Chapter Text
“Eye movement detected. Please stand by for a cognitive examination.” Where am I? “What is 2+2?” Mary asks me. I feel like I’ve been run over. Where am I? Where’s Rocky? I try to get up, the tubes are pulling me back down. Tubes. My chest starts feeling tight. I feel myself trying to form words, nothing’s coming out yet. The machines I’m hooked up to don’t have screens but their sounds pulse rhythmically with my heart pounding in my ears.
Oh, my eyes are open. That’s good. I look around, for Rocky. I hear him first, chittering loudly and banging against the wall next to me. I feel my breath and tension exit me all at once when I see him. I remember where I am, the coma.
“Four.” I say when Mary asks again. I’m nervous and I feel the Robot starting to remove things from me. I close my eyes, I hate it, I want to stare at Rocky but I want to stay calm more.
Top Down. Mouth tube, out before I woke up. Electrodes being peeled off my skull. The NG tube is slowly, painlessly, pulled out of my throat, one of the claws cradling my head. Who’s piloting these? I’ll have to ask Rocky. Down my torso, more electrodes over my heart. Some sort of port, under my ribs on the left side. Wonder what that means? Another Rocky question. It feels like it’s somewhat healed already. I want to poke at it- I am stopped by a weight in my arms, one I had not noticed.
I look down, slowly, I’m not sure what to expect, but I am met with two beautiful eyes like polished blue stones. I scan down its form, adjusting my hold to free an arm to gently touch its face. It starts purring. I let my fingers trace the edge of where its carapace and skin meet. Skin. Human skin. Dear Baby Jeebus Horatio Christ.
“What-WHO is this?” I’m shouting. I don’t care. “Rocky tell me who this baby is NOW. Where did they come from. WHY?!” Panic and incredulity spiral in me with reckless abandon. The baby cuddles further against my chest, its heat radiating into me like laying a hand on hot pavement. Strangely, it’s not painful. Rocky is clicking and stuttering on the other side of the barrier. I turn til I’m fully facing him with my legs dangling off my bed. The What in question nestled in my elbow.
I press my finger against the gem in their forehead. It’s warm and smooth under my finger.
“My beloved Grace this is Star of Earth and Erid.”
“And. And how?” I’m hesitant to ask, because this child in my arms is obviously a part of both of us. And Adrian. This little creature, Star of Earth and Erid. Probably the biggest distraction there’s ever been. Maybe the second biggest…
“I uh… This is terrible. I’m sorry, I’m sorry sorry sorry.” He was spinning in place nervously.
“Sometimes… when an Eridian is very upset they will… lay an egg. No one knows why, just something that happens. Apparently, in very specific conditions, these eggs can be viable.”
He falls silent but doesn’t stop his distressed spinning. I follow his path across the floor while mindlessly squeezing the child's claw. They have an Eridian shaped claw with three digits but instead of being entirely stone the inside of their hand was human skin. I gently poke their palm and they squeeze my finger in their claws.
“I had never laid a viable egg before, I wasn’t even sure it would be physically possible to have a clutch with Adrian when we got back, after everything that happened up there… I just, I saw you being put into that coma and I knew you were probably so scared and I dropped the egg and I just-I needed a part of me to be there with you. If I had known-“ He is still spinning. I am still staring down at the life we created together.
“And if you had?” I interrupt him. “Would it have changed?” I am curious about this. I am probably going to have a great deal of negative feelings about this later but for now, I look up at Rocky and I’ve never felt more at peace.
“Yes.” He says after thinking for a moment. “I would not have stuck the egg in there with you if I had known. Grace, you seem to not understand. The pebble hybrid latched onto you and began consuming you. Not just that, it performed a genetic exchange. You… are changing. The doctor will go over everything with you when they get here, but I wanted to be the one to tell you. This child came from both of us, but it fed on you. It nearly killed you when it first latched on. They had to give you many, many supplements on top of the nutrients I had them synthesize for you. It turned you into a hybrid as well. I understand if you resent me. I didn’t mean for this to happen.” He finally stops spinning, crouching low to the ground and eventually fully settling.
“Rocky…” I take a couple full breaths, mentally pulling together words to encompass what I’m feeling. It feels like the thought equivalent of trying to eat spaghetti when you’re hallucinating that it’s several miles of xenonite chains. “I am probably going to scream at you, ignore you, guilt and blame you for this later. But for now, I am just going to appreciate that, however it happened, I am alive, and we have created life, and I have to figure out what the frack Star of Earth and Erid’s English name is going to be.”