Chapter Text
The waves gently splash up and wash over their feet in the sand, as the pair of men study the foggy beach and sea in the biodome.
Grace puts his arm around Simon and leans his head against the other's. The water is the perfect temperature.
“Adrian did a good job with the water,” Simon says quietly, staring out over the sea. “Nice and cold.”
“Not too cold, though,” Grace agrees, smiling as he hugs Simon closer. “Pretty good, huh.” They look over where the Hail Mary should have been docked just beyond the biodome, not that they could see it even when it was still there.
“I wonder if it worked,” Simon says. “I wonder if we're happy back on Earth, too.”
“Oh,” Grace says, grinning as he sees Rocky galloping towards them in his little fitted biodome suit, “I'm pretty sure we're saying the same thing back on E-”
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“-rid,” Grace says cheerfully, wiping some sweat from his brow. “Hand me that box, would you?”
Simon nudges over the box and watches Grace go through towels. Unpacking boxes and boxes of stuff was not something Simon was accustomed to. The Hail Mary was different. All that stuff was just, on the ship, for the mission. But this? Grace has so many things it makes his head spin. Five whole boxes. Sheets and towels, dishes and cookware, decorations and sentimentals (so many!), clothes, toiletries. Took them barely an afternoon to unpack, and the little house came with furniture and fixtures (“Say thank you, Eva Stratt,” Grace had joked. Simon is… less keen on Stratt, but he keeps it to himself.)
Yeah. Being on Earth at all was weird. Simon had never set foot on it before now. Born on Eden Station just six years before the Quiet Rapture… He barely remembers what Eden was like before the QR, let alone Earth. When he and Grace got to Erid, Grace and those laptops of his helped the Eridians figure out relativity. Then some quantum physics shit. One delicate quantum launch later, and if all went according to plan, there would (and wouldn't) be two versions of them. The ones that stayed home, and the ones that went to Earth. Grace had wanted to show Simon real trees. All that they have to worry about is not crossing paths with their other selves, and since their other selves are multiple tens of lightyears away, well… pretty sure that's that. And since they are and aren't there, so long as Rocky doesn't take the laptop into the biodome, they're free to talk to him. It's a weird little family, but…it's theirs.
Simon and Grace eat takeout -- real food! on their floor that night despite all the furniture. Grace insists. Rocky joins them from the laptop and even with the 10-20 second delay in communication, still manages to communicate his disgust just fine. And tomorrow, they have all the time in the world to be… whatever they want.