Chapter Text
Grace knew dying on the way to Erid was a possibility. Even though the math had worked out, reality is much much much messier than numbers on a page. Like science. That was why science was fun, why he had fallen in love with it, asking any question and chasing every answer until two of them could be paired together, just for a new question to make you go looking all over again.
Reality had always been less fun. Especially now, when the coma slurry is stretched too thin, the taumoeba too gross to eat normally, when there's too many lines and tubes and monitors stuck to him. Maybe sleeping all day corrected for the slurry amount he had rationed, no longer demanding more from his body than a coma patient would theirs. But he was starting from too far behind, had been too restless and foolish and didn't-want-to-think-about-it to do nothing while it was still a choice.
He hadn't been surprised at the hallucinations. Grace had checked all the possible diseases and symptoms his deficiencies could create, back when the goal had been to tough it out before relenting and letting Rocky in on the loop. He'd thought they'd be horrible, and some of them were. But most of them were... nice.
Okay Grace had never claimed to be normal. Most people would not call hallucinating your former (current?) boss who slingshot you into space against your will a pleasant activity. But she wasn't mean, or a liar, she was just stuck talking to a him that didn't really exist anymore. Yeah, time changes people, but so does amnesia. He had still been himself when he woke up, but himself without context, without assumption. And now Stratt's context was out of date. Everything about her was out of date. That was the best part of hallucinating her. If he could just keep hallucinating people, he'd know they were hallucinations. Because another person being on the Hail Mary? Impossible.
Grace was as sure of that fact as the fact that he was dying, that the 0g was going to be what stopped his heart. The little time he had spent awake the past few days had been nothing but hallucination. His mind had created a warmth that he couldn't generate, a voice that he didn't know the name of telling stories he'd never heard. And now instead of that voice he heard alarms fading into silence, instead of warmth he felt nothingness.
His heart slams in his chest, a boulder dropped in the center of a still lake. His eyes fly open, not glued together with gunk, not heavy enough to put up a fight. His vision is filled by The Man He Doesn't Know, his eyes filled with something sad, then relief, then rolling into the back of his head.
Oh. Well. None of the hallucinations have done that before. Aaaand now he's just floating there. Instead of doing that thing where he blinks and it's gone. Wait, how long has Rocky been screaming?
𝄞𝄃𝆃𝄂
Weird. He doesn't know that word. Not that he can't understand it, not that his dying mind can't translate it. It's just a word he doesn't know. And he knows that. Because he can think clearly.
Uppercase w Weird.
Just because his brain is weird because it's working doesn't mean he should ignore Rocky. He's moved on from screaming the word Grace doesn't know to actually talking to him.
"Friend Grace respond, demand."
Ohhh, he sounds terrified. Yeah, sure, his brain's working, but he wasn't paying attention. If he can just- almost-
Yeah, that wasn't a word. More of a grunt. Definitely not a whine. Definitely.
Still, Rocky sings his name over and over. He can hear his claws tapping on xenonite, and his face twitches, demanding a smile it can't give when he imagines Rocky dancing in place.
He's gotta agree with the guy. His body still feels like a crumbling sand castle, but he can think again. If he was going to have death's door clarity, it would have been when the alarms were going off, when he felt himself dissolve.
He really wishes the hallucination would dissolve. It's kinda distracting at this point.
Rocky's talking again.
𝄞𝄃𝆃 "respond, demand."
Silence enters the dorm, louder than the beeps from Armando's monitors.
Were his muscles really this far gone? He's working his way from his fingertips up his arms, cataloguing how unresponsive each muscle is. They're all at ninety percent unresponsive, but unwelcomed data is better than no data.
𝄞𝄃𝆃 "respond, demand."
Once he reaches his shoulder he moves to his head. If he's more organized about this, maybe he can warm up enough to ask Rocky what the heck he's getting so worked up over.
𝄞𝄃𝆹𝅥𝅯𝆹𝅥𝅮‿𝆃 "respond, demand."
Whoakay, maybe his brain isn't as back as he thought it was. Rocky only swears in Grace's hearing range for goofs or when things have gone sideways.
"Rock, what-" his jaw pops, cutting him off.
"Mary, medical request crew" 𝆃𝄂
Crew? What crew? Him and Rocky are the only-
Armando grabs Grace's hallucination, maneuvering him through the 0g to the unoccupied bed. He is frozen far beyond the chill that creeps under his quilt as Armando gives a freaking hallucination a checkup.
That's why his brain's working so well. He's sleeping. If he just lets the black fog at the edge of his vision take over, he'll wake up for real. That's how dreams work, right?
~~~
heat that is scalding, sweating, that make breathing feel like there's a rag shoved down your throat