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I sit down next to Grace with a huff. The doctors in the room, intimidated by my presence, only give me a small greeting before running out of the room.
I wait for the airlock to close before I explode. "Grace, you will not believe the day I just had. I had to work with stupid 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅘𝅥 of all people! Yes, my arch nemesis, that 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅘𝅥. It's still an asshole. Actually, no. Somehow it's even more of an asshole now! It—" only then I remember that Grace no longer uses its translator. I tilt my carapace to bump into it lightly. "Speaking too fast? Apology. Rocky forgot Grace still speaks Eridian like child. Will speak slowly from now on."
I get no response. I knew I wouldn't, but it still stings. I burrow closer to Grace's weak, weak body, and try not to wail.
"Enough sleep, Grace," I order, trying to sound steady and failing miserably. "17 days sleep is too much. Wake up."
Grace doesn't wake up.
Two days before we reached Erid, Grace fell asleep and didn't wake up.
Armando called it a 'diabetic coma'. Apparently, the glucose levels in Grace's body were critically low, and taumoeba was no longer enough to keep it stable.
I thought nothing of it when Grace didn't wake up by the time it usually does. Grace's body was getting weaker everyday, and it was sleeping more and more to save energy. But by the 12th hour, I started feeling uneasy.
Just to be safe, Grace had started sleeping in the Med Bay during the last few months of our travel. It got hurt so much, so often. Always leaking blood in one place or the other. Its teeth had also started falling out, which was something it took great offense in. When the one in the front had come loose, Grace had burst into tears.
I didn't understand why that made it so upset, and everything I said only made it cry harder. There wasn't much I could do to stop Grace from dying—if I thought about that too much, it would break me. So instead, I had started working on making teeth for Grace out of xenonite.
By hour 13, I finished the first one. By hour 13, Armando announced that Grace was in a coma.
Now, I sit beside Grace's bed and finish the 32nd tooth. Grace is still in a coma.
"Rocky made 32 teeth. Full set complete!" I puff up my carapace, trying to sound cheerful. "Now Grace can lose all weak teeth and wear strong xenonite teeth! Xenonite teeth look very very cool, much much better than human teeth. Look!"
Of course, Grace doesn't look. It lays motionless on its bed.
I deflate. Stupid. It was all so stupid. Why was I even talking like that? I had no reason to speak like a fucking pebble now that Grace isn't listening. Grace will probably never listen again.
With a loud cry, I send all the xenonite teeth flying. A team of medics rush into the room at the noise, chittering nervously. I fall to the floor and say nothing at all.
I know Grace isn't listening, but I can't help it; I sit on its bed every day and talk till Adrian physically drags me away from its side.
But for some reason, I find myself unable to speak one day. I hunch into myself and simply listen to Grace's organs move. The squelch of the acids in its stomach, the rattling of the breath in its lungs. I listen to the sweet song of its heart—lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub—like it is my lifeline. And it might just be.
"One day, you emptied all the fluids in your stomach." I surprise myself by speaking; I hadn't thought I had anything left to say. But now that I started speaking, I find that I can't stop. "It was the most disgusting thing ever. I hate hate hated it. I thought you were dying. But after your stomach finally settled, you laughed and apologised. Said, "I'm sorry I'm so gross." You laughed, but you sounded so, so sad. Sometimes, I think you hate yourself."
I pause, and hold back the sob welling up in me. "And I. I told you you were the grossest thing I've ever known."
I would bear the squelching and the roiling of your stomach a million times over if it means I can hear the rasp of your laughter again. Be disgusting again. Come back to me.
But I don't say any of that out loud. Just the thought of those words leaving the confines of my mind nauseates me—that was not something that was meant to go unheard. I feel split open, vulnerable; I am so miserable and there is only one person who could possibly understand this… this absolute fucking agony and that person is dying right in front of my eyes and I can't fix it.
Coward that I am, I swap one confession for another: "Eridians can't sense surroundings without sound. For 44 years, I lived in silence. I was almost certain I was dead, and drifting away into the void. I had to tap tap tap my claws all the time to make myself hear. I barely slept. I might as well have been dead."
"Then you found me, and it was suddenly loud all the time. There was not one moment I doubted I was alive. You gave me back my life, Grace."
Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. My words hang heavy in the air. I don't speak for a long time after that.
Adrian is crying. I want to hold it close, want to tell it that everything will be fine. But I'm huddled in the corner of Grace's room, shaking, shaking, and I can't move.
"Rocky, you need to leave the human's side," Adrian pleads. "You need sleep. Just this once, can you rest? I will watch over it for you, I promise. Can you please—"
"No!" I shriek, trying to flatten myself against the wall. "I need to watch Grace sleep! I told Grace I will watch it sleep!"
A voice that sounds like Grace's whispers in my mind, tells me to calm down. But it is only a voice in my mind. My Grace was lying unconscious in bed, barely alive. Lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub. I miss it so much that I want to die.
Adrian takes a step back, alarmed. I have never raised my voice at it before. I know I should say I'm sorry, but I don't. I don't like lying to Adrian.
"My love," Adrian asks, voice filled with sorrow. "What has this human done to you?"
What have you become?
And for that, I don't have an answer.
During one of the last days Grace was awake, it told me about Hail Mary.
"It refers to a desperate last attempt with very low chance of success," Grace explained. "The phrase itself comes from a prayer."
"Prayer, question?"
"It's like uhh a song? A plea of sorts? Addressed to a higher power asking for help. It goes something like, 'Hail Mary, full of—'"
"—Grace," I now pray, beg. "Grace, wake up."
Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub.
"…Rocky?"