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Grace stood still, enveloped in the gentle breeze as he took in the silhouette in front of him, thinking for not the first time that Eva Stratt might’ve been bright enough to warm the Earth long after the Astrophage consumed the sun. Somedays, he watched in deep veneration as she led the project with a strength unique to only her, the gentle sunlight framing her from behind and hailing her for what she truly was; humanity’s last salvation. It was days like those that he found it difficult to believe the sun was dying at all, because Eva Stratt was the sun, at least to him.
She was bright and magnetic, and what was he if not a planet fated to orbit her for eternity; a fate he’d happily accept without a moment of hesitation so long as it allowed him to remain near her, to follow her wherever she decided to go.
He could feel the tug, the gravitational pull that tethered him to her, his body falling towards her as if it was meant to do nothing else. And so he found himself there on the deck, watching in quiet reverence as she gazed out at the sea like she hadn’t just emotionally devastated everyone on the ship with a single karaoke performance.
Grace approached her wordlessly, leaning against the railing with a posture that matched her own, having an endless supply of things to say but nothing that felt sufficient for the moment. Instead, he settled for a simple observation.
“You left in a hurry.” She huffed out what was as close to a laugh as she’d ever allow, but it rang hollow in the space between them.
“I couldn’t look at them anymore.”
He tilted his head to look at her and was surprised to see her eyes already focused on him. “At who?”
“Everyone in that room.” She didn’t elaborate any further, instead turning back to stare at the sea.
Seconds passed without a word being spoken, the only sound being the faint cheers of the party continuing on in the background. Grace pulled his cardigan tighter as a cold breeze swept through him.
“It’s okay for it to be hard, you know,” he finally spoke, following her gaze out to sea, his voice so soft it was nearly carried away with the breeze. “You’re allowed to feel things about the decisions you make.”
“It’s not hard,” she answered, and Grace knew from her tone that it wasn’t a lie but it wasn’t the whole truth either. He waited patiently for her to continue but she seemed content to let the silence speak for itself.
After all, who better to understand the hidden meanings of her words than him? Who else would look at her and see beyond the version of Eva Stratt that was crafted and maintained solely for the world’s perception, bearing witness to the person hidden underneath?
It wasn’t hard for her, not when the fate of the world rested in her hands and forced her to weigh eight billion lives against three. The world leaders had joined together in a unanimous decision and appointed her to be the operator of humanity’s greatest trolley problem, burdened her with making decisions he was sure no one else would have been capable of.
It wasn’t a hard choice because there was only one option. That didn’t mean she had to remain unaffected by her decision. His fingers brushed against hers on the railing on accident, but she nudged her hand closer before he could pull away, a gentle pressure, a brief moment of reprieve. A lifeline, extended to him in the dark, where vulnerability wasn’t so forbidden if it couldn’t be easily seen.
“It can be both,” he spoke, feeling her gaze fall on him once more. “It can be both hard and easy at the same time. Easy because it’s the correct choice, hard because, well, you’re human.”
She hummed, noncommittally. “I do not have the luxury of being human. That is not a privilege reserved for someone in my position.” The words were spoken objectively, flowing from her with the ease of someone commenting on the weather. Somehow that felt more painful to him than if she were to have broken down.
But Eva Stratt did not break down, ever. She did not complain, she did not place her own humanity above the world’s; she simply endured. And Grace understood, but he wished things could be different.
His fingers moved over her hand absentmindedly, tracing idle patterns in a motion that would have felt too intimate in broad daylight. “Well, if nothing else, you can be human around me,” he suggested.
Her brow knitted together in confusion and he watched as the corners of her mouth twitched upwards with faintly concealed amusement. The heavy atmosphere dissipated like a receding blanket of fog, beams of sunlight peaking through the gray. Laughter bubbled up in his chest, free and light, and he covered his eyes, leaning his head against the cold metal railing.
“Ok, yeah, no, that was bad, I’m sorry,” he said, chuckling in embarrassment.
“No, it wasn’t,” she supplied, albeit unconvincingly given the slight upturn of her mouth.
“It absolutely was, this is the Stratt equivalent of pointing and laughing at me,” he teased. “And you know what? Totally deserved, it was really stupid.”
She shook her head and turned back to look at the ocean. “It was not stupid.“
“No, it was,” he chuckled. “You don’t have to pretend-“
“Grace.” He fell silent at that, though the smile lingered on his face as he stared out to sea, focused not on the waves in front of him but on her in his peripheral vision.
At some point either she or him had moved closer so that their shoulders were touching, or maybe they had both gravitated towards one another, Grace didn’t know. But under the cover of fading sunlight, neither pulled away.
“You were amazing, by the way,” he said, hoping to bask in the lighthearted atmosphere for a little longer before things inevitably returned to normalcy the next day. “Who would’ve thought the Director of the Petrova Taskforce was hiding such an incredible voice?”
“I was not hiding anything, it was just irrelevant until now,” she replied, simply. Grace chuckled.
”What else is ‘irrelevant’ to the mission?” he teased, angling his body towards her. “Next, are you going to tell me you’re secretly an artist or a dancer?”
The corners of her eyes crinkled in amusement. “Not an artist. I danced when I was younger though.”
His eyes lit up and she grimaced, cutting him off right as he opened his mouth to speak.
”No, absolutely not.”
”Why not? We can hear the music from the party out here. Good music, might I add, not Yao’s singing.”
The corner of her mouth twitched upwards. “A shame that I missed that earlier, but still no.”
”Just one dance?” he pleaded, summoning the best puppy dog eyes he could muster. He was so glad Ilyukhina wasn’t there, or he’d never hear the end of it.
Stratt sighed, glancing out at the ocean as she mulled it over, unusually indecisive. The expression was gone in an instant, her posture straightening as she stepped a few paces away from the railing.
“One. That’s it,” she asserted. “This is only because I owe you for keeping that investor occupied at last week’s dinner.”
Grace followed after her, unable to keep the smile off his face. “You didn’t enjoy listening to his ideas on Astrophage-powered cars?”
Her nose wrinkled in disgust at the memory. “I have no interest in dealing with pretentious, unintelligent people like him. The entire event was a complete waste of time.”
He chuckled. “I’m surprised you didn’t just decline, it’s not like they would’ve been able to do anything about it.”
“I considered it, but I figured indulging them just this once would get them to stop filling up my inbox.”
“Did it work?”
“No.”
He looked away briefly, his hand coming up to stifle a laugh. Stratt folded her arms.
“Does my misery amuse you, Dr. Grace?”
He cleared his throat and attempted to wipe the smile off his face but to no avail. “No, ma’am,” he replied with a mock salute.
Stratt shook her head in exasperation. She stepped closer until they were only a foot away from each other, standing so close that he could hear the gentle sound of her breathing over the crashing waves below. The sun had nearly dipped fully below the horizon, the deck now illuminated by a few lamps that cast a soft glow over her face, softening her features. Grace’s breath hitched.
“Do you know how to dance, or am I going to regret this?” she asked, her voice carefully neutral but with a spark of amusement in her eyes that he had learned to recognize.
“Not exactly,” he admitted, “but, I mean, how hard can it be? It’s not like we’re about to do ballet.”
“You’re forgetting something.”
“What?”
“You’re clumsy.”
He sputtered. “I work in a lab, I’m definitely not clumsy!”
She raised an eyebrow. “Not in there, but I’m sure you recall nearly spilling your coffee on Dr. Lokken in the hallway last week?”
“I was rounding the corner, she came out of nowhere.”
“The time you almost fell overboard?”
“I hadn’t slept in 38 hours,” he grumbled.
“You fell out of your chair this morning.”
“I- okay, fine, I’m a little clumsy,” he conceded, ignoring the faintly smug expression that appeared across her face.
The sound of the music changing drew his attention. By now, the party was starting to wind down. Slow jazz replaced the upbeat, lively music that had played a few hours earlier, the melody drifting out towards the deck. He tapped his fingers against his sides.
“So…what now?” he asked, nervously. Was this entirely his idea? Yes. But did he think he’d get this far? Absolutely not.
He had a tendency to blurt things out before he could pause and think about what he was saying, and this had in fact been one of those moments. While that was a normal occurrence, her going along with his silly ideas was a completely new territory he wasn’t sure how to navigate.
“This was your suggestion, was it not?” she countered. There was an expression on her face that was equally unfamiliar, unguarded in a way that was so unlike her and yet felt inexplicably right. The events of the evening seemed to draw out a different side of her, with playful banter and soft smiles reserved for just that moment in time.
If he were to shut his eyes, he could imagine if he met her differently, in a timeline where the sun wasn’t dimming and the future wasn’t uncertain. Maybe then he’d have the privilege of seeing this side of her more frequently, of learning about this woman who claimed she wasn’t mysterious and yet felt as enigmatic as Tau Ceti’s refusal to dim. His heart panged with longing for something he couldn’t quite put into words.
He must have been staring at her in silence for too long, because now she gazed back at him quizzically, her head tilted to the side in an unspoken question. Her concern manifesting as a light furrow in her brow did not go unnoticed, and his fingers twitched with the temptation to smooth away the lines of worry with a swipe of his thumb. He shoved down the thought and shook his head.
He took a half step closer, his hands hovering a few inches away from her waist. There had been times when they touched in the past, small moments of contact that could be called accidental if anyone questioned it. Their fingers brushing as he handed her a cup of coffee, a gentle hand on his back as she steered him through the winding hallways of the ship, small gestures that meant nothing and everything at the same time.
But this…this felt intentional. This wasn’t something that could be called accidental. Grace’s hands remained frozen in midair, all too aware that the line he had been toeing for months was dangerously close to being crossed.
She sensed his hesitation. She always did. Carefully, she covered his hands with her own, her touch so light he barely felt it. Her skin was cold against his as she guided his hands to rest at her waist, brushing her thumb over his knuckles before letting go. A burning sensation lingered in remembrance.
Then her hands found his upper arms, holding onto him gently but with enough pressure to ground him, to tether him to the moment just as he felt tethered to her. They fell into a simple rhythm, swaying back and forth in perfect synchronization.
She moved effortlessly, leading the dance with the same precision and grace she employed when leading the project, and he followed her. He was far less graceful, he was sure, his body more focused on matching her movements than feeling the music in the way she seemed to, but she was smiling so he figured he was doing something right.
If somebody had told him 3 months ago that he’d be dancing with Eva Stratt after sunset, he’d think he lost his mind. If someone had shown him a snapshot of them in that moment, standing far too close to be considered professional and holding eye contact in a way that felt impossibly intimate, he’d have personally had himself admitted to the psych ward. There was simply no way.
And yet, here they were. Here she was, staring at him with a softer smile than he had ever seen, a look that could only be described as fondness; he was certain his expression mirrored hers in that regard. She was so beautiful, borderline angelic, her auburn hair reflecting the warm lamp light as if she were a gift from the sun itself. All he could think about in that moment was how desperately he wanted to continue to see her smile like that, to be the cause of that smile-
He tripped.
His feet tangled and he stumbled backwards, accidentally pulling her with him. With a tragic lack of grace, he fell to the ground with a thud and she landed on top of him. Gravity was a fickle mistress and he had never hated it more. It all happened so fast he barely had time to react; at least he didn’t hit the ground too hard.
His hands were still holding onto her waist protectively and he could feel her trembling against him, her expression hidden with her forehead pressed against his chest. His eyes flicked over her anxiously, checking for injury. It wasn’t that hard of a fall, but she could have twisted her ankle, or landed on her arm the wrong way and holy crap, my two left feet injured the leader of the Petrova Taskforce. His face paled.
“I’m so sorry! Are you okay?” he began, his thumb tracing patterns into the fabric of her sweater as he anxiously awaited her response. “You’re not hurt, are you?”
His chest tightened in agonized panic for what felt like hours but was likely only a few seconds. Then his eyes widened in realization as she lifted her head to meet his gaze, her hand moving to cover her mouth.
She was laughing at him.
“What was that about being a little clumsy?” she snorted. To think she was actually giggling, he couldn’t believe his ears. All the tension drained out of him immediately, replaced with an overwhelming sense of relief.
“In my defense, this went so much worse than I thought it would, I really thought I had it,” he laughed.
She hummed in thought. “Actually, this is exactly how I thought it would go.”
He gasped dramatically. “Wow, no faith in me whatsoever. I’m hurt.”
“Nonsense,” she scoffed. “I have more faith in you than anyone on the team.” His heart skipped a beat. “Still, even the Astrophage are more coordinated than you sometimes.”
“Eva Stratt, is that a joke? What parallel universe have I landed in?”
“It’s not a joke, I’m teasing you,” she clarified. “There’s a difference.”
“There’s barely a difference.”
“That is debatable.”
She had calmed down a bit, no longer shaking with laughter but still smiling nonetheless, her stunning blue eyes shining with mirth. Noticing that his glasses had been knocked askew, she slowly reached up to reposition the frames on the bridge of his nose, the movement so deliberately careful it made his breath hitch.
Only then did she seem to remember the position they were in. She cleared her throat and pushed herself up slightly.
“It’s late, I should go,” she started. His hands tightened their grip around her waist instinctively. Where the sudden burst of confidence came from, Grace wasn’t sure, but he could overthink that later.
“You moved the usual team meeting to the afternoon, there’s no rush.”
She raised an eyebrow. “The world is ending, Dr. Grace, of course there’s a rush. More importantly, we have to attend a meeting with the Prime Minister of France in the morning, and I would prefer my lead science officer to be functional.”
He waved his hand dismissively. “I went through grad school, functioning without sleep is second nature at this point.”
She sighed, seemingly deciding that wasn’t worth dignifying with a response. “Goodnight, Grace.”
“Please stay,” he blurted out, his voice barely above a whisper. Her brow furrowed.
“Grace-” She fell silent as his fingers brushed back a loose strand of hair, tucking it behind her ear. He didn’t know what was different about that night that allowed them to feel more at ease, granted them this illusion of normalcy, but he knew he wasn’t ready for it to end.
He kissed her. His lips brushed against hers with the lightest pressure, caught up in the heat of the moment. If he thought dancing was crossing a line, this was jumping off a cliff. The contact was brief, a tiny flame coming into existence just before being snuffed out by the wind. Grace pulled away, feeling the way her body had stiffened and a pit settled in his stomach.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-”
The flame reignited with renewed fervor as she kissed him back suddenly, her hands cradling the sides of his face so gently he questioned what he did in life to deserve it, to deserve her. One of his hands moved from her waist to the back of her neck, pulling her impossibly closer to him.
He needed her. Honestly there was nothing he had ever needed more. He held her as if she was the air he needed to breathe, warmth coursing through him as he murmured her name against her lips like a prayer.
Grace ran his fingers through her hair, the soft strands cascading over them like a curtain, sequestering them from the rest of the world. Not that it would’ve made a difference. The rest of the world was nothing more than a distant memory as the sensation of her touch lit his skin on fire, his thoughts collapsing into the singularity that was her.
She sighed against him as the kiss deepened, and Grace thought it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard, wanting nothing more than to continue to pull that sound from her again and again. Something in his chest uncoiled, any tension having been expelled from within him like a summer storm giving way to a warm, gentle rain. Every glance, every touch, had culminated to this moment, and as he held her close to him, their bodies pressed together like puzzle pieces finally fit into place, Grace knew without a doubt he was where he belonged.
It felt like mere seconds and also a lifetime had passed by the time they parted for air, their faces lingering a few inches apart. Her eyes bore into his, pupils blown wide in the dim evening atmosphere, something akin to fondness and longing radiating off her, so palpable he could almost reach out and grasp it between his hands. Then all at once her expression changed like the receding tides, becoming closed off in ways with which he was all too familiar.
Grace anticipated her train of thought before she even had a chance to voice it.
“Don’t do that,” he said, quietly, as if speaking any louder would shatter the illusion they were indulging in. As if one wrong word or movement would cause her to retreat back across the line they had only just begun to cross.
“We cannot do this.”
“Why not?” She opened her mouth to protest but he cut her off, fueled by a momentum he couldn’t afford to lose. His gaze softened, his hand coming up to cup her cheek, though this time she stiffened, resisting leaning into his touch.
“You’re allowed to want something, Eva.” He didn’t miss the shiver that ran through her as he said her name. “No one would fault you for wanting to connect with the people around you.”
“That is not something I need,” she said, her voice unwavering, her face perfectly neutral even though her eyes betrayed a maelstrom of thoughts he couldn’t begin to decipher.
“But it’s something you want,” he challenged.
“It isn’t necessary for me to do my job.”
“That wasn’t a denial.”
She sighed. “What I want does not matter.”
“Of course it does-”
“Grace, whatever it is that I want pales in comparison to what is at stake with this mission. I cannot afford any distractions, or else it is humanity that will bear the weight of my decision and suffer the consequences.”
“The world isn’t going to suddenly collapse because you decide to let one person get close to you,” he countered, but she shook her head. The conversation lapsed into a momentary silence, something heavy and fragile hanging in the air between them.
“It isn’t fair to you”, she breathed out, so softly he barely heard it.
“What’s not fair?” he asked, head tilted to the side in minor confusion as he gently stroked her cheek with his thumb. She exhaled shakily.
“I cannot prioritize you, Ryland.”
“I know that.”
“If I were forced to choose between you and humanity, I would choose the rest of the world every time.”
He brought his other hand up, holding her face with as much gentleness as he could muster, regarding her with the same amount of reverence she held for humanity. Because that was her world, and she was his.
“I know that too,” he replied softly, “and I don’t care.”
“Ryland-”
“I know what your job asks of you, how much it demands, forcing you to make impossible decisions the average person couldn’t even begin to fathom. I’m more than aware that comes first, that humanity will always be your top priority. Even so… I don’t care, I want you anyway. And I want to be there for you, in whatever way you’ll let me.”
She stilled, vibrant blue eyes searching as he stared back at her, silently imploring her to listen. He could see the calculations behind her eyes, the careful analysis of his words as she weighed the decision with the same thoroughness she devoted towards the project.
“You will resent me,” she whispered.
“I could never.”
“You’ll inevitably end up alone after the launch, I’ll be imprisoned.”
“I’ll break you out.” Hearing that, she finally huffed out a laugh, the tension slowly draining from her shoulders.
“And how do you suppose you’ll do that?” she asked, the corner of her mouth lifting slightly.
“With Carl, obviously.”
“Carl is a person, not a plan.”
“No no, he is absolutely the plan. Anything’s possible with Carl,” he responded. “How else do you think I was able to breed Astrophage?”
“Presumably with your doctorate in molecular biology.”
“You had 347 other biologists, and I’m pretty sure they all had doctorates, but none of them figured it out. You know why? None of them had Carl.”
She pressed her forehead against his chest. “Mijn toekomst ligt in handen van een idioot.”
“Say what now?”
“Nothing.”
“I know I only speak one language, but that sounded a lot like ‘idiot’ at the end,” he chuckled nervously.
“You are mistaken.”
She lifted her head up to look at him, the soft smile having found its way onto her face once more.
“Okay,” she said.
”Okay what?”
”We may continue with whatever this is.” His eyes lit up and she placed a finger over his mouth. “However, this stays between us, we do not inform the rest of the crew.”
“But think of the betting pools,” he teased. “Lokken would win a lot of money.”
“That is precisely what I am trying to avoid,” she grimaced. “This cannot interfere with the mission in any way, do you understand?”
“Yes ma’am,” he mock-saluted. “One question.”
“Yes?” She regarded him hesitantly.
“Can I tell Carl?”
She pinched the bridge of her nose with a sigh. “No, you cannot tell Carl.”
Grace fidgeted with the hem of his cardigan and looked away. “Ok… cool, yeah, follow up question…what if Carl already knows?”
She blinked at him. “How-“
“He walked by a few minutes ago and looked directly at us.”
“Schijt.”