Chapter Text
ONE
I wake up on Erid for only the tenth time and it still doesn’t feel real. I’m in a makeshift hospital room on the surface, a big xenonite structure with Armando, rigged lights, and other supplies from the Hail Mary the Eridians brought down for me after over a month in orbit while everyone tried to save my life.
The double gravity of Erid is almost normal now and I take a few deep breaths, partly to wake up and partly to dispel risks of pneumonia. It was part of my preventative checklist, small things I could do to not get worse on the road to getting better.
“Grace awake!” Rocky trills from his spot to my left.
I haven’t even opened my eyes yet. “Yep.”
I tentatively stretch, taking note of various aches and pains that aren’t worse and maybe slightly better.
My face itches, and I just barely stop myself from tearing into the tape on my cheek holding the feeding tube in place. I really, really hate that thing. It was a necessary evil, just like a lot of the small indignities I’ve lived through in order to, well, live.
The Eridian scientists had figured out all of my nutritional needs and we were still working on introducing them all into my diet, still in the form of enriched slurry via tube in my nose. But hey, who was I to complain? I’m the luckiest human on Erid.
“Grace feel okay, question?”
Rocky still watches me sleep. And wake, and do about everything he can when he isn’t busy with a thrum or watching Adrian sleep. I think he gets anxious when I’m not in immediate proximity to him. I can’t lie and say I don’t feel the same.
“Yeah bud, I’m okay.” Okay is leagues better than I was just a few weeks ago in orbit, still suffering from scurvy and the beginning stages of beriberi.
Eridians were nothing if not focused and efficient in coming up with solutions to my severe malnutrition, even if Vitamin C gave the thrum significant trouble. At least the thiamine wasn’t an issue.
“Grace sleep for a long time, nine whole hours. No bad dreams, question?”
“Wow.” Nine hours was a miracle just a few weeks ago. Despite being malnourished and physically exhausted, good sleep had come at a premium. “Nah, buddy. Slept like,” I stopped from saying the dead, Rocky did not appreciate that simile last time. “Like, really good.” I sit up and put my glasses on just in time to see Rocky’s jazz hands.
“Good good good! Rocky talk with doctors while Grace sleep. Doctors say Grace bloodwork is much much improved, levels near normal. Want to try solid food soon! Grace agree, question?”
“Oh, that would be—“ I try to blink away the tears that came to my eyes but gave it up as a lost cause. I’m weepy, okay? I well up all the time. “Yes. As soon as—yes.”
Memories of food, real food, filter through my mind, and my mouth watered as I got up. Hamburgers. I miss hamburgers. And skittles.
Hmm. Skittles were basically just sugar, right? They couldn’t be that hard to replicate. Maybe the Eridian nutrition team could be convinced that they were necessary for my survival, they’d give it a shot. I could go a little longer without deodorant if it meant I could have skittles again.
I shelve the thought for later. Right now I had more pressing issues. I had to pee. I shove my blankets down and get up carefully, grateful for Eridian-issued grippy socks.
“Where Grace going, question?”
“Gotta hit the head, buddy.” I wince as my hips twinged. They were the most recent joint to start hurting since I started being able to walk around in double gravity.
“Hit head?” Rocky tapped twice, “Do not hit your head!”
“It means I have to use the bathroom, Rock, you know that.”
Rocky followed me closely as I shuffled toward the partition. The Eridian medical team knocked a lot of things out of the park, including a toilet.
“Rocky not watch.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Rocky was no doubt watching anyway. Not in a pervy way, but out of concern. We had a few in-depth conversations about boundaries and privacy on the Hail Mary, including bathroom time. I’d pretty much accepted that Rocky, as he could see through walls just by existing, would see everything. But he’d agreed to not pay attention to me when I went to the bathroom.
I repaid the respect by not watching him eat and always watching him sleep. Alien cultural exchange was a process not for the weak.
I finish and come back out, heading to the couch-shaped-thing on the far side of the room. It was oddly hard but also extremely comfortable in a weird way, and was basically my home base in this medical room. My laptop was plugged in and waiting for me, and my store of nutrient-rich-slurry was resting in the lab fridge from Mary.
I get cozy on the couch, accepting the blanket that Rocky had dragged over and hooking up my ‘breakfast’ to my tube. Delicious. Especially since I couldn’t taste it.
Rocky was more than used to this new form of eating and didn’t bother reacting with disgust. Instead, he set up whatever project he was working on and settled down in front of me. He had learned at some point that humans bond over mealtime and had accommodated my needs.
Rocky was the best.
“How’s life, Rock?” I ask. “How’s the thrum?”
“Engineering thrum fine. Solve many issues last time with dome, all good good good.”
“Space thrum?”
“Very good. Monitoring Taumeoba on Threeworld.” We’d done a drive-by drop of Taumoeba on the way to Erid and the population was growing quickly. Erid was well on its way to normalcy.
“And Adrian?”
Rocky stopped tinkering. “What about Adrian, question?”
I smile. For literal years while we were in space hurtling toward Erid, I thought about how important it was to get Rocky home to his mate. It got me through some dark days. “You and Adrian, your relationship. How are you doing? Everything smooth and good still?”
“Why wouldn’t it be, question?”
Okay, defensive much? “Just a question, Rock. You’ve been back for just a few weeks, you know, and gone for so long. People change, relationships shift, over that kind of time span with the kind of trauma and everything you went through.”
“Oh.” Rocky shuffles, fiddling with the random scraps of things he had in his hands. “Rocky different now, question?”
“I mean, I’m not the one to ask bud. I know I’m different than I was back on Earth. But I changed a lot, you know, between my different jobs and school and all even before going to space.”
“Will…will ask Adrian about this. If Rocky different now, bad different.”
My stomach hurt, and not because it was now full of slurry. I disconnect the empty bag of food and clean the line, cap it and tuck it behind my ear. I don’t know what to say but I obviously need to say something. “I don’t think you’re bad anything, Rock. It’s just…you and Adrian have a lot to catch up on, you know? A lot to learn about each other from your time apart. I was just asking to see if everything was going okay so far, like that you’ve talked about stuff.”
God, it’s not like I’m an expert on relationship stuff. But I want to be there for Rocky. I hope I’m not overstepping.
Rocky had slowly lowered down as I spoke, looking less like Savior Rocky and more like a sad pebble in a rainstorm.
“Adrian Rocky talk a lot about how good it is to be back in the same place,” Rocky starts. “About dome building, about you. About what I missed. About what happens next. Not a lot about mission.”
It took years of being trapped in a ship with Rocky alone for me to get the whole story of his mission—of how everything started going wrong with the health of the Blip-A crew. About how Rocky had watched every one of his crew mates get weaker, slower, more confused, then sleep and not wake up.
Sure, I had shared my own stories too, about working on the mission on Earth, about Dubois and Shapiro. About my final moments on my own planet, and about waking up to two dead friends and no memory in the middle of space.
Just two bros, trauma bonding over their respective horrors.
I need to change the subject.
“When do I get to meet Adrian, Rock?”
Rocky shuffles and stretches up to standing again, then walks to the corner of the room, needlessly rearranging medical supplies I don’t currently need.
“Adrian busy busy busy, working on biodome for Grace.”
Adrian was an architect, one of Erid’s best. Even before Rocky left for space, I kinda got the impression that they were a professional power couple in their circles. “They take breaks, though, right?”
“You already meet Adrian!”
“What? I think I’d remember—“
“When Hail Mary docked at elevator! Adrian in second party to board.”
“Oh. I don’t remember, I guess. I was pretty out of it back then. Besides, that was what, six weeks ago?”
“Rocky forgot! Must go to thrum now now now!”
Rocky is out the door before I could reply. Rocky forgot something? He said that it was impossible, though I guess he could’ve been distracted by something. But it’s much more likely he’s hiding something from me.
I try to ignore the heavy pit in my stomach that let me know something was wrong. Maybe wrong with me? No, Rocky wouldn’t lie about my health, that was established between us as an absolute. Plus he said I was going to get real solid food soon!
I sigh and open my laptop, searching for a distraction. I can’t exactly follow him to see what his deal was, so I try to relax instead. I do not need to add high blood pressure to my list of issues.
It was past time to get used to the feeling pressing down on me: useless and helpless. It was depressing but it was also reality. I was a sole alien on a physically inhospitable planet, like a fish in a tank.
At least I could still play solitaire.