Chapter Text
“Grace?”
Ryland’s eyes remain closed, the patter of raindrops heavy on tarmac surrounding him. He tilted his head back, turning towards the familiar source of noise. A thunderstorm was rolling in. He had always liked the rainy season the most. Months of heavy clouds and fat raindrops, of everyone dashing for cover – of no one expecting him to drop everything to agree to last-minute plans. Though, that last one had become less of a concern as time went on.
“Grace?”
Back then, he had relished in the quiet only rain brought. In cancelled staff meetings and quiet office hours. In lazy Saturday afternoons gazing out of the window at nothing at all, letting his mind wander and getting lost in the excitement of building new lesson plans and coming up with more ways to help his class not learn the material, but really connect with it.
“Grace, question?”
That was before.
On the Hail Mary, quiet meant something quite different. Weeks had stretched into months. He still had no clue how Rocky had managed so long alone. Would it have been like that for him, on his journey back to Earth? Years of silence. Years of slowly going mad?
Though, no. He supposed it wouldn't have been like that for long. Eventually, he would have forced himself back into cryosleep for as much of the journey as he could manage. He understood the science behind it. He could calculate the probabilities, explain precisely why the odds of waking up safely were overwhelmingly in his favour. None of it changed the way his stomach knotted whenever he imagined climbing back into the cryosleep chamber that would forever look more like a mortuary drawer to him. He could hardly stand to be in the same room.
That was the terrifying thing about cryosleep. Once the feeding tube slid into place and the sedatives took hold, there was nothing left to do but trust that he would wake up. And having witnessed a one in three survival rate hardly instilled a lingering sense of confidence.
Closing his eyes had started to feel dangerously close to dying. And, on some mornings, when eyes blinked slowly open, and he was met with the familiar grey of the Hail Mary, he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to wake up at all.
“Grace, everything alright, question?”
He would have been fine. Everything would have been fine.
Would things be fine back on Earth? Not yet, obviously. Not while the Taumoeba was still on their way back in the Beatles. But when they finally arrived, Earth would be fine. They would figure it out. The best minds Earth had to offer would have his and Rocky’s research findings. Everything they had to help them wipe out Astrophage. And the rest? That was up to them.
That would be enough.
They didn’t need him as well… right? Even if something unthinkable had happened to Stratt, they would still have her files, and his and Rocky’s notes. And it wasn’t like Stratt was the only person on Earth who could get things done (though, sometimes it had felt like it). Soon, they would have everything. They didn’t need the guy who’d somehow caught a few lucky breaks, written it all down, and stumbled his way through it to come back and hold their hands through the next steps... Right? Right…
Hands pressed against his thighs, palm-down, bitten nails digging through the thin fabric as he tried to ground himself. He took a deep, shuddering breath. Moisture clung to the corner of Ryland’s eyes as the racing, pounding beat of his heartbeat seemed to intensify.
This was the whole point of the Don’t Go Crazy room.
It was supposed to help him focus. Or to distract him. Or to get him out of his own head. It existed because the Petrova Taskforce knew isolation did things to people. They knew, even then, the likelihood of not all of the crew waking up, and had prepared for the possibility that the room might be necessary. They just hadn’t prepared for the possibility that he would somehow make a friend and still need to rely on it so heavily.
It was supposed to remind him that there was more than the empty rooms and echoing corridors of the Hail Mary. Even attempting to chat with Armando was better than silence.
And silence was still better than bothering Rocky over, and over, and over again.
The Don’t Go Crazy Room was supposed to take him out of the crushing uncertainty that seemed to live in his head. What if the Beatles didn’t make it back? What if they did, but the data was damaged? What if someone other than Stratt got hold of it? Fuck, what if Stratt did get hold of it, but didn’t understand? What if–
“Grace!”
Eyes flew open as Rocky’s Xenonite ball crashed painfully into his hip, the Eridian’s voice modulator growing louder, the repeated sounds sharper and more urgent than usual. Ryland’s hands hit the cold metal floor behind him as he sprawled back, Rocky bumping into him again, pressing against him as if trying to get his attention.
“What the hell, Rocky?” He pushed himself up, one hand reaching to readjust his glasses, the other rubbing at his hip. He hissed, the skin there already tender. He could tell that it would bruise. “What was that for?”
“Grace wasn’t answering, statement. Rocky was worried.” Rocky’s carapace tilted to one side in the way that it always did when they were curious about something. “What Grace doing, question?”
Ryland paused, his thoughts skidding to a halt. There were a lot of things he could explain to Rocky. The fact that he’d spent the journey back mentally running through every possible way he could have failed Earth because he hadn’t returned with the Beatles was probably not one of them.
Ryland had noticed a change in Rocky’s behaviour. The strangest part was that it wasn’t anything obvious. Rocky was simply... quieter lately. Not quite in the way that Ryland was quiet on bad days, when he was convinced the thumping of his own heartbeat was loud enough to echo through the empty rooms of the Hail Mary. But quiet enough for Ryland to notice.
There were fewer questions. Fewer interruptions. Fewer cheerful collisions into his workspace – and into Ryland himself – because Rocky had thought of something new and exciting and needed to tell him immediately.
At first, Ryland assumed Rocky was still recovering. Then he figured maybe the Eridian just wanted some alone time – and honestly, Ryland could understand that. Sometimes.
Then came the thought he didn’t like admitting: maybe now that Rocky had his own portable Earth thinking machine, he didn’t really need Ryland anymore. The idea always left a sour taste in his mouth and a familiar weight pressing against his chest. He knew Rocky didn’t think of their friendship as a transaction. He knew that.
Probably.
Maybe.
Maybe it was all simpler than he was making it out to be. Maybe Rocky just didn’t need him after all.
“I’m just having a bad day, Rock.”
“Grace not working, statement. Grace and Rocky usually work together. Working makes Grace happy, statement.”
The thought of hours bent over his workstation trying to focus on one of his projects – any of his projects – made Ryland’s chest feel tight, his stomach heavy. He wasn’t like Rocky. He couldn’t just keep going, and going, and going, bouncing between projects without a break, inventing with no end in sight.
What was the point?
Ryland swallowed, his mouth dry. Right. A very bad day, then. He pushed himself up, standing and brushing himself down, before resting a hand on top of Rocky’s hamster ball. “I was thinking something a little bit different today. Maybe a movie instead. We haven’t watched anything new in a while. I’ll even let you pick.”
“Rocky has work to do. Rocky not lazy, lazy, lazy like Grace, statement.”
The words stung more than they should have. Ryland knew Rocky hadn't meant them unkindly. To Rocky, work solved almost everything. Confusion became a problem to investigate. Fear became something to engineer around. Yet another setback became just another reason to keep moving.
Ryland wasn't built that way.
“Or how about a TV show?” he pressed on, forcing a smile that felt a little too tight. “It'd be nice to do something together that isn't work, y'know?”
Even as the words left his mouth, Ryland’s brain immediately started picking holes in them. Lately, Rocky had been spending more and more time shut away in his workshop, emerging only long enough to excitedly announce another breakthrough before disappearing again. There were explanations for that. Lots of them.
Maybe he’d simply gotten used to working alone again. Maybe Grace was interrupting. Maybe – and this was the thought Ryland tried very hard not to have – Rocky didn’t actually need him around as much anymore.
“Or…” Ryland rubbed the back of his neck, gaze wandering to the storm clouds rolling across the walls of the Don’t Go Crazy room. “If you'd rather work…”
Rocky’s carapace tilted. “Show, question?”
“Yeah,” Ryland shrugged. “A new series.”
“Series… together, question?”
Ryland blinked. “Yeah, Rocky. Together. Only if you want…”
Rocky shifted closer, the soft scrape of xenonite against the deck barely audible. “Rocky would like, statement.”
Ryland dimmed the lights until only the glow of his laptop illuminated the room. Picking Friends had seemed like a safe choice. While it wasn’t exactly educational – something he tried to keep in mind when introducing Rocky to new media – and it certainly wasn’t scientifically accurate, it was familiar enough that Ryland barely had to think about it.
Twenty-two minutes of predictable jokes and canned laughter. No hero racing to save the day. No mad scientists. No terrible CGI aliens or tacky rubber masks. No existential dread. Just six people, somehow managing to afford spacious apartments in one of the most expensive cities in the world with only a single roommate each and a low to semi-decent pay check.
Canned laughter echoed around Ryland’s bedroom, the glow of the screen reflecting off of Rocky’s xenonite ball. Right. Rocky. He couldn’t just switch off completely and let his mind float. That wouldn’t be fair. They were supposed to be doing this together.
The corners of Ryland’s mind began feeling fuzzy before the first episode was through. Twenty-two minutes blurred into another twenty-two, then another, until the stale sound of fake laughter became part of the background noise of the ship.
One hand crept out from beneath his patchwork blanket, reaching out to hit pause on the laptop. “Okay. So, pause a sec.”
Rocky tilted their carapace curiously, waiting for Ryland to continue. He pointed at the frozen screen towards Joey’s frozen form. “So. Joey says he has a ‘moo point’.”
“Moo, question?”
“Right. Moo, like the noise a cow makes.” Ryland dredged up a small smile despite himself. He had never really been into Friends back when it was airing, but he could see why it was a comfort show for so many people. It was little more than mindless background noise mixed with nostalgia. “He’s trying to say moot point – that’s something that doesn’t matter – but he mixed the words up.”
Rocky’s claws clicked against the edge of their xenonite ball, tapping against the surface as if it might help make sense of things. “... Human makes language error, statement.”
“Constantly.”
“...then why other humans laugh, question?”
“Excellent question.” Ryland shook his head. “So, there’s this thing called a laugh track…”
Ryland found himself explaining, each new detail leading to another, then another, and another. Each new explanation helped delay the moment the episode would continue. Every pause gave him another minute where he didn't have to think about Earth, or about what he was missing.
By the third episode, Rocky had begun anticipating his pauses. Ryland had barely started shifting beneath his blanket, stretching cramped muscles and trying to convince his body that being horizontal for hours was not, in fact, a sustainable lifestyle choice, when Rocky spoke.
“Grace pause show now, question?”
“...Yeah,” Ryland said, hand rising to stifle a yawn. “How’d you guess?”
“No guess, statement. Pattern. Joke incoming, question?”
Ryland laughed. “You catch on fast.”
If Rocky could, they would be sending Ryland an unimpressed look. “Rocky learning Grace humour. Grace humour is simple like Grace, statement. Grace gives away the joke each time.”
“I do not!”
“Grace laughs before humans laugh. Friend Grace has seen before, question?”
“...okay maybe I do.” A lopsided smile tugged on the corner of Ryland’s lips. Rocky let out a satisfied trill, the sound echoing softly throughout the room. “Yeah, buddy. I’ve seen this a few times before.” With how many times they had shown reruns, it was impossible to miss.
“Friend Grace stop ruining jokes for Rocky.”
Ryland held his hands up. “Fine, fine. But don’t come crawling to me when it makes no sense without additional context.”
The two dissolved into light-hearted bickering, the words flowing between them more easily than they had since Ryland’s return. And, for a little while, Ryland could almost forget the bone-deep exhaustion he felt all of the time.
By the time the tenth episode rolled around, Ryland had been camped beneath his blanket for hours. They had long since abandoned watching in any kind of order. The laughter had faded into background noise, leaving plenty of room for the thoughts he’d been trying not to have.
“Grace, question?”
Blue eyes blinked blearily from beneath his blanket cocoon, no more than the top of his head poking out from beneath the layers of fabric. At some point he’d lost his glasses in the tangle of fabric, the sound of canned laughter warring with the static of exhaustion and anxiety thrumming beneath his skin.
“Grace, question?”
“Yeah, Rock?” Ryland forced himself to focus. Rocky pointed towards the laptop where Phoebe sat in a cafe, acoustic guitar balanced awkwardly across her knees, off-key wailing echoing from the speakers. Ryland grimaced, reaching for the space bar to pause it again.
“Human tells story with music, question?”
“Eh,” Ryland waved his hand. “Sort of?”
“Eridians tell stories with music, statement.”
“You know, I was really going to say that was the one thing I hadn’t figured out about you,” Ryland said dryly. “Glad you cleared that up.”
He reached for the laptop, closing the lid carefully. That was more than enough television for one night.
“Adrian likes story songs.” Rocky paused, carapace tilting down. “Liked story songs.”
“I’m sure they still like them.” Ryland pressed a hand against the xenonite separating them, no traces of his smile remaining. “You know… it still feels like I don’t know that much about Adrian.”
“Grace never asks, statement.”
“No…” Quiet settled between them. Not the comfortable kind, either. Ryland found himself scrambling for something to say, some way to fill the space, but for once there wasn’t a useful fact or explanation he could reach for. “No, I suppose I don’t.”
He tried to ignore the uncomfortable weight building in his chest. Had he really spent that much time obsessing over Human-Eridian cultural exchanges, over making sure he understood everything about Rocky’s world, that he’d somehow skipped over the most obvious questions? Had he been so wrapped up in his own guilt and everything he’d lost that he’d forgotten to ask about Rocky’s mate?
No wonder Rocky has been acting strange lately. He thinks I don’t care.
“What are they like?” The question left Ryland’s lips before he could fully think it through. Rocky lifted their carapace, the motion a familiar sign of curiosity.
“Adrian, question?”
Ryland nodded. “Yeah. Tell me all about the Eridian who stole your heart.”
“Adrian no steal–”
“It’s an expression, buddy. I mean the Eridian who you chose to mate with.”
“Why friend Grace not say, question?” Rocky grumbled, leaning back and clicking their claws against the xenonite suit almost rhythmically, something Ryland had noticed them do whenever they were trying to find the right words to explain something they thought he might struggle to understand. “Adrian very smart,” Rocky said at last.
Ryland waited a beat, expecting more. When nothing seemed to be coming, he let out a short, huffed laugh. “I could have guessed that, buddy. They chose you, didn’t they? What else.”
“Funny. Most beautiful voice in all of Erid.”
A small smile curled at the corner of Ryland’s lips. He sank further back into his nest of blankets, watching as Rocky’s excitement only seemed to grow. He could see it in the subtle changes in Rocky’s movements, the little shifts in their carapace, the rhythmic clicking of their claws.
“Terrible singer.”
Ryland laughed. “Really? How’s that even possible with such a beautiful voice?”
“Very terrible, statement. Always sang anyway. Happy, sad, need to focus. Sing, sing, sing. Even when…” Rocky cut off so abruptly, Ryland almost thought something had gone wrong with the translator. He rolled to one side, fixing his gaze on the Eridian.
“Rocky?”
“...even when mad at Rocky, Adrian still sing, statement. Adrian… not happy Rocky left, statement. Adrian proud of Rocky, but not happy.”
Ryland pressed a hand against Rocky’s suit. “That’s understandable, buddy. You knew exactly how dangerous it was. Anyone would have been worried watching someone they loved walk into that.”
Guilt climbed into Ryland's throat, making it hard to swallow. Rocky shouldn’t be there. Someone more like Ryland should have been sent in their place. Someone with nobody who cared for them. Somebody the universe could afford to lose.
He pulled his hand back as he began to tremble. “Do you remember any of their songs?”
Rocky went utterly still. For a long, terrible moment, Ryland thought he had found a subject that Rocky didn’t want to touch after all. “Rock–”
“Rocky remembers, statement.” The xenonite ball shifted across the floor with a soft scrape until it rested a little closer to the edge of Ryland's makeshift bed. Rocky didn’t say another word. Instead, their carapace lifted slightly, plates flexing as a low chord vibrated through the ball and out into the room.
Then another.
There was no translation for the notes. They weren’t words, not really. They rose and fell, folding into one another in strange, beautiful harmonies, climbing beyond the range of Ryland’s hearing before sinking low enough that he could only feel their vibrations. The melody carried the cadence of conversation, every phrase weaving into the next until music and language became impossible to separate. He couldn’t understand a single thing Rocky sang, and yet, he didn’t have to.
He could hear the affection held in each gentle rise of melody. Could feel the melancholy beneath the bright, high chords that followed. Could sense the lingering ghost of laughter somewhere beneath the playful edges of the rhythm, as Rocky’s – Adrian’s – song settled into something quieter. More wistful. Almost… lonely.
Ryland’s throat tightened.
When would Adrian have sung this to Rucky? While they worked, sharing the same space and goals even as their work itself was so different? Or while they were home, and Adrian tried to convince Rocky to have at least some time not spent tinkering on a dozen different projects all at once?
It clearly didn’t matter that they weren’t good at singing – whatever that meant to Rocky. Even as Ryland could hear the odd note that didn’t fit with the others, he couldn’t help but find the beauty in it all. It wasn’t something perfect to be performed; it was something born of love, and kept alive even in all the years Rocky had spent alone in space, never knowing if this day would be his last. If this time, when they gave in to the pull of sleep, it would be the final time before joining their crew.
By the time the final notes faded, leaving behind nothing but the quiet hum of the Hail Mary, Ryland's vision had blurred, his cheeks damp with tears. He buried his face in the soft folds of his blanket, as though that might somehow hide the evidence.
Rocky remained silent and still as Ryland tried to pull himself together.
“Rocky misses Adrian every day, statement.”
Ryland scrubbed a hand across his eyes, swallowing hard before he trusted himself to speak. “It must hurt, to remember them. To sing their songs like that.”
He sniffed quietly, letting his hands fall back to the patchwork blanket pooled around him. His fingers twisted into the soft fabric, holding on as he tried to ground himself.
“Forgetting would hurt more. If Rocky stops, then… Adrian gone. If Rocky remembers, Adrian still here.”
Ryland’s grip on his blanket tightened. If Rocky remembers, then it’s like Adrian isn’t gone at all.
The thought settled somewhere deep in his chest. Since his memories had crept back, he had spent so many months doing the exact opposite. If he didn’t have to remember, maybe this would all be easier.
Every time Earth threatened to creep into his thoughts – anything more than the lingering beauty of it all; of empty streets and rolling fog, of hot sticky summer days and winters that left him feeling frozen in his apartment – he had shoved it away. Buried himself deep in calculations and repairs and Human-Eridian cultural exchanges – anything to stop himself from thinking too long about everything he had lost. Everything he hadn’t chosen to leave behind, but that had been taken from him.
Remembering hurt.
It hurt.
Like a wound that he couldn’t stop prodding. Could he even still picture his student’s faces?
He could remember his classroom like he had left it only moments earlier; the colourful posters and constant smell of sweat and AXE body spray and lemon bleach with just a hint of sulphur creeping through no matter how much the cleaners – and he himself – tried to clean it. But the students themselves… he could see the sea of different coloured t-shirts and dresses in his mind. Could picture their hands waving, eager voices forgetting to wait their turn to be called on. But individual names and faces… he should still remember those.
He squeezed his eyes shut hard, trying desperately to picture them. Wide smiles and excited shouts. Gasps of wonder the first time he demonstrated sound waves using nothing more than sand on top of speakers, and the distinct patterns they left behind. He could remember their pride the first time they got back a perfect test score, or they got a question right during beanbag is lava.
The memories came slower than they should. Soft and fuzzy around the edges, as though someone had smudged them right out of his mind. He pressed his eyes tighter, trying desperately to remember something, anything, just one clear face from his classroom.
Yet the only face that came into sharp clarity was hers.
Tired grey eyes and unsmiling lips. Straight hair swept back for practicality more than anything else. Her clipped voice. Her impossible certainty. And the way that she was serious. Always, always so serious.
Months alone. Then months more with nobody except Rocky. How many of his memories had he failed to recall? How many more had he forgotten since without even realising it? The question sat there, impossible to answer.
Ryland turned onto his side, pulling the blanket up and over his head. Maybe forgetting wasn’t the same for humans. Maybe it was inevitable. Or maybe it was just him.
Eyes blinked slowly closed, and memories of a different kind flashed before his eyes. Ones that he wished he could forget.
The laboratory. The helicopter. The soldiers.
Running, running, running.
Panting breaths. His chest screaming with pain. The certainty that if he didn’t get away, if he didn’t push harder, if he couldn’t make himself be faster, then he would die.
Eyes blinked slowly open.
Phantom hands held his arms in their bruising grip as he shouted and screamed himself hoarse. Nobody listened to him.
Nobody ever listened to him.
His throat tightened, mouth dry. Not a single sound could get out.
Eyes blinked slowly closed.
Why couldn’t he just forget all of it and be done with it? No. No, he didn’t want to forget. Not really. Remembering hurt, but forgetting seemed so much worse. Like he was willingly giving up on pieces of himself he couldn’t even see the shape of yet, much less understand.
Eyes blinked slowly open.
He didn’t know anymore. He just didn’t know. Faintly, he could hear sounds of Rocky tinkering somewhere out of sight but still in the same room, no doubt listening out for any changes in his breathing.
Eyes slowly blinked closed.
Rocky was there. The silence wasn’t empty anymore. Not fully. Not really. That would have to be enough.
Sunlight spilled behind his eyelids, lighting up the roads as he cycled to school. Yellow buses passed him, an excited shout coming from one of the back windows as a student recognised him.
The smell of coffee surrounded him, its warmth cupped between steady hands.
The monotony of waiting his turn to speak in the staff meeting as Gloria groaned on, and on, and on about whiteboard markers going missing.
The sound of late night traffic outside his apartment window – enough to stir him from his half-asleep stupor above half-graded tests he was eager to get back to his students.
Tiny moments. Ordinary little glimpses of nothing still filling in the gaps of his memory where bigger pieces were still missing, some never to return.
Ryland pressed himself deeper into the blankets, letting himself float in those brief glimpses of memory, no longer certain if he wanted to remember, or to forget, yet half-convinced that disappearing would be easier. That maybe everyone – Rocky included – would be better off if he stopped being one more problem to solve.