Archive of Our Own

Holly March is just a child—no matter how she tries to convince herself otherwise.

A child, helplessly watching grief strip away the father she knew and changing him into someone else entirely. Holly is not blind, though sometimes she wishes she could be—then she wouldn't have to see how Dad had quickly transformed into a stranger.

There's a Before and an After, she thinks. Before the fire. After Mom's death.

Before the fire: Dad was happy. He smiled so much, his eyes constantly crinkling into crescents. A cigarette would dangle from his lips sometimes, not smoking as often as he does now, After.

Dad drinks a lot now. Bottles—empty, half-empty—are scattered all around the house. He chain smokes more than he ever used to, replacing one cigarette with another. The stench of smoke and alcohol coils around her father like a noose, sticking to his clothes and seeping into his bones. Holly doesn't think he knows how strongly he smells. She doesn't tell him.

Some things are still the same.

He hugs her the same way. Lifting her into his arms—no matter how big she has grown, sliding a hand into her hair and letting her hide her face in the crook of his neck. But now, Dad holds her like she could disappear. There's a faint tremble in his arms that Holly wishes she hadn't noticed.

Holly misses Mom too, fiercely, desperately. It aches—her grief is a physical pain, a phantom hand holding onto her heart and squeezing tight. A lump in her throat when Holly looks at her shelf of books and remembers how she would curl up against her mother as she read. The pain radiating from her nails digging into her skin when she realises how empty the house is. The prickle of tears in her eyes when she waits for Mom's goodnight kiss on her cheek, only to remember that, oh, she's gone now—she will never get that again.

(Sometimes, Dad kisses her on the forehead as he tucks her to bed. It's not the same. But he's trying.)

She misses Dad too.

Holly is not blind. She can tell he's somewhat trying—all for her sake—but it's not enough. Plainly speaking, he's a mess. He's a fuck up. Dad throws himself into his investigative work, extracting as much money as he can from his victims/clients via unethical means. She hates it, but her disapproval doesn't faze her father. Sometimes he comes back with miscellaneous injuries, and always drunk out of his mind. She chokes on her worry. Then he does it again and again until it becomes a norm, and the worry fades a little.

Her father lives as if he has little regard for his well-being, and Holly hopes that's simply not true.

Most times, he's too drunk or too hungover to drive. She takes over, gripping the wheel tightly as she sneaks glances at her father smoking in the passenger's seat.

(Once, she watched him stumble into their rental house, tie loosened around his neck, before standing very still in the middle of the kitchen, his arms falling by his sides.

"Dad?" she called out after five minutes, mildly concerned at his silence.

"Sweetheart," he slurred. "I love you. I'm sorry."

Holly wasn't sure if he was talking to her, or to an Imaginary Mom.)

Why can't she fix this? Why can't things go back to some semblance of normal? Why must she watch her father drown in his grief and alcohol?

She wants to yell at him, to shake him by the shoulders and scream at him to pull himself together—not that he would fucking listen to her. It feels like she's watching him wither away in the bathtub, his guilt palpable in every word he says to her, and she can't do anything about it.

He's trying, but why can't he try harder?

Holly March would be a liar if she said she'd never blamed her father. Grief is a vicious, irrational thing. Sometimes she looks at the speck of flame coming from Dad's lighter, silently—angrily—wondering why her father couldn't just listen. Then the fire wouldn't have happened. Home would still be here. Their family would still be intact, untouched by flame.

But truthfully, there's no one to blame.

She hates her father. She loves her father. When Holly looks at her father slumped on the couch, holding a cigarette burnt down to the filter, she feels like she's stuck in this superposition where she can't make sense of what to feel.

Today is a bad day. Holly only slept 3 hours, having woken up from a dream and being unable to fall back asleep again. It's something that only started recently, but again and again, she dreams of her family. Not quite nightmares, just dreams that leave her breathless and choking on her sobs.

(She dreamt of her mother, standing quietly in the kitchen with her back facing Holly, fixing up a meal for her. The fire flared, a pancake cooking in the hot pan—the scene startlingly familiar and domestic in a way that hadn't happened in a while. Holly moved closer, feeling tears well up in her eyes, until she stood right behind her mother. Her arms shook as she embraced her mother from behind.

"What's wrong, love?" Mom asked, her voice soft and lilting.

"Nothing," Holly gasped out, leaning against her mother as if they could meld into one, the fabric of Mom's clothes growing wet under her skin.

She detached herself from her mother, silently examining her side profile—eyes focused on the pancakes, lips pursed. Holly looked at the fire flickering under the pan, volatile and violent.

Holly woke up, then.)

She went to school, fatigue threatening to pull her under. Slumped on the desk, Holly fell asleep in Science class and was woken up by Mr. Grace after the lesson had ended. He didn't say anything, but she couldn't meet his concerned gaze.

Then at night, her father dragged her to drive him to meet a client, like she was his fucking (unpaid) chauffeur. She protested, but he insisted.

Now, she sits in the driver's seat, scowling at the house impatiently.

"Can I ask you a question?" Dad asks her as he settles into the passenger seat. She turns to face him, already irritated.

"Tell me the truth. And don't… take it easy on me just 'cause I'm your father. You just… tell it to me straight," he continues, rambling in a way that screams uncertainty. "…Am I a bad person?"

"Yes." The word spills out of her mouth before she can even properly consider the question. She rolls her eyes, tearing her gaze away from him.

Holly knows her father well enough. Without looking at him, she can sense the hurt radiating from him, even as he scoffs in disbelief. "Just drive," he mutters, resigned.

She thinks of the fire. She thinks of how he extorts money from his clients.

Is her father really a bad person? Or does he choose to be one?

School is a distraction.

Unlike some of her peers, Holly does enjoy school most of the time. Not Math, because Mr. Sanders is an actual piece of shit. The other subjects are great, but there's one subject that captured her heart.

She hadn't cared for Science in a while; it was just something that she was good at. But then she met Mr. Grace—her first impression of him being rumpled hair, crooked glasses and a slanted, unsure smile.

Holly soon learnt that Mr. Grace teaches with a fervent passion, everything about him warm and fond, like the sun. He teaches—really teaches—with the intention of making everyone fully understand the subject. Insistent on leaving no one behind, especially as he patiently explains concepts to her classmates, without a single hint of exasperation in his voice. Questions seem to fuel him, prompting his smile to grow wider as he nods excitedly, starting to ramble and go on a tangent.

Above all, Mr. Grace doesn't only want her and her classmates to understand, but also to love. And if loving science is not possible for them, he, at the very least, wants them to have fun in his classes. He complains about spending too much time on arts and crafts to decorate the classroom, but he continues to do it anyway—adorning the classroom with planets (and a disco ball for some reason). Mr. Grace tosses a crocheted ball of earth around, calls it 'Lava' as he cheerfully asks them Science questions.

Under Mr. Grace's care and teaching, she grows to love Science. Her indifference towards the subject turns into curiosity, then spirals into an interest that consumes her. Holly does her homework with more vigour now, writing questions at the bottom of the page in pencil—which Mr. Grace happily answers, even adding a smiley face next to his words.

Perhaps it's too early to say, but Holly thinks of Mr. Grace as the kind of teacher that leaves a permanent mark on your life, a teacher you remember after years have passed. The first teacher you think of when you reminisce about your schooling years.

So when Mr. Grace quietly tells her to see him after class, she's afraid that she has disappointed him in some way. Holly stands in front of his desk and braces for impact. Instead, Mr. Grace frowns and asks gently, "Is everything alright, Holly?"

"What do you mean?" she responds, confused.

"Well, I guess I noticed that, uh, something seems to be wrong? I mean, I could be assuming things, but you keep falling asleep in class." Mr. Grace is starting to ramble, fiddling with his glasses and looking terribly uncertain. "You don't… You don't usually fall asleep in my class. You okay?"

Holly can feel her face fall.

"I'm not blaming you!" Mr. Grace exclaims hurriedly, starting to fumble for words. "There's nothing wrong! Your academic performance is great, everything's okay! I'm just— I-I'm just concerned. If there's anything I can… help… with, I would like to help if I'm able to. But, uh, don't feel pressured to say anything if you really don't want to!"

She can feel the neatly kept bundle of turmoil in her chest start to unravel, the ache in her heart returning. Her heart thunders in her chest, quivering and vibrating with barely restrained emotion. Her eyes well up with tears, but she—discreetly—blinks them away. She sniffs.

Her jaw clenches. Holly wants to speak. She has kept this to herself for too long. Wants to tear the words out from her vocal chords and scream until she's hoarse and shaking. Wants to cry and weep, but she has to hold strong for herself and for her father. Wants to say something to describe the grief of losing a mother and losing a father to himself—but there's nothing that she can say to describe the ache to Mr. Grace who's patiently waiting.

But she has to speak, else she would explode into a million pieces, leaving her father to pick up the glass shards.

Holly keeps it vague, unemotional—she's not quite sure if she succeeds at it. She tells him about the space between Before and After. The fire, the accident. Mom's death and Dad's grief. She tells Mr. Grace that Dad changed. She speaks in a roundabout way and doesn't go into detail.

Mr. Grace listens attentively.

Hesitantly, she tells him about her dreams. It's an explanation for sleeping in his classes, she thinks he at least deserves the explanation.

When she's done, Holly can feel the tension in her body loosen as she exhales.

"Thank you for trusting me with this, Holly," Mr. Grace says gently, his eyes soft and misty. "What you're going through is a lot. I am… I'm so sorry for your loss. For your mom and… and for everything that came after."

"Okay," she says, voice strangled. What else can she say?

"The dreams, well…" He shakes his head a little. "I understand what you mean. Grief has a way of, uh, following people into their sleep."

She stares at her hands.

"You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to," he continues, looking up at Holly with earnest eyes. "But if you're having a difficult day or you just need a place to… to breathe, my door is always open. I promise you."

Holly stares at him for a moment. She nods.

Grief is a strange thing she doesn't know how to tackle, but the time passes anyway, and she slowly learns to live with it. To co-exist with the grief, and not let it consume her whole.

Holly still dreams of her mother. She still thinks of her at the most mundane times—during a trip to the library, when driving past a diner, while eating breakfast with Dad and Mr. Healy—but it's with a tinge of wistfulness and nostalgia.

Even Dad seems to be happier now, lighter—like the burden that weighs him down is lessened, his smiles wider and more genuine. There are bad days, of course, and Holly is faintly aware that her father doesn't know how to deal with his grief either. But he's happier. It's not a solution, but it's a start.

There's only one person responsible and it's Mr. Healy.

Dad and Mr. Healy work together now. Mr. Healy comes over and they sit next to each other as they discuss their cases, brushing arms. Other times, he sits next to Holly and helps her with Math. Mr. Healy steals their Yoo-hoo too, but Holly doesn't think she minds.

Holly is not blind; she can see how her father looks at Mr. Healy with such fondness in his eyes. She can see how Mr. Healy is caught in Dad's orbit and how he doesn't want to leave anyway.

She is, also, completely unimpressed with how neither Dad or Mr. Healy has made a move (to her knowledge, at least). This is ridiculous. Two grown ass men who are obviously in love with the other, yet too oblivious to just kiss.

Even Mr. Grace took one look at them and casually called them her "dads".

(She immediately thought of Mom when Mr. Grace called them her "dads", and she's irritated by her own thought. It's not like Mr. Healy is replacing Mom in any way. And it's not like Dad wants to replace her.)

Their house starts to resemble a home. The empty space in their house left by Mom is still there, it's a hollow ache that will remain, but Holland and Holly March make space for a Mr. Healy in their lives and in their home.

She's happier now, she can say that with certainty.

Holly really enjoys Science now, especially space science. She pesters Mr. Grace with questions about the stars which he either answers enthusiastically or mumbles a "I'll get back to you on that". During lunch, Holly and her friends—except Janet, obviously, fuck her—decide to visit his classroom, which results in a very confused Mr. Grace who insists that they should please stay in the cafeteria.

They don't listen to him. They continue to sit in his classroom.

When her classmates catch wind of this, Holly inadvertently starts a trend of students ditching the cafeteria to come to their Science teacher's classroom. Mr. Grace's bewilderment only grows with each passing day, the expression on his face growing more and more puzzled as he mentally counts the number of students coming in.

"I really don't understand you guys," he says for the nth time, looking up from his cup of instant noodles. Mr. Grace holds chopsticks like it's his first time holding a utensil. "Go socialise outside or something."

"We are socialising!" Abby pipes up, smiling sweetly. "Just that it's in your classroom."

Mr. Grace puts down his chopsticks, the corners of his mouth twitching. Despite his clear confusion, Holly can tell that he genuinely enjoys their company.

"We know you like hearing class gossip anyway," Holly says teasingly, and Mr. Grace's mouth falls open in fake indignation.

He clears his throat. "I can neither confirm nor deny that accusation," he says, his eyes sparkling like light reflecting off rippling water. The class erupts into laughter.

Mr. Grace grins.

On a particularly bad day, she shuffles over to his classroom. "Hey Mr. Grace," she says, lingering at the open door. The classroom is empty.

He lifts his head, turning to meet her eyes. Mr. Grace sets down his red pen. "Hello Holly," he greets cheerfully.

"Can I talk to you about…" Her voice trails off, suddenly sheepish and uncertain. "About stuff?"

Mr. Grace smiles, his eyes crinkling into crescents. "Of course," he says softly. "I told you my door's always open, didn't I?"

When the news about the space dots hits the school, there's so much chatter among her classmates, Holly can hardly pay attention in class because her mind is stuck on the dots. They could be alive… Which would make them aliens. Alien life!

Who would be a better person to ask than their Science teacher?

"Are they really eating the sun? The space dots?" Rekha interrupts the lesson with the question on everyone's minds.

Mr. Grace falters. "That is a great question, uh, Rekha, and I’d be curious what your parents think about that?" He pointedly avoids the question. "I’m not sure it should come from me."

He tries to move the lesson along but the class doesn't let him. Holly can feel his reluctance as he unwillingly acquiesces to their demands, attaching red tape between the Sun and Venus. He looks even more defeated when the class doesn't drop the subject and instead pursues it with renewed interest.

"It's a small whoop… It's a small to medium whoop." Holly watches as Mr. Grace visibly struggles between telling the truth and softening his words. "Over the next 30 years, the earth could… cool maybe 10 to… 15 degrees."

"So it is a big whoop."

"I heard that all the crops will die, the economy will free-fall, and half the Earth will die of starvation," Rekha interrupts again, rambling like the words are forcing their way out of her lips.

The words hit hard. The classroom erupts into anxious chaos, panicked murmurs filling the room. "We're all gonna die," someone groans, and Holly sucks in a breath. She stares at the red tape, her eyes widening in horror—almost paralysed by the sudden fear that grips her.

"You're forgetting something! Guys, guys!" Mr. Grace interjects, his voice cutting through the panic. The class quietens, almost on command. "That's if that were to happen. Right? They're gonna figure this out!"

"Right now, the best minds in the entire world are on it." Mr. Grace grins—and the class starts to relax.

It takes a moment, but the lesson resumes as if nothing happened.

Then Mr. Grace disappears—and she doesn't know it yet, but things start to fall apart very slowly.

Dad is a good detective when he tries. So is Holly.

When a substitute teacher shuffles into the classroom, replacing Mr. Grace who had promised to let them watch a movie today, something stirs in her gut—a feeling of wrongness, something in her shifting like tectonic plates.

"Where's Mr. Grace?" Larry yells out from the back of the classroom.

The substitute teacher looks up, eyes bored. "He's absent. He has left no instructions," he says flatly. "You can treat this as a free period."

Her classmates start to murmur, a low and incomprehensible hum of words she doesn't catch. Holly frowns, exchanging a look with Jessica who doesn't seem to be as bothered as she is.

"Mr. Grace promised us we could watch a movie though!" Larry continues to yell, his voice piercing through the wall of noise.

The teacher stares at Larry for a moment, his expression unchanging. His jaw ticks. "Okay," he says blandly, uncaring.

The class burst into cheers, confusion quickly forgotten as they excitedly discuss which movie to watch. But Holly stills, continuing to stare at the teacher—a man without blond hair or glasses dangling off his chin precariously.

She tilts her head to the side, deep in thought. It's weird. By the way the class is acting, Holly is sure Mr. Grace's absence is an insignificant issue. It's not like he has never been absent before. She still remembers, once, that Mr. Grace got so sick he was absent for nearly a week. But still, even with his sickness, he remembered to write detailed lesson plans for the substitute teacher—and she knows this because the sub spent a whole minute reading out his instructions like it was a speech.

No instructions this time. No lesson plans.

But as the substitute teacher puts on Superman, Holly thinks to herself that she must be blowing things out of proportion. Everything is fine. She's being paranoid.

Everything is, decidedly, not fine.

Mr. Grace has vanished off the face of the earth.

He's absent for three days before the same substitute teacher, Mr. Dune, picks up where Mr. Grace left off and starts to teach them Science. It takes about one and a half weeks before the school starts to truly gossip about Mr. Grace's whereabouts. Three weeks go by, and conspiracy theories start to spread around the school—ranging from chronic illness to police imprisonment to… alien abduction.

The most popular theory perpetuated by Kevin—who also refuses to say anything about his last encounter with their Science teacher—is that Mr. Grace got involved in "shady government shit", which, frankly, seems possible.

(Every time Holly walks home, she slows her footsteps when she catches the sight of Mr. Grace's bicycle. It's still there, largely unmoved. Jeff moved it slightly when he decided to tuck his assignment under the wheel of Mr. Grace's bike, insisting that it's a ritual for the 'Science God' to bless his assignment. Other than that, it's been untouched, unmarred by no one's hands except Mr. Grace's.)

Instead, Holly opts for the next best option and confronts a teacher.

"Ms. Chen, can we ask you something unrelated to Math?" Holly asks. There should be some hesitation in her voice, but there isn't.

"Of course," Ms. Chen replies, her voice tinged with curiosity.

"Do you know what happened to Mr. Grace?"

The question seems to catch Ms. Chen off-guard. She raises a brow. "To be honest…" she starts, looking uncertain. "I do not know."

"Really?" Jessica interjects, disappointed.

"I really don't know." Ms. Chen shakes her head. "Principal Whitt says that he took a leave of absence, if that's anything."

Holly frowns. The feeling that something is wrong comes back in full force, settling like a pit in her stomach that only grows heavier and heavier. Not even the teachers know what's going on? "Okay," she says politely, even though everything is very much not okay. "Thank you."

Ms. Chen slings her bag over her shoulder and hums a sound of agreement. "I understand you're both concerned," she says lightly. "But I'm certain he's fine."

Holly manages to get Dad and Mr. Healy to investigate since they have no cases anyway. Dad feigned a look of reluctance but she knows him too well to know that he secretly wants to help.

Life goes on.

Mr. Grace's disappearance fades into the background, her worry somewhat alleviated now that she's handed the case over to the Nice Guys Agency. Her father's a bum most of the time, but she trusts him enough to figure something out.

Holly continues to study hard; it's something Mr. Grace would want from her. Dad mentioned something about Mr. Grace telling her to focus on DNA during their last Parent-Teacher Conference, and she does exactly that.

But Mr. Grace's absence is unmistakable and obvious. Their Science lessons feel dull, the only source of brightness coming from the planets that hang above and the bright arc of the Petrova Line that hovers between the Sun and Venus. There's a distinct lack of laughter, lack of a beanbag soaring through the air. There's a missing blond man standing at the front of the classroom, iluminating their lessons with a big smile, eyes bright like the blue sky on a summer morning.

During Science lessons, her attention drifts away from Mr. Dune's droning voice, her gaze moving higher and higher as she gazes at the vibrant red of the tape between the Sun and Venus.

She really misses Mr. Grace.

Holly pesters both Dad and Mr. Healy to tell her something about the progress on their investigation, but they stubbornly refuse to tell her anything. What the hell. That's her teacher—she has every right to know! But Dad and Mr. Healy disagree, and there's nothing much she can do about it.

Until she realises she can do some detective work of her own.

Unfortunately for them and fortunately for her, her father is untidy when it comes to paperwork. Case files and notebooks are scattered all over the table. When Dad and Mr. Healy leave the house (hopefully to go on a date), Holly peers at the papers, eyes roaming over her father's surprisingly neat handwriting. Her eyes latch onto the words 'Eva Stratt - big boss, kidnapper?'—and everything stills.

It all clicks, like jigsaw pieces falling into place and settling into an image, clear and conclusive.

She googles Eva Stratt and doesn't find anything recent. Nothing except her administrative job at the European Space Agency. Eva Stratt must have kidnapped Mr. Grace to work for ESA, even though it doesn't make sense.

Fuck.

Holly paces around the house, trying to regulate her rapid breathing. Her clammy hands are shaking.

It's okay. It's okay. Dad and Mr. Healy will get him back.

"What the hell," Holly says blandly.

Both Dad and Mr. Healy are drenched from head to toe, despite it being a bright sunny day. Dad shakes his head like a wet dog shaking off water. Water droplets scatter onto the floor, creating several small puddles. Holly stifles a groan. She's going to have to clean that up later.

"Did you both go swimming with your clothes on?" she grumbles, then as the thought occurs to her, her voice pitches higher as she gasps out, "Or did you almost drown?"

Dad waves her worry away, the motion light and flippant. "We found your teacher," he says instead, and the tension in her uncoils.

Her lips part before they twist into a pleased grin. "Really?" she says, unable to hide her excitement. "Is he back now? Did you save him?"

Dad and Mr. Healy share a look, but her father's eyes quickly dart away as if burned by eye contact. Her father fidgets on the spot, then takes a step to the right. The distance between them is suddenly wider, a strange tension palpable.

"This might be hard to hear," Mr. Healy starts, hesitating. "But—"

"The man said he's not gonna leave," Dad interrupts, folding his arms tightly.

What?

"He got kidnapped and he doesn't want to leave?" she splutters, eyes blowing wide. She notices that Mr. Healy shoots Dad a dirty look, muttering a "fucking hell, March", but Dad doesn't respond.

"How'd you know he got kidnapped?" Dad narrows his eyes.

She doesn't answer the question. "What do you mean he's not going to leave?" Her voice is growing desperate, upset, she can't control it. "Is he not coming back?"

Dad notices—of course he does. His eyes soften. He moves closer to Holly until he's standing right in front of her. "He says he's coming back," Dad says. "He promises that he's coming back."

"Then why is he not leaving?"

Dad scratches at his stubble. "Uh, it's— it's confidential. We uncovered some secret government project—I don't think you should know 'bout it… They were one second from gunning us down and—"

"Dad!"

He flinches. "Jesus, Holly, don't yell—"

"He's my teacher!" She jabs a trembling finger at her own chest. "I have the right to know. I told you about his absence in the first place!"

"Okay, okay!" Dad blurts out, holding up his hands in a placating manner. "Alright. I get it."

Healy clears his throat. Dad shifts on his feet uncomfortably. "You've heard about the Petrova Line bullshit, yeah?" When Holly nods, he continues, "He's working on it."

She's stunned.

"He wants to stay there," Dad says carefully, then mumbles, "He's some expert on astrophage, apparently. I don't even know what that is, but it sounds pretty impressive."

He wants to stay there? Her fingers curl into fists, tightening, her nails pressing into her skin. She's frozen in place, attention wholly captured by the words flowing out of her father's mouth.

"He says to relay his apologies to you," he continues softly.

"Mr. Grace promised to come back?" Her voice sounds small.

"Yeah."

"Pinky-promise?"

Dad is quiet for a moment. "No," he says, finally. "But I think Grace won't break his word."

Mr. Grace's absence is solved. The case is closed. There should be some relief that Mr. Grace is seemingly okay but there is none. She misses him, and she can tell that the school feels the same way too.

She wants her teacher back. It's selfish, she knows it; she knows that Mr. Grace is doing great things. She's proud of him. But can't they find someone else? She wants her favourite teacher back, is that so hard?

Even worse, Dad is acting weird. There's a sudden distance between him and Mr. Healy, imposed by her father who's suddenly pushing the other man away. Holly can't figure out what's wrong with her damn father. It's like all the progress they've made has abruptly dissolved into nothing.

They don't sit next to each other anymore. Dad opts to sit across from Mr. Healy—Holly catches the initial look of confusion on Mr. Healy's face before it's quickly wiped away. Dad's withdrawn into himself, even though he still struts around like nothing's wrong.

The worst part is the alcohol. Dad was managing his alcohol consumption, gradually reducing how alcohol he was downing, trying to curb his addiction. Now, it's like something has cracked open and Dad is back to drowning his sorrows in liquor, shoving Mr. Healy aside to make way for a drink.

On a Saturday where the Nice Guys Agency has no cases but Mr. Healy pops by anyway, Holly watches as Dad shifts uncomfortably, staring quietly at Mr. Healy when he thinks he isn't looking.

"What is wrong with Dad?" she hisses to Mr. Healy, when Dad steps away to piss.

Mr. Healy looks at her, his soft smile falling apart, his expression crumpling. "I don't know," he says, and it hurts to hear.

"Did you do something?" she asks, desperate for some explanation for her father's odd behaviour.

"No," he answers, voice dull. "I… I don't think so."

"You should talk to him," she says, folding her arms and trying to sound mature. She hopes a talk between them can fix whatever rift has sprouted between them before it widens to become a canyon, unfixable forever.

Mr. Healy nods, looking away. "I guess you're right," he says lightly.

(Holly caught him staring at his hand, once, the other hand lightly grasping the neck of a bottle. When she looked closer, she caught a glimpse of a thin chain and the glint of gold, light reflecting off the surface of a ring. His wedding ring, nestled in the palm of his hand.

"I'm sorry, Sweetheart," Dad slurred—this time she's sure that he's speaking to an imaginary Mom.

Her heart wrenched in its cage and she looked away.)

She's supposed to be asleep. When she hears commotion outside, Holly slips out of her room and peers out from behind a wall.

Dad and Mr. Healy are standing in the kitchen. Dad's holding onto another bottle of alcohol. Mr. Healy has wrapped a hand around Dad's wrist, holding him still and preventing him from drinking.

"Get off me!" Dad squawks, his voice loud and drunken, pressing his other hand against Mr. Healy's chest and shoving. But Mr. Healy doesn't move. "The fuck are you doing? Get— Get off me!"

"What is wrong with you?" Mr. Healy demands, sounding angry. "Why are you starting to drink so much again?"

"Goddamn it, Healy, fuck off," Dad slurs, matching his anger. "What do you know?"

"What happened to fixing your alcohol addiction?"

"…You don't fucking know me," Dad spits out.

A beat. Then, "But I do, Holland," Mr. Healy says.

Dad freezes. The fight drains out of him. He mumbles something that Holly can't hear.

"…Don't believe you…" Holly has to strain her ears to hear Mr. Healy, his voice dipped low. "…Grace say something to you…?"

Her father flinches. Holly startles. What does her teacher have to do with this? She can see Mr. Healy startles too, by how he takes a step closer.

There's a stillness hanging in the air, like the blade of a guillotine hanging suspended—and they're all waiting for it to drop. Her father is standing terribly still, as if breaking the silence would ruin something, ruin everything.

The silence goes on for so long that Holly starts to wonder if she should even be here. She feels like she's intruding on a private conversation. Fuck that, she's definitely intruding.

She's about to turn and leave, but Dad finally speaks.

"Did I ever tell you my wife's name?"

The words catch both her and Mr. Healy off-guard. She stills, a shaky exhale escaping her.

"No," Mr. Healy says carefully. "You didn't."

"Her name's Lily. Lily March," he says, soft and gentle, his voice lilting and slowing in a way that suggests that he's trying to remember her, to reminisce, even as his mind grows hazy with alcohol. "She was beautiful like… like the flower, yeah?"

"…I really loved her, you know. I love her. She was my other half. My… My better half. Half of me— Whatever the hell they call it. I… I've never loved anyone more." He pauses for a second, then huffs, "Maybe except Holly."

"I love— I loved her so much—" His voice cracks here; he sounds like he's on the verge of tears, breaking, shattering, after all she and Mr. Healy did to piece him back together. "And now I'm fucking forgetting her."

A guilty look crosses Mr. Healy's face, visible even from afar. "March, look, I'm sorry, you don't have to tell me this—"

"I do, Jackson, I fucking do!" Dad cries out, his voice raising. Holly can see how his hands are trembling, so much so that she briefly fears that he would drop the alcohol bottle and it would shatter at their feet. His chest heaves violently, shaking as he exhales.

"What are we, Jack?" Dad asks quietly, barely audible and desperately afraid.

Mr. Healy lets go of his wrist, as if scalded. Dad drops his arm; it falls to his side, liquid sloshing in the fragile glass. "…What do you want us to be?" Mr. Healy asks, voice shaking.

"I want… I—" Dad rasps, painfully loud in the silence. "I'm in love with you." He says it plainly, without emotion, heart and soul laid bare for Mr. Healy to examine and pick apart.

Oh.

"But I can't do that to you, I can't," Dad chokes out, the emotions spilling out, his voice raw and broken. "You know me, I'm a fucking mess and I don't know how not to be," he rambles, almost incoherent, his hand pressing against his heart where the ring rests against, fingers curling as he grasps onto his ring like a lifeline. "And Lily— I can't… I can't betray—"

Oh, Dad.

When Mr. Healy steps forward, closing the distance between them, gently encircling his hand around her father's wrist, she steps away. She's heard too much. It's not a conversation she should listen to.

She understands guilt and she understands grief, understands how they intertwine. The ring strung on a chain around her father's neck devolves into a noose that tightens every time he thinks of Mr. Healy. She now knows this: her father is frightened, terrified of change. He would rather wallow in guilt and grief—to kick away the chair and let the metaphorical noose choke him—than allow himself to move on. To love Mr. Healy, unrestrained.

Her heart aches; it's a physical pain. Must grief hurt so much? Must it destroy everything they've built?

She dreams of their family—her, Dad, Mom, Mr. Healy—and when she wakes up, she lies in bed for a while until she can get her thoughts in order.

When Holly steps out of her room, she's not sure what she's expecting, but it's certainly not Dad and Mr. Healy in the kitchen. She's surprised that Mr. Healy is here, surprised that Dad hadn't banned him from the house out of shame—ashamed when he should not be. But they're seated next to each other now, brushing shoulders as if the last weeks hadn't happened.

"Healy made pancakes," her father says, in lieu of a greeting. "They don't taste like shit."

Mr. Healy glares at him. "Fuck you," he scowls, stretching a hand towards the pile of pancakes. "You're not getting any more."

Dad yelps and swats his hand away. "Hey, hey, I paid you a compliment." He grabs a pancake from the pile in the middle of the table and stacks it on his plate. Mr. Healy rolls his eyes, a small, fond smile on his face.

They're being domestic, acting like the conversation she eavesdropped on didn't happen. Briefly, she wonders if it was all a dream, but there's an undeniable air of awkwardness that tells her that it wasn't. They could be acting—for her sake—since she isn't supposed to know about The Conversation, but Holly knows that they're both especially terrible liars. They shouldn't and wouldn't be able to act like this, unless they made up after she decided to go to bed.

(Damn it, she should've stayed and eavesdropped.)

"Is… everything okay?" she asks, hopeful.

Dad blinks, brows furrowing. He looks confused by the question. "Yeah," he says, shifting in his seat awkwardly. "What d'ya mean?" He shoots a quick look at Mr. Healy.

"Eat your pancakes," Mr. Healy says, looking up at her and smiling. "Everything's alright, kid."

She believes them.

Holly still catches her father touching the ring hanging against his chest—it's a nervous tic that she thinks Dad will never shake off.

After the talk, it feels like a barrier between her father and Mr. Healy has shattered. She's very sure that they're not together (yet), but there's a newfound ease and comfort in how they interact, naturally allowing themselves to gravitate towards the other.

"Will you stay for dinner, Mr. Healy?" she asks. "The Hail Mary launch is today, we can all watch it together!"

A few weeks ago, Project Hail Mary was finally announced, an interstellar trip to space to find a solution to fix the Petrova Line. Holly's excited, but honestly, she thought the name was a little grim. Project Hail Mary? Seriously? Surely they could've used a name that inspired a little more hope?

She sees the names of the astronauts all over the news way before the launch, newcasters covering their credentials and achievements. Captain Yao Li-Jie. Engineer Olesya Ilyukhina. Scientist Martin DuBois.

"Sure," Mr. Healy says, shrugging. "Should I cook?"

"Dad says he's cooking today."

Mr. Healy pretends to frown. "That sounds like a 'yes' from you."

Holly laughs, then laughs even harder when Dad peeks out of the kitchen, an affronted look on his face. "Jack, are you talking shit about me?"

The spaghetti Dad cooks isn't too bad, especially considering the other monstrosities he has cooked up before. It just tastes really strong. She has no idea how to describe the exotic taste but she giggles when Mr. Healy feigns a look of disgust.

Later, the three of them sit on the couch—she rests her head on her father's shoulder as he huddles against Mr. Healy, the distance between them non-existent. The television flashes. She can see the Hail Mary ship looming in the background as the reporter starts to speak.

The screen splits into two, a picture sliding into view. It's a professional photograph taken against a dark background: a headshot of Commander Yáo Li-Jie dressed in a yellow flight suit, body angled away but still looking directly at the camera. His eyes are piercing though he is expressionless.

"The Hail Mary will be piloted by Commander Yáo Li-Jie. Notably, he has piloted a Chinese National Space Agency expedition to the International Space Station back in 2024. He will be survived by his wife and two children."

The picture of Commander Yáo is replaced by a similar picture of Engineer Olesya Ilyukhina in the same flight suit, positioned in the same manner. Her eyes are bright, a small smile gracing her face, her brown hair neatly tied back in a ponytail.

"Russian engineer Olesya Ilyukhina serves as both engineer and materials specialist aboard the Hail Mary, due to her vast experience working for Roscosmos for close to a decade. She will be survived by her parents and sister."

The picture shifts again to show Dr. Martin DuBois, but there's a sudden pause in the broadcast.

"Dr. Martin DuBois was supposed to serve as the Science expert aboard the Hail Mary, but we, uh… have received word that Dr. DuBois has recently passed away in a tragic accident—"

The picture of Dr. Martin DuBois is replaced by an entirely different picture of a blond man. The background is white. The man's glasses are knocked askew, lips quirked in a small smirk. He's not wearing the yellow flight suit like the other astronauts. The collar of his coat flares out, the same way as she remembers it whenever he cycles past, happily waving to her.

"Dr. Ryland Grace has volunteered to join the mission as the replacement Science specialist. He is the world's leading expert on astrophage and the First Officer of Project Hail Mary…"

The man wears a familiar yellow raincoat in the picture instead of a yellow flight suit—because he isn't an astronaut.

There's a faint ringing in her ears. Holly stares at the picture, memorising it until it disappears. She can feel the blood draining from her face, black spots dancing across her vision. Her vision is blurry but she continues to stare. Even in a professional picture, his glasses are still askew. Isn't that funny?

She tears her eyes away from the screen. A half-empty bottle of liquor sits on the table, and her eyes lock in on it. Jack Daniel's, it reads. She says it in her head a few times. Jack Daniel's.

Holly can feel Dad and Mr. Healy's stares boring into her, but she doesn't move. She can't move. Her eyes are wide, unseeing. She can't hear the broadcast anymore.

Her heart vibrates in her chest so loud she can feel it, hammering against her ribcage. Her fingers graze the linen surface of the couch, tracing absently. Her fingers move in quick spirals. She presses down harder, nails digging into the furniture.

Reality barely registers.

A sensation of frigid coldness crawls through her. There's something crushing her heart, her chest tightening like a vice, forcing the air out of her lungs and she suddenly cannot breathe, cannot think.

She is still, but the world goes on. It's unfair, she thinks, it should stop too. Not just for her, but for him.

Her mind drifts. Holly pictures the classroom. The planets, the sun, the disco ball. The posters of space plastered on the walls. Remembers the trinkets on the teacher's table. A white mug that reads 'WORLD'S BEST TEACHER' gifted to him by Regina. Pulling up the sleeves of his grey blazer as he gestures at the conical flask attached to the retort stand. His toothy smile, the way he leans forward and peers over his glasses. The sound of his voice.

He promises he's coming back.

The memory of Dad's words strike her like a gunshot to the chest. Her lips part, lower lip trembling. Air rushes in. He promised.

He promised. Why didn't he say goodbye?

Her throat constricts. She looks back at the television screen now, looks at the light blue sky. There's a dazed numbness blossoming in her chest, a persistent pressure exerted behind her eyelids, but Holly just stares, eyes tracing the outline of the Hail Mary.

"Holly," Dad breathes, and the stillness shatters.

"You said he promised." Her voice is flat, stricken, but it trembles.

"I—"

"You said he promised," she repeats, voice shrill.

Holly doesn't cry. The fabric of Dad's clothes is dry when she presses her face against it, burrowing into his embrace—a daughter seeking comfort from her father. He's warm and present and holding her so firmly she wants to cry.

She doesn't cry.

The broadcast crackles. "We honour their noble sacrifices," the reporter says solemnly.

"Believe in the Hail Mary."

Engines roar as the spacecraft leaves the earth, a trail of white streaking across the sky in an arc—like the Petrova Line. The reporter and news anchor start to converse. But all Holly can hear is the engine. It echos in her head, drowning out all else.

The school is quiet, the sound of children's laughter suppressed under the weight of the Hail Mary, buried under the burden of Mr. Ryland Grace's absence.

Holly sits in her seat, back rimrod straight. Life goes on, she knows it, but nothing seems real. She feels detached from her surroundings as she stares at the posters taped to the classroom walls, as if watching a silent film through frosted glass. Merely a spectator as her class wallows in their silent grief, waiting for someone to shatter their delicate silence, to let their sorrow overflow and spill out.

Everything feels wrong, alien and surreal, as if she's wandering around in a dream. She waits for Mr. Grace to walk into the classroom right now and tell them that this was all an elaborate prank. And they would giggle and laugh, and Mr. Grace would look so proud of himself. She waits. Waits for reality to register.

"Is Mr. Grace really gone?" she hears someone murmur, breaking the silence.

The classroom instantly bursts into conversation, loud but muted to her ears—as if Holly's submerged underwater, never to resurface.

"Didn't you watch the news? He's gonna save us!"

"He's going to fucking die in space!"

"I'm gonna fail Science now." It's a quiet murmur—from Kevin no less, but the statement wrenches her back into sudden consciousness. It's a selfish thought, to think of yourself instead of the teacher who's sacrificed his life on earth to save 8 billion people. But Holly wants to be selfish too. She wants her teacher back. She wants him to crouch over her desk and explain DNA to her, because she understands best when it's him, no one else. She wants him to sit at his desk and watch him silently paste stickers on their assignments even if they did poorly. She wants to tell him about her grief, because didn't he promise she could talk to him anytime? She wants him to stay. But it's too late to ask him to—because he's already gone.

Gone. Without a word.

And then she thinks about Mr. Grace. About the fear he must have buried deep in his heart when confronting death in the void of space.

(Mr. Grace explained Schrödinger's Cat to her once, albeit confusingly. It's a quantum mechanics thought experiment. She doesn't remember how it came up in conversation.

She sees Mr. Grace as the cat, trapped in a metal ship instead of a box. He's trapped in a superposition, simultaneously both dead and alive—dead because it's the only outcome, alive because she refuses to believe anything else.

But that's not entirely correct. He's not dead. He's still alive, he must be. He's travelling through the stars. He's not dead yet.)

Principal Whitt tells the whole school over the intercom to come to the hall. Holly can guess what it's about.

She doesn't cry.

She doesn't cry when Principal Whitt stands in front of the microphone, hesitating for a noticeable moment before he starts to speak. He starts speaking of Mr. Grace's "noble sacrifice"—it's always the same fucking words, over and over again—, his bravery and his contributions to the school.

When Principal Whitt calls for a moment of silence, it barely registers that she's angry. Holly feels the irrational anger tear through her, thrumming through her veins, buzzing under her skin. Her fingers curl tightly into fists. There's a lump in her throat she can't swallow down no matter how hard she tries, a breath suspended somewhere in her lungs.

(The school is silent; the only sound comes from the ceiling fan that hangs overhead, whirring softly.)

A moment of silence is for the deceased and Mr. Grace isn't dead (yet). He's not. And she's so devastatingly upset that everyone's treating him like he is. He's not, he can't be, she can't go through this again—

Holly walks past Mr. Grace's bicycle. It's still there, unmoved. There's a bouquet of white carnations lying next to the front wheel.

(She googles the meaning of white carnations on her phone. It symbolises remembrance, good luck—and mourning. They're funeral flowers.

Her jaw clenches. She switches off her phone and slides it back into her pocket.)

Holly can't sleep.

She stares into the ceiling. Then she turns to look at the bookshelf.

In that moment, she feels like a child again, gazing at the fire and huddling close to her father who shakily embraced her in silence. She was crying, tears flowing down her cheeks in streams. She remembers thinking she should cry into a bucket, douse the fire that's consuming their house whole.

It was so warm. The hot air stifled her lungs; the smoke billowed out from the house. Heat radiated from their burning home like a fireplace.

She's a child again, curled up in a chair and waiting in the hospital. Holly hummed softly but Dad didn't register the sound. Her father was distant, head clutched in his hands, fingers tearing through his hair. She could hear him crying, merely muffled sobs and ragged breathing. Shattering quietly.

When the doctor approached with her head hung low, her father rose to his feet—eyes teary and knowing.

Holly feels like a child again, even though she was never not one.

She's gone through this before and she's going through it again. But it's different. Holly knows it's not the same thing. One's a mother, one's a teacher.

But the wound never really closed and now someone's tugged it open, scratching at the skin until the wound bleeds anew.

Holly remembers talking to Mr. Grace about grief. It didn't seem right or safe to talk to anyone else when Mom died—there was no one else she really trusted. Dad's there, but he had his own issues.

Now Mr. Grace is gone. Who does she talk to now? Who helps her now?

Losing Mom felt like the end of the world. She bottled it all up until it all exploded into glass shards, liquor spilling out. Losing Mr. Grace is nothing like that. The world moves on without their saving grace. It feels like she's forced to move on because he was just a teacher, nothing more. But that's not true. There's a numbness consuming her heart, her soul, emptying her insides with each passing day like a yawning black hole—whenever she thinks of him.

How could he leave? How could he break his promise and leave?

How could he leave without a fucking goodbye?

Holly sits in Jessica's room. The lights are off. It's a sleepover and they should both be sleeping by now. But Jessica's laptop is on, the screen illuminating the room.

"He's gonna die in space," Jessica says, out of the blue. There's no need to guess who 'he' refers to. "Alone."

Her heart aches. "He's not alone," Holly interrupts. "There's like two other astronauts."

"Gosh, Holly, you know what I mean."

Holly swallows. Yeah, she does. Alone and far from home. Having two other astronauts for company doesn't mean he doesn't feel alone, lonely.

"They said they induced his coma early."

Holly straightens. She hadn't heard about that. She tuned into the news broadcast rather late. And after the launch, she avoided any news about the Project. "What?"

"I mean, that's what I heard."

She yanks Jessica's laptop towards her, fingers flying over the keys. Holly clicks on the first result that appears. With Jessica peering over her shoulder, they both read the article quickly. It's an article focused on Dr. Lamai's coma technology and the use of it on the Hail Mary.

There's a one liner at the end that merely states: "Due to limited astronaut training, Dr. Ryland Grace elected to have his coma induced early, out of concerns that he would panic during the launch."

Panic during the launch. Four words that make sense, but it's not enough of an explanation.

"It doesn't make sense," she mumbles.

"What?"

"Even if it was a last-minute replacement, he still had time to say something to us."

"To us?" Jessica scoffs. "He's saving the world, why would he think about us?"

Her face falls. "Don't say that," Holly breathes, distressed. "He loves… loved to teach us. Mr. Grace wouldn't have left without a goodbye."

Jessica turns away. "But he did," she says to the wall. "Shit, maybe we…" Her voice falters, trailing off. When she continues speaking, her voice is subdued, disbelieving. "Maybe we didn't mean that much to him after all."

Holly's indignation ripples outwards; it sends waves of emotion spilling out of her mouth. "That's ridiculous," she spits out immediately. "That's not true and you know it."

"I don't—"

"A few months ago, I got my dads to investigate his absence," Holly interrupts. "They found him and… and he said he had to stay. But he promised he would come back, and you know Mr. Grace wouldn't break a promise."

Jessica is still. She doesn't say anything about Holly not telling her this before. She doesn't question Holly. "Shit happens," she says instead. "So he had to break his promise. Maybe they didn't let him say goodbye."

A beat. "He was… a really great teacher," Jessica says with a finality, mournful like the last line of a eulogy.

So when Jessica stares at the laptop, the light illuminating her face as tears start to slide down her cheeks, Holly looks away, saying nothing as Jessica weeps.

She avoids the bicycle for a few days, opting to take a longer alternate route.

When Holly ends up walking past the bicycle again, there are more things now. A beanbag of earth, crocheted by Jessica, resting on the seat. The picture of him on his school ID—flat hair and crooked smile—is taped to the metal frame of the bike.

The white carnations are still there at the altar of their makeshift memorial but they're noticeably wilting.

The next day, the dead flowers are gone.

She dreads Science lessons. Mr Dune moves around the classroom like he's touching something sacred, careful and out of place. Like they are in some sacred, holy place, and his presence here is desecrating it.

Then one day, Mr. Dune tells them Science lessons will be conducted in another classroom from now on. No one protests. The class is quiet when they pack their things and leave.

(It lies unsaid, but Holly knows it's because Mr. Grace is truly gone and never coming back. There's no need to occupy his classroom anymore.)

The new classroom is naked and foreign, like staring into a microscope and seeing only the organelles that make up the barest form of what a classroom is supposed to be. Mr. Grace's classroom was decorated with love and joy and planets that were carefully constructed even though he found it tedious. The otherworldly care that was put into decorating the classroom and into planning their Science lessons—gone.

Mr. Grace's classroom is relatively untouched, left alone for dust to settle on every crevice—like an artefact preserved in time. Principal Whitt tells the school that Mr. Grace's classroom is out of use; no more classes are to be conducted in there.

They can't be there anymore.

She has to move on.

It's lunch and Holly finds her way to Mr. Grace's classroom anyway, her feet moving on autopilot. She settles in her normal seat.

She's not surprised that some of her classmates are here too, sitting in their usual seats and doing their own things—as if waiting for Mr. Grace to start his lesson.

But the classroom is quiet, Mr. Grace nowhere to be found.

Holly stares at her open book, looking at the words but not registering anything. When the bell rings, she leaves immediately, book pressed close against her chest.

She doesn't cry.

"Hols," her father calls from behind her closed door. "Can we talk?"

It's been two weeks since Mr. Grace left the world. She's successfully avoided talking to Dad about it. At the time, it seemed like he wouldn't press her about it. But as Dad knocks on her bedroom door, Holly realises that she was merely delaying the inevitable.

The door swings open. Dad stands in the doorway, dressed in his blue suit and fidgeting with his hands. "Can we talk?" he repeats, looking terribly out of place.

"About what?" she tries, knowing fully well what Dad wants to talk about.

Dad rolls his eyes. "What else, Holly, what else," he says flatly, his eyebrows raising.

"Okay," she says helplessly, and Dad unceremoniously plops down on her bed, sitting next to her. He smells like cheap cologne.

"Okay," Dad parrots, whipping out a small notebook and pen from the pocket of his blazer. "How, uh… How is everything?"

Holly blinks. She stares at the notebook, unimpressed. "Seriously Dad?" she mutters disbelievingly. "I'm not some… some case you have to solve."

"I know you're not but I just wanna help," he protests.

Heat rushes up her throat, anger bubbling out of her lips before she can force it back. She snaps. "You can't do anything about it! He's fucking gone!"

Dad blinks, unfazed. "Okay," he says calmly, simply.

The rage dissipates as quickly as it came. It leaves her feeling strangely empty, hollowed out like a black hole taking her apart from the inside. It's not Dad's fault. He's just trying to help, no matter how useless his help may be. She takes a deep breath, then exhales slowly. Quietly, she asks, "Did he really promise you he'd come back?"

Dad flashes a small smile. He nods. "Yeah."

A beat. "Then why'd he leave?" Her voice shakes, thin and achingly vulnerable.

Dad presses a hand against his face, fingers twitching like he's itching for a drink. "I don't know," he says, waving his hand. "Maybe he was the most qualified guy there? Remember his PhD in that Biology shit? Most qualified to save the world."

"Oh." She thought of that too. It's an obvious explanation that doesn't explain everything.

"Why didn't he say goodbye to us?" It's the question that has plagued her for weeks, unable to come up with a reasonable answer.

"I dunno." Dad fidgets in his spot, uncomfortable. "He was in a high-security government facility. Maybe they stopped him from talking to the outside world. Who knows?"

Oh. Alright. It's mere speculation, but it's all they have.

They're silent. She looks out of her window. It's so cold.

"He really wanted to come back, you know," Dad suddenly says into the silence, as if the thought randomly occurred to him. "When Jack and I went to get him back, Grace… He told us he wanted to continue teaching 'his children'." Dad does air quotations, and Holly can feel her heart clench violently at the words.

"Why didn't he come back then?"

"His scary boss would've fuckin' strapped him to the chair if he tried," he says lightly, shrugging. But he leans forward, his voice dipping low, suddenly serious. Dad says slowly, "When I asked him though, his exact words were: 'for the children'. He was doing it for all of you."

She bursts into tears.

Through the teardrops that cling to her lashes and turn her vision blurry, Holly watches unadulterated panic cross Dad's face—his jaw falling open as his hands open and close helplessly. "Fuck, shit. Shit. I-I'm sorry, I… Shit, did I say something wrong? H-Holly?" he fumbles for words, his hands hovering over Holly as if too terrified to touch.

Surging forward, Holly wraps her arms around him so fiercely that Dad sways with the motion. He hugs back immediately, hands steady, the warmth of his embrace like an anchor in the storm. She pushes her face into the crook of his neck, muffling her sobs and cries.

It feels like something has loosened, the tension in her—like a rubber band held taut—snaps. A sharp physical pain gouges into her, making a home between her ribs. Her arms feel heavy; they shake and tremble and slide down her father's back. She gasps for breath, ragged and hyperventilating. Her chest heaves forcefully, feeling as though her lungs are starved of oxygen.

Her father's hand settles in her hair, gently combing through blonde strands—and she cries harder. Tears trickle down endlessly, staining the fabric of Dad's shirt and blazer, and forming patches of wetness everywhere. Holly sobs and weeps and wails and screams, the sounds scratching at her throat and clawing out like an animal breaking free of its glass cage. Shattering.

Dad holds her through it all—rubbing her back in slow, gentle motions as he hums a simple tune, ignoring the tears and snot ruining his suit. Steady and present.

When the tears stop eventually, she sniffs, but she doesn't let go.

She stares out the window instead of sleeping. Her eyes ache from crying. Holly gazes at the stars, wondering which part of the endless void Mr. Grace has reached.

It's lunch. Holly and Jessica walk into Mr. Grace's classroom for the umpteenth time. Instead of the silence that usually occupies it, Holly can hear her classmates talking as she goes to her usual seat.

"Really!" Rekha says, insistent, in response to a question Holly didn't hear. She folds her arms. "I looked him up and Mr. Grace was the first person to analyse the space dots! He's the one who named them 'astrophage'!"

"The government seriously got a random teacher to make first contact?" Abby mutters. "If they didn't get him of all people, he might still be here."

Holly lifts her head, her brows furrowing. "He was qualified," she interrupts, even though she knows Abby didn't mean offence. "Mr. Grace has a PhD in molecular biology."

Her classmates turn to look at her, silently absorbing the information.

"Makes sense. Whew, that's so fucking cool." Jeff leans forward, awestruck. "What else was the GOAT doin'?"

"The news said he was the First Officer of Project Hail Mary," Olivia says earnestly, words rushing out of her mouth. "Lead scientist too. I read an article that said Mr. Grace was the one who figured out most of the characteristics and biological functions of astrophage before anyone else."

Her classmates start to murmur among themselves. Holly thinks she hears someone mutter a "damn". An unfamiliar feeling swells in her chest, neither grief nor anger.

"Doesn't 'First Officer' mean he's second-in-command? Of the whole Project?" Jeff blurts.

"Yeah," Abby breathes, starting to smile—bright and toothy.

Their Science teacher is the world's saving grace.

Holly can feel it: a sudden, noticeable shift in the atmosphere. The numbness enveloping her heart ebbs away, a bittersweet ache now twinging in her chest. There's an unfamiliar warmth radiating inside her, expanding so rapidly it feels like her ribs would bend under the pressure, crackling. The corners of her lips twitch. She stares at her lap and exhales.

The world is told to believe in the Hail Mary, but as Holly looks around the classroom, she thinks that her class believes in their Science teacher—above all else.

Holly feels warm all over. The realisation is gradual but it strikes her hard: she is proud of Mr. Grace. If she pushes aside the grief, hatred and anger, she is so proud. The man who screeches into a microphone to teach them about soundwaves. The man who can never seem to wear his glasses properly. The man who happily doodles a balloon dog on the whiteboard, insisting that he's 'perfecting his craft'. That man, their teacher. Their Mr. Grace saving the world.

She hates that he's gone but, somehow, she's thankful it's him. Isn't that so strange?

Holly smiles.

Sitting on her bed with her laptop sitting on her lap, Holly stares at the video of the infamous UNESCO conference. She saw the footage a long time ago, remembers the unbridled glee that surged through her, elated to see such a different side of their teacher.

Now, she watches it again just to refresh her memory, then digs further. Holly retraces her footsteps and ends up finding an old dissertation, titled "An Analysis of Water-Based Assumptions and Recalibration of Expectations".

Holly has always had this pre-conceived notion that dissertations were all boring and lengthy. Mr. Grace's dissertation is considerably lengthy, but it's certainly not boring.

She skims through the dissertion. It's filled with a bunch of technical jargon that Holly doesn't understand. She ends up googling a bunch of terms as she reads, the number of tabs in the browser increasing exponentially. Then Holly hits page 31, section titled 'The Goldilocks Zone Is for Idiots: Why Everyone Is Wrong About Life'—and bursts out laughing.

(It's been a long time since she has laughed. It's a soft sound that erupts from her chest.)

The passion for Science peeks through, his excitement about the subject leaking through the formal writing. She notices the meticulousness, the way Mr. Grace answered questions then asked some more, delving deeper and deeper into the subject with a love that consumed him.

Her heart warms with pride again. Mr. Grace—she realises that he's technically Dr. Grace, but that title isn't the version of him she knows—was extraordinary.

She imagines a younger version of Mr. Grace, his hair flat as hell, forgetting to sleep because he was scribbling down new ideas. The thought makes her smile.

(For a brief moment, Holly wonders what it would feel like to feel that way.)

Grief gnaws at her; it never leaves. But the thought settles: Mr. Grace was brilliant. And he will save us all.

Science lessons are different now. Mr. Dune is as boring as he always is, but Holly focuses on the steady drone of his voice anyway, scribbling words down in her notebook. She doesn't want her Science grades to start slipping. If they did, she feels like she's betraying Mr. Grace.

Dad tells her that Mr. Grace said to focus on her weaker topics and she takes that advice to heart. Holly corners Mr. Dune after class, prodding at her paper and asking him questions. She finds out that Mr. Dune isn't actually that bad, just unable to summon any enthusiasm for his lessons. At least he knows his stuff.

When she eagerly scribbles down something he said, Mr. Dune stares at her, a look of mild curiosity crossing his face. "You enjoy Science?" he asks.

Holly looks up and slowly nods in response.

Mr. Dune blinks. "Why?"

Because Mr. Grace made it fun and interesting.

"Because it's fun and interesting," she replies.

"Alright." Mr. Dune drums his fingers against the table, before saying, "Your knowledge of Earth and Space Science is good. If I'm not mistaken, you seem to like it more than the other Science disciplines." He waits for a nod from Holly. She nods. "Have you ever considered working for NASA?"

It's the most words Mr. Dune has ever spoken to her at once.

She thinks about it, her eyes darting to the area next to the whiteboard where Mr. Grace used to plaster space posters in his classroom. She ponders.

"I'll think about it," Holly says. It doesn't sound unappealing.

Holly goes to Mr. Grace's classroom during lunch again. Almost everyone is here.

Her classmates have started a routine of sorts: in the classroom, they either share memories about him or they talk about Science. No one says it, but Holly can feel that his classroom has become a place for them to mourn and remember him. She doesn't mind. They need it.

This time, Holly brings a thick stack of paper bundled and bound together with a plastic comb. It's his dissertation, and it took a long time to print and assemble. One could argue that it's a waste of ink and paper, but Holly's been trying to read it properly, annotating it as she goes along. She doesn't think she understands much—but she's trying.

When she presents it to her classmates, they marvel at the work of their Science teacher and giggle at the silly section names.

The classroom fills with laughter again. It's like Mr. Grace never left.

A long time ago, Holly learnt that the time will pass anyway. No matter what she—or anyone else for that matter—goes through. Even if it feels like she's stuck in time, encased in ice and rendered immobile, time passes anyway.

The grief lingers, everlasting. It will never truly leave. She looks at a pile of pancakes and thinks of Mom. She looks at old assignments, the smiley face he etched in pencil now faded, and thinks of Mr. Grace.

But life goes on. The grief doesn't go away but it fades into the background, a companion that stays by her side.

She's at the bicycle again. There are more trinkets again, more offerings made. A small stuffed toy of a fox curls up against the bike. Another assignment is presented at the altar for the Science God's blessings. There's a small pile of letters teetering on the edge of the seat. Colourful drawings of Mr. Grace and the Hail Mary flutter in the cold wind. Holly shivers.

There are talks online about constructing statues for Mr. Grace and the other astronauts. Apparently, China and Russia have already started planning them. Just yesterday, Holly came across a petition that requested Mr. Grace's statue to be built outside Grover Cleveland Middle School—a 9 feet sculpture depicting him in his flight suit.

It's a memorial statue for Dr. Grace. But Holly knows that the students of Grover Cleveland Middle already have their own memorials for Mr. Grace. It's the bicycle that's starting to rust, paint peeling off its frame. It's his classroom, dust starting to settle on every surface even as her classmates take the time to clean it on occasion. It's the school, the place of his devotion. He loved Science, but Holly knows it deep in her heart that he loved teaching even more.

Her hands gently cradle the stem of a flower. She gazes at it for a moment, at the white petals splayed out, her fingers curling around the smooth stem of the flower.

They're white lilies.

(A beautiful flower that shares a name with her beautiful mother.)

Holly sticks the flower in between the wires of the front wheel. She exhales deeply. She wants to speak, to say something at his memorial because she's never said anything before. She wants to spill her guts out, but she can't seem to find the words.

She sucks in a breath, holds it, then lets go.

"I know you promised me you would come back. And, um, I was mad at you for a while. For not coming back and not… saying goodbye." Her voice quivers. "But I'm not mad anymore. I'm sorry that I was ever mad in the first place."

"You wouldn't have left if there was any other choice. You would've said goodbye if you could." A small and almost imperceptible smile brightens her face just a little. "And I don't know if you're up there feeling guilty about either of those things. But if you are, it's…" Holly swallows; it's a difficult word to get out. "It's okay."

It's true. It's okay. It will be okay.

Holly looks at the now folded picture of Mr. Grace still taped to the bike, whipping violently in the wind. She can feel tears welling in her eyes but she blinks them back.

"Thank you, Mr. Grace," she says finally. "Thank you for everything."

She leans forward and carefully repositions the tower of letters so that they don't fall down.

"Safe travels," she whispers, gently patting the bicycle.