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Grace sleeps less than he should, and when he does, he tosses and turns in his bunk the entire time, tangling himself in the sheets until he looks like one of his breakfast burritos. Rocky watches him, intent on listening to every sound, every breath that leaves his lips. Rocky listens to the air filling his lungs, then to the rumble of his stomach and the slow, steady beat of his heart.
One day, Grace explained human anatomy to him in painstaking detail, sitting on his mattress with his shirt lifted to his chest to show him every curve of his ribs beneath his skin and the branching of the femoral artery in the crease of his groin. Grace told him there are two hundred and six bones in the human body, and ever since then Rocky has counted them over and over while Grace sleeps, burrowing through flesh with his hearing until he reaches the silent whiteness of the vertebrae.
Rocky doesn't know what the color white looks like, but Grace told him that's the color of bones. Ivory, cream, milky white, and every shade the human eye can see, set against the vivid red of blood and the pale pink of Grace's skin.
Paleness, too, is a difficult concept for Rocky. Grace explained that something pale is something dull, but Rocky can't imagine anything about Grace that could ever be dull, not with that constant beating inside his chest, the creaking of his bones, the rushing of his blood. Grace is the liveliest thing Rocky has ever encountered, and in the midst of all that irritating, sometimes revolting life, the simplicity with which it can be taken away feels like a contradiction.
Rocky often thinks about the fragility of Grace's skin, the countless scratches on his arms and the darker patches Rocky sometimes notices on his calves. Grace explained that they're bruises, injuries beneath the skin caused by impacts, and Rocky asked him what the point of having skin was if it couldn't even protect itself. Grace couldn't give him a scientifically satisfying answer, but he pressed two fingers against the mark on his leg and, with a hiss, murmured, "To remind us of our profound imperfection."
Eridians have no concept of perfection, and Grace doesn't seem capable of explaining exactly what it means to be perfect. For something to be perfect, it has to be functional, useful, whole, and beautiful; qualities that have nothing whatsoever to do with one another, yet humans seem to have bundled them together for reasons unknown even to themselves.
"Perfection is an abstract concept," Grace said. "It can't exist in a world like ours, and that's exactly what makes it so appealing."
Rocky quickly realized that humans are profoundly complicated creatures, full of paradoxes. He also realized that humans spend much of their lives thinking about and yearning for things that don't exist and that they barely understand; a way of life completely opposed to the Eridian one, which is built on efficiency and functionality, on the reliability of things across time and space. And yet, as he watches Grace sleeping with his face mashed into the pillow, the ideas of wholeness and perfection, so alien to him and his species, begin to take root inside him, fresh and new as the sensation of resting his hand against the imprint left by Grace's fingers on the xenonite separating them.
When Grace wakes up and Rocky has counted all two hundred and six bones in his skeleton for the fourth time, Rocky calls to him softly from the tunnel he built directly above Grace's bunk. He always feels so exposed up there when Grace wakes, with the revolting opening in his carapace on full display through the xenonite, but it's the place where they can be closest, where he can watch Grace most carefully.
Grace untangles himself from the blankets and, with his hair forming a crown of spikes around his head, smiles up at him.
"Rocky," he says, the first word out of his mouth every morning and the last before he falls asleep. Rocky Rocky Rocky. Rocky is so greedy for that word that he could listen to it vibrating through Grace's vocal cords forever, off-key and discordant in the way only a human voice can be.
Rocky presses himself flatter against the xenonite in the silent request that Grace place his hand there, and waits. Grace's eyelids are open, and the tiny lines in the palm of his hand are so fine they're almost impossible for Rocky to make sense of, just like so many things about Grace's biology and mind.
Xenonite is an excellent thermal insulator, but Rocky feels as though he can sense the cool shadow of Grace's hand against the hard skin of his fingers when Grace places it on the glass between them. Or perhaps he only imagines it.
Sometimes, he has the impression he imagines many things. Grace's eyes following him during his long walks through the xenonite tunnels, the nervous tapping of his fingers against the workbench whenever Rocky wanders beyond the narrow range of his vision, and certain little murmurs Grace makes as he's drifting off to sleep, so much like Rocky's name that they compel him to flatten himself against the xenonite to hear better before every sound disappears from Grace's lips.
Grace mutters something incomprehensible, then rubs the back of his hand across his face to brush away the last traces of sleep. Rocky loves the moments immediately after Grace wakes, when his eyes are open but his brain isn’t working yet, and he rolls onto one side, burying half his face in the pillow to shield himself from the light or perhaps from Rocky's gaze, though he knows that's impossible. Rocky wishes he could see him more clearly during those moments, see him the way a human would, perceive the wavelengths of light resting on the curves of his face and in the open palm of his hand.
Grace keeps his eyes closed for another long moment, then stretches, fumbling for the glasses he'd tossed onto the floor beside a half-full glass of taumoeba smoothie and a lone sock.
"Morning," he mumbles, more clearly this time.
Rocky bends down on his front legs and inches a little closer to Grace, just enough to catch his attention again.
"What did you dream about, question?"
Grace sits up and scoots backward until his back rests against the pillow, then looks up. Rocky began asking him about his dreams after the night Grace woke drenched in sweat, with his heart making a deafening sound inside his chest. From inside the xenonite sphere, Rocky listened carefully as Grace talked about dreams, nightmares, and the human subconscious, sitting on the floor with his back against the steel wall. Grace fell asleep a few hours later with his cheek pressed against the xenonite and Rocky's promise that nothing would happen to him as long as he slept beside him. Ever since then, Rocky has made sure not to leave his side for even a second, asking about his dreams every morning, equally fascinated and terrified by Grace's stories. Black skies, his students dying, ice spreading endlessly in every direction, and Rocky writhing in agony, the stars ceasing to shine, and Grace drifting forever through the endless void of space.
Grace smiles and tilts his head ever so slightly. "I dreamed about the ocean. Warm this time," he murmurs. "An endless stretch of sand, and the blue of the sea and the sky blending together on the horizon."
Grace has told him about Earth's seas and oceans. Vast expanses reflecting sunlight, home to every imaginable kind of animal. Of all the colors that fascinate Rocky, blue is the one that captivates him most. The color of Earth's sky and oceans, of the blue poison dart frog, forget-me-not flowers, blueberries; things unknown and utterly incomprehensible to Rocky, yet somehow within reach because blue is also the color of Grace's eyes.
When Grace told him his eyes were blue, Rocky found the revelation overwhelming. Suddenly, it seemed to him that he could see the entire planet Earth reflected in Grace's irises, every sea and every river. Eyes that had looked upon every shade of the sky and absorbed its colors so they could carry them to someone who is not only incapable of seeing them, but of grasping the very concept of them.
Grace absently scratches one thigh beneath the sheet, then taps his knuckles lightly against the xenonite, as though trying to get Rocky's attention. "You were there too," he says. "You were swimming in the ocean, happy as could be. Or maybe you were drowning. Hard to tell."
Rocky emits a warning vibration that makes Grace smile in that irresistible way of his.
"With all those arms you've got, it's hard to tell whether you're having fun or you need help," he says, then lifts his own arms and starts waving them over his head in an utterly ridiculous fashion.
Rocky decides the best way to make him stop is not to encourage him, so he turns around and retraces the tunnel backward toward the airlock.
Grace follows him with his eyes, still chuckling to himself, then lazily gets to his feet to stretch while Rocky climbs into the xenonite sphere and depressurizes the chamber.
Grace picks up the sock from the floor and pulls it on, then takes off the pants he'd slept in and drops them where he stands. He glances toward Rocky before cupping both hands over his lower abdomen in mock outrage. "Don't peek!" he says playfully.
Rocky has tried countless times to explain that Grace's clothes are made of material far too thin to keep him from seeing through them, but Grace refuses to listen. Besides the baffling concept of perfection, humans have also invented another completely absurd thing called modesty, and all Rocky can do is accept it and pretend he can't see what's underneath the clothes Grace cares so much about.
Rocky shrugs in a distinctly human gesture to let Grace know he has absolutely no interest in the performance, though truthfully, he does have a little, and begins rolling the sphere toward the lab. He wants to start working on the xenonite suit he finished designing before Grace went to bed last night. It's an ambitious project: barely a millimeter of thin, flexible xenonite that should allow him to move freely and grasp objects without almost noticing its weight.
"For your information, I’m a great swimmer" he says, intending to get the last word before disappearing down the corridor, which doesn't happen because Grace steps directly into his path to block him.
He's still in his boxers, with one side of his sleep shirt tucked into the waistband, and from Rocky's vantage point his legs seem to stretch on forever. Rocky taps his fingers against the xenonite to make out more clearly the fine hairs scattered across Grace's thighs, growing denser as they trail down toward his shins and ankles. He studies the sharp bone of Grace's heel and the knee pressed against the xenonite sphere to keep it from rolling away.
They both know perfectly well that Rocky could shove Grace aside without much effort if he wanted to, but they haven't been this close since the night of Grace's first nightmare, and Rocky doesn't think he wants to push him away at all.
Grace plants his hands on his knees and bends over the sphere with a smile, and suddenly Rocky's echolocation can focus only on the adorable little creases beside his eyes and the movement of his hair as it falls across his forehead. His glasses slide slightly down his nose, and Grace nudges them back into place with an automatic gesture. When he speaks, Rocky is still lost in the incomplete image he has of him, the only one he'll ever be capable of seeing: the one without colors.
"Why the rush?" Grace asks. "I haven't even had my coffee yet."
Over the past few months, since they'd found themselves with nothing truly important left to do except pass the time, they'd fallen into the habit of lingering in bed until Grace had finished his coffee and gulped down his taumoeba smoothie, not without endless complaints and a generous amount of colorful language.
Usually they talk about trivial things or memories. Human memory is fallible, and it's important to revisit the past often enough that it doesn't lose its shine. So Grace tells him about his mother's face and his father's toolbox —not so different from yours, Rock!— and the first time he kissed a girl and hated it, and the first time he kissed a girl and liked it. Rocky listens, understands about half of what Grace says, and shifts his carapace as though nodding. Then the questions begin, Grace realizes Rocky hasn't understood a thing, drops his head onto the pillow and makes that wonderful sound Rocky now knows is laughter. When they start over again, and Grace returns to his mother's eyes, his father's power drill, and Susy and Leah and that one time in college when he got high on mushrooms and saw Jesus Christ in person, Rocky finds himself wondering whether there will come a day in Grace's life when he, too, becomes a memory.
The thought that Grace might decide to head back to Earth the moment they arrive on Erid terrifies him. It's such a deeply rooted fear that he feels it flowing through his veins like the physical symptom of a sickness his body can't fight, even in sleep.
That's why Rocky has to start working on the suit as soon as possible. That’s why he has to calculate how much oxygen a human would need to survive beneath a xenonite dome and search Grace's thinking machine for the Eridian plants and trees most similar to those on Earth. If he could recreate something like Earth's climate for Grace on Erid, and if he could move just a little closer, close enough that only a millimeter of xenonite stood between them, perhaps Grace would decide to stay. Perhaps, with an effort, Rocky’s touch would be enough for him.
Watching Grace sleep every night brings to the surface things they both would rather keep hidden. That's why, even though they've never spoken about it, they both know that Grace misses humans. Not any one human in particular, and certainly not Linda, or Mark, or Stratt, but simply the touch of a friendly hand or a face that looks like his own.
Some nights, as sleep claims him, Grace wraps his arms around himself or traces the palm of one hand with the fingers of the other, and Rocky wonders what that feels like. What it feels like to have nerve endings sensitive enough to perceive the lines in Grace's palm and the raised veins pulsing with blood at his wrists.
His inability to see light and colors isn't the only thing that grieves him about his biology. Rocky's skin is too thick to feel Grace's; his grip, so perfectly suited to everything it's meant to do, is far too strong for the fragile bones in Grace's hands, for the soft skin of his neck, for the tender flesh of his stomach.
Grace remains there, gazing down at him, gently rocking over the sphere, his hands planted on his knees and his knees braced against the xenonite. He's smiling, one eyebrow slightly raised like someone who wants to ask a question but doesn't wish to be rude. Rocky knows perfectly well that Grace wants to be rude, and, in fact, positively thrives on it, so he waits for Grace to raise the other eyebrow too and say, "Are you planning to blow up the ship?"
Rocky leans forward just enough to make it clear that if he's still there, it's because he's doing Grace a favor, not because Grace is capable of keeping him there. "After all the work I've done saving your life multiple times?"
"Multiple?" Grace exclaims, and instead of stepping aside as Rocky had hoped, he drops onto the floor with a distinctly undignified grunt. Now his knees pin the xenonite sphere on either side, and his arms are folded over Rocky's head. "You could count them on one hand," he says, lifting one as evidence.
"Certainly not on my hand," Rocky replies. He tries walking backward to escape Grace's hold, but Grace drops the palm of his hand onto the top of the sphere with a dull thud that reverberates through Rocky with almost painful force.
Between Grace's fingers, now so close, Rocky can see the long scar that reaches halfway across his palm before curving toward his thumb in a jagged arc. A little souvenir from the last time Grace demonstrated humanity's complete lack of survival instinct by trying to operate a blender without its lid while experimenting with increasingly absurd ways to make a taumoeba smoothie taste good.
Of course it hadn't worked, and Rocky had ended up with a spray of blood across the xenonite sphere while Grace ran through the ship in a panic looking for the first-aid kit, without finding it. Rocky counts the incident among the times he saved Grace's life because, panicking himself, he stepped on one of Grace's feet with his full weight, and the pain in Grace's foot cleared his head just enough for him to find the first-aid kit and patch himself up, both his foot and his hand. Grace keeps insisting you can't save someone's life by hurting them even more, but they're both men of science and the facts speak for themselves despite whatever Grace claims.
"Wait, wait," Grace says, and now his voice is no longer playful or irreverent. He sounds curious, and beneath the curiosity, he sounds worried too, though he's trying to hide it. Rocky may not have good eyesight, but he has excellent hearing, and he's known Grace for far too long not to notice the slightest shifts in his voice. "You're acting weird today."
Rocky exhales a puff of air from his radiator the way a human would. He wonders when certain habits became second nature to him, like tilting his carapace and bobbing it up and down as though nodding, and he wonders, too, whether the time spent with Grace hasn't changed them both beyond repair, until they've become almost strangers to their own species. No longer Eridian, no longer human, but simply Rocky and Grace.
"I'm acting weird?" he murmurs. "You're sitting on the floor in your underwear."
"Don't try to change the subject," Grace huffs.
He looks at Rocky with his head tipped downward and his glasses sitting slightly crooked on his nose, and Rocky doesn't know any other humans, but he's absolutely certain Grace would be his favorite even if he knew every last one of them.
"I'm not changing the subject!" he protests, though it's a bald-faced lie. "I just have work to do."
Grace shrugs, then, without the slightest warning, shouts toward the ceiling, "Coffee!". As Armando's robotic arms place a paper cup into his hand, Grace looks back at Rocky and says, "You haven't had work to do in at least a year."
"Well, I do now," Rocky replies as he once again tries pushing against Grace's knees to make him move, but Grace doesn't seem bothered in the slightest and doesn't budge an inch. If anything, he leans even closer, bending over the sphere to rest both elbows on it in a position that looks anything but comfortable.
Grace takes a sip of coffee before beginning to tap his fingers against the xenonite, following a little tune Rocky doesn't recognize.
Grace has told him a great deal about human music, about singers and musical instruments. He explained what a band is and told him about someone named Whitney Houston, although her connection to Jack Swigert and Texas remains unclear to him, and about Jeff Buckley and Scenes from an Italian Restaurant and Careless Whisper.
Grace has let him listen to all kinds of music, and Rocky has discovered that he likes the harmonica and B.B. King and that song of his that goes the thrill is gone away from me, and the way Grace's skin seems to grow rough whenever they listen to it. Grace told him it's called blues and that it's a sad, melancholy genre, but if blue is the color of the sky and the sea and Grace's eyes, Rocky simply can't understand how it could also be the color of sadness.
Rocky settles back onto his rear legs and looks Grace over from head to toe in a single wave of information flooding his mind. The drop of coffee on his lower lip, the knees wrapped around the sphere, the heart beating fast inside his rib cage, quickening just a fraction when Rocky begins tapping his own fingers in time with Grace's.
"What are you working on?" Grace asks.
Rocky knows he'll have to tell Grace about the suit and the dome and the Earth trees sooner or later, but he's afraid of how Grace will react. He's afraid of seeing him drop to his knees in front of the xenonite sphere only to tell him he can't stay on Erid, because he misses humans and he misses home and he misses the sky and the sea, and Rocky could never fill that emptiness, not even with only a single inch between them and Eridian cacti scattered throughout the ship. Rocky doesn't want to think about the possibility of watching the Hail Mary's airlock door close once and for all. Eridian minds aren't fallible the way human ones are, and Rocky would be forced to remember and remember and remember, knowing with painful certainty that Grace had left not because he had to, as he did the first time, but because he'd wanted to.
So he watches Grace sipping from the paper cup, wonders what coffee tastes like in Grace's mouth, and weighs the idea of telling him about the xenonite suit. "Nothing important," he says at last, lifting one hand to point at Grace's face in a pathetic attempt at distraction. "Aren't you going to ask Armando for your breakfast burrito, question?"
Grace shrugs and absentmindedly rubs a hand across his cheek, covered with short, coarse stubble. The sound of the beard against the palm of his hand is one of Rocky's favorites because he's never heard anything like it in his entire life, and because it belongs exclusively to Grace. Rocky suspects Grace knows that and lets his beard grow a little longer than necessary just so Rocky can hear that sound again and again and again.
"I'm stuck with the taumoeba smoothie today," Grace mutters.
Rocky dips his carapace ever so slightly. "That's why you're stalling."
Grace even has the nerve to look offended. "I'm not stalling!" he exclaims, and when Rocky emits the low hum that serves as the equivalent of a glare, Grace raises both hands in surrender. "Okay, maybe I'm stalling. But you're still acting weird. Usually you're the one who never wants to get out of bed."
Rocky can't say that's untrue. Early morning is his favorite part of the day, followed closely by the handful of seconds before he falls asleep, when his echolocation loses its sharpness and all Rocky can see is Grace sitting in front of him with his glasses hanging from one ear and the promise to keep watching over him still lingering on his lips. Those moments feel like home. They remind him of his family, of Adrian, and of the friends he lost during this deadly mission, and surrendering to the horror of sleep is easier when he knows Grace will be waiting for him on the other side.
"I told you I have work to do," Rocky mutters curtly. The conversation is going in circles, and Rocky has learned the hard way that Grace is remarkably good at getting information out of him without him even realizing it. Rocky gives Grace's knee a gentle nudge to loosen his grip and rolls the sphere backward, slipping past him.
Just as he'd expected, Grace springs to his feet, abandoning his coffee on the floor, and follows him toward the lab. "You said it wasn't anything important!" he calls after him.
Rocky circles the workbench, trying to lose him, but Grace's legs are annoyingly long. With an exasperated hiss, Rocky snaps, "Grace, leave me alone!"
Grace ignores him and starts chanting, "Rocky, Rocky, Rocky," trying to catch the sphere, which, in 1,5 g, he has absolutely no chance of stopping. His breathing grows more and more labored, and the sound of Rocky's name roughens in his throat as the improvised chase burns the air from his lungs.
After three laps around the workbench and one failed attempt to hide in the Don’t Go Crazy Room, Rocky stops, exhausted, and turns toward Grace.
"I want to build an ultrathin suit!" he growls, slamming two hands against the floor in frustration. "Are you happy now, question?"
Grace stands in front of him, his arms hanging loosely at his sides, sweat beading across his forehead. He's still in his underwear, his shirt is still tucked into the waistband of his boxers, and all of Rocky's anger disappears in the span of a single blink from Grace, in the time it takes him to let out one small sigh.
Grace spreads his arms slightly, as though he can't understand something that ought to be incredibly simple. "And why on Earth would you keep that from me?"
Rocky doesn't know how to answer. How can he tell him that the thought of never being able to touch him haunts him? How can he tell him that every night, when Grace wraps his arms around himself, Rocky wishes he could slip into them instead? How can he admit that he can't think about anything except the blue of Grace's eyes and the white of his bones and all the colors his senseless biology cannot even begin to comprehend?
"Grace..." he murmurs, incapable of saying anything else. Even his own language abandons him, along with his anger and every trace of determination.
"Grace, what?" he asks, kneeling in front of the sphere until they're at eye level. Humans have the peculiar habit of always looking directly at the person they're speaking to, and even after two years together Rocky still struggles beneath that pure, unguarded attention. Grace's pupils are fixed on him, and the fingers wrapped around his knees are pressing just enough to alter the gentle flow of blood driven by the slow rhythm of his heart. Thump, thump, thump.
Rocky wonders what it would feel like to rest his carapace against the center of Grace's chest, where the sound multiplies and vibrates through the bones of his rib cage like chords inside an acoustic guitar. He would be able to hear the smallest change, just as he does every morning when he calls Grace's name from his tunnel and Grace's heart, calm only moments before, begins trying to echo the melody in faster and faster beats.
"I know you miss humans," he says at last, barely above a whisper. "The touch of another person."
Every kind of emotion passes across Grace's face: surprise, disbelief, denial, a flicker of anger, before his mouth settles into a long, flat line, like the scar across his palm. "Rocky..."
But Rocky cuts him off. "I thought... I thought that if I could touch you without risking killing you, maybe—" He watches the frantic flutter of Grace's eyelids and the quiet creak of the bones resting against the floor. "Maybe it would be enough for you. Maybe I would be enough."
Grace tilts his head slightly, the way he does when he's studying the equations on the whiteboard with a marker in his hand. "How did you even come up with that?" he asks after a long silence.
Rocky's legs bend just enough for his carapace to sink lower, crushed by humiliation. "I know it's pathetic." And it truly is. It's so pathetic that, for the first time since they met, Rocky wishes he could hide behind a wall and stop seeing the unreadable line of Grace's mouth. "I'm sorry. It was a stupid idea."
How could he ever have imagined replacing every love Grace had ever known on Earth? How could he have been arrogant enough to believe Grace might choose his company over his own species?
Grace raises one hand to the sheet of xenonite between them, as he has done a million times since they met, but this time his heart is beating so hard that Rocky can hear it reverberating inside the sphere itself. Slowly, Grace bends forward until his forehead comes to rest against the glass beside his hand, and a sudden sob shakes through him. Rocky hears the tears sliding down Grace's cheeks and across his lips, closer to Grace than Rocky himself will ever be.
Rocky hates seeing Grace cry. Grace's throat tightens, and the air slips through his vocal cords in faint, trembling breaths that remind Rocky of the astonishing fragility of the human body. His heart quivers inside his chest as though it were the one crying, as though the pain itself began there and its frantic beating were nothing more than a cruel way of feeding it.
Rocky lifts one hand toward the xenonite, beside Grace's forehead, imagining he can brush the hair away from his temple. "I hoped..." he whispers. "I hoped you'd stay with me."
Grace lowers his head and presses his cheek against the glass where Rocky's fingers are spread wide. His eyes are closed and his lips are caught between his teeth.
Rocky takes a step closer inside the sphere as though it might somehow support him better. "Grace," he calls softly. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so selfish."
The thought of losing Grace hurt so much that he had never stopped to consider that, by staying, Grace would be the one losing everything. His students, his home, food his body could survive on, the chance to have a family.
Grace wipes his face with the back of his hand before opening his eyes again. "No," he murmurs, his throat still tight, his breath pushing the words forward. "You're an idiot."
It takes Rocky several long moments to decipher the sentence. By the time he understands, by the time he realizes Grace isn't crying because Rocky's selfishness has broken his heart, Grace is already smiling, both hands spread against the xenonite.
"My God, you're an idiot," he repeats, shaking his head.
Rocky has seen Grace go from laughter to tears and back to laughter again within minutes. It's something humans do, tossed helplessly from one emotion to the next by their inconsistent hearts. But until now, Rocky has never been the reason for it. He doesn't know what to do or what to say, not while Grace wipes the tears from his lips with his wrist and slumps over the sphere in an awkward imitation of an embrace.
"I don't miss anything up here, Rocky," he says.
Rocky lifts the front of his carapace, letting the steady beat of Grace's heart wash through him like the guitar solo in B.B. King's song. "Does that mean you'll stay on Erid with me, question?"
Grace remains perfectly still for a long moment, as though searching for the truest answer he can give. "Come closer," he says at last. "As close as you can."
Rocky braces his front arms against the xenonite until his carapace is level with Grace's face and pushes himself as near to him as physically possible.
Holding his breath, Grace leans down and presses his lips to the spot where Rocky's carapace touches the xenonite. The soft smack of the kiss reverberates through the sphere and straight into Rocky, overwhelming him with its impossible blend of tenderness and violence. It feels as though he's back outside in Earth's atmosphere, cold tearing into his arms while fire burns across his skin. It feels as though he's touching Grace again with nothing separating them, Grace's skin cold and tender, and even if it's killing them both, he doesn't think he could ever let go.
Grace's fingers curl against the sphere as he draws back only far enough to whisper, "There's nothing left for me on Earth."
Rocky wants to believe him, but he knows it isn't true. Many human years have passed since Grace left aboard the Hail Mary, but if he returned, he'd be welcomed home as a hero, as the most important person who had ever lived. The life waiting for Grace on Earth is everything anyone could ever dream of, and he's giving it up to stay with Rocky on a planet whose air and temperature could kill him in seconds.
Rocky listens once more to Grace's heart and the blood rushing through his veins, searching for even the faintest hint of hesitation. There is none. "Erid's gravity will kill you," he murmurs, because it's true.
Grace nods. "If thallium poisoning or the toxic atmosphere doesn't get me first," he says with a smile. There's no trace of tears left on his face. His eyes look softer now, and the corners of his mouth no longer seem so tense. Perhaps the fear of having to leave Rocky had been consuming him from the inside just as surely as it had been consuming Rocky.
Rocky shrugs. "Thallium is very nutritious. Good for muscles. That's why you're so squishy."
Grace's mouth falls open in mock outrage. "How dare you? I am not squishy." He immediately starts feeling his own arms and shoulders as though proving Rocky wrong. "I'm beautiful."
Like perfection, beauty isn't a concept Eridian minds fully understand. The closest equivalent they possess is wonder: a profoundly complex idea encompassing tenderness, amazement, joy, affection, gentleness. In short, everything beautiful life has to offer.
Rocky doesn't know whether Grace is beautiful or not. He wouldn't even know how to judge such a thing, but he knows reducing Grace to a single concept would be wrong. Grace exists beyond every description and every thought, whether human or Eridian. Grace is not the reason Rocky left home but he’s the reason he is allowed to return and save it. He is the reason why, after nearly fifty years of loneliness, he no longer fears the oblivion of sleep, and he is the cause of the many wounds and scars Rocky carries across his carapace like the precious stones Adrian gave him. Grace is the cold of space and the warmth of oxygen and the blue of Earth's sky and oceans that Rocky will always be able to see reflected in his eyes.
Grace presses his cheek firmly against the xenonite again and his eyes are closed and his heart is at peace. "Start working on the suit," he whispers. "Fast."
Rocky laughs as the coolness of Grace's skin spreads across the surface of the xenonite in uneven patches.
Looking back, it doesn't seem like a coincidence at all that the Eridian name he chose for Grace the very first moment he saw him was the word for wonder.