Chapter Text
The options, such as they are, are all objectively horrible ways to die. There’s a nightmarish rebirth happening, Simon’s body torn apart and rearranged inch by agonizing inch. It races against the crush of monstrous teeth or suffocation in an endless ocean of blood for the privilege of landing the final blow. What scant hope he's salvaged for the rest of humanity offers no more than paltry comfort, slipping from him as the end crowds in from all directions.
This isn't the end he had let himself hope for, the promise of an “after” entirely out of reach, but what Simon wants has never counted for anything before. It was wishful thinking to hope it would hold any weight now. Maybe the monster is right about this one thing, that there is mercy in death. There is darkness and excruciating pain, and then, finally, there is nothing at all.
-
Simon hadn’t put much thought into what the surface of the moon might be like. He’s in no shape to think about it now, truth be told, aware of little beyond the corrosive burn of it. The universe seems hell-bent on toying with him, dragging him back to awareness each time it thinks of a new flavor of torment.
He drifts in and out of consciousness, clinging so tightly to the promise of reprieve that he almost misses the sound somewhere above him.
“It’s not going to eat through the suit in the time it takes me to get down there for a sample and back. Probably. Either way, we need to know what we’re dealing with, Rocky.”
No matter how many times it has led to betrayal in recent memory, Simon’s first instinct is still to call out for help. Whatever the COI might have in mind for him has to be better than being frozen here, waiting for the moon to finally claim him for good. He calls out, or tries to, but all that escapes is a quiet moan, lost in the rhythmic lapping of blood against the tree.
“Wait. Wait wait wait. This doesn’t make any sense. SM… something. The metal is too busted to see, but do you know what that means?”
There’s a brief silence as the voice waits for… whoever is on the other end of their conversation. “Except there can’t have been humans here, so where does that leave us? Unless this is about to be another episode of ‘Everything Grace Knows About Science is Wrong’. Xenon being a solid was incredibly cool and all, but I could really, really do without ‘Surprise! Here’s a planet covered in blood because that’s a thing that can happen now’. I found something floating, though. I’ll bring it back with the sample.”
He hasn’t seen them, but Simon swears he can feel the person’s footsteps, which is nothing short of disconcerting.They’re leaving. He can’t let them leave him like this, trapped between life and death. Simon’s body refuses to cooperate, almost like it wants this ending too.
But, in the end, it doesn’t matter what he, or any other entity down here wants. There’s a sudden high pitched shriek, and a lot of scrabbling sounds that Simon guesses is the guy trying to keep his footing on the trunk of the tree.
“Sorry! Sorry, sorry. It’s just, uhhhhhh, the tree has a face? Wait, hang on.” The voice drifts closer, laced with a sort of grief Simon can’t quite understand, emotion more suited to friends than strangers. “There’s a person. I’m not… actually sure what I’m looking at.”
They're not talking to him, he doesn't think, but Simon manages to pry one eye open. His vision swims, refusing to focus, but he can make out a vaguely human sort of shape, all in red. It’s not the dark, threatening red of the ocean he’d been abandoned in. Instead, it’s overwhelmingly bright, a beacon, a promise of safety.
“You're alive.” Finally, he manages to blink away enough of the blood and general fatigue to recognize a man’s face within the red helmet. In the darkness, Simon can't make out the color of the astronaut's eyes, but they're soft and fixed on him. “How are you alive? Wait! Don’t try to answer that right now. You’re stuck and I need something to cut through the tree, so just… just… I’ll be right back!”
Simon can’t crane his neck enough to look up, but he can hear the strange astronaut scale the tree trunk and crash through its branches, a lovely sort of chaos proving that he’s not alone. Assuming any of this is real, of course. Maybe it’s just his mind making up one last friendly face because there isn’t a single real one that would care about him now.
Real or imagined, the rest reaches Simon in flashes. The guy returns waving some sort of sharp implement that Simon’s vision is too fuzzy to make out. This close, he catches the reassuring smile offered up from behind the helmet, though. It’s… sweet, and it sets Simon's teeth on edge, this comfort he’s done nothing to earn.
“Believe me, Rocky, I know. I see what it’s doing, but if I leave, it’s going to be too late.”
Pain is more familiar, so much so that the sudden burning down Simon's spine as the guy tries to free him is almost a reprieve. He’s far from lucid enough to explain the problem, that he's not stuck to the tree. He is the tree. Or something. It doesn’t make enough sense to him to string together words about it, even in his head. All that comes are ragged breaths and a wail as something sharp cleaves the wreckage of his body from the wood it's fused to.
“I'm sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Just… stay with me, okay? It's almost over. You’re gonna be alright,” the person insists, despite the lack of any sort of evidence that that might be true.
“There.” The last connection is severed, and Simon falls from the cradle of the tree trunk into the arms of his unexpected savior. Simon is too out of sorts to be much more than a rag doll as the guy hauls him back towards the ship that must be waiting. “So… you got a name?”
“I-” Simon croaks out in a voice too hushed to tell if it’s really his. He’s no more certain about that than he is about any of the nonsensical things he’s been confronted with since being welded into that damnable submarine. No one in their right mind would have tried to save him, even if they had known where he was (not that there’s anyone to know, now that Ava is gone). He still aches, his body rewritten, but for some reason, it’s becoming a dull, distant thing. That relief alone is better luck than Simon has ever been prone to, leaving only one explanation. His teeth sit all wrong in his mouth, and the words won't quite come. There is only a whisper, a pernicious thought in his head that crawls out before he can stop it.
“I’m dead.”
-
Consciousness returns to Simon in fits and starts. It’s only the vaguest awareness at first, a foggy recognition that he somehow continues to exist. There’s not an inch of him that doesn’t hurt, but it’s strangely blunted, reduced to background noise as he tries to make sense of the air he’s breathing in. It’s sort of antiseptic smelling, but largely devoid of the cloying coppery scent of blood that has made up Simon’s reality for the past… what? Days? Weeks?
Wherever he’s being kept is silent save for the quiet hum of what Simon assumes is an engine or some sort of machinery, and the rhythmic hiss of his own breathing through a mask that’s been fitted over his nose and mouth. Someone must really want him to explain the contents of the black box, because he can think of no other reason the COI would waste these sorts of resources on him. It’s not much to go on, but anything is better than the constant ominous creak of metal threatening to collapse under a sea of blood his last adventure had gifted him with. Then again, maybe not. Simon risks opening his eyes and immediately regrets it.
“Eye-movement detected.” Shit. He should have known they’d have someone watching him. Movement feels sort of syrupy and disjointed, but he reaches up to yank the mask off, and eventually gets his hand on it. The light is too bright to see, but he feels something pulling at the back of his hand, restricting movement, and yanks until it pulls free with a sharp sting that Simon only recognizes afterwards was probably a needle. The automated voice continues. “What is two plus two?”
“Ow, fuck.” Simon attempts to pull his hand close enough to see how badly he’s bleeding.
“Oh! Oh gosh, hang on.” That voice definitely isn’t automated. It’s coming from his left, and he still can’t really see, so Simon instinctively tries to escape it. He’s not cuffed to the bed, which seems like an oversight until Simon actually tries to move. Every inch takes so much effort that all the time in the world might not be enough to escape, and he does not, in fact, have that much time.
“Incorrect. Cognition assessment. What is two plus two?” The automated voice prompts again, as Simon tries to force himself to stand up on limbs that have absolutely zero interest in carrying him. All he actually manages is to land in a heap next to the bed.
“Woah, wait just a second! You’re probably really confused, but if you just wait a second-”
They’re still talking, stringing words together like their life depends on it, but Simon can’t think clearly enough to even consider listening anymore. Frantically, he searches the floor around him. There’s not much to work with aside from a bowl that had fallen from a side table during the commotion. It’ll just have to do. As the footsteps come closer, adrenaline does what stubborn will could not. Simon manages to curl his fingers around the lip of the bowl to throw it at his jailer just as their head appears at the foot of the bed. Not that it goes that far. He has so little leverage like this, the bowl only rises a few pitiful inches before clattering to the floor next to him.
“Ah!” the guy shrieks, ducking back to grab something off a nearby counter. Simon grasps for the bowl again, assuming there’s some sort of retribution coming. It’s not much of a weapon, but better than facing an enemy empty handed. Only, the attack Simon expected never comes. The item from the counter doesn’t even appear to be a weapon. It looks more like a small pane of glass the man clutches with both hands as if it could possibly hide him.
Finally, something catches up with Simon, clicking in a way that gives him pause. He remembers those eyes, and even though the voice is no longer altered by a helmet, it’s still recognizable. “I… know you.”
Despite everything, the guy smiles, peeking his head from behind the shield like he wasn’t already perfectly visible. “Yeah. Well, kinda. The shape you were in, even before the surgery, I’m surprised you even remember.”
There are entirely too many unfamiliar inputs for Simon to wrap his head around most of it, so he grasps for the first thing he can make any sense of. “Surgery? Did you-?”
Simon isn’t certain how he means to finish the question, but it doesn’t seem to matter.
“Me? No. Definitely not. I’m not that kind of doctor. It’s all Armando,” his new acquaintance explains, gesturing at some sort of robot lurking nearby, which… great. Another thing to keep his eye on, and Simon can’t actually look at them both at the same time.
The ‘not that kind of doctor’ guy watches without the faintest hint of ill intent, and in the moment, Simon wants so desperately to trust it. Hope and happy endings are for other people, though, so he pushes himself to sit up despite the pain that leaves him panting as he leans against the side of the bed. It’s all he can do to glare. “What are they going to do with me?”
“Oh, nonono. Maybe don’t try to sit up. How are you even conscious right-” The guy, who had been rushing over to help - or perhaps restrain - abruptly stops, successfully cowed by a glare despite the fact that they both surely know Simon is in no shape to follow through on the threat. The whole thing would be funny under other circumstances.
They stare at each other silently for a beat, the stranger shifting his posture as if actively trying not to loom over Simon, which is… Fuck, nothing about any of this makes any sort of sense.
“Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m messing this up so much. I was just going to help you back to bed. I’ve spent more than enough time on this floor to know it’s not exactly the height of comfort.” Against all reason, the guy makes another attempt to come closer, more slowly, telegraphing every movement. It’s a kind of consideration no one has ever afforded him before, leaving Simon almost wrongfooted enough to allow the intrusion until a distinctly inhuman growl wrenches itself from his throat, startling them both.
Even if they’re keeping him alive for something, what’s left of humanity is so short on resources that there’s no fathomable reason for them to consider Simon’s comfort. All the same, the stranger bites his lip on a shaky smile. Simon searches it for anger or frustration, but finds nothing of the sort.
“Alright, new plan! I won’t come over there. Don’t worry. I’m just gonna… over here-” The words are coupled with a comical display as the guy tries to hold his hands up in surrender while also pointing at something on the far end of the room. There’s a visible sigh of relief when Simon doesn’t protest, satisfying himself with watching the whole production in suspicious silence.
“You’re probably really confused. I mean, this is all very confusing. I know I’m confused. I’m Ryland Grace, though, uh, Rocky just calls me Grace. You can probably just call me that. Doesn’t really matter.” In yet another startling display of recklessness or naïveté, this Grace person proceeds to turn his back to Simon, opening a cabinet. Simon’s shoulders bunch as he tenses to duck out of the way of whatever Grace might be retrieving, but it turns out to just be… bedding.
Simon waits for the trap, for Grace to use it as an excuse to come closer, but that isn’t what happens at all. Instead, Grace crouches down, gently tossing the pillow and blankets close enough to be in Simon’s reach without hitting him.
It looks like a physical effort for Grace not to fill the silence, but he sits on the floor, wordlessly waiting for Simon to get a close enough look at the bedding to decide there’s no obvious trap. Granted, that doesn’t mean anything. “What’s your angle?”
“My… what?” The most insulting part of Grace’s confusion is how incredibly honest it appears to be. He tilts his head, squinting at Simon, but, judging from the crinkle between his brows, it doesn’t actually help. “Sorry. I didn’t really get much past trying to keep you from dying.”
“Why?” Simon demands, surprising himself with the force behind it. “They were more than happy to let me die there, so what changed?”
“They? I’m really sorry, but don’t know who you mean,” Grace replies, sheepishly, like his supposed ignorance is some kind of embarrassing confession. Whatever tentative hope Simon allowed himself curdles and rots in the pit of his belly.
He shouldn’t say anything else. He can’t stop them from holding him, but he doesn’t have to make doing so easy. All the same, Simon finds himself responding, the words spat out like poison. “You’re not from Eden. That just leaves the COI.”
It figures that’s the thing that finally shuts Grace up. He blinks at Simon, fiddling with what looks to be a pen. “For you to be out this far, they… they had to have sent you about the same time as me, but I really don’t know what you’re talking about, so I’m gonna go out on a limb and say this probably isn’t about the Petrova Line?”
Whatever Simon had expected, it’s not that. “The fuck is the Petrova Line?”
“It’s, um-” Grace stops short, tapping nervously against the tile with the pen. He winces before he speaks, like he’s bracing himself for something. “Okayyyy, this is probably going to sound like a really completely nonsense question, but just, uh, bear with me, okay? You did come from Earth, right?”
It’s Simon’s turn to be dumbfounded. It has to be some kind of trap given the reality of, well, everything, but he can’t figure out what the goal is. Deeply uncomfortable with the vulnerable state that leaves him in, he tries to turn it back on Grace. “Did you?”
“Yes? I don’t know why that sounded like a question. It wasn’t.”
There are mind games, and then there’s whatever sick manipulation this is. Simon tenses, watching Grace’s every move as he snarls, “Stop fucking with me. We both know that’s not true.”
“Woah, hold on. I’m not…” Grace holds his hands up again, conciliatory. “I’m really not trying to upset you, but I don’t understand what you mean. Why wouldn’t it be true?”
“Because Earth is gone, asshole. You know it. I know it. Whatever sick joke you’re trying to play isn’t funny,” Simon blurts out, all the vitriol that was building up going with it. What’s left is exhaustion, that even after doing everything they asked of him, even after his unlikely survival, he’s just been passed from one cage to another.
“It’s a little far to do a drive by, but Earth was definitely still there when I left.” Despite the vague attempt at humor, Grace speaks gently. “I mean, keeping it habitable is sort of the whole reason I ended up out here in the first place. What makes you say it’s gone?”
Fighting back has done nothing but exhaust Simon, so he eventually surrenders. Closing his eyes, he leans against the metal bed frame, too worn out to care that it’s digging into his temple. “Because I have eyes, dumbass. Earth, Mars, the stars. All of it. I don’t know what you’re playing at, but just… just stop.”
“It’s not, though. I’ll show you if you want. It’s, umm, up the ladder, so it might take some doing, but-” Grace pauses, sighing. “I don’t know what made you think the universe just got up and left or whatever, but it really is all there.”
"Y'know, nobody at Eden wants to think this way, but what's more likely? That every planet and star disappeared, or that a few space stations disappeared? Isn't it easier to believe that they're still there wondering where all of us went? Isn't that more likely?"
He wants so badly to believe Grace is the thing. But to do so would mean believing he somehow found his way somewhere untouched by the Quiet Rapture. Or, maybe he’s still on AT-5, lost in his own mind again. He doesn’t want to be alone, but he can’t trust his own mind if he’s inviting some make-believe stranger to put ideas in it, so Simon ignores Grace’s reassurance for the time being. “Am I a prisoner?”
“Of course not! Wait, because you’re in here?” Grace gestures at the room around them. “It’s just a medical facility. I mean, you should really get some rest because you’re not looking great, but you’re not locked in. Go wherever you want.”
“Then you’re not my… jailor or anything,” Simon presses, searching for any sort of inconsistency.
“I can’t imagine what about me would give you that idea, but… no. Definitely not. I just didn’t want you to wake up alone in a strange place. Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m not sure why I thought waking up in a strange place with a strange person would be better, but hindsight and all that, I guess?” The reassurance would be sort of sweet if Simon could be sure Grace was real, but its very existence suggests that none of this is actually happening. There hasn’t been much room in the life Simon has lived for kindness to exist for its own sake. Encountering it now, when he’s at his most vulnerable, flies in the face of a lifetime of experience. He can’t afford to trust it.
None of that makes this any easier.
“Then, get out,” he mutters, ignoring the guilty twinge at the look on Grace’s face.
The worst part is that, to Simon’s utter surprise, Grace doesn’t even protest. He blinks just a little too much, the slightest tremor briefly visible in the downward pull of his lips, but pushes himself to his feet anyway. “Oh... Yeah, I can do that.”
It’s no wonder they left you for dead if this is how you treat someone genuinely trying to help, something whispers from the darkest corners of his mind. Simon tunes it out, mostly because it’s the only control he has at his disposal. Grace is already halfway up the ladder before Simon realizes he doesn’t actually want the guy to go, but clamps down on the urge to say as much.
This will probably all be gone the next time he wakes up anyway.
Simon watches Grace disappear through the hatch only to poke his head back in. “Just yell if you need anything, okay?”
He doesn’t respond, doesn’t dare too, really. If he lets himself, Simon knows he’ll just ask his suspiciously kind hallucination to come back, just for the sake of not being alone. Solitude had been a cherished rarity on Eden, and a welcome reprieve in prison, but there’s no solace in it now, just the heavy weight of an end you cannot prevent.
Fortunately, or unfortunately as the case may be, Grace seems to accept the lack of response for dismissal. He disappears once more and the hatch closes with a dull thunk. A moment too late, Simon realizes the nightmare he’s trapped himself in.
The room likely isn’t any more real than Grace himself, but that’s no comfort as Simon takes in the shape of it. He’s traded one windowless prison for another, blind to whatever lurks beyond its confines. It’s probably all set dressing, the eel or his own mind taunting him, like being left to die in an ocean of blood wasn’t awful enough.
“What else do you want from me?” Simon whispers, but no answer comes. Not this time.
With few options, Simon eventually settles for trying to sleep off whatever new game this is. Grace was right about at least one thing. The floor isn’t particularly comfortable. Unwilling to call for help, Simon opts to try to make the best of it, awkwardly trying to unfold the blankets Grace had given him. It doesn’t go precisely well, but he eventually manages.
Without someone talking to him, Simon’s attention catches on his heavily bandaged arm in the process. For a second, he’s back on the SM-13, breath catching in horror and revulsion as mangled flesh peels away with his bandages when he dares to peel them back. Shaking his head, he decides to let it be a problem for Later Simon. After all, if any of this is real, he seems pretty thoroughly patched up, all considered. If it’s not, then who cares what’s under that wrapping anyway? No sense in torturing himself further.
It takes some doing to worm his way between the blankets. Simon manages eventually, but the effort leaves his whole body feeling bruised. Aching and exhausted, he curls up as best he can, shifting to have line of sight on the hatch.
There’s no telling if he’ll wake up somewhere better - or at all, for that matter - but even now there’s some part of Simon that wants to live too much to stop insisting he’ll find a way to claw his way back to solid ground. He closes his eyes, reaching for whatever reprieve sleep can offer, waiting to see if it’s right.