Chapter Text
Rocky knew that no matter how happy Grace was to be on Erid, it wasn't like being on Earth. It wasn't the same as being at home.
It must be lonely, Rocky thought. To be the only one of your species on a planet, totally alone.
It certainly didn't help how there was a barrier between him and all the other Eridians, literally and figuratively. No creature, sentient or not, could survive in his environment but him. And there were a lot of cultural differences and practices that were difficult to--or simply could not be--navigated around.
So if Grace was lonely and sad, if he was touch starved despite Humans not being as tactile a species as Eridians, Rocky wouldn't blame him.
How could he? Grace left his entire planet just to be on Erid, even if said planet did screw him over. If Rocky was in Grace's situation, if he had to choose between living on an alien planet or going back home, he's not sure he could do what Grace did. Not if it meant leaving Adrian behind, much as he loved Grace.
But just how lonely had Grace gotten?
And how could Rocky not have noticed it sooner?
Even with their sharp hearing, Eridians couldn't hear what went on inside each other. Not unless an Eridian opened themselves up for medical examination, to eat, or lay eggs. Those were generally the only times. Their thick carapaces made them soundproof.
Humans didn't have that. They were very squishy and blobby and as a result, loud. It was half fascinating and half disgusting, like most human biology in Rocky's perspective.
Rocky could hear the beating of his heart, the movement of blood through his body, and the pebble forming inside him.
Grace was pregnant.
...Grace was pregnant.
Rocky found his, as humans would say, head spinning at the revelation. When did Grace get pregnant, who got Grace pregnant, why did Grace get pregnant, and most importantly, how did Grace get pregnant?
Rocky wasn't going to judge--well, no, he probably was--but he wasn't going to make Grace feel bad about feeling lonely and craving intimacy as, again, the only one of his species on the planet.
Grace's life was kind of isolated in the biodome. He had Rocky and sometimes Adrian as friends, as well as the occasional member from the biodome team and some other science fields, but that was really it. Meetings with parents of his students were obviously professional and any other meetings he had were clinical, experiments done by curious scientists.
The point was, his social circle wasn't big, and Rocky knew everyone that was in it.
So why the fuck would Grace let himself be impregnated by one of them?
Most of them were... how could Rocky put this? Ugly. Ugly or already mated.
There was Chet who calculated how much space the biodome would take up. They were fine, a very nice person. But their legs were short, their radiators were chipped, and their carapace was smooth dull-sounding. It wasn't their fault, of course, but when it came to beauty standards they were, to use another Earth phrase, not much worth looking at.
There was Kathy, who helped design the artificial ocean. They were very smart, and appearance wise didn't suffer from any of Chet's problems. But they were already mated with pebbles and very devoted to their mate. Enough so that Rocky felt safe ruling them out from the get-go.
There was Adrian, the lead of the team. He already knew they had nothing to do with this, but it was nice to think about them anyways.
Then there was Bradley. He was very attractive by Eridian standards, almost as much as Rocky was, and working on keeping the planet's alien alive made them very popular with anyone unmated. Sometimes the mated, too. People had no shame around them, and they didn't have any shame around people. What ugliness Bradley lacked in appearance they made up for with their personality.
...Grace didn't fuck Bradley, did he?
He couldn't have, Grace was smart. The smartest person Rocky has ever known. There's no way he fucked Bradley.
Rocky already didn't like meeting the scientist whenever he visited Adrian at work, if they were the parent of his best friend's child... No, he didn't want to imagine it.
He said he wasn't going to make Grace feel bad about his loneliness, but if it really was Bradley...
He tried to shake the thoughts out of his mind by wiggling his carapace. So he had suspicions of the who, but what about the rest of the questions.
How? Human and Eridian biology was vastly different. Only females on Earth could get pregnant, and from the diagrams Grace showed him, he was not a female. Rocky knew, he could hear it. So how was it possible for an already unimpregnable creature to somehow be impregnated by an alien?
Maybe the rules were different? Rocky was an engineer, not a doctor--for both Eridians and Humans--he'd have no way of being sure. His speculations wouldn't matter all that much if he wasn't an expert.
It also didn't answer how they were able to do things given the difference of environments and atmospheres, but Rocky was okay with not imagining the more intimate details of how his friend got into his predicament.
The when could've happened at anytime. Grace has been on Erid long enough that his and Rocky's clinginess and codependency are things of the past. They don't need to spend every second of every hour of every day with each other. Sometimes, on their anniversaries--the day they first met, the day they invented the world saving taumoeba, the day they landed on Erid--the thought sounded nice, but they were largely over that now.
The biggest question was why?
Rocky couldn't figure that one out. As established, humans weren't as clingy or tactile as Eridians were. Their needs for touch and certain companionship, while still important, were much weaker. Could Grace's isolation have been that bad? Was he so desperate to feel less alien that he copulated with another Eridian?
Rocky felt awful. He couldn't imagine what it'd be like if he tried going to Earth with Grace and was the only Eridian there. Of course the problems wouldn't end with the Biodome or his diet. How could Rocky not have noticed sooner?
And now his friend was pregnant, something that was so, so alien to Rocky that it was a fight just to try and understand it.
What did this mean for his physical health? They already struggled to provide the proper nutrients for Grace, having to resort to feeding him his own flesh to be able to do so, what would a pebble need? Especially one that was a mix of Human and Eridian DNA? Would it die before getting the chance to live--and would that be done through it's own health complications or by killing Grace?
What about his mental health? Was Grace aware he was pregnant? Was the other parent aware? Would they accept the child if so? Eridian pack instincts and culture was much stronger and tighter-knit than humans were, but this would be a half-human child. Rocky didn't want to be mean but, well, it could come out as an abomination. If it did survive, would it lead a painful life? Would the other parent be able to accept that?
There were so many questions. So, so many questions. And a lot of them seemed to have answers that would only be revealed with time, but Rocky couldn't wait. Didn't want to wait, but what was there to do?
He had to focus. Spiraling wasn't going to help.
If Grace were dying then surely he'd be feeling some kind of symptoms. A sign that something was off. Sometimes Grace could be a bit stupid--especially when he hadn't slept in awhile--but he wasn't ignore-serious-health-problems-and-just-die stupid. He would've gone to the doctor's if something was off and if he knew he was pregnant.
...Did he know he was pregnant?
He had to, surely. He'd notice himself being impregnated.
But then why hadn't he told Rocky?
He could feel the spiral starting again, asking a flurry of questions like Did Grace not trust him? and Was he scared about being pregnant, too? So he quickly stamped it down.
Pregnancy and child-bearing were big deals on both planets, and Rocky didn't know much about the culture surrounding Earth pregnancy. Was it something you kept private and hidden from the world? Could that be why Grace hadn't said anything?
Whatever the answers to all his questions were, Rocky knew these things:
- Grace was pregnant
- The baby was in his kidneys, something that was part of the genitourinary system but not somewhere that fetuses went during pregnancy
- Grace felt incredibly lonely and isolated on Erid, enough so that he dangerously attempted copulation with another and succeeded
- He told none of this to Rocky
With that in mind he figured he'd need to take things into his own hands.
First and foremost he'd make Grace feel safe, comfortable, happy. There wasn't much he could do to fix the only-alien-on-Erid situation, but there was plenty he could do to keep his friend from feeling lonely.
Second, he'd figure out who the other parent was. This was important. It greatly determined how their kid's life would be, and no matter how stupid Grace was when he got pregnant, Rocky wasn't going to let it make things worse for him if he could.
Then, once he got those things out of the way, they could start their plans for the future. Whatever that looked like.
Rocky hoped Grace was okay.