Archive of Our Own

"Alright, alright, almost had it. Say it again?"

"Grace is a ♫♪ ♬."

Grace leaned as far back as the chair allowed, gnawing at his bottom lip. They'd agreed to turn off the translator for a few hours each day in an effort to improve his Eridian but wow, Rocky hadn't been joking about the nuances. He'd essentially been baby-talking Grace up until now, or the translator just didn't account for the complexities of a three-layered chord. Why would it? As far as he knew, the closest thing Earth had to something like this were tonal languages, like maybe Mandarin, but that didn't hold a candle to unpacking three sounds with three different meanings, all shoved into one quick whistle…

He cracked an eye open. "Wait a minute. How do I know you're not insulting me?"

Rocky skittered a bit side-to-side, not unlike a kid bouncing with mischievous energy. "Translate!"

"Yeah, I'm trying, bud, but I swear if you're teaching me, 'Grace is a poopy meany head' or something I'm not talking to you for the next twenty minutes. At least."

"Rocky not know some words but Grace know one. Not mean. Translate. Grace is a ♫♪ ♬."

"I know one of 'em, huh?" He shut his eyes again, foot bouncing on the nearby console. It was that middle sound, wasn't it? It had stood out to Grace each time Rocky said the word… words… chords—whatever. But it went by so quick he could barely catch it. Grace had admitted to himself a while back that he'd never speak Eridian—his vocal chords weren't built for that—but he was seriously beginning to wonder if he'd ever truly understand it either. Rocky's chosen voice was great and all, but the idea of never being able to talk to him freely, really talk, was just plain depressing.

Well, at least he had three years to practice. If he did improve and they did make it to Erid and they did eventually make contact with Earth again, maybe he could even teach others how to—

"Teacher!" Grace sat bolt upright, practically yelling it. Rocky let out a series of happy whistles. "I'm a teacher!"

"Yes, yes, yes!" He rolled and gave the laptop a concerning nudge. Grace kept it on the table with one hand and restarted the translator with the other. Rocky's voice reappeared and the relief was a balm on Grace's tired brain. "Eridians say many words with one. Grace is teacher. Also scientist. Also young. ♫♪ ♬ says everything. Not slow like stupid human language."

"Wait, young?" Grace stood and stretched, leaning his body from side-to-side. "What does that have to do with my credentials?"

"Grace blobby, emotional pebble. Rocky warn other Eridians."

"But I'm a full-grown adult, not a baby!"

"Pebble."

"I'm thirty-three, bud. Even older now with time dilation."

"Yes. Exactly. Pebble. So young." Rocky clacked his claws together. "Squishy pebble. Very sad."

"Oh ho, so you were insulting me." With a huff Grace turned his back, fully prepared to stop speaking for twenty minutes… which would probably be no more than two. Still, the threat was always good. "I warned you, Rock. You are now officially being ignored."

"s̸̝͎̤͂̓̊̕͝ͅh̶͈̦̺̣̜͛h̵̢͐̿́̈́̀ͅh̶̜͔̋͗́ḧ̵̢̖͖̪̮́̈́̏͂͝h̶̫͕͎̠͂̈́͝ḧ̷͖́́̕"

"Whoa!" Grace whirled. "Never-mind! Never heard you make that noise before. What's it mean?"

But Rocky's carapace was angled away from him. He was turned towards the communications console, body lowered to the bottom of his ball, like he was prepared to pounce.

"Rocky?"

"Not Rocky. Noise from there," he said, pointing with a claw. No sooner had he said it than a blast of what Grace now recognized as static came again. He scurried over even as Rocky tumbled back.

"What in the world?"

There was still so much on the Hail Mary he didn't know about, which was to be expected when you were a not-astronaut drugged and dumped onto the ship two days before launch. Grace vaguely remembered trying to use this station back when he'd first found Rocky, before excitement got the best of him. Turning their ships in circles and impromptu puppet shows had been better anyway. Now there was a light, a blinking yellow light attached to a button that Grace had definitely never seen before.

"Should I press it?" he asked, half whispering.

"Press what?"

"This," and Grace slammed his hand down on the button. A hidden compartment popped open. Rocky gave the equivalent of an 'Oooo,' pressing his carapace against the bubble's side.

Inside was… a walkie-talkie?

Well, Stratt's high-tech, no doubt crazy expensive version of one. Same basic shape though. There were two in there, both white with extra long antenna that extended automatically when Grace pulled one out. He gave the top a poke and nearly dropped it when another blast of static sounded, far louder than when it had been in the drawer. He caught the radio at the last second, cradling it in his hands.

"Holy moly," he whispered.

Rocky bumped up against him. "What that question?"

"Holy moly!"

"Why Grace use not-swear words question??"

"Because—because—holy moly!"

It took Rocky a minute to get Grace back on track, mostly by running into his legs and threatening to topple him. Explaining the concept of a portable radio was easy. You hold one, I hold the other, now we can talk across short distances. Eridians had a similar invention. What wasn't easy was figuring out why it was suddenly making noise. Clearly there was something emitting radio waves nearby, but what?

"Maybe sun," Rocky said, watching as Grace tried unsuccessfully to pilot the ship. He didn't want to go too far off their established course towards Erid, just enough to see if the signal changed one way or the other. It was... a work in progress. Tucked carefully between his knees the radio still gave off the occasional, random burst of static.

Grace stuck his tongue between his teeth, making sure he didn't steer them into said sun. "Sure, there are a lots of astronomical objects that emit radio waves, sun included, but at this distance? No offense to Stratt, but I don't think even she could have commissioned a walkie-talkie that worked this far out and at this size. I don't think that exists yet. Maybe a geomagnetic storm?" Rocky bobbed in an affirmative. "I suppose if it were big enough, but…um…"

Grace stared down at the radio. The static bursts were coming quicker now, but that wasn't what had caught his attention. There was something almost… familiar about the sounds. Something that tickled his brain the same way the note for 'teacher' had.

Rocky knocked into the chair. "Grace stop talking. Why question? Rocky no like."

"It's nothing, bud, just… deja vu, I guess?" Grace shook his head. "Sorry that's a—it's another Earth language. It's the sense that you've experienced something before."

"Yes. Correct. Grace human on Earth used walkie-talkies question?"

"Yeah sure, back when I was a kid, but that's not…"

Another burst sounded, this one sending a chill down Grace's spine. Why? Before he'd consciously decided to do so he had the radio pressed hard against his ear, heart hammering. Rocky started speaking but Grace shushed him, his grip on the plastic-like substance making it creak.

Static. Static. Two bursts. Three, the last drawn out and then—

"-̵̳̪̯̣̍́o̸̦͛͌̚u̶̟̱̳̎̍̈͆̚r̷̡͎͍̠͇͑ ̴̬͚̟̼͊̄̕͘̚f̶̹̺̻̋Fa̵̡̩͚͒̔͑t̷̛̝̝̣̅̋́ḧ̷̡̤͓́̾̑̾ē̴͚̥͍̠͑̍̅r̷̰͉̱̱̀-̶̪͈̻̤̯̎"

"WHAT."

Grace instinctively made to throw the radio across the room, stopped himself at the last moment, stared, shook his head like a wet dog, and finally looked to Rocky. He was splayed across the interior of his ball, unnaturally still.

"Did you hear that?" Grace asked, pointing.

"Yes. Statement."

"Those were words."

"Yes."

"That was English!"

"Yes, yes, yes!"

"But that's not possible! It—"

As if the universe were chiding him—Grace knew better than to make such a claim—the voice spoke again, the clearest yet. He returned the radio to his lap with reverence, repeating the words as they came.

"…Give us our soil… our seeds… so that we may grow… forgive us our sins… oh, Father, oh, Father… please… Rocky? I'm really not imagining this, right?"

"No! Now Grace do something!"

Right. What was he thinking, sitting here like a lump? Grace's mind kicked into high gear, decades of training pushing to the forefront. How did he know they both weren't suffering from the same delusion? Even if the idea of human and Eridian biology responding identically to some unknown substance was more than a little far-fetched… Or maybe the radio was picking up some weird frequency on the ship itself, like something from their media library? Except that didn't make sense, and that definitely wasn't how the Lord's Prayer went, and that voice was…

Scared. No, desperate. The kind of aching, endless horror that comes from being pushed to your limit and knowing you can't step back. You're not allowed. The fragile shake of 'Oh, Father'… the yearning in 'Our…' the way that 'Please' ripped from his chest like someone had dug a hook in there and yanked, leaving a bloody hole in its wake… Grace recognized it all because he'd heard it all before.

He'd sounded just like that. On the tapes. Back when he'd first realized he was alone out here.

"Grace leaking again."

He startled to find Rocky halfway into his lap, using the flexible panel of xenonite to touch his cheek. Grace put a hand over his claw and found the underside wet. When had he started crying?

"I'm fine." He turned his own gentle touch into a slap. "Get it together, man. Okay. Occam's Razor, yeah? Simplest way to get answers…"

Grace pressed the 'call' button, sending something like a pseudo-prayer out into the universe as he did, and said simply, "Hello?"

There was silence on the other end. Even the static had stopped. For a long, agonizing moment he held his breath, Rocky's three fingers gripping tight to the inside of his wrist. Grace was just about to try again when two words finally came through.

"Fuck. Off."

… Oh.

Well, that was one way to break the spell. Grace sat up straight as Rocky rolled off the chair, yelling that the new person was 'rude, rude, rude.'

He remembered how to talk again though, how to breathe, and with it came a torrent of words he wouldn't have been able to stop if he'd tried.

"Uh… no? Sorry but no? Who are you? We are—we are light years from Earth and you're just, what? Chilling in another galaxy, speaking English? What—what is this? What is going on! You're nuts if you think I'm signing off without some answers!" He was on his feet now. Grace wasn't sure when he'd started yelling. "Are you human? Alien? Is this some kind of advanced translation system? Just tell me who you are. Tell me where you are and I'll—"

"I'm where you left me!"

Grace flinched at the bang that came next, loud enough to make it through the radio. It sounded like the man had hit something. His breathing, ragged and pain-filled, seeped into the Hail Mary.

"Just stop with the fucking mind games," he whispered. Grace leaned in close to hear. "You won, okay? I'm done. I'm. Fucking. Done. I'll be dead soon anyway and—" he broke off with sudden laughter. It was wild and...fragile. "That's it, isn't it? Wouldn't talk to me when I asked. When I needed—" He stopped, breathing quickly. "Whatever. But now it's a good thing, yeah? I'll use up the oxygen. Finally suffocate. You couldn't kill me with that explosion so—" He stopped again, but this time the words seemed to cut off in his throat. "The explosion… I… wait… how… how the fuck am I still alive? I shouldn't be alive… right? So just—just let me die now? Please? Please! Haven't I done enough for you!? Just let me die!"

Grace stared in horror down at the radio. It wasn't just what the man was saying, but another, selfish fear that had crept into his chest the moment he'd started talking. This man was human—maybe, probably, impossibly—and Grace had just found him. He couldn't die now, not before they'd officially even met!

What was he supposed to say though? What could he possibly do? Grace wracked his brain for the fuzzy memories of mandated reporting, but nothing in the public school system had prepared him for this. Rocky had scurried off to one of the navigation screens, but Grace couldn't even muster up the strength to turn his head and see what he was up to. His legs went out from under him and, sliding to the floor, he acknowledged that he had no idea how to convince someone he meant them no harm, or that they should continue living. If not for themselves, then maybe just for him?

Grace leaned his forehead against his knees, grimacing. "Idiot," he muttered.

There was only one question his scrambled brain could think to ask. If they never met, then he at least wanted to carry this piece with him.

Barely moving, Grace pressed his lips to the radio's speaker. "What's your name?"

Silence on the other end. It went on for a long, disbelieving time.

"…what?"

"Your name. Sorry. For yelling and... I probably should have started with this. I'm Grace. Ryland Grace. No one but my mom has ever called me Ryland though, so…"

There was a scoff on the other end. Did the guy think he was lying?

"Butcher," he spit. "Happy now?"

"Oh, um…"

It was another little puzzle and that helped to clear Grace's mind, at least a bit. Who named their kid 'Butcher'? An alien family, maybe, and the last thing he wanted was to be culturally insensitive, but an alien family that spoke English and, frankly, seemed to be in a very bad state right now? None of it made sense.

Except for the fact that something did. That familiar tingle again. The way he'd said it… for just a moment it was like Grace was back in the classroom, kneeling down to talk to a distraught middle schooler after recess.

"Hey, uh… sorry if this is just me being stupid but… is that really your name? Or… is it what other people have called you?"

The silence was even longer this time, to the point where Grace worried that they'd lost contact. Or that the man had…

"Who are you?"

"I—I told you. I'm Grace."

"COI wouldn't even pretend—and that fucking eel—maybe I'm already dead, is that it? Maybe…" The man seemed to be talking to himself, a whole lot of mumbling, phlegm-filled nonsense. He sounded awful and Grace resisted the urge to demand his location. He didn't want him to freak out again. Or worse, make him sign off. So he just listened to the man's shaky breathing, so close to his ear, maybe light-years away, and thus caught the exact moment that his breathing changed.

"Hey, hey, you okay?" Grace gripped the radio harder, his heart stuttering.

"The wires…" The man's voice hitched in what sounded suspiciously like a sob. "They're connected… Are you…?"

Am I what? Grace leaned forward like that could get him any closer. What do you need me to be?

"Are you actually real?"

"Yes!" He bounded to his feet. "Yes, yes, yes, I am real, I swear to you, by every scientific measurement I am standing here, completely real. I have mass. And weight! Because of the artificial gravity here on the Hail Mary! My atoms are interacting with the environment and TMI, but my physiology is going haywire because of this conversation. I'm sweating and shaking and I'm probably going to puke at some point I mean c'mon if I was some hallucination don't you think I'd make myself a bit cooler??" He shook the radio in front of his face. "I'm real. I promise. I… I want to know your name."

"Grace…" the voice whispered. He sounded awestruck.

Grace blinked. "Wait. Your name is Grace too?"

"GRACE!"

He was nearly bowled over by Rocky's voice, despite the fact that the computer's volume hadn't changed. Rocky was still over by the navigation console, two limbs waving excitedly, and just a moment later the Hail Mary lit up like a Christmas Tree, just as it had all that time ago.

When he'd first encountered Rocky.

'Blip-A Detected,' Mary's voice chimed.

"Rocky find new human!" He did a little twirl of excitement. "Find, find, find!"

"You...? YES! Buddy you are the bestest most talented most—most—everything ever! Statement!"

"Rocky knows!"

Grace fumbled with the radio. His hands really were shaking. "Hey, hey Grace? Grace are you there? Did you hear that? We found you! We'll be there soon. You're gonna be okay, I promise."

A bitter chuckle sounded. "Changed my mind. It's not so bad."

"What is?"

"Being lied to. Especially at the end."

It was like someone had doused Grace with a bucket of ice water. "What? No—hey! Just keep talking to me, alright? Grace? C'mon, Grace, say something."

"…Simon."

"Huh?" Grace latched onto the word, not sure he'd heard correctly, but thankful for it all the same. The man's voice was so weak now.

"You're nice, even if you are just my imagination. Didn't know I had it in me to imagine someone nice." He chuckled again and Grace winced at how wet it sounded. "Don't wanna lie to you back. Name's Simon. I…" He heaved, a cry mixed in. "I'm no 'Grace.'"

"Simon." Grace repeated it as gently as he could. "Hold on for me, Simon, alright?"

He didn't answer. From then on no matter how loud he yelled, how much he begged, Simon remained quiet on the other end of the line. Grace spoke to him anyway. As Rocky took the controls and navigated them towards the new Blip A, Grace told Simon everything they were doing, how close they were, that they were here, they were coming, hold on, hold on, please hold on.

Still clutching the radio with one hand, Grace put his other on the side of Rocky's ball. Rocky took one of his limbs and pressed it against Grace's palm. They couldn't feel each other, but it helped just knowing he was there.

Grace hoped his voice did the same for Simon.

"Go faster, buddy," he whispered and Rocky obliged.

They hurtled on towards Simon, Grace talking the whole way there.