Work Text:
Eva Stratt took a sip of her coffee. Almost empty. She once again wished she had a coffee maker in her office. But alas, Stratt only had the essentials in her tiny office on the ship. A desk and two chairs, along with very minimal decorations, gifted to her by her crew. Well actually that’s a lie, they were mostly gifted to her by Dr. Ryland Grace. Where was Grace anyway? He normally would have come by with another coffee for her along with updates on how his training of DuBois and Shapiro had been going by now, but she hadn’t seen him at all this morning. Oh well, he was probably busy checking in on someone or catching up on sleep after staying up too late in his lab. As long as he showed up to the weekly science team meeting on time Stratt didn’t see a reason to worry too much about it.
As she worked, Stratt found herself looking at her office door expecting him to come barging in at any moment, but still nothing happened. She shook her head trying to rid herself of the distraction and went back to reading her email. She sighed. It seemed like the closer they got to launch, the more email requests for her presence at various places around the world she received. Some wanted her there for what could almost be considered good reasons. As governments, companies, and journalists realized that her project was actually going somewhere and had an end date, they became more invested and wanted to know more about the project, which they somehow believed made it necessary for her to travel around the world to speak to them. These requests frustrated her because there was still so much work to do, and it took way too much of her time and energy to decline all of their offers. And of course there were also the many countries who were all too eager to put her on trial for what they perceived to be crimes against humanity. She had to put a bit more thought into her replies to those emails to make sure they wouldn’t arrest her before the Hail Mary crew even left earth. How inconvenient that would be.
After replying to what felt like the millionth email that morning, Stratt checked the time. 7:45. Apparently there would be no Dr. Grace to bring her a second coffee, so it would probably be best if she left early to grab one on the way to the meeting. Hopefully he would show up otherwise they might have a problem on their hands, and she was not in the headspace to deal with that right now. Maybe after a second coffee.
Stratt opened the door to the small meeting room, coffee in hand. As she made her way to her seat at the head of the table, she scanned the room. No Dr. Grace, but everyone else was there. That’s alright, she’d give him a couple minutes before starting to worry. He sometimes had a habit of not making it to meetings on time. She took a sip of her coffee. Somehow it didn't taste as good as it did when Grace made it. She shook her head at that thought. That’s ridiculous. Why would it make a difference if he made it? They both make it the same way, she told him how she likes her coffee! It’s stupid thoughts like this that always distract her from her work. Why did she even care that he didn’t bring her coffee and might be a few minutes late to the meeting? It’s not her problem, she should just start without him. And yet, she watched the clock tick over to 8:01, and she made no move to begin the meeting. Why was she so bothered by his absence anyway? Surely there were other mornings where he slept in a little. She couldn’t remember any but she was sure that it had happened at least once or twice. So what changed?
But before she could finish that thought, the door opened. It was Grace. Oh thank goodness. She looked over at him and they made eye contact for a moment before he dropped his eyes to the table to avoid her gaze. Strange. Stratt resolved to keep thoughts of Dr. Grace to the back of her mind for the time being and began the meeting.
After the meeting concluded Stratt couldn’t help but glance over to where Grace was sitting. But he had already packed up his stuff and was headed out the door. She almost got up out of her chair to follow him but then thought better of it. He probably had something he needed to get done. But it still felt strange since he normally walked with her to her office on the way to his lab. But if he had something he needed to get done she wasn’t going to get in his way. Instead, she grabbed her stuff and headed back to her office, alone, mentally preparing for the several zoom calls that would fill the rest of her morning.
As the day wore on, Stratt’s mind began to wander more and more. She couldn’t stop thinking about everything that could possibly go wrong with the project. They had just completed the ninth out of sixteen launches, and the more successful launches they had the more confident she was in their plan. But she was slowly growing more terrified of what would happen if something went wrong. The closer they got to the final launch, the less time they would have to fix anything that could go wrong. But at the same time she knew that there was hardly anything more to be done to prevent that sort of disaster from happening that hadn’t already been done. All of this worrying was irrational and was just another thing distracting her from getting stuff done.
When her mind eventually tired of this train of thought, her thoughts again turned toward Grace. She still hadn’t heard a word from him the entire day which had to mean that something was up, but it was especially strange that he wasn’t telling her what was going on. Normally she was the first person he would go to when something went wrong. He was always asking for her input, even when she didn’t understand when he told her about his more science related problems.
She thought about asking someone whether they thought there was something up with Grace, but that would be kind of a weird thing to bring up if there wasn’t actually anything going on. And she didn’t need to feed the rumors that were already going around the ship by asking about him. So she decided to wait it out and see if anything would change.
The next day, Grace walked into their first meeting of the day exactly one minute early and walked quickly to his spot at the meeting table, once again refusing to make eye contact with her. He did not stop by her office that morning, or at all the day before, and it was really starting to get on Stratt’s nerves. This was going to start affecting their work soon if he refused to even talk to her about whatever was going on, that is, if it hadn’t already affected anything. It was already starting to distract her thoughts, and she was sure he wasn’t as focused as he normally was either. And issues would surely arise that he would need to come to her about. Would he talk to her then? Their communication was central to the success of this project, why couldn’t he see that? Was it something that she said? Something she did? Did he somehow change his mind and join everyone else in the world who seemed to believe that everything she was doing for the project, bombing Antarctica, paving over the Sahara desert, all the sacrifices she and the crew made, wasn’t worth it in the end?
She looked over at Dimitri, who looked at Grace then back to her with a concerned expression. She shrugged at him in response. At least she knew now she wasn’t crazy for noticing something was off.
“Is he alright?” Dimitri whispered to her in Russian.
Stratt sighed. “I don’t know what’s going on,”
“We talk later.” He responded.
She nodded, then glanced over at Grace, hoping he hadn’t realized they were talking about him, even if she knew he couldn’t understand the language. He hadn’t of course, he was busying himself reading over some new scientific article. Oh well, whatever was up with Grace would have to wait, they had business to attend to.
A few hours later, Stratt was sitting in her office as always, when she heard a knock on the door.
“Come in,” she said, slightly annoyed about being interrupted.
“It is just me,” Dimitri said as he opened the door and sat down in the chair across from her. “Lunch was good?” He asked, gesturing at her half eaten sandwich sitting long forgotten on the far side of her desk. She did not have the patience for this right now.
“Yes, now let’s skip the small talk, you know I don’t have time for that. What do you want?”
“Okay, okay.” he laughed a little. “Dr. Grace was acting strange at the meeting, yes? I assume you know something about this?”
What? Why would she know what was up with Grace? Stratt quickly shifted her shocked expression back to one of cool indifference.
“No, I do not know why he is acting like this. He has been avoiding me for some unknown reason, I thought you would know what is going on.”
Now it was Dimitri’s turn to look shocked. “You really don’t? I thought you would have…that you two…oh nevermind.”
Stratt waited a moment for him to continue but he seemed to lose his train of thought so she proceeded. “Well whatever it is, he must know he has to speak to me eventually, if he keeps this up it could significantly affect our progress.”
“Our progress? You’re just worrying about this affecting the project?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Yes, why wouldn’t I be?”
“You are a strange woman Ms. Stratt. Um, I mean no offense of course. Ahem. Anyways, if I can offer my opinion, I think the best solution is to meet one on one with him.”
“You think I should…but why not you? He doesn’t seem to want to talk to me. And he would probably appreciate a…softer approach.”
“Listen, I think I know what might be going on, and I think you two need to handle this yourselves.”
Did Dimitri know something she didn’t? Had Grace mentioned something to him? “How do you know? Am I missing something?”
Dimitri laughed. “Oh, you might think you have this ship under your control, Stratt, but there’s a lot that goes on that you don’t know about. You miss more than you think.”
“Fine, I’ll handle it. You can leave now. And don’t suggest I don’t know what is happening on my own ship.”
He smiled at her as he got up. “Whatever you say, Dictator Stratt.” She rolled her eyes at that, and he closed the door and left her alone with her thoughts.
Stratt thought back to all of the interactions she had with Grace over the past day or two before he stopped talking to her, trying to look for something that could have triggered this. She was as confused as ever. At least she was fairly convinced it wasn’t anything she said. She would have noticed if he had a negative reaction to anything she said. They spent enough time together that she was often able to tell what kind of mood Grace was in, and she had gotten pretty good at figuring out what caused his bad moods too, but this one had her stumped. But only because he wouldn’t just come talk to her about it! He could have saved her a lot of her worry if he just came and talked to her yesterday morning and brought her a coffee damnit! Okay, she was getting way too upset about this. One man’s emotional problems should not be taking up this much of her time when she had the world to save.
She sent him one text. '7pm. My office.'
Then after a moment she added, 'Be on time to this one.'
She checked her phone a few minutes later. Grace had read the text but did not reply. His lack of reply concerned her a little but that was nothing new compared to how he had been ignoring her in person. She sighed, put her phone down, and went back to work.
Stratt looked up when she heard a soft knock on her door. “Come in!”
Dr. Grace opened the door slowly. He already had a guilty look on his face.
“Please sit,” Stratt said, gesturing to the chair opposite her. He sat down, yet again refusing to look at her. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Huh?” He looked slightly shocked by her question.
“You’ve been avoiding me so something has to have changed, so what is it?”
“Oh, um, I don’t really know how to explain what I’m…what happened…to you…I don’t think you’d get it.”
“You don’t think I’d understand?” she asked, attempting to clarify.
“Well I…I don’t know…” He took his glasses off and let them dangle from one ear. Then he pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a sigh of frustration. “I just didn’t want to talk about this with you.”
Stratt looked at him with annoyance. Of course. She should have just made Dimitri talk to him. But she had blocked off an hour of her time for this, so she wasn't going to give up on him just yet. “Dr. Grace, you can’t just decide to not talk to me. Our communication is central to the success of this project! You surely don’t think so highly of yourself that you would put whatever silly issue you’re having above the needs of the world. I didn’t bring you on to this ship just for you to go sulk in a corner somewhere. I blocked off an hour of my time for this meeting, so you are not leaving until we have come to some sort of resolution. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes.” He tried to control his expression as he finally looked up at her, but she could still see the hurt in his eyes. As she looked into his eyes she immediately regretted her words, but there was no taking them back now.
“Listen,” Stratt began, “I’m sorry, I…just want this mission to succeed. I think about just how easily something could go wrong and I…I need you to be able to see this through. Despite what you say, you are a vital part of this mission and I still need your work and your input. So I need you to tell me what is going on so we can go back to how things were. Do you understand?”
Grace broke eye contact and looked down. Something seemed to change in his expression as he pondered her words. He paused for a moment before responding. “Yes, I’m sorry. It all seems so silly when you put it that way. I just wasn’t thinking about the…I just wasn’t thinking clearly at all really.”
“Do you want to try again?” Stratt asked, giving him a small smile.
He took a deep breath then began. “Ok fine. I guess…it started when we were all watching the launch in the break room together, and the crew was wondering where you were. I said you probably weren’t coming, but then they said that was fine because I was there. And I was like ‘Why is that?’ and they said that I represented you in a way because they said I was your number two. And then DuBois said that was because they thought we were…having sex and then I told them it’s not like that of course. But I don’t think they fully believed me because later they were trying to comfort me because they thought I was upset that you didn’t want to have sex with me even though I told them that’s not true and I don’t want that. But this whole thing really bothered me, and I didn’t know why until I was thinking about it later that night. I started to worry that my behavior towards you came across that way, and the crew all said that was something you probably weren’t interested in. I was worried that my behavior was bothering you, so I decided to stop talking to you in case it was, and I wanted to see if you would say anything about it. But I didn't think about the implications for the project and I took it too far so I’m sorry. If you want me to leave you alone I will. I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”
Grace took a deep breath, Stratt wasn’t sure he had taken one at all during that, and he continued to look down at the table, refusing to make eye contact. He had taken off his glasses fully now and was messing with them. Stratt gave him a moment to collect himself. Suddenly things started to fall into place in her mind. Stratt had assumed that he had heard the rumors already, but now that she thought about it of course he hadn’t. The crew had tried to keep them from her too, but she was too observant to miss a rumor that was as prevalent as this one. And of course it affected him, it was what she admired most about him, his care and concern for others. It was a perfect compliment to her tendency to only look at the logical side of things. He brought her an outside perspective when she found herself too focused on their mission to notice what was going on with the people right in front of her.
“Oh…Ryland.” He looked up at her use of his first name. “It’s okay, really. Nothing you’ve done has made me uncomfortable.” She paused, then laughed a little. “I don’t know how you haven’t heard any of the rumors yet, they’re quite widespread.”
Grace looked surprised at that. “Why haven’t you done anything about them then if you knew about them?”
Stratt shrugged. “The crew needs something to gossip about, and you know I don’t care what they think of me.”
Grace pondered that for a moment. “You…are you sure you’re okay with…I mean I’m not distracting you from doing your job am I?”
“No, not until yesterday when I didn’t get my second coffee.” She gave him an accusatory look. He looked guilty. Good. “I appreciate your presence here. I like being able to bounce ideas off each other. I like having someone to complain to about all these useless emails. I…missed it yesterday when you weren’t here.”
“But you don’t want…anything else right? Because I already said I don’t want-”
“I don’t want to have sex with you Dr. Grace.” she interrupted with a straight face. Grace laughed in shock at that, and turned a shade of pink.
Stratt continued. “I don’t have the time or the interest in that sort of thing.” She looked down at the desk and grabbed his hand. “Whatever it is we have now is enough for me.”
He smiled. “Oh…good.”
“You’re free to go, or stay if you’d like.”
He paused for a moment, thinking it over. “I’ll be back in five minutes!” He said, jumping up from the chair.
Stratt smiled as she watched him leave. She looked around at all of the various knick knacks and odd decorations Grace had given to her that were scattered throughout the room. She laughed a little when she noticed a new edition, a sticky note on the ceiling with the words ‘You’re doing great!’ written in Grace’s handwriting. It had probably been there for days and she didn’t even notice.
She was glad that they had this conversation. He seemed much happier, and she didn’t have to worry about him anymore. She tried to hold on to this feeling of contentment, knowing of course that it couldn’t last long. Soon this would all be over. She would end up in prison in some random part of the world, and he would probably go back to teaching. She tried to believe her own words, that whatever they had now was enough. And she promised herself that she would never take what they had for granted again.