Chapter Text
Home.
Rocky could not see it as he did not have the light sensing organs like Grace, but the knowledge that they were close made him feel like there was a humming deep inside. He found himself wordlessly humming along with it as they thought of how it would be to return after all this time.
Right now, Rocky could only focus on the fact that everything would be okay when they reached Erid. The scientists would help Grace, using all the knowledge Rocky did not have. He had often wondered, in the past few months, why it had to be them that met Grace, that accompanied the human on the long trip. Another Eridian would have had the knowledge to help Grace, to save him from the effects he suffered due to the lack of nutrients. It had just been Rocky, though, and they had to do their best.
It would still be some Erid-days before they reached Rocky’s home planet. Soon, Rocky would certainly be able to point their light-sensing device out through the transparent part of the ship Grace often looked through and see on it a circular outline, one Grace had said would be high-rough texture. It was a color known as blue to those like Grace who could see it, a higher frequency of their visible light.
Grace was sleeping now. He slept much, while Rocky dutifully watched him. They would not leave Grace in any danger in this vulnerable state, especially now, with Rocky’s friend and shipmate so weak. It scared Rocky, what had been happening. Grace’s old injuries, the burns he had acquired years ago, were not holding together as if they were healed anymore. The carapace-strings on the top of his head, called hair, had changed shape, patches of them falling out over the years. Rocky’s best comparison was unhealthy exoskeleton on one of their own species. That was only part of it.
Grace had told Rocky, many Earth-months ago, that something like this would happen, after he ran out of the nutrients that were essential for humans, things the diet of Taumoeba simply could not supply. Like Eridians, Grace and other humans needed certain materials to survive, though they were quite different in what they needed, so Rocky had not been able to supply these resources. The Eridian scientists, though… they would help. They would know what to do, where Rocky failed to find a solution.
Rocky didn’t know everything about what was happening to Grace. He didn’t know how to fix this, just like he had been stupid and useless when his crewmates on the big Eridian ship had fallen ill mysteriously. It pained them to watch another crewmate deteriorate this way, and Grace had guessed it. This had been a topic of conversation previously. Rocky remembered Grace’s words, in the odd human language, so beautifully different from Rocky’s own.
“I’m not gonna die, bud. It’s gonna be okay.”
Rocky found their speech organs emitting a low warble of sadness and concern, a sound they had made too often for a lifetime. They really wanted to believe that. Maybe they did, a little, and maybe it was foolish, but it was all he had, really.
Grace shifted in their sleep and Rocky perked their attention towards the human as they muttered a few words. “Who’s playing tuba…?”
Rocky quieted himself, intent on letting Grace sleep, but Grace’s eyes soon opened, the covering over them retracting. This both pleased and displeased Rocky. They knew Grace needed the rest, to conserve as much energy as they could, but Grace slept so much, even more than before, and Rocky always worried they wouldn’t wake up again. Their crewmates on the Eridian ship had slept more, slept for a long time, and finally came to the point that they would never wake again. Death. The remaining science-Eridians had worked desperately to find the cause before succumbing as well. Rocky had not known what had taken them until Grace had explained. Grace had done much good for Rocky, so Rocky was determined to do more than that amount of good for Grace.
“Hey, Rock.” Grace said tiredly, his voice quieter than it used to be, when he had more strength. Rocky pressed themself against the xenonite, thinking, irrationally, that it would allow him to hear Grace better so they could tell whether something new had changed with the human’s internal processes.
They were close. So close to Erid. Rocky hummed nervously, walking in a tight circle λ times before stilling himself next to the xenonite. How much would Erid have changed in the years they’d been away? Would Adrian still be waiting for them?
“Grace! Can see Erid now, question?”
Grace sighed, and Rocky tapped a claw against the ground + times nervously. They had asked Grace this question many times as they got closer to Erid. He knew, in his head, that the ship was close to their home planet, but knowing it was in range of Grace’s spectacular light-sense would make it all so much more real. Furthermore, Rocky wanted to make sure Grace was still strong enough to move. Grace’s decline in health was bad bad bad. They hated making demands of Grace while the human was in this state, but Rocky would just have to make sure they didn’t ask too much.
Grace pulled themself to their feet. The process seemed difficult. Maybe Grace would do better once they reached Erid’s orbit and switched to microgravity. Rocky followed Grace through the tunnels– well, Grace followed Rocky, really, as Rocky got to his destination faster. He waited near the patch on the ship Grace always looked through. A built in spot that the light-sense could reach through– amaze! Grace could look out and know the depths of space, something Eridians had needed to develop advanced tools for.
Grace’s eyes narrowed in a configuration he called squinting. Rocky noticed he did it more recently, even when wearing his glasses, the object that helped his vision. Squinting was supposed to help Grace’s light-sense focus, but Rocky did not think it actually helped much. Covering the organs that were supposed to see, to see better? Ridiculous.
“What Grace see, question?” Rocky asked impatiently.
“40 Eridani A is closer. Oh! I can see the second planet just going out of view… and ahead…” Grace pushes their face against the wall. “Blue blob! Erid!” Rocky huffed. His planet was not a blob, Grace was the blob!
“Amaze amaze amaze!” Rocky exclaimed. Grace started to move, going to the ship's control room, and Rocky followed again through the tunnels. There, Grace used the telescope to get a clearer view of Rocky’s home planet. Rocky held up their light-sensing device, pointing it at the screen. Home! Erid!
After these long, hard years, they were coming home.
Rocky immediately got to work on contacting Erid now that they were close, using technology they had taken from the Eridian ship. Grace rested, on Rocky’s insistence. The human was getting weaker every day, and Rocky worried about too much work hurting them. Grace relented to this, with a lot of grumbling about Rocky being bossy.
They were set to transmit a message now, but… Rocky didn’t know how to start.
They’d been gone for so, so long… and all the other Eridians they set out with would never return home. Grace needed help, though, and quickly. Rocky set themself into a stance with all five limbs on the ground for stability, readying themself for the message.
“Ship to Erid. This is Rocky.” They sang their full name out while deciding how to continue. “Rocky is on a new ship with alien. Alien in bad bad bad state, need nutrients. Rocky have solution to star-killers, need mission to bring to Threeworld.” Though he could have been conveying the information more efficiently, this way of speaking was comfortable for Rocky and he did not want to risk losing any nuance over the radio communication. He knew he would have to use a higher form of speech for later transmissions for efficiency, though.
Rocky let out a warble of sadness before finishing the message with the last piece of information. “Other crew members… they die. Space poison, call radiation…” Their speech organs cut off. Rocky was silent for a long time. I∀ Eridian seconds. “Rocky… only survivor. Rocky alone, until meet Grace. Alien. Grace dying now. Need Erid help. More to come.”
“Need Erid help.”
An Eridian, textured in long, waving lines of stone, finished listening to the message. An alien? They were wanted for interactions with an alien?
λ other Eridians waited in the room with them. The Eridian in the center had just briefed the others on what they had been summoned for. The team was small, to avoid overwhelming the returned Rocky and the alien brought back with them. The others were an Eridian with a sloped carapace, rough with patches of a smoother texture, and an Eridian with a stouter shape, with bands that stuck out from the main carapace on one side, which was currently the side pointed towards the body of the central Eridian.
The first Eridian positioned around the center, who was still thinking about the alien, was one with a name made up of high and low pitches, the meaning of which was not attached to any object or concept. On the top of their carapace was a jagged bit that stuck out to one side, coming to a point at the top. They were known, at least to themself, for their diplomatic skills and ability to keep a calm disposition. The stout Eridian was a doctor, and the one with the sloped carapace a scientist, who had made great advances in the knowledge of biology for a variety of species of fauna. Next, they were told, more information would be conveyed on what Grace needed and what they were to do when the ship docked. More Eridian scientists were already being gathered to synthesize the nutrients Grace needed, once Rocky updated Erid with the specifics.
Rocky talked strangely now, the Eridian with the spike on their carapace thought to themself. It must be an effect of having only an alien for company. The alien must struggle to understand the more complex form of the Eridian language. What was the language of this alien like? They were excited to know. They had learned multiple languages, having an endless fascination with them.
They would have to tell their sibling all about this. Aliens! They were going to meet a sentient alien!
Grace was not excited to pilot again. It had been hard enough with a clear mind and a healthy body. He didn’t like to imagine how it would go now, with his reopened wounds, his muddled mind, and his blurry vision. Adding it all together, this sounded like a terrible idea.
What other choice did he have, though? The Hail Mary was not built for this operation. There was no preprogrammed maneuver that would get them docked to Erid's space elevator. Grace had to do it himself.
The day was approaching. Grace was doing everything he could to prepare, running through the numbers, refreshing his knowledge. He felt it could never be enough. Anything could go catastrophically wrong. It would probably be his fault, too. He would crash the Hail Mary, or miss the space elevator, or… so many other things. He couldn’t get the horrible images from every bad scenario out of his head.
Erid was beautiful. Grace could almost feel like he was returning to Earth. This wasn’t Earth, though. The surface would be dark, the light of 40 Eridani A, its neighbors, and all the distant stars never reaching the surface. Any light Grace saw would be artificial, but maybe he could ignore that fact and just pretend. Pretend the glow filtering through the air was a star’s light. If he even survived to reach Erid’s surface.
The gravity would be more intense too– 2.09 times Earth’s gravity. Humans were not built for that much gravity, but Grace was going to have to live with it, if he made it to that point. Surely there was some way for him to survive on Erid, if he made it.
There was a high possibility he would die before making a life on Erid, though. There was no guarantee that the nutrients he needed could be synthesized with Eridian technology. There was no guarantee that the Eridians would even try. At least Rocky would be home, though, and around other Eridians who could care for him. He would be with Adrian again. Their star would be saved.
That was all that mattered. Grace could… could die, as long as Rocky was safely home. Then all this, the misery of the past months… it could be over.
Then he would never know Erid, or the Eridians living there. He would never even live long enough to see if Sol brightened again.
The mission was always intended to end in death. Maybe Grace had merely done his best to delay it.
Rocky finished another transmission to Erid, detailing everything Grace would need when they arrived. Erid could get a head start on preparing to accommodate a human while the ship came closer to home.
As excited as Rocky was, they were also nervous. He wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, really. The most contact they’d had with other Eridians, anyone other than Grace, was the transmissions that had come back from Erid. The first time he’s heard the voice of another Eridian in far too long, longer than Rocky wanted to think about. Rocky was different now. Was he too different? Would Adrian still want his back? Adrian… would be angry. Rocky had abandoned them, and had been gone for far longer than originally planned. Adrian had every right to be angry.
Rocky wondered how differently he acted now as compared to before the mission. His mannerisms had always been odd to other Eridians, or so he had been told. What would it be like now? What would they think?
To combat his anxiety around returning to Erid, Rocky kept busy, always making sure the ship was holding up well or that Grace was settled and not in immediate danger. He fixed things that did not really need fixing as a precaution. He checked the Taumoeba farms at least λ times in each Eridian day that passed. If he could find nothing else to do, he made gifts for Grace.
“Is human.” Rocky said as Grace inspected the little figure they had just completed. “From movie. Human with shield. Captain America.” Rocky had needed to invent a new word for that part, a proper noun used for a country on Earth, but also two continents. It was confusing. Grace had said at the time it probably had some meaning he didn’t know, though a history teacher might. Grace was a science teacher and didn’t need to know those things, he had explained.
Grace smiled at the figure. “Soon enough I’ll have all the Avengers.” They put the figure with the others Rocky had made, next to Iron-man and Thor. Rocky was endlessly fascinated by how those two had carapace like Eridians, but took it off. It was human made carapace, built by forging metal. Like when Eridians used stronger material to protect themselves from things they were not equipped to survive. Space, for one, though the Eridian ship had failed to serve its purpose of protecting his crewmates.
Rocky’s habits continued, to Grace’s partial annoyance when Rocky followed him around making sure he didn’t so much as bump into anything, until the ship drew near to Erid, and near-continuous radio contact was established. From there, Grace prepared for piloting the ship to dock at Erid’s space elevator. Rocky wished he had managed to devise a way to pilot the ship himself. Stupid. Stupid Rocky. You will see smart Eridians soon, then Grace will realize how stupid you are. Grace always insisted that Rocky was smarter than all the humans he had met, so either all humans were pretty dumb, or Grace was just being nice, which was hard for Rocky to understand. Why not be nice by telling the truth instead?
Rocky hated feeling like there was nothing he could do here. It reminded him too much of all the times he had been powerless. When their crewmates were dying and they could not fix it. When the fuel tanks on the Eridian ship had been depleting too quickly and Rocky could not make it stop. When he was stranded out in space, unable to go home. This time, though, they were going home, and Rocky had not even helped to get here.
Grace only had to get the ship to match certain parameters. The Eridians working at the space elevator would handle everything from there. Rocky still worried. Always worrying. Everyone said Rocky was always worrying. Worried too much. Rocky thought he worried a normal amount and there was just much to worry about.
So now Rocky watched, but they were prepared to intervene if anything went wrong. He did not know what he would do, but he would figure that out if it came to it. Surely there would not be an incident like the one at planet Adrian. Surely. Rocky had to continuously reassure himself of this.
Fortunately, docking went smoothly, but Grace had to rest after. Rocky kept guard over them. Other Eridians would be here soon. What would they think of Grace? What would they say to Rocky, about bringing an alien home, but not their other crew members?
The airlock eventually opened, and three Eridians in xenonite suits entered.