Chapter Text
T-10 months
“So, tell me, Dr. Grace. What did Rocky mean by his statement that you already agreed to go back with him?”
Grace knew that this question was coming. He knew it had been coming since Rocky mentioned it. Now it was just him and Stratt in her office, the other looking more serious than he had ever seen her. Which was rather impressive, given some of the looks she had given him over the last year or so.
Still, Grace felt more relaxed than he had in ages. Having a future that he wanted to see more than anything had an effect on him. He had never felt so hopeful. Even if it was only after a lot of disaster. Hopefully they could get to that point without as much chaos.
“I’ve been talking to Rocky since we made contact with him in the dreams,” Grace admitted, relaxed as he watched her. She was never going to take him off the ship, not now that they knew it would work. While one of the other scientists might be able to do what he did, he had the memories of doing all of it.
Plus, he was pretty sure Rocky would come to Earth to pick him up if he didn’t show up in Tau Ceti at this point.
His friend had made it -very- clear what he thought about Earth and their treatment of Grace overall. If said planet kept Grace from coming to Rocky, Rocky very likely would come to Earth.
And Grace -very- much did not want that, given some of the very disturbing comments that were made by the Entities when he finally met them. They had decided that, if he wanted, they would fix the Hail Mary after they got him settled. Which was what Rocky had been offering in the dream. But it was pretty obvious that they were not thrilled with that idea.
If anything, they were far more furious than Grace himself over the forced sleep and being sent to die. And the questions that they had about why the humans had thought it was okay to send him, of all people.
“And you never thought to mention this?” Stratt asked after a moment. “That you were in contact with an alien species?”
“We’ve all been in contact with an alien species,” Grace pointed out. “The entire dream sharing thing was us being in flipping contact with aliens. And you have had enough of a peep show into my personal life as it was.”
The fact that he had back up that they couldn’t take away was strangely relieving. Not that he thought Stratt would try to keep him. No matter how annoyed she was that he had been keeping secrets.
Stratt pinched the bridge of her nose. “Why would you keep this hidden?”
“Why would I share?” he countered. “We were all dealing with shared dreams, most of which are things I would have much rather kept to myself. In any case, what good would it have done to tell you?” Grace looked at her, head tilting slightly as he watched her reactions.
She looked exhausted. Well, while he felt a little bad for that, he was not going to feel guilty about keeping his private talks with Rocky private. “Besides, most of our time was spent napping or talking about what we were seeing. Why do you think I agreed to the mission?”
Grace snorted a bit. “It definitely wasn’t for the thrilling idea of dying alone in space, I can tell you that. Even if you thought I had no other use.”
She paused, and he knew that had hit a sore spot. They had already talked about his opinions on the thought process of alternative future Stratt. Especially her comments about why it should be him.
So the one of his timeline moved past that and instead focused on considering the timeline. “How long ago did he ask you to come with him?” Ah, she was starting to realize some of his motivations.
That got a laugh from Grace. “Not as long as you’d think. He offered me the fuel to get home first. Several nights before the offer in the dreams.” Just remembering it made his chest warm. “Rocky is the only reason I said yes. Because he offered me a way home.”
Rocky was just sort of amazing. Even if he was on a one Eridian crusade to come back to Earth so he could yell at people. His friend had extremely loud opinions about certain world dictators. And was especially confused about why Grace still considered Stratt a friend.
Grace had to reassure Rocky that best friends were their own special tier. It was a moral imperative to Rocky that he and Stratt did not, in fact, share a social space in Grace’s squishy brain.
Then he chuckled. “You know,” he said absently. “It’s a really, -really- good thing that the Eridians are generally calm.”
Stratt’s brows arched. “I’m not sure I like the implication of that statement,” she said. Grace shrugged at her again.
“Trust me, they are -very- fond of me and were very unhappy about the details of how I ended up in space.” He gave her a smile. “Rocky did not hide any of that from the Entities, and they had…opinions of their own.”
He saw the furrow between her eyes and waved his hands. “No worries now. I’m totally going voluntarily, so that takes care of their biggest issues with Earth. Plus I plan to pack a lot better so I won’t look nearly as dead when I show up.”
Grace remembered one of the times he had seen an image of himself while at the end of the trip to Erid. He wished he could get it across just how bad things had been towards the end. But words alone didn’t seem like they would be enough. He hummed, a little frustrated.
He was so tired. Had a glimpse of himself, thin skin stretched out over his bones, looking like some of the pictures he had seen in history books. Bruises littered his skin from his body just existing. Exhaustion dragged on him, even through the fog that clouded his brain. Everything hurt, even just existing. His mouth tasted like blood all the time, and the bandages around his arm had to be changed regularly where the scar from Rocky bled almost constantly.
His very bones ached so much that he just wanted to sleep, but he couldn’t. Because he would not wake up, and he could never do that to Rocky.
Grace gasped, back arching as there was an almost physical snap as that image faded.
Across from him, Stratt was panting, hunched over her desk.
“What….” she got out, voice a little slurred. “Was that?”
Grace, feeling a little dazed, stared into space for a moment. “That felt like,” he got out slowly before having to stop. Then he tried again. “I think that we may have thrummed.” Something tickled under his nose, and he reached up. Knew it was blood before he even touched it. At the desk, Stratt quickly grabbed a tissue to deal with her own nosebleed.
“Didn’t think humans could do that,” he said absently, tilting his head forward. “Got pulled into one. Once. They never did that a second time.”
It was once he was in better health, and they had been curious if Grace could take part in a thrum. Rocky alone hadn’t been able to test that. So, once he was healthy, they had asked, as it would make things easier if they could read his memories as they had Rocky.
The answer was…he could, but there were consequences.
Like this.
“Medical,” he said, pushing himself to stand. Then collapsing as he sat down hard, vision going gray. “Never mind.” He pulled out his phone and squinted until his fuzzy vision focused and he was able to dial for Lamai.
This seemed like a problem.
///
Olesya had shown up first, and firmly set herself beside where Grace was slumped in a chair, while Lamai was looking over Stratt.
“It would be easier if you would come to medical,” the doctor was saying, looking annoyed that she was doing all of this in Stratt’s office.
“No,” was Stratt’s very firm denial. “By doing things in this way, we can say there is another meeting. I do not want others to know that we had a minor incident here.” She frowned. “Especially as we cannot explain what caused it. And claiming an assassination attempt would be looked on…poorly.”
“You have some stuff, here,” Olesya said softly to Grace, pointing just under her nose, showing him where he still had blood on his upper lip. He gave her a faint smile and took a wet wipe and cleaned himself up a bit more.
“Didn’t expect you here,” he murmured. “Thank you.”
Olesya scoffed. “Please. I have all the sources. I knew there was no meeting with Lamai today, so when someone commented that she must have been late to one, I knew something was up.”
She hummed. “Texted Yao, he should be here soon.” A nod. “The harem must assemble.”
“Never mind. I hate you.”
Olesya grinned. Then it faded. “What happened?” she asked. It was obvious that there had been a mess, given the amount of stained tissues she could see in the trash can, and the fact that Lamai was doing some basic neurological checks like checking eyes and reactions. “Looks…messy.”
“I’d like to know that as well,” Stratt came the closest Olesya had ever heard to huffing. The woman usually had too much control to give such an inelegant response, but she also had Lamai checking her eyes. Again. And had a piece of tissue wadded up in a nostril. Olesya could understand why Stratt was annoyed.
“I’m not sure,” Grace admitted. “It felt like a thrum. But a human can’t start a thrum,” he muttered. “And you can’t thrum with just two people.” He pinched his nose. “But I’ve been part of one, and it felt about like this.”
Stratt was quiet. “What you shared,” she asked in a soft voice, obviously remembering what Grace had said about thrums before. “Was that real?”
Whatever they shared was obviously bad. She had never heard Stratt sound like that.
Grace didn’t say anything for a long moment, attention obviously somewhere very far away. Both in time and space, Olesya was pretty sure. “Yeah,” he said finally. “It was. I came very, very close to dying out there. It’s why I plan on picking my personal payload very carefully. I am taking all the multivitamins with me.”
Oh. She suddenly had an idea of whatever Grace had shared in this ‘not a thrum’ thrum of his.
“Didn’t the other Grace say he was working with a couple of thrums?” Olesya asked.
There was a moment as Grace considered that. “I mean, maybe? You could work with a thrum without being part of it, but the fact that the memories are worked into it, that implies they were able to pull them directly from my future self. That must have been rough.”
Olesya paused, grimacing slightly as a thought occurred to her. “Do you think this is part of why?”
She reached out and tapped it against the center of his chest. “Is why dreams happen? Aren’t they like a thrum?” Just based on how he had described the thrums, she figured it was along a similar path.
Grace opened his mouth. Then he closed it. And slowly, with a pained sigh, slumped in his chair.
“Crap,” he muttered. “I think I accidentally thrummed with you, Stratt. I am going to have to do so much testing on this.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I have no idea how I triggered it, or why it happened? Is it like the dreams and I can only connect to people who have shared them?”
Honestly, Olesya was pretty sure Grace was both annoyed at this disruption to his already busy days and highly intrigued at this whole thing. He was such a scientist. It was adorable when he and Dimitri got all nerdy together talking about astrophage and its properties and how it could be used to be a giant explosion.
Sometimes they even got DuBois and Shapiro going as well, in a different way than Grace got the pair going, and it was just pure entertainment. Did she understand half of what they said? No, but they were just so enthusiastic about it that it was charming to watch.
Yao seemed to get some amusement from it as well, though she figured he understood about the same amount she did. But they were so relaxed and happy that it was calming to be around.
Especially when Grace was in a good mood and dug out the good alcohol. He normally kept it hidden, complaining they would drink it all if he did not.
Which was true. If they knew where he stashed it, it would definitely be gone.
Though Olesya was starting to wonder if he didn’t have an alcohol still set up someplace on the ship. There were a lot of those around, and the stuff that Grace produced definitely didn’t have a name on the bottle.
Something to investigate later. Right now, she sat with him and waited until Lamai finished torturing Stratt, including taking blood, and then turned her attention to Grace.
“Vampire,’ he told Lamai, though he sat through his own exam and blood draw easily enough. Yao showed up part way through, letting them all know that DuBois and Shapiro would be visiting later so they could check up on what was going on. They had an experiment to run first.
Once the check up was done, Olesya hauled Grace to his feet.
“Time for food,” she told him. “You left early, and is obvious you have not eaten.” She looked to Stratt. “You should eat as well.”
“Not just coffee,” Grace said, looking at her. “Carl, could you make sure she gets something that is real food?”
Carl just looked back at him, but something in his expression made Grace smile, and then he allowed Olesya to drag him out, Yao nodding a goodbye and following.
“You are a menace,” Grace told Olesya, who snorted.
“You are one who just got Carl to agree to bully Stratt into eating,” she retorted. “If anyone is menace, is you.”
That made Grace grin. Olesya couldn't help her own smile.
They both knew what she said was true.