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After being reunited with Rocky, Grace had decided to properly learn Eridian. They had about four years of time on the ship, after all, and it would be nice to fully comprehend the nuances his friend used when speaking, instead of relying on a simplified translation. Grace also felt slightly bad for Rocky having to alter his sentence structure to make it easier on Grace’s human brain, even though Rocky had promised it didn’t bother him at all. Either way, Grace figured that if he was going to be basically “crashing on Erid’s couch” and begging them to help keep him alive, the least he could do was beg with middle school lever grammar. He didn’t have the extra voice boxes, sure, but he and Rocky were working together on developing an instrument that would help supplement that.
(He still enjoyed trying to mimic the noises himself, laughing at Rocky’s affronted stance. It was passable as words, apparently, but very much like uncanny valley for Eridians.)
Erid had a lot of different regional variations of the language, but not quite like different languages on Earth, due to Eridians having perfect recall – if they had started out with wildly different languages, communicating with each other meant they slowly accumulated each others words for simplicity. Big changes in languages were usually from some Eridians living in isolated communities, or using different tone sets for specialized professions. (Grace wasn’t buying Rocky’s claim that swearing was a crucial part of the advanced engineering Eridian dialect, though.)
As far as Grace understood it, anyway. It wasn’t Rocky’s specialty. Rocky wasn’t the..best..teacher, but he was trying his best. Besides, they both tended towards boredom, and it was something to do.
“Hey, Rocky?” Grace was currently trying to get through a bowl of tepid coma slurry (an effort to ration his solid food), quilt around his shoulders, watching Rocky work on another one of his little projects in the xenonite tunnel. He sometimes said ‘Digust disgust disgust’ whenever Grace ate near him, but he never actually left, so Grace figured it wasn’t that serious.
“When you introduced yourself to me, what were you actually saying?”
“Grace memory bad again, question?”Rocky tilted his carapace slightly, but didn’t pause in his work. He used a tone that Grace could recognize now as one often used for sarcasm or teasing, a kind of lilting chitter in the background. “Was Rocky name.”
Grace huffed. “Yeah, I know that Rock. It’s just that it was so much longer than the version you use in sentences. Adrian too.” Now that Grace was getting better at distinguishing individual Eridian notes and chords, he could locate the notes for the shortened version of ‘Rocky’ in the longer version he used before, but they weren’t cohesive – more like a little part of a few notes for ‘Rocky’ were used at the start, middle, and end. “Do Eridians have something like last names?” He continued when he saw Rocky pause, already anticipating his question. “A last name is a second name that humans usually share in families. They used to be connected to the profession – job - a human had, but not anymore. Or at least, not often.”
Rocky’s vents rumbled in recognition. “Like in Earth movies, yes. Something similar on Erid. Version of name used for introduction included my family, place of hatching, and profession. Is used for important and formal events.” He paused, and Grace could’ve sworn he was looking at him pointedly, even without eyes. “Such as first time meeting scary space alien.”
Grace laughed. “Right. And then I called you Rocky. Sorry.” He wished he had made up a longer, more professional sounding name for Rocky when sending the beetles back. Something with more nuance, something that encapsulated how important his friend was. The shortened version Rocky used meant something like ‘efficient wave’, Rocky had explained. Not wave as in water, but closer to electromagnetic waves. Which was...pretty cool, honestly.
Grace put down his bowl of frankly awful coma slurry, discarded for now. Rocky would badger him about it later, he was sure.
Rocky stomped one of his legs, while the rest were still steadily working on his xenonite project. “No need apology. I like name. Is simple, but fits well. Also, name is gift from Grace. Special special special.” He chittered, and Grace’s face grew warm.
“Oh.” He swallowed. “I’m glad you like it.” Understatement. He could feel his eyes burning again. He needed to get back on track or Rocky would be adding another tally to his ‘leaky human blob’ board. (it was currently at 15 for the past three days. It didn’t help that Rocky’s definition of ‘leaky’ was very varied. In Grace’s opinion getting a papercut didn’t count as leaky.)
“Can I hear it again? The long version, I mean. I want to see if I can understand it better now.”
Rocky put down his tools and swayed in place for a moment, fingers clacking together. Then he put two of his limbs together in front of his carapace, and started vocalizing.
The fun thing about living with an Eridian and subsequently learning Eridian was that Grace started hearing music differently. Before, he had heard notes and a melody, but now he could hear subtle variations in tone and resonance. If only his piano teacher had known that all it would have taken for him to learn perfect pitch was being sent to space and meeting an alien who spoke in music.
Rocky’s full name sounded both more complex than it had when he had heard it the first time, and less so, now that he could pick out the individual words. Grace rested his head on his knees, arms wrapped around himself, listening intently. He could feel the vibrations in his ribcage, gently settling around his heart. There were the now familiar notes for ‘wave’, ‘strong’, and ‘steady/efficient’, spread throughout the song.
“Let me see...something about your family being from a mountainous region, and being a long line of engineers? And I know I heard an ordinal number in there somewhere,” Grace said.
Rocky chirped and did jazz hands. “Good good good for non Eridian! You are getting better at word recognition! Ordinal number is order of hatching, which is-“ he paused and sang the word, slightly slower and less melodic than in his name.
Oh! Grace grinned. “That’s 3! You hatched third in your clutch? Is the order relevant to Eridians?” Was this something he could tease Rocky about, was the hidden question.
Rocky made a so-so gesture, something he had copied from Grace. “Some Eridians give meaning to hatch order. Some say if hatch first, more important. This is...need word. False belief about state of world based on random qualities.”
“Superstition.” Grace committed the word to memory, not inputting it into the laptop. It was too far and he was too cozy right now.
Rocky continued. “Still, hatch order is said. Tradition. Other words in long name version were resonance qualities of hatch location. Hard for Grace to hear due to bad human hearing organ. But not your fault! So Rocky give B+.”
Grace regretted explaining grades to Rocky. His friend had proceeded to grade every action Grace did for a full week, including things like drinking water and sleeping. One time, Grace left the bathroom just to hear Rocky say, “C-.” Grace put a stop to ‘unnecessary grades’ pretty quick after that.
Rocky stilled suddenly.
This was especially noticeable because Rocky was almost constantly moving – working on his projects, fidgeting in place, pacing around the ship. Whenever Rocky stopped moving like this, Grace knew it meant he was figuring out how to approach a subject. So he waited patiently, fidgeting with the edge of the quilt.
And sure enough - “Grace have last name, question?”
Oh. Right.
He should have known Rocky would ask, it was the logical next step in their conversation. But Grace hadn’t really thought about it before, to be honest. He had introduced himself as Grace, mostly because his memory had still been fragmented at the time, and in every flashback he was referred to with either Mr. Grace, Dr. Grace, or just Grace. Come to think of it, he couldn’t really recall the last time someone called him Ryland. ‘Grace’ also came with the added benefit of being translateable, even if you could argue about the accuracy, which Rocky did. A lot.
Grace cleared his throat. “Uh, so, fun fact! Grace is actually my last name. My first name is Ryland, but that doesn’t really mean anything like Grace does, so, uh, harder to translate.”
For some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to look directly at Rocky. Why did he feel a pit in his stomach? It was just his name. It was also only the second time he had said it out loud since he woke up on the Hail Mary, and that simple fact made him feel off balance. Like he had popped some sort of bubble they had going on. Like now the time on the Hail Mary was split into ‘before Rocky knew his name was Ryland’ and ‘after Rocky knew his name was Ryland’.
(A memory – An outing at a bar with his fellow teachers. He had always said no to the invitation before, but for some reason he had agreed that day, feeling uncharacteristically spontaneous. Lonely, maybe, Marissa would say. He should have left when the bar had been too loud, the songs blaring from the speakers crawling under his skin, but he had promised himself he was going to try. To not isolate himself like in academia. He actually liked his job at Grover Cleveland, and it’d be nice to have friends at the school.
And then - “Oh, hey, Dr. Grace! Sorry,” the woman’s face, Ms. Lucy Hill, turned sheepish, “Ryland, is that right? I’ve never seen you outside of work! Glad you finally came.”
He bit back the urge to say, ‘It’s okay, Grace is fine’, because that was crazy, wasn’t it? He was trying to be friendly. Friends used their first names with each other. Marissa called him Ryland all the time and it didn’t bother him at all. Not one bit.
“Ryland here has a doctorate in molecular biology, isn’t that neat?”
“What would you like to drink, Ryland?”
“You got anyone special, Ryland?”
He ended up leaving two hours later, not too early to be rude, he thought. His colleagues were perfectly nice, he just wasn’t much of a social drinker. It was just – everyone kept talking over each other, he could barely focus. Something had been throwing him off all evening, a hollow forming in his chest. All he wanted was to go home and take a long bath, and maybe catch up on his science podcast.
“It was nice meeting you finally, Ryland.” Peter? No, Lucas – said with a smile when Grace said his goodbyes.
Grace’s stomach twisted, and he stumbled, knocking his hip into the corner of a table. Right, that signaled his time limit on ‘managing to be a normal human’ being up. The music droned in his head.
“See you next week?” Lucas asked.
“Yeah, sure,” he replied, proud of himself for managing a smile.
He never attended a social again, always finding some sort of excuse. He much preferred quiet nights in, anyway.)
Wow. Okay. He felt a sharp pang of guilt at the memory, remembering how his fellow teachers had called him Ryland for a few weeks after, trying to be friendly. But as he refused invitation after invitation, they switched back to Grace, or Mr. Grace, in front of his students. More formal, but it had made him feel significantly less off kilter. He remembered feeling relieved, and not knowing why. Analyzing the memory, it felt like his brain honed in on whenever someone called him Ryland, making it hard to focus on anything else. He frowned. Why?
“Grace quiet long time.” Rocky warbled questioningly. “Grace sad name not translate, question? I can fix. I make Eridian version, give Grace!”
Grace looked up to see Rocky already getting into the idea, pacing on his side of the room from excitement.
“Part of name mean same as word for ‘land’, understand correct, question?” Rocky asked.
“Yeah, buddy, but-“ Grace brought his knees closer to his chest, clutching his quilt, fingers running over the uneven embroidery, the ‘off-kilter’ feeling coming back with a vengeance. Coma slurry settled heavily in his stomach.
Rocky steamrolled ahead, unaware of Grace’s turmoil. “Grace sad sad sad Rocky call by last name, Rocky understand. Don’t worry. I will make new special name, better translation, more accurate -“
“Rocky!” Grace interrupted him with a shout, eyes tight.
Rocky stopped moving, one of his limbs still in the middle of gesticulating.
“Sorry.” Grace lowered his voice. “Sorry, I – I didn’t mean to yell. It’s fine, don’t worry about the name. I actually – I like Grace. It feels like me. Even if I don’t always live up to it.” He forced a laugh. “I’m not sad.”
“Don’t lie.” Rocky’s carapace was lowered again, and Grace felt a pang of guilt. “Heart is fast and face leaky. Grace-“ the musical note Rocky used for his name wobbled, as if Rocky wasn’t sure whether to use it. “Grace sad. Why lie to Rocky? I can fix.”
Grace touched his face, and sighed heavily. Sure enough, he was crying again. He wished he knew why, though. “No, Rock, I’m not sad. At least, not about this. I love love love the name you gave me. I love how it sounds, okay? I just kind of,” he winced, “forgot I had another one. It brought back memories.” He started fidgeting with a loose thread on his quilt. He really needed to stop that. He only had one of these, and very little thread substitutes. “It made me feel bad, and I don’t know why.”
He held up a finger, stopping Rocky’s sentence. “It’s not because of Grace. I think...I think I need time to process. Inefficient human brain stuff.”
Rocky hummed, still visibly concerned but thankfully holding back. “Understand. Tell Rocky later, finger promise.”
Grace nodded, and held up his pinkie. “Promise.”
—
After about three hours later, Grace burst into the lab where Rocky was working.
“I figured it out! I was embarrassed,” he announced proudly, hands on his hips.
It only took him a lot of staring at a wall feeling nauseous and a teeny tiny breakdown. (Which Rocky definitely heard, but graciously(hah) gave him space.)
There was a moment of silence, and Grace started to feel self-conscious. “About before, you know-“
“Why embarrassed, question?” The tone behind the sentence was one that Grace was beginning to recognize as ‘clarify’. It was also Rocky’s ‘serious’ voice.
“Well, uh.” Grace sat down and started to fiddle with one of the test tubes. “Humans usually go by their first names. Like on Erid, you have a long and short version, right?”
“Correct. This why Grace embarrassed, question?”
“Hold your horses, I’m getting there.”
“Rocky not hold anything.”
Bastard was trying to make him laugh. It was kind of working – it reminded Grace that Rocky wasn’t human. He didn’t have any preconceived notions of what was right or wrong for a typical human, he was just interested in alien culture. Like Grace was.
Grace continued. “The point is – humans generally prefer their first names, and calling someone by their last name is more formal, uh, professional. So friends would call each other by their first names. But I realized that whenever I think of my first name, I feel...” Grace shuddered involuntarily, gripping the test tube tighter. “It’s all messed up in here,” he laughed tightly, gesturing to his head. “When I woke up, I didn’t remember who I was.”
Rocky let out a keening noise. He was still very upset at the concept of memory loss, understandably.
“When I remembered my name, it didn’t feel like it belonged to me. Half of it still doesn’t.” Grace hunched over the table, voice small. “I guess I’ve been called Grace for so long it just feels wrong to be anything else. It’s weird. I should like my name, shouldn’t I? And then I thought, maybe it’s because of the amnesia, but no, I remembered I felt that way on Earth too.” It was like a dam had broken in him, he couldn’t stop the words pouring out.
“And then, well, I guess I felt embarrassed because Grace is usually a-a woman’s name, but I prefer people calling me Grace over Ryland. Which is...weird, probably. So I felt bad because my brain thought you were going to judge me. For that.” He groaned, massaging his forehead. “Sorry, Rocky, I know that’s not very helpful.”
Rocky shuffled his vents, leaning towards Grace, a hesitance to his movements. “Humans have gender rules for names, question? Grace not allowed to be Grace. Question?”
Grace looked up, heart still hammering in his chest for some reason.“No, not rules – more like tradition, I guess. So some names are more associated with one gender than the other.”
“What gender association Rocky name, question?”
“Uh,” Grace sniffed, “I guess that would be male, like in the movie. But anyone can be-“ He narrowed his eyes. “Rocky.”
Rocky made a series of amused chirps. “Rocky not human. Rocky not man. But Rocky still Rocky, yes? You’re being stupid again. Grace can be man and be Grace. I will not judge.”
Grace flinched slightly, grip around the test tube tense. He gave Rocky a wobbly smile. “I know, buddy. Thanks.”
What was wrong with him? Rocky was right – it wasn’t like people couldn’t have non traditionally gendered names. Sure, it was unusual, but not that uncommon, especially in California. Was he a misogynist? No, surely that would mean he’d prefer Ryland.
Something else was bothering him.
Grace thought of the time before Rocky, when he woke up scared and disoriented, having no idea who he was, where he was. It had been terrifying, sure, but in hindsight, it had also been freeing, almost. He had had no memory of societal conventions, inbuilt shame. He had worn his dead crewmates clothes, mostly to feel closer to them, but also to try and find a sense of who he was. He remembered Ilyukhina’s dress and flowery robe, and how nice they had felt on his skin. They had stayed in his clothes rotation, up until Rocky moved in, Grace realized. He had subconsciously stopped wearing them, out of – what? Shame? Rocky wouldn’t care.
It was the same feeling he got when he told Rocky his name was Ryland, when he admitted to preferring Grace.
“Grace quiet long time. Still thinking, question?” Rocky’s voice jolted him out of his brain, and he exhaled shakily.
“Yeah.” He hummed, lost in thought. “Grace being stupid again, that’s all.”
Rocky stomped once. “Explain.”
“I don’t think I want to be seen as a man,” Grace said, before he could stop himself. “I think that’s why ‘Ryland’ bothered me. It made me feel trapped, I guess. It’s more masculine – like a man – and it makes me feel like that’s all I can be. When someone calls me Ryland, I don’t like the image of me they have.” He inhaled deeply. “I don’t feel that with Grace. I like that it’s more a woman’s name – feminine – more ambiguous.”
“Is Grace a woman, question?” Rocky asked, bluntly. Grace supposed that to Rocky, that was just like asking if his hair color was blonde or brown. To Rocky, human sex and gender must have been inscrutable. Honestly, that’s how it was to Grace sometimes, too. He never really thought about it, until he was given the option to choose something different.
“No, I don’t think so.” Grace tilted his head, considering. “I think I’m just...Grace.” It was like a load had been lifted off his chest, he wanted to laugh. It wasn’t every day he got to find something new about himself that made him feel more secure of himself as a person.
Rocky wiggled in the ball. “Good good good. Grace feeling better now, question?”
Grace smiled widely. What had he been so scared of? It was just his best friend. “Yeah, I think so, buddy.”
—
Life on the Hail Mary continued on as normal, except Grace slowly started wearing Ilyukhina’s dress and robe and shirts again, feeling a lot lighter in the process.
And then, one evening (well, probably evening, Grace could never be sure with the way he altered the ship’s clock constantly) Rocky interrupted Grace in the Don’t go Crazy room.
“Rocky have gift for Grace,” he said, rolling over to Grace. “Did research on human thinking machine.”
Grace narrowed his eyes, instantly suspicious. “Oh?”
Rocky stood up higher. “Grace not just Grace. Grace mean...help. Forgiveness. Beauty. Grace save Rocky, save Earth, Erid. Grace is beautiful, kind. Not graceful, but this is okay. Rocky have enough grace for both of us.”
Grace’s vision was blurry. “Oh, Rock-“
Rocky held up a claw. “Quiet. Not done. Grace still needs proper Eridian long name. So, Rocky give.” He held up two of his limbs like he had for Adrian, except with his fingers resembling his jazz hands configuration, and started to sing.
🎶GraceSavior♫BeautyInStars♬EarthLoveFriend♫ScienceGrace♬🎶
Grace was already crying, but he started sobbing when he recognized that Rocky used the same notes from his family name in Grace’s version.
“Happy leaking, question?” Rocky asked hesitantly, stepping from side to side.
Grace nodded. “Happy leaking, statement. Thank you Rocky, it’s beautiful.”
Rocky rolled closer, pressing his ball to Grace. “Hug now.”
Grace draped himself over the ball, smiling against the warm xenonite.
“Love you too, Rocky.”