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Eva never remembers her dreams. She dreams in third person, in a jumbled mess of people and places and memory. Before the project, they were unremarkable. During, she rarely slept and so she rarely dreamt. And now, in prison? She has all the time in the world to sleep. So she dreams of endless space, and of the late nights on the ship, and of him, hazy and always just out of reach. Sometimes she's standing at the edge of the ocean with him. Sometimes she is in it, drowning beneath the waves as he watches.
The first time it happens, she is sitting at her old desk. She never dreams of this place and it's the first thing that strikes her as odd about the dream.
And then she sees him.
He is standing against the wall and watching her, back to the windows. It's dark outside and the only light is from her desk lamp. He almost glows where the light hits him, or maybe that's just her mind. He is wearing the same clothes he had been wearing during that final encounter. The last time she truly saw him.
She stares, drinking him in like she is in a desert, hot sun and bright sand and clear skies beating down on her and he is water. He stares back. There is something about his eyes that unsettles her. She can faintly see her own reflection in his glasses. It's almost like a lucid dream. Almost like she is really sitting in that office and he is really standing there, watching her watching him. In reality he is likely just her subconscious manifesting him, a product of her constant guilt.
She's been in prison for four years now, if she is counting the time right. She very well may not be. It's all started to blur together.
But if it has been four years, he should be at Tau Ceti by now. Which means he is farther from the world than anyone or anything has ever been. The thought makes her feel impossibly small.
She breaks the staredown to look around again, the sight of him becoming almost too much for her to bear. The computer before her is blank and so are the papers littered on the desk. Other than that, it looks the same as it had the last time she had been in it.
Something is missing and it takes her a moment to realise what it is: the room is dead silent. In life the office had always been full of ambient noise; the sounds of the ship and the noises of people passing in the hallways, working in rooms above and around her. It's so quiet and still in this half-dark space. So goddamn eerie.
"You're new," she tells him, unsure of what else to do or say. She has always prided herself on being unflappable, always able to find the right thing to say no matter what. Here, she is unbalanced. What does one do when their subconscious decides to haunt them?
He does not react, which really drives in the fact that this is not him. Just a pale imitation. "I've never seen you like this. So still…" Ryland in life was always moving, always expressing himself. He was the most open book she had ever met. Every thought and emotion was there for the world to see.
A thought occurs to her. Glancing down to her hands, she counts her fingers. An old trick she'd heard about once upon a time, to tell if you're dreaming. She counts five, so maybe it is a lucid dream.
"I wonder what you're dreaming about out there." No response. "I hope it's good things."
She studies him until she wakes up, and the last thing she sees is his face behind her eyelids.
This becomes a fairly regular occurrance. She dreams of nothing when she is not dreaming of him. It's strange, but not surprising. If he is at Tau Ceti now, then he will be awake and he will be remembering what she did. He is always on her mind, but even more so now. She spends her days wracked with anxiety and hope that he will figure out how to save their world. That he will make what she did worth it.
In the dreams the locations change but he remains the same. The second time she sees him she tries to touch him and her hand passes through. All he does is stand and watch her. He never moves, but his eyes follow her. His expression never changes, and they're always alone.
She knows it is just her mind trying to… comfort her maybe, in some twisted way, but a tiny part of her wonders if he is truly there, watching and listening to her.
Some of the the things she tells him… well, she hopes he isn't. Either way, it's very cathartic to tell him things, to talk about whatever she wants without the constant dissembling she had always had to do. Even with him, though she did it less and less as time went on, there was still so many things she had had to hold back.
It's ironic that she feels like she can be honest to the man she killed. Or perhaps that's exactly why. He's already seen her very worst.
She opens her eyes. This time they are on the ship, standing in the exact positions they were the night she sang for the crew. He stands impassively at the railing. She moves to stand beside him. In the dim light he looks washed out.
He watches her, she watches the horizon.
"Last time we were here, you asked me if it was hard to ask the crew to die." Below them the waves crash against the ship, creating a steady rhythm. "I said no. And it was true at the time but it isn't so much now. I know better now."
"It is and it isn't. It isn't because you are asking.
"But also it is because you are asking. You are looking them in the face and you are seeing them, a real person with a life and a story and you are asking anyway. And then you work with them for years and still you are asking. But of course, you know it is necessary so it isn't hard, but you are the one doing it."
She trails off, thinking. Then, quieter: "But it's not as hard as making it happen anyway." She lets her eyes drop down to the water directly below, dark and shimmering. The last of the sun is reflecting off of the waves.
"Sometimes I hate you for making me do that to you. I understand why, of course I do. I'm not that heartless. But it doesn't mean I wish you had made the choice anyway." A wry laugh. It almost sounds like a sob. "I had to make so many choices, Ryland. I wish I hadn't had to make that one too."
There is no response. There never is.
It is just Eva, alone in her dreams with a ghost. Despair washes over her suddenly and burns in her chest the way ice does after enough time spent in the snow. Her breaths come a little too quick now and she grips the railing tighter.
She leans forward just a bit more and stares down, down, down into the dark water, watching it roll in and break against the boat in a shining spray. Thinks about what it would feel like to let it take her away. Away from her life, her past, herself. All too soon, she wakes up.
After a particularly horrible day, she spends most of the dream curled into the couch in her office. The apparition is in the center of the room. It's mid afternoon, light pouring into the room and lighting everything bright and pretty but she can only stare into the middle distance and think wild spiralling thoughts. His coat is so bright it's hard to look at.
"I've been here for four years," she says jaggedly. "Which doesn't seem like a long time. We worked on the project for almost as long." A sharp inhale, a shaky exhale. "But when it's- God. Fuck. What even am I doing?" She lets out a sharp laugh, feeling frayed and raw at the edges. "The world is about the best it can be right now and— I'm sure it will be fine when you succeed. So, does it even… need me?"
She digs her fingers into her arms. There's no effect of course, but she imagines she can feel the pressure of it anyway. "I should just-" Her voice breaks and she makes no effort to finish the sentence, burying her head into her knees. "God, I am so tired, Ryland." The ghost of him watches her stonily. She imagines it is judging her for her weakness.
She wakes up eventually, after what feels like ages.
(She's not sure if she wants to anymore.)
"Maybe it really is you," she muses, a few dreams later. They're standing in his classroom. She takes a seat at one of the desks. The seat is far too small. She stares up at the model solar system hanging from the ceiling, at the thin red ribbon connecting Venus and the Sun. "Maybe you died, God forbid, and this is what I get. Your ghost haunting me." He is standing behind the desk and for a moment she imagines him teaching, full of life and talking enthusiastically with a bright smile on his face. Explaining how light works, or something.
"I'm sorry, you know. I wouldn't change it, of course. The world deserved every chance it could get. But so did you, and I'm sorry you didn't get it." Her eyes drift down and catch on something behind him.
A wall full of papers, clearly made by children, all showing love and appreciation for one Mr. Grace.
The next time, they're at the bar. He's standing where she stood when she sang, and she takes a seat in the chair he was sitting in.
"In another world I think we could have been friends," she tells him, a glass in her hand. "I think— we were already close enough to that. Although if you hadn't gone, we'd still be in the same position. Apart, that is. I'd still be here. It was always going to end this way. But you would be alive and free, and I could live with that. You deserved it. I know you wouldn't believe that, but you did. Do. You do deserve it, and in a better world you should have gotten it. It's so interesting, really. We're such different people. But they do say opposites attract."
She runs the tip of her finger around the rim again and again and imagines she can feel the smoothness of the glass. "We could have been friends," she repeats, softer. "I would have liked that."
We could meet again somewhere, somewhere far away from here, she thinks wryly and sets the glass on the counter. She wakes up not long after.
"If I could have, I would have gone," she admits, standing in the tunnel where she'd found him sulking after discovering his one contribution to the world wasn't true at all. "I am no scientist, but I am sure I would have been able to at least try. I dont know, though."
A long, long pause. "It's been… pretty bad here though, Ryland. I'm sorry but sometimes I think you're the lucky one."
Another bad day and she is sitting on the floor in front of her desk with her back pressed hard against it. "God, maybe they will kill me. Is it selfish to hope they do? Maybe it would be selfish if I did it myself. But if it's an accident, then…" She buries her face in her hands, hunching further into herself. "It is stupid, Ryland, but I don't want to do this anymore."
"But I don't deserve to stop either. I took that choice from you, why should I get to have it?" A sob wracks its way through her. "It would be so easy though."
"I miss you," she tells him, standing across from each other in the bio lab. "You brought life into every room you entered. I liked having you around. I could never show it, of course, but you helped me more than you ever knew." She watches her own reflection in his glasses, the harsh flourescent lights washing her out. "I kept you around me so much for the mission. To prepare for anything. Or, at least, that's what I was telling myself. I also just wanted a friend with me too."
They're at the Baikonur launch site, standing in front of the gate. It's just as overcast as the day the science lab exploded. She could close her eyes and almost pretend it's that very day.
"You should be awake by now," she tells him. "A few months into your mission."
"I believe in you, Ryland. I really do. You have always been capable of more than you thought you were. Even though you were always so determined to be average. I have always believed people are capable of more than they think they are. I know you will do great." She gives him a rare smile. It's almost beatific.
"I wonder what you are doing."
The dream changes. She can immediately feel a difference in it. There's a weight to it that is heavier than any of the others. Something in her knows that what she is seeing is… significant.
They are on the Hail Mary. Outside the window she can see stars. The especially bright one must be Tau Ceti. Bright light flashes through the window at intervals; the Hail Mary must be spinning to create gravity.
But beyond that a massive ship. It is brown and half cast in shadows, but it is undeniably a ship. It is so strange, with a round shape in the center and two… wings, almost, coming off of the sides made up of thin rods.
"What is this?" she asks, turning sharply to face him. He's standing at the other end of the short hallway, half cast in dramatic shadow. "Ryland. Is this- Was ist das?"
Another glance out the window as the other ship comes back into view. The longer she looks at it the more certain she becomes. "Oh God. Are you actually here?" She turns back to him, searching his face, his eyes. They watch her the same as ever. Awareness washes over her, knowledge settling into her mind the way dreams tell you things and she knows that somehow Ryland Grace is watching her in her dreams, somewhere in space and time.
Another spin, and he is lit up with brilliant light. "Whatever is happening," she says haltingly, "I-" She looks back out the window and watches the other ship come in and out of view.
All too soon, she wakes up. He is not there the next night, or the next. She sleeps more and more in an attempt to try and see him again, but only dreams of nothingness.
The first thing she becomes aware of is the sound of waves. Opening her eyes, she sees that they're on a beach. Only sand and sea for miles on end to the left and right of her. The sky is mostly cloudy, giving the whole scene a sort of washed-out look. She's standing a fair distance away from him. His yellow coat shines like a beacon, the only bright thing. This is the last time she will see him. The knowledge is pressed into her mind and woven into the dream.
As she walks up, she sees that he is standing with his shoes in the water. He's no longer facing her, eyes locked on the endless sea. There's something symbolic about that, and the break in the routine only serves to cement the fact that this is the final dream. She comes to a stop beside him.
"Is the job done, then? Is that what this is?" she asks. Still no response. There are so many things she still wants to say to him.
She settles on "I'm proud of you. I hope you can rest now." It does not feel like nearly enough.
"Thank you, Ryland."
Shortly after, she breaks out of prison. The beetles touch down a year and a half later, and she gets to work.