Chapter Text
Grace couldn't say how long he had been awake for. Maybe hours, maybe a couple of days. All he knew was that he was in a lot of pain and couldn't remember how he got here. He was likely on the table he woke up on for several hours at least. Choking on his own spit, body spasming, and desperately wanting to pull away. He might've rolled off the table if the pain hadn't made his body lock up.
Disoriented, he could only rely on his own instincts as a female robotic voice apologized for not being programmed to help with labor. Which, couldn't be right. Perhaps she wasn't programmed correctly at all to begin with. It took until the need to push before Grace realized that the robotic voice wasn't mistaken. He was in labor and the baby was coming whether he remembered how he ended up in this situation or not.
It wasn't over once the baby was out. A machine was still trying to treat him, the crying baby needed tending to, and Grace still didn't even know what his own name was.
Against the robotic voice's recommendation, the second he could stand, he was, stumbling around until he found a blanket to wrap the baby in and something to put on himself.
Then he sank to the ground in a defeated slump of exhaustion.
His name was Ryland Grace. According to the robot, he was awake three years too early, not that he knew what that meant. When he called out for someone to help him, he was advised that his other crewmate was still in an induced coma and for safety reasons would be left as such.
Crewmate… Was he on a ship? He hadn't felt the dips and waves of a ship out on sea, though he knew from experience that if a ship was big enough, you wouldn't necessarily feel the waves.
… From experience?
He couldn't actually recall.
Blinking a few times, he refocused his gaze and looked down at the baby. She seemed healthy enough. Although red flushed, Grace could tell that her skin tone was darker than his own, complete with wispy dark curls on her head. As hard as Grace tried, the face of her sire wouldn't come to mind. He knew he was an omega, but was he a mated one? The thought left something uncomfortable coiling in his chest.
With a sigh, Grace's hand dragged down through his tangled hair. It wasn't supposed to be this long, he was sure. The length of his hair was a quickly forgotten thought as he felt something rough just below his jaw. For a brief moment, he considered it was just dried fluid until he scrapped a fingernail over the rough patch realized it was his skin. His scent gland. Touching the gland at his shoulder revealed another rough patch of skin where a scent gland should've been. For a sickening moment, he thought he might've had a claiming bite. Archaic, but not unheard of in modern times. The scarring was centered right on his scent gland, not the sunk in canines of someone else's teeth.
Curiously, he touched the other side of his neck and jaw. Same scars. Even the glands on his inner thighs had been scarred over. He was able to see these clearly without trying to find a mirror. Burn scars, potentially. Perhaps if the thought of a relationship unsettled him so deeply, he had done this to himself. It was more of a comforting thought than being hormonally castrated by someone else.
So to recap, his name was Ryland Grace, he was in an induced coma, he had at least one other crewmate, he was an omega with no functioning scent glands, and he had a baby with an unknown sire. Not a lot to go on. The small space didn't seem particularly familiar either. Right now it wouldn't be smart to push his body. After some rest, then he could try to figure out where the hell he was and why he was here.
In his arms, the baby cried, a soft sound of a newborn whose lungs hadn't quite developed enough to scream her discomfort.
Right. He should probably feed her.
With a little more time (and much needed sleep), Grace was able to piece together more. He knew he was a teacher and he had become rather certain that a man named Carl was the father of the baby. Thinking of Carl brought a sense of fondness and comradery, but not something Grace could exactly place as romantic. They weren't mates at the very least.
Oh, and Grace was in space. Which would've been super cool if he weren't in space with a dead man, a woman in a coma, and an infant. He remembered bits and pieces of the mission and why they were out here in the first place. The Petrova Line, Project Hail Mary.
Grace also knew that waking up this early had certainly screwed him over. Who the hell sends a pregnant omega up into space? How could Grace have been so careless if he knew he was going on a mission? It didn't make much sense. He knew he could be dumb, but this was the screw up of the century for sure.
Dwelling on the implications of what would happen to him and the baby were horrifying ones, so he busied himself with learning all he could from the ship's laptop and figuring out the food situation as best as he could. There was enough for years, enough to where him waking up early wouldn't be the end of the world for him and Ilyukhina, the living crewmate that was still in a coma. Three more years and some months until they reached Tau Ceti, and there would still be years left of food to give them time to do their research.
It made Grace sick just to think about it, but the dead crewmate, Yao, being gone would buy them more time. Three full grown adults would be hard to comfortably feed, especially if mission time took longer. They'd be without a pilot, but perhaps Grace would recall enough to be of some use. Maybe Ilyukhina could help fill the role. Grace could read about piloting the ship, but he'd be unable to practice any until they were no longer en-route to the star.
So soon after labor, Grace knew he shouldn't be handling anything heavily than the baby… but keeping a dead body on the ship was dangerous. He found the airlock and figured out the controls. It'd be best to send Yao out.
He wondered if Ilyukhina would be mad at him for it. He tried to leave her things alone, but the loneliness on the ship was crushing and he wanted to know who'd eventually be waking up. He could recall glimpses of her face in his memories, the tones of a voice he couldn't quite make out. Maybe Yao meant a lot to her, perhaps she would've liked the chance to say goodbye. The thought leaves his throat closing up and tears burning in his eyes. None of this was fair.
So, he pulls Yao to the airlock. He brings his things and apologizes for not being able to save him. He promises to make sure Ilyukhina wakes up, to not fail on this mission.
Wiping at his eyes, the crying of the baby brought him out of the caving sense of helplessness. He moved on autopilot down the hall to the makeshift bed he had made for the baby out of a plastic box. He scooped her up and she settled for a moment, brown eyes squinting up at him.
Concerning the baby… well, Grace tried not to think about it too hard. He fed her, kept her clean, but that was it. He loved kids! He loved being handed a baby and making the little thing laugh. The lack of anything that he currently felt was more terrifying than he wanted to admit. Everything concerning the baby was on autopilot, as if her crying was a problem to figure out and stop. He was still calling her the baby for Christ's sake!
The reality of it was that there was no future for this baby. Three years until they reached Tau Ceti. Maybe a handful of months or a couple years to study the star. Then… death.
Grace found himself walking down the airlock, baby clutched to his chest.
There were a number of things that could go wrong long before the end of the mission. There could be a ship malfunction. Perhaps they'd lose breathable air, maybe the food would go bad. Something could crash into the ship, they'd lose power, and slowly freeze to death.
Then after the mission, it was a matter of how'd they go. He found a gun among Yao's stuff, he found the drugs and poison. Grace and Ilyukhina would choose how the went out.
But what about a four year old?
Grace placed the baby down next to Yao, fingers numb and body frighteningly cold.
Right now, the baby was too young to know much of anything. She cried for warmth, she cried for food, she cried because every discomfort was the worst thing that had ever happened to her in her extremely short life. She'd never be able to grow up. She was going to die never feeling the sunshine on her skin or hear the laughter of other children. The small, confined space of this ship would be her entire world, never having the chance to know any other.
Everyone died, that was life… but what kind of life would this be? Right now, it was just delaying the invertible.
The airlock would be swift. So instantaneous the baby would have never know what was happening. She'd never have to have poison in her veins or a gun pointed to her head, she wouldn't slowly starve to death as the limited supply of food ran out. Just here in one moment and gone in the next. In the most messed up of ways, this was mercy, right?
Her crying brought Grace out of his daze. It wasn't like she knew what was happening, but something lurched in his chest.
Three years, he reminded himself, at a minimum she only had three years if nothing else went wrong first.
But whatever had lurched in his chest had finally unclogged the dam. As an icy wave washed over him and he stumbled forward to grab his baby. His hands shook violently from an adrenaline rush, as if he hadn't been the one who put her there, and scooped her up back into his arms.
"I'm sorry," he choked, "I can't, I'm so sorry."
His legs wobbled so hard he sank to the ground, clutching his baby so hard he knew he was probably hurting her.
For several long minutes, the hall was filled with the sounds of both their cries.
Grace didn't think he had sobbed so hard in his life. He moved back to the bedroom once he could stand, gently shushing the baby. The makeshift cloth diaper was dry, so maybe it was hunger.
This time, Grace felt something as he looked down at her small face, something warm. He allowed himself to feel the fear too, letting out a shaky exhale.
"I'm sorry," he said again. "None of this is fair."
So, he was keeping her.
"Well, I guess I should stop being such a crappy dad and actually give you a name, huh?" He says though he knows she doesn't understand. His voice sounded hoarse to his own ears.
There was an infinity of choice of names, but it should be something meaningful, yeah?
"Don't remember my mom's name," he admitted aloud. "Or any relative, for that matter. Maybe I'm the kind of guy to name my child after my favorite movie star… but I can't remember that one either."
Of the women he could think of, only one really came to mind.
Eva Stratt.
Grace didn't recall much about her. He remembered that she was the head of Project Hail Mary, he remembered her first approaching him. They were friends, maybe. She had to have been important if he remembered her more than his own mother.
"Eva, Eva, Eva," Grace muttered. "Eve?" That name and story came to him so fast it was a little ridiculous. "Am I religious?" He wasn't sure and the baby certainly didn't. "Eve, first woman on Earth. You're pretty much the first baby in space, ever."
Naming his baby after a woman he barely remembered and a religious story he wasn't even sure he believed in… why not. He had a while before Eve would be old enough to remember much of anything.
Three years.
Grace hoped she'd be able to forgive him for being selfish.