Chapter Text
Life on the vat was more chaotic than Grace had ever been accustomed to in his life. There were days that from sunup to sundown he never sat down at anything other than a meeting, and half the meetings had him making presentations anyway. Quickly though, he had adapted, everyone on the ship had. You ate when you could eat, you slept when you could sleep, you took just a few minutes longer in the bathroom than necessary to have a chance to breathe. When it came to saving the world, it was hard to bring up any real complaints.
So, after an hour of having nothing to do, Grace was already suspicious.
It has started in the mess hall, seated at one of the tables with his tray of food, sending off emails about the mornings work in between bites. Then there were no more emails to send, and he found himself going back for seconds- something he rarely, if ever, had the chance to do.
He sat with his laptop in front of him but shut as he ate. It felt odd, to be doing only one thing at a time. These days he was lucky if he wasn’t juggling three different tasks at a time.
It might have felt comforting if he could have stopped his brain convincing him that there was something he was missing, something that he would learn about too late, and end up on the bad side of Stratt.
He finished his second tray quickly, speed walking out of the mess and across the ship towards the lab. Had he forgotten about something in the lab? The way his heart was beating out of his chest would have him believe whatever he left behind was highly explosive.
He arrived at the lab and weaved his way through different areas until he was back where he had spent the morning- there was nothing on the verge of exploding. Good, that was good.
Still, he panted a little as he stood with his hands braced against one of the tables. He was forgetting something, he cursed his brain as he often did for not giving him any hints as to what it actually was.
He plopped himself down on his stool and pulled his laptop back out, pushing aside the piles of papers to make room.
His calendar, he had checked it that morning, and he didn’t think there was anywhere he was supposed to be, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t double check- he probably should have done that already.
It took him all of three seconds scanning the schedule for the day to realize that he was screwed- screwed beyond belief.
There, a three-hour block with no other label than “Meeting”.
There was no location, no description, no link for something virtual, but the color of the event indicated that it had been shared from Stratt’s calendar. His brain was quick to connect the dots.
Not only was he late to a meeting by at least half an hour, he was late to a one-on-one meeting with Stratt.
Yeah, screwed was the only word for it.
With no indication as to what the meeting was about, he thought it best to just take everything. He rushed around the lab, shoving as many things as he could carry into his backpack, he was already late, but being any later would just be worse.
How was he meant to apologize to Eva Stratt? He didn’t exactly know of any snacks that he could bribe her with.
He would figure it out later, his only focus in that moment needed to be getting to Eva’s office on practically the other side of the ship without any kind of delays.
What that meant for him was that he was practically sprinting through the hallways. The hallways were far from spacious, but if he stuck to one side unless he was passing, he could get there without being stopped. It was something like driving a car, really.
Only, when he finally collided with someone the consequences were much less catastrophic than they might have been behind the wheel.
“Oh Dr. Grace, I am so sorry,” the woman he had run into appeared to be a low-ranking sailor who looked a little scared for her life. Is that how he made people on the vat feel? Did they expect him to snitch on them to Stratt for being on the wrong side of the hall?
His panic trying to gather up the papers he dropped probably was not helping the girl’s panic either. “It’s fine, it’s fine, I'm just- trying to get to a meeting with Stratt,”
The girl’s eyes grew even wider at that, preventing anyone from getting to Stratt was a crime onboard. “Let me help you,”
In just a few seconds they had the papers off the ground and rearranged into Grace’s arms, and mumbling a quick thank you he took off again, the brief break enough to make him realize how much he had lost his breath, but he kept going, no time to stop.
By the time he came skidding to a stop in front of Stratt’s office it felt a little like he had been punched in the gut. Whether that was from the running or the fact he was even more late than he had anticipated, he did not know.
Still, he made an attempt to look put together as he pushed open the door, nodding at the secretary and solider that stopped anyone getting closer to Stratt’s real office than necessary.
They barely glanced at him as he passed by, he had something like blanket permission to enter her office, unless there was another meeting going on inside it.
Bracing himself for the scolding that would no doubt come, he pushed the door open.
It took him a few seconds to process what he was looking at, though it was far from exciting.
It was an office.
An empty office.
Fudge.
In a rush he pulled his laptop out and slammed it down onto one of the desks. He had missed a location? For all the running that he had done across the ship had she wanted to meet elsewhere?
He checked, scrolling first through his calendar- which had no extra information- and then through his email to see if he had missed something else.
There was nothing.
He scrolled and he scrolled and he scrolled but once he got three weeks back in updates he gave up.
They were having a meeting about something, and they were having it somewhere, but all the real information was left for him to guess.
He sat down into one of the chairs in front of the desk and held his head in his hands just long enough to work out some kind of game plan. Clearly Stratt was somewhere, and wanted him in that same somewhere, but it was a massive ship, large enough to sustain most of the worlds Astrophage research- he needed to narrow things down.
His first thought was to cross the labs off the list, but what if she had wanted to meet to talk about something in the lab? It wasn’t totally out of the question.
With a sigh, he stood. Maybe the secretary would know.
He exited the office, the same bags and papers in his hands.
“Couldn’t find what you needed Dr. Grace?” the secretary commented with a bit of a smirk. Had she watched him panic his way into Stratt’s office knowing that she was not in there?
“I'm looking for Stratt. We have a meeting scheduled, and I assumed I was going to be here but- she’s not in there,”
“She is not,” the woman confirmed.
“Do you… know where she is?”
The woman shook her head, “The last I heard she was heading back to her quarters, that was about half an hour or so ago, beyond that it is not my duty to keep up with her whereabouts,” she smiled, a sick, twisted- okay that was dramatic, just a smirk, a knowing one from the looks of it.
“Her quarters?” Grace mumbled, mostly to himself. Stratt just needed to stop by her room to grab something for their meeting, but the time that she had been gone at least gave him a clue as to where they might be meeting. If she had left only a little before the meeting was supposed to start then surely, they would be meeting near her quarters.
Unless she had discovered some way to teleport across the ship- which wouldn’t really surprise him.
“Right,” he nodded, it gave him a starting point, “Thank you,”
He left the outer office, still carrying his things but notably less frantic than he had been on the way over.
The higher-ups living quarters were not exactly close by, but the number of conference rooms nearby at least limited the places that he was going to have to check.
He thought about running again, but if nothing else he could blame her for not giving him a location.
------
An hour later, he was standing in the middle of the hallway, watching as people passed by paying him no mind.
He had not found Stratt.
He had searched high and low and at no point had he found the woman.
He was beginning to grow concerned.
Surely, she had security that kept up with her, that would know if she suddenly disappeared off the boat. They hadn’t docked recently, and as far as he knew there had been no major arrivals or departures of planes.
What if they had been supposed to meet of the vat?
It was probably a meeting with others then, diplomats or presidents or prime ministers or-
“Have you thought to actually check her quarters?”
Shapiro was suddenly standing in front of him, hands on hips. He had not yet called reinforcements for his tardiness, but several people had caught a whiff of what was going down.
“Why would she have a meeting in there?” that definitely didn’t make sense.
Shapiro shrugged, “If that was the last place she was going, why not check?” and with a shrug she was walking on.
It wasn’t bad logic- not necessarily- but it was Stratt they were talking about. Stratt who no one knew anything about, Stratt who was never seen doing anything but working or telling someone else to work.
She wasn’t exactly the type to be inviting people into her living quarters.
But then again, she wasn’t the kind of person to put a meeting on the calendar without a location assigned, so it seemed like most of what he knew had flown out the window.
As much as he hated the thought of having to check, Shapiro was right. He had checked just about everywhere else. Unless she was hiding behind some curtain there were very few other places that she could be.
------
Only a few minutes later, Grace found himself somewhere he thought he was never be: standing in front of Eva Stratt’s bedroom, trying to work up the nerve to knock.
A few people passed him by, and he spotted a few suspicious glances, but no one tried to stop him. It felt wrong- illegal more like- Stratt was more private than any other person he knew, and he was invading her space.
Still, he knocked. What else was there to do?
At the first knock there came no response, but as he raised his hand for the second time the door swung open before he could ever make contact.
Stratt stood before him, dressed in sweatpants and a tattered shirt, arms crossed over her chest. “Dr Grace,” she greeted, voice gravely, “Can I help you with something?”
He was suddenly lost for words, but was able to pull himself together. “It says- the calendar just says meeting, I thought- I thought that you needed me for one,”
“Oh,” Stratt breathed, face shifting to something like genuine surprise. “That was- that was a mistake,” she shook her head, “You are free to go,”
Grace tilted his head a little, this didn’t seem right. “Are you sure? If we had a meeting and you forgot we can still- “
“Does it seem like I forgot a meeting?” Stratt demanded, anger suddenly flaring.
“I mean,” Grace looked her up and down. He wasn’t going to lie but…
Stratt sighed deflating a little. “Are we going to stand out here waiting for more rumors to develop, or would you like to come in?”
For a moment he thought that he didn’t know the right answer, but she stepped aside to make room, and he walked in.
Stratt’s room was basic, bed in the middle, dresser and wardrobe, a door off to the side for the bathroom and a desk in the corner to work at. To him, it seemed like more space that he would ever know what to do with compared to the closet they called his quarters, but in reality, it was smaller than most bedroom- especially those that doubled as a second office.
Behind him, Stratt flicked the light on and he did not miss the hiss of pain from her as she did so.
“You can keep that off,” he said quickly, adding “If you need to,”
Stratt did not have to be told twice, turning the light right back off, the only light coming from the lamp on one of the nightstands.
“So,” she urged him a little, “Is there something that I can do for you?”
“Well… like I said I thought we had a meeting. I looked- I looked kinda everywhere,”
“Oh right,” Stratt deflated again, like it was the first time she had heard the news. “Well, I- “
“Were you asleep?” Grace whipped around to face her, the sheets on the bed were out of place, the lights turned down, the fact that she was in pajamas.
Stratt sighed, rubbing at the bridge of her nose, stifling a yawn. “There was an attempt,”
“But the calendar said there was a meeting,”
“Yes, that was- not meant to be shared with your devices. It was simply- a placeholder,” she tried to explain, but seemed to be struggling to stand upright without something to hold onto.
“A placeholder? Did you schedule a nap?”
Stratt was a little offended at his tone. Did she come off as so inhuman that it didn’t occur to him that she ever slept? “I have not slept in three days Dr. Grace, do you have a problem with the way I spend my time?”
“No! No, that’s not what I meant. I just meant, I didn’t think that- “he followed her as she moved to perch on the edge of her bed, she looked far from thrilled, “Sorry, it’s just not what I expected,”
Stratt stared at him for another moment longer before shrugging. “Never mind. It is nothing. I have not gotten much sleep anyway,”
“Why not,” Perhaps it wasn’t his business, but he could not help but ask.
“As it turns out, not even a meeting on the calendar can stop my phone from ringing,” she glanced warily at the nightstand where her phone was resting. It was just a matter of time before it started sounding again.
“Can you put it on silent or something?”
“Not when I have the world relying on me,”
“Oh,” Grace said. It made sense. Still, a thought occurred to him that he only hesitated for a moment before voicing. “I can watch it for you, for an hour or two. Pick it up if it’s someone important,”
For a split second, it looked like Stratt was considering it, but her answer came quickly. “That is quite alright, I should have known better than to attempt something like this while the rest of the ship is still awake,”
“I'm serious. If it’s something important, I’ll come and wake you up, or answer it myself. And I’ll keep an eye on your door, make sure no one comes to bother you,”
“Dr. Grace- “
“You're exhausted, you can barely stand. Let me do this for you. Just for an hour or two,”
For a minute she just looked at him, trying to gauge how genuine his offer was.
“Please,” Grace whispered.
Stratt huffed, standing and marching over to her nightstand. She grabbed her phone, spinning around and placing it in Grace’s outstretched hand. “If there is absolutely anything that needs my attention- “
“I will wake you up. I won’t be far. You aren’t going to miss anything,” he promised, holding the phone carefully like it might explode if he handled it the wrong way. He had been bestowed an honor.
Stratt sighed again, thinking it over one last time. “In two hours exactly come and bang on the door and slide the phone beneath it- that is all I will need,”
Grace gave a mock salute, “Yes ma’am,”
Stratt grimaced, “Don’t call me ma’am,”
------
Roughly three hours later he was in front of her door once more, already having slid the phone beneath. Stratt had not been lying. He had spent hours taking every phone call she had received, and it had been more than he thought possible- he slid a piece of paper with messages he had taken alongside the phone.
He hesitated to knock, but if he didn’t the phone would wake her up just was quickly. He knocked twice, two sharp raps, and went on his way.
On the other side of the door three hours had been far less than what she needed, and her muscles protested as she dragged herself out of the bed. But it was more consecutive rest than she had gotten in a long time.
Her phone was waiting for her along with a stack of notebook paper, and she picked them up and set them on her desk. She had slept for too long and she knew it from the moment her eyes opened.
Still, she probably owned Grace some kind of thank you.