Chapter Text
Half a year in on our four-year road trip to Erid, Rocky starts to get serious about preparing me for life on his planet. I’ve already asked him to start introducing more natural Eridian into his speech so I can wean myself off of the English-Eridian pidgin he usually uses with me, and that’s been going okay. But now the gloves have really come off. I have a whole planet’s worth of history and culture to learn and only 3.5 years of relativistic time left to do it in.
It’s what brings on our first real argument as partners, actually. Rocky’s idea of teaching a history lesson was basically to sit me down, lay out several consecutive centuries’ worth of individual facts under the assumption that I’ll remember all of them perfectly like an Eridian would, and then move on to the next time period with no synthesis or review.
He got frustrated by the limitations of my squishy human brain. I got annoyed by his impatience and bad pedagogy. We had to table Eridian History 101 and go be grumpy on opposite ends of the spaceship for an hour before we even got to the prehistoric development of Erid’s underground tunnel systems.
But neither of us are good at being mad – in general, and especially not at each other. I was already clambering down from the cockpit to find him when I heard him call my name sheepishly from the bottom of the ladder. We ended up meeting in the middle, like we always do.
So I taught Rocky the basics of human instruction methods and lesson planning, and he designed a long textured flowchart of key periods in Eridian history that we draped across the lab tunnels for me to reference. Classes went a lot better after that.
History classes, of course, inevitably bleed into lessons on Eridian culture. This one gets a bit tricky for Rocky as we get further into the weeds, actually. Beyond the obvious stuff, it can be hard to really explain your own culture because you’re part of it. All its basic assumptions and worldviews are yours too. I know the feeling – I remember being surprised to find out how many of my lab colleagues on the Vat from non-western countries still lived with their parents and immediate family (at least until they got conscripted onto the Project), even into their twenties or beyond. I’d just assumed the American thing of ‘everyone moves out on their own at eighteen unless they can’t afford to’ was the global norm.
I explain this to Rocky, who whistles a little with relief. “Yes! Is exact problem. Hard to know what is or is not obvious. Like how Eridians do partners,” he adds teasingly, poking at me through the xenonite wall. He usually goes back in his tunnels for our lessons, because that’s where all his texture pens and modelling stuff he uses for teaching are.
I roll my eyes fondly and poke back. “Hey, it worked out, didn’t it?”
“Worked out very well,” Rocky says with a hint of self-congratulation. Which is fair, since I spent most of the time right before we got together hiding in the bathroom having an anxiety attack over my boner. “Grace have no complaints.”
I laugh. “Can’t say that I do, bud. It’s a good thing I listen to you.”
“Listen sometimes. Sometimes you are brat,” says Rocky, who’s definitely been doing more online sex research again.
My cheeks flare red, which Rocky can’t see, but he titters at me anyways because he knows me well enough to guess he’s made me blush. I grab on to the first potentially distracting topic I can think of, because if Rocky gets me hot and bothered now I’ll probably have to hear this afternoon’s lecture all over again, since I’ve been too lazy today to take notes.
“So what about your culture on Erid, do people live with their families unless they have a mate, or what?”
“Sometimes,” Rocky says, wiggling a hand for so-so. “Or go live with other friends or cluster members if move somewhere else for specialty, like I did. I left birth home to join new Erid astroengineering hive at younger age than most do.”
“How come?”
He twists a little, like he’s feeling bashful. “Erid needed many many many people for work on Astrophage problem.”
Uh-huh. I don’t buy that for a minute. There’s no way Rocky hasn’t been brilliant from the beginning. “Oh, yeah? You sure it wasn’t just because they could tell you were a freakin’ genius?”
I tap on the wall. He’s not getting away with underselling himself on my watch. “‘Cause I bet your name was on the top of the list when they went looking for the best people to save Erid.”
The twisting gets more vigorous. “Graaace…”
“I’m just saying, I feel like I know you pretty well by now–” literally inside and out,, the still-horny part of my brain wants to add, but I slap it down because now’s not the time – I have a partner to admire, dangit! “–and there’s literally nobody better they could’ve chosen. You’re the smartest guy I’ve ever met, and I’ve got a sample size of two planets and counting.”
“Planet Adrian does not count, no intelligent life,” Rocky tries his best to grumble. “And Grace not actually been to Erid yet. You never meet any Eridian except me.”
“Doesn’t matter. I already know I’m right,” I say, playing up the cockiness for the bit, but I really do mean it. Even if every single person on Erid is somehow as tough and smart and creative as Rocky, he’s still special. I’m glad that his planet saw it, too.
Rocky’s fingers are ticking away at each other with sheepish nerves, but I can see the pleased tilt to his carapace. “Grace flatter too much. Sound like Rocky family when I first join astroengineering hive.”
I grin. “Ohohoho. Then I’m gonna have to meet them once we get to Erid. I’ve got some stories about you that’ll knock their socks off.”
Rocky tries to groan, but the carapace-tilt that I think of as an Eridian smile just gets steeper. “Eridians not wear socks,” he mutters, and I roll my eyes fondly.
Deep down, though, I’m kind of surprised by how much confidence I feel when it comes to our partnership. I mean, my ex practically had to drag me by the collar to meet her parents (sorry, Linda) and I have a guilty suspicion that my poor handling of her push towards commitment was part of why we broke up pretty soon afterwards. And I don’t think I even knew my friend Marissa had a twin brother until we’d been friends for like, three years.
But here I am now, lightyears away from Earth with three and a half years of dangerous space travel still to go, talking with perfect certainty about how when we get to Rocky’s planet I want to meet his family to swap stories about this crazy genius we all love. I mean, wow.
Rocky bumps against me through the xenonite, warm and familiar. “You will like Rocky family. Most of us engineers for past λ generations.”
“That’d be…since you guys invented xenonite, right?” I ask. See, I do pay attention in history class!
“Yes, and before,” Rocky says. “Southwest river area where my birth cluster live had many steel foundries, so very easy to start working with xenonite after invention.”
I make a mental note to write a physical note about that later, since I bet he’ll put it on a quiz. (Yes, I also had to teach him what quizzes are.)
“And you’ve got, what – Adrian and their partner, your parents and grandparents and great-grandparents, all their partners, four siblings plus whatever word we come up with for parents’ partners’ kids, and all of their partners–” I stop for breath before I get dizzy. Jeez, just remembering everyone in their family must test the limits of Eridians’ eidetic memories.
“Also cousins, children of siblings, family from choice, many good good friends,” Rocky adds, sounding both warm and weary. “Many many many people. I used to…before, used to think was too much. Was weirdo, liked being alone more than normal Eridian. Now…”
He trails off, but he doesn’t need to say it. I understand. Or at least I understand as much as anyone can without surviving forty-six silent, lonely years adrift in space, remembering with unflinching perfection all the loved ones back home whose lives depended on you alone now, who all surely believed you were dead. More than enough solitude for a lifetime, even for someone who’d live centuries.
I press my hand to the xenonite and tap twice, a little heartbeat rhythm. “Hey. You’re not alone anymore, Rock. I’m here, and we’re going home.”
The trill he lets out then surprises me with the undercurrent of joy running through it. He taps back, saying my name so softly I can barely hear it, and it’s only then that I realise I said we. That we’re going home, to this planet and these people I’ve never seen. It slipped out easy as anything, because it’s true. Because I don’t need all my memories back to know that home is wherever I’m with Rocky. I knew that when I turned around for him. Maybe I even knew it when we said goodbye for the first (and last) time.
“Happy happy happy to bring Grace home with me,” Rocky says, still soft, and it warms me right through. Then he hesitates for a moment on the other side of the wall, his carapace sinking slowly. Something’s still eating him.
“Grace miss… miss family back on Earth, question?”
He asks it in a small voice, an ashamed tone that I hate to hear. He’s blaming himself for taking me away from something on Earth that I don’t even–
That I don’t–
I go still. I freeze up completely as I rummage through my head. My breaths come faster as the search gets more desperate. But everywhere I look, there’s just emptiness. A void that suddenly feels big enough to eat me alive. And I didn’t even know it was there until right now. How could I not know?
“Grace?”
There has to be something. I know there has to be something there – you have no immediate family, she’d told me – but if I go far enough back, then surely –
“Grace, question?”
I was a kid at some point, obviously, I know that. I kind of remember stuff like going to school, having teachers I really liked, kicking around by myself on the fringes of the playground with a library book in hand. But someone must have picked me after school. Someone must have given me my goofy first name. Raised me, fed and clothed me, cared about me…
“Grace, what wrong, question? Please answer, Grace–”
Oh, god, I hope they cared about me. I know by the time Stratt found me that I spent a lot of nights lying awake in my apartment in the small hours thinking about how other than my students, there was no one, really, who’d miss me if I was gone. A thought I always carefully put away after the sun rose.
But surely someone must have loved me once, in the years before I ended up in space all alone. Even though before I met Rocky, I mostly believed that whatever part of me could really connect to another person was just…fundamentally broken, somehow. Even though I know all too well from teaching my kids back on Earth that childhood could be awful, that family could be the worst part of one person’s life and the best part of another's, that having one isn’t a guarantee that anyone gives a shit about you.
Even so, I grip the sides of my head and beg my brain as Rocky knocks with increasing panic on the xenonite separating us: Please, please, there has to be something left, someone, anyone who ever loved me at all–
“Grace, my Grace, please,” begs Rocky, and it’s only that – the plaintive note in his voice that tells me he needs me, reminds me I love him and this is making him hurt – that pulls me out of it.
I’m dizzy. I haven’t been breathing right. There’s a sweaty sheen on the xenonite in the shape of my palm. Rocky’s pressed up against the wall beside me, vibrating with worry so hard I can hear it.
“I don’t–” I gulp in air. “I can’t – Rocky, I can’t remember–”
Then I can’t say anything else. But I know he understands me anyway, like always. From the corner of my eye I see him rocking from side to side with anxiety; I think he’s torn between staying next to me since I’m clearly freaking out and running for his exosuit so he can hold me for real.
Guilt billows up in me. For upsetting him, for forgetting whatever family I must have had, for not even realising I’d forgotten until now and ruining the nice moment we’d been having together.
I let out a choked sob, not my first one, and Rocky finally breaks. “Grace wait – I coming to you, will be right there, Grace just breathe–”
Rocky yanks his exosuit on in thirty seconds flat before rushing towards me out of the nearest airlock. But then he curses, stopping just a foot away from where I’m slumped in a miserable puddle. His suit’s still hot from his atmosphere, hot enough to ripple the air around it.
I watch Rocky frustratedly wave his arms around to cool them, just so he can hug me a few seconds sooner, and I love him so much I can’t breathe.
Screw the heat. I sniffle, tug down the arms of my jumpsuit so I won’t get burned, and hug the bejeezus out of him.
He yelps and tries to wriggle away – “Wait, Grace, too hot!” – but I just squeeze tighter.
“I don’t care,” I manage to croak, and I don’t. It doesn’t matter that he feels like hugging a mugful of boiling water right now. I need him way more than I need my skin not to be raw.
Rocky chirps unhappily, but wraps two careful arms around my waist. Just because I asked. Just because he knows. I feel his heat punch through the cloth of my jumpsuit and that broken part somewhere inside me, whose jagged edges were tearing me up, shivers and slots back into place.
He’s murmuring things so low that I feel them more than I hear them, but that’s all right, because they’re the same words you always say, true or not, to someone you love when they’re in pain. It’s okay. You’ll be all right. I love you. I’m here.
And I realise I can’t help but believe him, because he’s the one saying it. Maybe that means something. Maybe that means he’s not the first person who loved me enough to comfort me when I broke down.
And maybe he is, and this is all I ever get. But that’s not nothing.
I press my face into one of the joins of his shoulders as soon as he's cool enough for my skin and breathe as he says my name. That’s enough. That’s everything.
Later – after Mary runs me through some breathing exercises, and Rocky fetches me like eighteen cups of water to drink because he’s worried about my lost fluids, and I notice him tapping the ground in an ever-slower rhythm that I realise matches my calming heartbeat – later, I can actually talk about it.
“I didn’t realise until you asked about it,” I admit hoarsely. “That’s why I – that’s what got me.”
I’m in bed, because Rocky insisted on it before wrapping me up like a burrito in my quilt. The exosuit has given him endless new ways to fuss over me. I actually had to talk him down from bringing me one of my dwindling supply of ramen packets, even though I know he still finds my eating pretty gross. Instead I just tugged him up to my side so we could curl around each other.
“That no remember family, question?” Rocky asks it gently, just wanting to be sure that he understands. But I still flinch.
He warbles guiltily and cards a tentative hand through my hair. “Apology. Grace? Apology, apology, apology. I not mean–”
“Don’t be sorry,” I interrupt, grabbing one of his free hands and squeezing. “Don’t, please. You’re not – you didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just…”
My breath rattles as I force an inhale. I try to smile, which I’m sure looks grotesque. I want to say I’m broken, but that’s too much – too self-indulgent. I don’t want to put that on him. I’ve only lost one life, and I haven’t even actually died; he lost twenty-two, and he’s been stuck out here alone since before I was born. I don’t want him to feel like I’m too stuck in my own pain for him to rely on me when he needs me the way I need him now. Because I’m sure it’ll happen at some point. I don’t ever want to fail him like that.
So I try to explain. “You know I woke up here with almost no…no memories of my life. I don’t really know what caused it, if it was the coma, or… I don’t know, it doesn’t matter. Most things have come back by now, anyway. Or I thought they had. I didn’t – I didn’t know till now how much I was still missing. That there’s just nothing where my family might’ve been. I know they were gone by the time I was an adult. But I don't remember anything about who they were. And it…” I feel Rocky’s claw curl around my hand and force myself to be honest. Besides, he already knows. “It hurts. It scares the hell out of me.”
“Bad bad bad,” Rocky whispers. Little tremors run down his arms. “I not want you missing parts of yourself. Grace not deserve. I wish – I wish could fix.”
I tuck our joined hands against my chest, so he can hear me better. So he can feel my heartbeat and know I'm telling the truth. “You do, though. As much as anything can.”
This close together, I catch a low murmur that definitely wasn’t meant for me to hear: “Is not enough.”
“Yes, it is,” I tell him firmly. “Don’t give me that. Rocky, you’re – you’re everything to me. Yeah, of course I wish I remembered whatever family I used to have on Earth, but you’re my family too.”
I push myself upright so I can look at him face-to-carapace. “I meant what I said earlier. We’re going home, Rock. You and me, okay? You because it’s where your family is, and me because it’s where you are.”
I’m choked up again, but that’s okay, because now Rocky’s the one hugging the bejeezus out of me. Wrapping me up in three arms and leaning his carapace alongside my body like Eridian partners do, so they can hear all the way through each other. There’s a faint ringing in my ears that means he’s making some high keening sound just outside of my auditory range. We hold each other tight.
“You my family also,” Rocky tells me a long moment later. “Love, love, love my Grace.”
“I love you too, Rock.”
“And…Grace have family on Erid, too. Many many people. All Rocky family is your family now, statement. They just not know you yet.”
It hits me like a fist to the solar plexus, knocking all the air from my lungs. I wheeze and shudder and leak onto the warm spot from Rocky’s vents. His heat makes the tears I leave there evaporate quickly. Soon there’s not even a trace.
“Okay,” I say softly, my voice as small and creaky as it was the first time he told me Grace go home. But this time we hug much, much longer.
Rocky stays right next to me until I fall asleep. He stays there all through the night, his hand in mine, watching over me like we always do for each other. And part of me must remember he’s there even when I’m asleep, because I don’t have a single nightmare.
When I wake up, I still haven’t remembered anything else about my family on Earth. I know I might never get any of it back. But I don’t feel that gaping emptiness inside me like I did yesterday. I know where I’m going, and who’s waiting for us, and that Rocky and I’ll be together all the way.