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Grace doesn't think Rocky would ever admit to feeling resentful towards Erid for being left to figure out the astrophage solution by himself. He can understand why – they hadn't known the dangers, and would have likely just doomed even more eridians to death – but sometimes, on the rare occasion that it comes up, Grace thinks he might sense a little bitterness. He sometimes even feels a little bitterness on the eridian's behalf, despite logically knowing that it doesn't make any sense.
There would have been time to send another ship, at the end of the day. They'd been working on other prototypes, Rocky had told him, but Rocky had never seen any evidence of a second launch.
"It was irrational thinking pattern," he admits, finally, when Grace prods him about it. "Should be glad that nobody follow. Anyone that follow would die, with almost one hundred percent certainty."
He settles his carapace to the ground as if he has come to a stop, but Grace knows better. Rocky's fidgeting, working his way up to admitting something else, and sure enough he eventually chimes out again. "Sometimes, when alone on ship, Rocky had choice: anger, or nothing. Anger, or no thought at all. So Rocky choose anger, even when anger was irrational." He pauses, and Grace shuffles closer. "Rocky not want to be alone, even if other eridians got hurt because of it."
Grace leans into Rocky's side, and feels a gentle purr of acknowledgement at the contact. "You're not alone now, buddy", he says, unnecessarily and very necessarily both at the same time.
—
"Blip-A detected."
Grace raises his hands above his head in a gesture that might have been exasperation or might have been surrender – he thinks he can justify either, given the current state of chaos aboard the Hail Mary. "Sure!" he cries. "Why not?!"
Minutes ago, the ship had begun to decelerate. It was not due to decelerate for another eight months.
"Maybe this will answer some of our questions, at least," Grace mutters, abandoning the console. It had been spitting out increasingly confusing data in regards to what it was that had been detected and caused Mary to flag a problem, so he gladly leaves it behind to find Rocky.
The two of them meet at the viewport, Grace skidding to a stop before Rocky can get tangled up in his legs.
"Rocky, did you–"
Movement from the corner of his eye has him cutting himself off. Impossible movement, because it is coming from the side of him that is facing the viewport.
Grace turns. Rocky's saying something to him, but Grace isn't focused on translating the chords. He's focused on the sight before him: another Blip-A, in all its glory, no mere glitch in the Mary's detection systems. They've decelerated but they haven't come to a stop. They're going to go sailing on past, and probably begin accelerating again fairly soon.
Grace takes off running towards the cockpit.
—
This ship isn't an exact replica of the original Blip-A, it turns out. It's smaller, for starters, and the internal structure is much more compact. They have their similarities, though, enough for Rocky to be able to pinpoint the best place on the hull for him to be able to get a good reading of the ship's interior; he builds a bridge of xenonite and runs a live test in his newest suit, ignoring Grace's worries in an effort to reach the ship as fast as he can.
Both Blip-As are gravesites. That's a similarity that Grace wishes that they didn't have.
They'd known what they were going to find, when their radio calls had gone unanswered. They'd known that something bad must have happened, for this ship to have been left floating in the voidspace between solar systems, months away from reaching its destination.
Knowing doesn't make the discovery any easier to process. They make it back to the Hail Mary before Rocky sinks to the floor, and Grace goes with him, wrapping his arms over the eridian's shell in the only gesture of comfort he can offer. It feels too alien a thing for the moment, but it's all that Grace has.
"They send help," Rocky wails, anger and grief diffused in the chords. "They not give up. Rocky wrong wrong wrong–"
Grace has no words to comfort him. All he can do is hold Rocky close, and kneel in the place of the dozens dead that didn't survive for long enough to reach him.