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Ever since the biodome was finished and Grace could leave the Hail Mary, nobody has actually gone in it. Why would they, at the end of the day? Everything they needed was in Erid already, so there was no reason to. But still, you can never be so sure right? There’s no harm in checking over the ship again. Just to make sure of course. Besides, Grace was pretty sure Rocky and all the eridian scientists would allow it.
And he was right on that guess. Even though he’d barely been in the biodome in Erid for what he thought was a week, it still felt refreshing to see something made by humans and that came from Earth. He liked his beach house, but it wasn’t the same as the Hail Mary. Now that he’s thinking about it, it sounds incredibly strange to miss being in the ship after having spent years confined inside it. He filed that thought away for later, because for now he had an objective: doing a sweep of Mary and taking whatever might be important that was left behind on the ship and he can bring it down to the surface of the planet.
Nothing stood out in the control room, besides all its many screens. But those aren’t the sort of things he’s looking for here! Focus Grace, focus. He still came up empty on what could have been forgotten in this room. There aren’t any surfaces where he really would have left anything, and, by this point, it would be floating around and have made itself very visible if there was. With that decided, he made his way to the lab, expecting there might be more to see here. Maybe the eridian scientists would be interested in all the lab equipment? But that wouldn’t really work would it? It’s all bolted to the floor and can’t be removed. Unless there are some smaller tools that could be interesting, like that spectrometer, if it hasn’t been taken already, that is. Nothing catches his eye immediately, besides some test tubes and petri dishes floating around. Yikes, he really should have put those away right? Would’ve been smart. Grace looks through the drawers, seeing if anything interesting is still hiding in them, and- oh there it is! It seems they did forget the spectrometer. He puts it in the sack he brought to keep items. He also finds some of his clothes that were forgotten and puts them away to give a wash when he’s back in the dome, and then moves on to the dormitory.
If memory serves him well, he did a good sweep of this room, so there shouldn’t be much left to take. As he’s moving around, Grace sees a strange glint out of the corner of his eye, and when he turns around to take a better look, he identifies it as something that belongs to Rocky. It has a small formation that looks like a crystal on one end, probably one of the tools he carried around to be able to see screens and what-not. Grace puts it together with the other stuff he’s found and continues exploring. Just like he thought, the dormitory seems clear, no other objects floating around.
So that leaves only storage to be checked. Now that he’s thinking, Grace doesn’t recall if he actually checked the compartment before leaving the Hail Mary, so this one could actually have a couple of items worth taking. He opens it, and is quickly greeted by some of his clothes that had ended up in there, as well as some skittles packages. He’s not entirely sure how, but he puts all of it in his sack for later. Still, something stands out even more: two bags, large and rectangular, so much like the one that stored all of his stuff, only these two had different tags that were embroidered, one in Chinese characters and the other in cyrillic, but he was well aware of what the text read. They belonged to Yao and Ilyukhina. He debated about taking them with him, but ultimately decided to do it.
And with the full ship having been checked over, the only thing he has left to do is close storage and leave the Hail Mary again to return to Erid.
—
Back at the biodome, Rocky was waiting for Grace to return at the door to the house, wondering why he would have wanted to go back to the ship, so he was quick to greet the human when he arrived.
“Why Grace go back to Hail Mary, question. Rocky think nothing left there”
“Well bud, I’m about to prove you wrong, as you can probably tell by all the stuff I’m carrying” Grace said, placing the three bags he was bringing with him on the floor and picking up the smaller one right after and opening to reach inside “Here, this is yours. Got left on the dormitory back at the ship, no clue how neither of us noticed it was gone” Grace said holding up the device he’d found.
“Thank, now give” the eridian reached towards his friend’s hand, as if to grab what belonged to him, and Grace understood.
“Oh and speaking of interesting things I found! Here, check this out!” He grabbed the spectrometer from the bag, showing it to Rocky “You might remember this thing, it’s the device that can check which materials an object is made out of! Thought it might interest your scientists”
“Yes yes, Rocky bring device to eridian scientists. Rocky sure they like”
The two stood there for a second, before Grace reached into the bag again to notice only his clothes and the skittles packages were left in it. He turned to the nearest surface and dumped all of it on it to start sorting its contents, but Rocky’s attention was still clearly on what Grace had brought back.
“What that?”
“What’s what Rock?”He was pointing at the precarious pile that Grace had shoved aside, made up of two rectangular packs that had been obviously messed with before.
“Oh!! The bags! Those are Yao’s and Ilyukhina’s. I thought I should bring them down. If you want to, we can look at them together? They aren’t here anymore but let’s keep their memory alive, also you get to learn more about the Earth people! Not that there will be much of new, after the two of us spent so long together you probably already learned most of what there is to know”
“Yes yes, Rocky want to see other human’s stuff”
“Great!” Grace pulled the two sacks closer, putting them between the two on the floor, one right next to the other “Sooo which one would you like to open first?”
“This” Rocky pointed towards the one on the left, with an embroidered name tag in cyrillic.
“Alright then, let’s see what Ilyukhina had packed for this trip..”
When he opened the bag, there was no surprise seeing her clothes. They mostly were fun and/or colorful. It all fit her, really well, it exhaled the same cheerfulness that she once filled the room with.
“What Grace thinking, question. Serious face” The computer echoed Rocky’s words.
“Just. Remembering her really. She was great, and everything in her bag feels like being in a room with her again”
The room was silent for a bit. Grace would take some things from inside, and place most of it in a pile. There were clothes (mostly clothes, really), a notebook, and uhmmmm is that heroin he just saw? He had forgotten that it was involved with how she wanted to die after everything, if she hadn’t before. There were a couple of pictures he hadn’t seen the first time, so he showed them to Rocky.
“Look Rock! There are still pictures here” The one on top was her with a group of people he had never seen before, maybe friends. He pointed at his friend “This is Ilyukhina. I don’t think you ever saw her, I thought I had sent all the pictures with their bodies during the funeral”
There were a couple more, some with other members of the team from the Petrova Taskforce, some with family and more with friends. Grace could feel Rocky’s attention on the photos, looking at them with the tool he had brought from the ship just now (how they didn’t notice that was gone before considering how much they used it is beyond him).
Once they were done, Grace pulled Yao’s bag and opened it, and, much like the one before, it was like he was there with them. Not much was different in terms of content, mostly more clothes, some more pictures, which the two friends looked through together, sprinkled with the stories the human remembered from the time they’d spent together. Everything was half-hazardously put next to Ilyukhina’s stuff afterwards, apart from the pictures, which Grace stood up to place on the table.
“That.. was actually pretty nice. I feel good, closer to everyone, even though I’m so far”
“Rocky happy to hear Grace talk about Earth friends”
“Glad to hear that, bud”
Rocky’s stare, or well, his attention really, considering he doesn’t have actual “sight” considering the normal definition and all, was still focused on that had been put on the floor.
“Rocky think Grace should wear friend’s clothes, statement”
“Wh- what?” It was a bit out of nowhere, nothing Grace would have expected “What do you mean by that?”
“Think Grace would look good in friend’s clothes, Grace should try”
“I- I- are you sure?” He never thought of it really. It didn’t sound necessarily like a bad idea, but he didn’t even think any of it would fit him “I mean, we can do it, but I have no idea what you’re hoping for here”
—
Okay. Well this was probably a little silly. But here he is, and there’s no going back. It was a smart choice to do a quick filter and just eliminate any immediate “don’t fits”: Grace was the biggest, in height and size, of them all, so a lot ended up going on that. Still, there were some things left: a couple of shirts from both that were on the bigger end, some longer dresses, skirts and green overalls from Ilyukhina and a couple of pants from Yao. He was looking through his options, and decided to start with something more usual for him: he grabbed one of Ilykhina’s fun shirts, much like the ones he already used, and a pair of pants from Yao. And wow those pants are actually really comfortable, that was something he’d remember for later for sure, put that in the mental notes.
“What do we think?” Grace asked Rocky
“Boooring”
“What?!? No it’s not, thank you very much”
“Grace look like Grace always does. No fun, statement”
“Aw come oooon”
Rocky was right though. It was the same Grace always wore, and he was well aware of that. Alright then, next one!
There was a red skirt on top of the pile. Sure why not, let’s do this. Grace decided to put it on with one of Yao’s t-shirts, to keep the mixing, and also to play safe. He never really wore skirts before, so it was better to go slow. The skirt’s hem was just above his knees, which is probably a bit shorter than intended, considering its previous wearer’s size.
“Rocky like!” He had his claws up, doing the jazz hands movement he did when he was happy.
“You do?”
Admittedly, Grace did like it too. It wasn’t that bad, maybe not something he would wear usually but he did like it! Onto the next one.
—
He does have to give it to Rocky, he’s enjoying this now. It’s been quite fun! There’s a very long dress with a matching hat Grace had been working up the courage to put on, and it was finally time. It was a greenish yellow, which he hanged dangling crystal rocks that the eridians had left him hanging from it that you could hear clicking and clacking as he walked.
“Rocky like clicking. Sound nice. Look good on Grace”
At this point, Grace was beaming. He held the skirt and did a spin, being careful to not hit his friend.
—
There was only one thing left. Grace took the green overalls he had seen earlier but left aside. He was wearing one of his own shirts with it and a pair of earrings he had managed to precariously put on. It was a very delicate arrangement that could fall apart, but why not, for a little bit of fun?
The happy noises and the thumbs up from Rocky as soon as he came back was all he needed. He smiled at his friend and immediately tripped on something he had left on the floor earlier, seeing his earring fly away. And there goes his careful setup.
“Aww man! I spent a while figuring that one out!”
Rocky snickered. As expected
—
“You know what, I’m glad we did this. It was pretty great!”
Grace was walking around his house in the biodome, organizing everything and making sure there was nothing more on the floor that he could end up tripping on again.
“Yes yes yes. Rocky happy to spend time with Grace too”