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Options for physical activity upon the Hail Mary are… limited.
Not that I’m generally the most physically active guy. Sure, I used to bike to work, but other than that, my time was generally spent standing in front of my classroom, sitting on my couch, or hunched over a microscope. My posture matched a shrimp more often than not. I’ve been told more than once that I seem to be running on a constant motor, but that translated into a crappy work-life balance and an inability to shut up rather than any commitment to an exercise program. My physique from Aramando’s anti-atrophy program is the most muscles I’ve ever had in my life.
In the 56 days on my way back to Rocky, when the anxiety of not finding Rocky in time, of not finding Rocky at all, of the reality of never ever seeing Earth again, all started to feel like ants crawling under my skin and across my brain, I started doing some pushups and jumping jacks until being short of breath felt almost intentional. Which got old fast in almost two months, but it kept me (mostly) sane until I could be reunited with my best friend.
Now that I’m on my way to Erid, it seems worthwhile to incorporate that part of my two month don’t-go-crazy plan into my four year don’t-go-crazy plan. And I have Rocky with me now, which makes any plan infinitely better. I tried introducing him to Just Dance, but there’s only so much ribbing a guy can take for his lack of moves. He also insisted that the chords in Rasputin added up to several Eridian slurs, and while I’m 90% sure he’s messing with me, I’m not fluent enough in Eridian or well versed enough in Eridian culture to call him out on it.
Which leads us to today. Playing tag up and down the little halls between the lab and dorm and through the Don’t Go Crazy room.
Rocky rolls his ball into the dorm and wedges himself behind the bed to put some space between us. Bad plan on his part. I reach across the top of the bed and smack my hand on top of his ball.
“Tag! You’re It!”
He squeals in outrage and I hear his tittering laughter as I run back down the hall. I skid to a stop before I collide with the lab table. If I can get around the table before Rocky catches up to me, maybe I can get another lap in before he tags me back.
The ball collides with the back of my knee and my shin smacks hard against the metal corner of the counter.
My leg flares with pain. “Ow! Fudge!”
Rocky skids to a halt. “Grace use words for pain. Grace hurt, question?”
I slide to the floor, rolling up my pant leg to examine the spot. The skin is irritated, a black and blue bruise starting to form across about two inches along the front of my shin. A small cut runs down the center of it. I watch as a bead of blood forms and drips down towards my sock. Ouch.
Rocky taps on the ball. “Grace leak from leg! Grace hurt!”
I shake my head. “Nah, buddy, it’s okay. It’s just a scratch, it’s barely bleeding.”
Rocky’s voice pitches up sharply, whistles and chirps overlapping. My hand barely misses smashing into the edge of the counter again as I startle dramatically.
“Grace lose blood. Grace DIE, question? Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad–”
“Woah, woah, woah, nobody’s dying–”
“Medical robot! Medical robot now!”
Rocky rolls his ball forward as if to herd me towards the dorm, but before the xenonite touches my leg, he stumbles back again, rolling back a few feet as he trips over his own legs. I crouch down to meet him at his level, but he shrieks again, the ball wobbling back and forth.
“Rocky, I’m fine,” I promise. “What’s the matter?”
Rocky stamps a foot but even that gesture is shakier than his normal bossy insistence. “Now, now, now! Medical robot fix now, statement! Go, go, go, go, go–”
“Okay, okay.” I use the metal counter to pull myself up and take a couple steps back. “I’ll go to Armando.”
*****
The scratch really is no big deal. If it were just me, I would slap a Bandaid on it and call it a day. Armando, ever diligent about my health, sprays it with disinfectant (which I briefly wonder at its effectiveness here. Mary certainly doesn’t have the same bacterial dangers as Earth. Though we probably have some fun new ones, since I’ve introduced not one but two alien species with microbiomes of their own to my environment. This is so exciting!), and wraps the area with gauze. I even accept the ice pack he offers me for the bruise on my shin, anything to placate Rocky, who has been watching the scene from the doorway. He trills to himself in short, high pitched bursts that I can’t connect to any words.
I lower myself to the floor, my back against the xenonite tunnel, my scraped up leg out in front of me, the ice pack balanced on top.
“See? All gross human leaking has stopped. I promise, I’m fine.”
Rocky doesn’t respond, other than continuing his wordless trill. The sound triggers a memory, a bunch of different moments, rolled into one: sitting with my knees pulled up to my chest– in my classroom after my students had all gone home for the day, in a corner of my tiny apartment, hiding out alone in Stratt’s office– anxiety crushing my chest so tightly that I couldn’t breathe, that I was sure the world was going to fall apart around me.
A panic attack. I get panic attacks. That makes sense for me.
Is Rocky having a panic attack?
“Hey, Rock, I’m gonna move a little closer to you, okay?”
My friend doesn’t answer but he doesn’t move away as I slide slowly across the floor on my butt towards him. I place my hands gently on either side of the ball. Rocky is crouched low, his legs tense around his carapace. The claws of his arm closest to me tap together nervously. Like he did in the lab, he leans towards me, but pulls back before making contact through the barrier.
Our discussions of mental health have been… sparse. Despite my own newly remembered difficulties (both diagnosed and undiagnosed but suggested to me by some very blunt middle schoolers and later one very blunt and very drunk Ilyukhina), psychology has always felt like kind of a wishy-washy science to me. Biology is based on facts: things I can see and observe, conclusions drawn from the physical world around me. Rocky is an engineer: again, a very concrete field. Feelings are a lot more nebulous. Neither of our specialties.
And, in our defense, up until very recently, we have been very busy saving stars, doing science, and rescuing each other from some very dicey life or death situations. Any free time in this packed schedule was spent building our communication skills, doing more science for the fun of it, and trying to prevent any more of the previously stated life or death scenarios from occurring.
Processing the insanity of the situation we were in was always pushed to the background.
Which I am kind of regretting right now.
I feel my heart pounding faster in my chest at the sight of my best friend in the universe in such obvious distress. I’ve never been very good at talking myself out of a breakdown, let alone somebody else, let alone somebody else with an entirely different physiology. Naming five things you can see and two things you can smell are not going to be helpful right now. I think if I even mentioned thinking of something you can taste, Rocky might never speak to me again.
I force myself to take a deep breath. It is not my turn with the mental breakdown. Rocky needs me.
“Ummm, okay,” I start on an exhale. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on in your head… carapace… nevermind, doesn’t matter. I don’t know exactly what you are feeling but I think I’ve got an idea. But you gotta know that we’re safe, okay, buddy? I’m alive. You’re alive. We’ve got the Taumoeba, that’s contained and double contained. We’re on our way to Erid. You aren’t alone, okay? I’m here.”
I feel entirely useless but I keep repeating what I hope are comforting facts. I know I’m rambling but after a few minutes, Rocky seems to calm down a little. His body is less tense and he’s quieted down a little.
“Apology, apology, apology,” he whistles mournfully.
I shake my head. “What are you sorry for, bud? You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Rocky hurt Grace!” he warbles.
“Rocky, I’m fine, I promise!” I shift my leg close to his ball so he can clearly see it. “Armando totally bandaged me up. You’ve seen me trip over air, this is nothing, I swear. You know what my stupid human body’s like.”
Rocky wobbles back and forth and hums low.
“Plus, you’ve seen me hurt way worse before–”
That was apparently the wrong thing to say. Rocky wails.
“Apology, apology. Grace not stupid, Grace brave, Grace best best best. Rocky stupid. Grace save Rocky but Rocky say stupid and Rocky push Grace. Grace always save, but Rocky hurt again.”
“Woah, hey–” I try to interrupt but Rocky is on a roll.
“Rocky watch crew die, could not fix. Tried to fix, but could not fix. Rocky try to fix for Grace to go home but now Grace cannot go home because Rocky design faulty. Grace save Rocky, and Rocky hurt Grace. Rocky try and try and try to fix but Rocky only break!”
My heart cracks inside my chest.
Rocky is one of the most confident guys I know. He’s logical, he knows what he’s capable of, and he has no problem letting me know about his skills. It’s difficult for me to comprehend just how much he’s gone through, alone in space for longer than I’ve been alive. When I was born, he was already out here trying to save the stars.
I shake my head. “Rocky, you’ve saved me every day since we’ve met. I would have died in space with no answers. I would have been alone. You don’t hurt me. You’re the only reason I’m alive!”
Rocky shook his carapace back and forth, a bit of body language he’s picked up from me. “Grace get burned putting Rocky back in atmosphere. Grace will not go home because have to come back for Rocky because Rocky mistake in breeder tank design. Only when Grace come did we find answer to save stars.”
“You almost died in my atmosphere saving me,” I argue. “I’m the biologist. I was the one messing with Taumoeba evolution. If anything, I’m the one at fault here.”
“No!” Rocky stamps a foot. “Not Grace fault ship break! Taumoeba evolution only reason stars saved!”
“If it’s not my fault, then it isn’t yours either, bud.” I shift my body to sit a little more comfortably but I don’t let go of the ball. I want the connection as much as I know he does. “Either it’s both of our faults, or it’s neither of our faults. We’re in a bonkers situation and we’re doing the best we can with a hundred elements we can’t control. There is no way you could have known about radiation. There is no way that you could have saved your crew. That isn’t on you. I’m so sorry it took me so long to get here and that you had to be alone so long. It’s not fair but in this crazy messed up universe, we managed to find each other. I don’t know about you, but I can confidently say that that is the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
Rocky finally, finally, relaxes and presses his body against the xenonite towards me. I return the embrace and stretch my arms around as much of the ball as I can reach to hug my friend close. We sit like that for a little while, the only sound the whirring of the ship's life support systems and the hum of the engines.
“Apology,” Rocky whistles after several minutes. “For ‘freaking out.’”
I shrug. “You know I’ve had more than my fair share of freaking out. It’s about time you took a turn.”
Rocky hums. “Is true. Grace very leaky. At least Rocky freak out without leaking everywhere.”
I laugh. I’m glad to see that he’s back to making fun of me. “I hate to break it to you, but I am definitely going to leak a lot more before we get to Erid. Probably a lot after that, if I’m being honest. And you are going to freak out again because we’ve had a lot of freak out inducing events happen in our lives. And that’s okay, you never have to say sorry for being upset.”
It’s not an easy thing for me to remember either. I didn’t really have anyone to be vulnerable around on Earth. But if I’m so sure that it isn’t Rocky’s fault, then I have to be willing to admit that this isn’t all my fault either.
“We’re just a couple of dudes with a lot of trauma on a four year road trip to Erid. We’re gonna have some ups and downs, but we’ve got each other and we can do this. Right? Grace Rocky save stars.” I hold up my fist to the side of the xenonite. “Fist bump?”
Rocky clacks his fist against mine. “Grace Rocky save each other.”
I grin. “Grace Rocky save each other.”