Chapter Text
It has been a long 9 days for Grace. Luckily, though, he remembers his name is Grace by day 3 and why he’s trapped alone on a spaceship by day 5. Astrophage is eating the sun. Tau-Ceti is where they aren’t. Go figure out why. And he thinks he might like foxes.
He remembers he was a teacher, and Eva Stratt laid out the mission for him. He has vague memories of the mummified corpses he woke up next to (who could have just as easily been him). Commander Yao, who smiled in every photo with kids and, probably, grandkids. Ilyukhina, who seemed to have been a legendary rebel and had packed so much vodka—holy moly! They were supposed to be a team: the pilot, the engineer, the scientist.
But the pilot’s gone, so is the engineer, and the human race’s last chance is down to their scientist—an 8th-grade science teacher who can’t even give them a good burial.
He watches the artificial waves roll in and out in the video room, and he sits with that. It’s down to him. That’s a terrifying thought. Petrifying. The thought of dying in space had terrified him in his memories, but he must have been in good company. He wishes he knew what they were like as friends. He must have been expecting to spend his last days with them. He must have liked them, maybe loved them. They would have been the people he could lean on as they bore the enormity of this task together. But, they’re gone.
Grace is the last pillar left standing, and he feels his foundations cracking.
There, on the screen, is the sun he’s supposed to save, white and radiant. It would have been a warm day; he would have felt the sting of it on his cheek and sneered petulantly up at it. He is going to die for Sol. He might fail Sol. He will fail Sol.
This isn’t a job meant to be done by one man.
This can’t be done by one man.
Footsteps crunch on the beach to his right. He knows it’s a video, but they sound so real. Grace whips his head around, and there is a figure walking along the rocky shoreline. The sea breeze tussles his hair. He watches a man in white take step after step toward him, and he seems to be watching Grace back.
He raises his hand and waves, and Grace waves back, despite himself. A mist of cold sea spray lands on his cheek, and his feet shift in the pebbly sand. He probably shouldn’t stay out here too long, he’ll catch a chill.
The man’s closer now, and he’s smiling like he knows Grace, but Grace doesn’t know him. He doesn’t know a lot of people with the amnesia of it all. Whoopsie. He’s someone Grace hopes he knows, though.
He’s handsome, with long black hair tied back from a soft-featured face. He smiles warmly at Grace, dark eyes radiant. The cream cardigan he wears sits nicely on his broader frame. The collar pushes up around his neck and makes him look cozy, untouched by the chilled air. The sharp sunlight doesn’t seem to bother him either, and he even stops to take in Sol in her cloudless domain.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t believe you when you told me,” the man says, his voice deep and rich. “It is beautiful. I didn’t cry, though.”
Grace squints at the sky and then back at the stranger, who's standing over him, hands in his pockets. Grace is still on the ground. Darn it, he should have stood to greet him. He goes to get up when the man waves him off. “No, I’m coming down to you.”
He sits next to Grace, right next to Grace, arms drawn around his knees, and smiles wider. And Grace feels himself smiling back.
“I’m sorry,” Grace blurts. “I—um—I’m trying to remember your name or who you are. Um, it’s been a long week. I don’t have—everything all sorted out up here.”
“Well, that’s just my luck. Of course, you wouldn’t know me yet, Ry,” the man teased.
The man nudges Grace’s shoulder with his own, and Grace can’t help but feel charmed. More than charmed. There’s a warmth in his chest that’s blooming out to run up his neck. Grace tries to think of the last time someone called him any version of his first name and not “Dr. Grace.” The amnesia doesn’t help him. But he kind of likes hearing his first name.
He waits for the man to introduce himself, but he doesn’t seem to be in a rush. He’s just there, sitting and watching the beach with him.
“Do I get a hint?” Grace asks. The stranger turns to him, one amused brow raised. “For your name?”
“Simon.”
“What are we doing here, Simon?”
Simon smiles. “We’re enjoying a day at the beach on Earth.”
“We’re not on Earth,” Grace corrects. “We’re trillions of miles away from a beach like this.”
“Yeah, but we’re here.”
This is a memory, isn’t it? Warped in some way, but a memory. It’s so familiar, so welcoming. Yet, it doesn’t feel like the past. Grace is on a beach on Earth, and he’s on a spaceship. Both are true.
“This is your favorite, isn’t it?” the man asks. “The beach. You can go to the same place every day, and it’ll always be a different beach.”
“Yeah. It is. I, um, had a bad day,” he says, like his bike chain snapped or the kids were being especially rowdy at school, not like he just sent his teammates to the stars and is now the only human around for lightyears. “I needed a place to think. But now all I can think is that I’m never going to see a beach again.”
“Yeah, you will,” Simon says.
“No,” Grace counters a little tersely. “I really won’t.”
Simon casts a mock-stern look his way. “You don’t believe me? You think I’m lying?”
“Well…no.” Though Grace can’t guess how it can be true or figure out why he believes the guy.
“I never lied to you,” Simon says. “I want you to know that.”
“Okay,” Grace nods, not sure how to take the gravity with which he says it. “I’m gonna be honest, I’m kind of scared you’re not real, and I’m still alone.”
“You’re not alone, Ryland.”
“Good, because I can’t do this on my own,” he says, feeling the tears he’d just stopped coming back. He’d do his best, but his best couldn’t possibly be enough.
Simon sighs. He just looks at him, and his gaze is warm and comforting in how familiar it feels. “You won’t have to.”
Grace believes him. There’s another pillar coming up to stand beside him and take on some of that weight. The man is running one finger along the ribbed edge of his cardigan sleeve, where little gray paw prints run in a circle. Grace leans back and notices the fox design on his back, a smiling duo on the run.
“Nice cardigan,” he says.
“Yeah. Thanks for the loan,” he says.
“Oh. I gave that to you?”
Simon chuckles. He gets up on one knee and cradles Grace’s head in his hands, warm and safe, eyes looking him straight on. “You gave me everything.”
Simon leans forward, and Grace feels the press of lips to his forehead.
Cold water splashes his feet and over his legs.
An alarm goes off.
Approaching Tau Ceti Orbit. PREPARE FOR ENGINE CUTOFF.
Oh Christmas! He’d been dreaming.