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The Hail Mary has been quite cramped for the past days, specifically after Rocky moved in. Rocky reminded Grace of his ex-girlfriend. She also had way too many knick-knacks and trinkets for the small apartment he lived in. Grace never really knew what they were all for. Rocky also had a lot of trinkets but alongside that he also had taken up like… 75% of the ship because of the little tunnels he had to live in. At least Rocky actually helped him with his research unlike her.
They retrieved a human (half-human? He looked mutated and was missing an arm) named Simon from… an ocean full of blood? Grace still shivered at the thought of it all. Whose blood was that? Was it really blood or some other substance of unknown origin? The thought of it at all made him feel nauseous. Simon didn't have a lot of things to bring to the Hail Mary but it was another person to take care of, which meant less space and less resources.
Simon had a love for plants, which was normal! The part that wasn’t really normal in his opinion was the fact that he kept muttering something about the ‘Last tree’ and how all the plants were gone’. Grace could have sworn he also heard him say ‘May your body rot’ before he ate. He didn't really wanna question what that meant.
The only reason he wasn't asking in-depth questions about what Simon kept mumbling was because he was terrified that this guy would pounce on him again. Their first meeting was a bit rocky to be honest, with Simon yelling at him about the C.O.I. and how he was apparently one of them. Grace was patient with Simon but he was still really curious about everything.
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It was a regular day. Well, as regular as it could get for a person in space that was heading towards an alien planet. Grace got dressed and headed to the lab, deciding to continue his research on the weird thick blood he managed to collect from Simon before he was awake.
He didn't really mind whatever he wore, considering the fact that Rocky didn’t really know anything about fashion and Simon never really said anything about it. That was apparently about to change.
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Grace was working on his research, stuck in his own thoughts when he heard a voice. For a small teeny tiny second he thought it was Rocky before realizing it was way too deep for the computer-ish voice.
“You have an.. interesting taste in clothes, Ryland.” said Simon. Which was a surprise since he rarely spoke.
“Wha- What is that supposed to mean?” Grace asked. He still wasn't really used to Simon calling him by the first name because he can’t really remember when someone actually said ‘Ryland’ instead of ‘Dr. Grace’ or ‘Grace’.
“You have a shirt that says ‘I wear this periodically' with the periodical table." Replied Simon and before Grace could start defending his shirts or correct Simon that it's actually a periodic table, Simon continued to talk.
“Not to mention the.. ‘I don't wanna be a Princess, I wanna be a scientist!’ shirt you wore yesterday.”
Okay… Grace couldn't really explain that. He still didn't have that much memory of what he wore when he was on earth. Did he really wear clothes like that?
“I don’t really remember what I wore on earth.. Did I really wear clothes like that? I mean, I’m pretty sure the only shirts that I had that were fancy in a way was a suit and maybe some plain ones?” Grace mumbled, more to himself than anything.
“I’m not judging you Ryland- I’m just curious.” Simon stopped the mumbling coming from Grace.
“I was a teacher back on Earth- specifically a science teacher, I also studied molecular biology which is the reason why I'm even here right now. I guess I thought they were funny?” Grace replied while looking at Simon directly. He still wasn’t exactly used to his face so Grace regretted doing that.
Simon just nodded and walked towards the plants again.
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That encounter with Simon had Grace thinking about it the entire day. Did he really wear these kinds of shirts on earth?
Rocky was working on making some kind of trinket out of his xenonite and Simon was hanging out in the projector room, Grace could heard the faint chirps of birds from the direction of the room. Grace was walking towards the place where he kept his clothes and started to sort through them as he stared at all the different text and graphics on them.
‘I put the Ace in Space’, ‘Molecular biology rocks!’, ‘I had potential’ and a bunch more. He put them down in confusion, first of all, he did NOT wear these on earth. Second of all, who bought them for him then? Maybe he bought them himself while Carl took him to get the things he needed for the Venus box experiment, maybe someone accidently mismatched his shirts with a shirt from Dubois, or maybe one from Yao?
Grace climbed back up to the lab, confusion still on his face. He needs to relax. Why is he thinking about this so much anyways? He needs to focus on the blood.