Grace…” Stratt’s tone was somewhere between a warning and an apology.
“It’s fine.” He said “I understand. You made the right choice. I just wish I hadn’t been such a coward about it”
Olesya’s heart clenched. While she didn’t know what, exactly, had gone down, she could paint a picture. And it wasn’t a very pretty picture.
“Why not just prevent the accident that took out the science team and let DuBois go?”
Grace laughed lightly, looking out the window “I have someone I need to meet again."
“Oh my God, aliens are real” Olesya gasped
“W-what? What gave you that idea?” Grace’s eyes were wide
“Come on! You said you had someone to meet, but you’re going to space! Who else could you meet if not alien?!”
“Alright, yes, I met an alien. Rocky. He’s from Erid. He’s…” His tone softened “He’s my best friend. And he’s all alone up there. I can’t just leave him.”
“You found someone to be brave for,” Yao said.
Grace nodded “You were right. And I would go through everything a thousand times if it was for him.”
Training changed after Grace was put on the Hail Mary crew. Olesya was treated to watching Doctor Grace run around, trying to cram as much astronaut training into the few months he had left on Earth, plus he was still the First Officer of the Petrova Taskforce. Not only that, but all of them had to start training on each other’s specialties. Apparently, the first time around Grace had ended up alone thanks to a mistake in the med-bots no one had found, and his lack of pilot skills had almost killed him. They were trying to find the flaw in the bots, but it didn’t hurt to get some extra redundancy, just in case.
“Grace, you need sleep this century” She said when the man almost fell on his chair that night at the cantina. He had a pretty intimidating pile of paperwork in front of him. The noise it made when he dropped it on the table was terrifying.
“What I need is to finish reading the proposal we got from India’s Science and Technology Minister.” He grumbled “I mean, they have a pretty decent Space Program, we could use the help.”
“The Minister will not kill you if you take some hours to answer.”
“After I’m done with this, I need to check on the med-bots, Lamai thinks she might have made a breakthrough. And after that, I gotta get LeClerc’s opinion on some of the cooling projections.”
“You could delegate” Yao said, raising an eyebrow.
“Nah, it’s fine. My job is basically to be the communication between all the different departments, I have to know what you’re all up to.” He stretched, his back popping too many times for a man not even in his thirties “Speaking of, what are you all up to?”
“Not much” Olesya shrugged “Learnt to pilot Hail Mary today. Very fun.”
“They didn’t change the controls, did they? I don’t think I have the time to learn a whole new version before we launch.”
“You’re fine. Don’t worry about it.” She punched him in the arm lightly “Sing some Karaoke. Good for morale”
Grace grimaced “No thank you.”
“Bad voice is part of charm of Karaoke”
“My voice is fine, it’s just- Jeez, I need to talk to Stratt.”
"Something wrong?"
"Nah, just a UN representative being annoying about the morality of paving the Sahara." He rolled his eyes "Yeah, it's terrible, but we need the farms. Besides, the sun dimming is going to cause a heck of a lot more environmental catastrophes than anything we can do. But he's pretty high up, if Stratt doesn't want any issues after her diplomatic immunity's gone, we need to start getting people on board with our actions now."
"That seems... like it is not your job"
Grace sighed, packing up the pile of paperwork. "Everything is my job. We'll leave the Karaoke for when humans aren't trying to shoot themselves in the foot, okay?" He laughed "So, never, I guess"
And then he was gone.
"What a weird man" Yao muttered
"I like him"
Stratt did not often have time to just ‘hang out’. Most of her day was spent dividing her attention between needy politicians and needy scientists. Doctor Grace’s presence meant that she could relax on her science front, but politics were still more than enough to entertain her.
Apparently Doctor Grace didn’t get the memo.
“No.” She scowled
“Come on” He whined. “How often do we get meteor showers, much less a meteor shower we’re in the right spot to see?”
“I’m busy. We both are.”
He sat on her desk. Rude.
“Are we really not going to hang out a single time before you send me off to space to die?”
“You’re not dying in space.” And what a relief that had been. She would never let herself regret doing what was necessary to save humanity, but if she could avoid it and have the world still be saved, all the better.
“But I could” He gave her his best puppy dog eyes “If I die in space you’re gonna be sorry you didn’t watch the meteor shower with me”
She sighed “You’re gonna annoy me until I do, aren’t you?”
Grace nodded. “Yep.”
“Alright. You win. Let’s go.”
So that was how she found herself lying on the deck of the boat, staring up into space. Grace was lying next to her, and most of the crew (and all the scientists) were lounging around different parts of the deck.
“When does this start?” She asked
“In a few minutes.”
“I’ll give you five.” There was a comfortable silence for a few moments “Did we do this the first time around?”
“No.”
“Then why…”
“I want this time to be better. A lot of things went wrong the first time, I have the chance to fix them”
“What if fixing them means the Hail Mary won’t work?”
“I was never good at putting an abstract all encompassing good over what’s right in front of me.”
Stratt didn’t dare look at him “That was my job.”
“I helped people. You helped the world.”
Rocky didn’t remember the moments after Grace’s death very well.
He remembered pain, so deep in his soul he was sure he would never be able to heal. He remembered Grace’s body, quieter than it should ever be. He had been young, even for a human. None of them had expected it. He remembered finding Grace that morning, Armando still trying to reanimate him. After that, nothing.
And then he woke up.
Fifteen years earlier.