Chapter Text
Simon is drowning.
This was to be expected; an ocean is an ocean after all. Despite the certainty of his imminent demise, he couldn’t help but thrash and kick, hoping for a surface he would never reach.
To his surprise, he feels his knees hit solid ground, and his head breaks the water's surface. His lungs burn and his head aches and aches; he tastes the tang of blood– well, yeah, no shit- but strangely enough, he tastes salt. He takes a few moments to register where the hell he finds himself now. He parts the curtain of hair that's stuck to his face.
He’s still soaked in blood, but he can feel it running off him now that he's upright. He has water- wait, water? There's no way. He's never seen this much water in his whole life, no less in one place. He’s surely hallucinating. Or dead; he might be dead. He’s probably fucking dead.
Despite his scattered thoughts, he is kneeling on the shore of a beach. The water reaches just about his belly button and is rapidly turning red. He feels panic shoot through him at the thought of contaminating this water.
There isn’t enough! He can’t waste all this water; people need it!
He absentmindedly places his hand on the ground and, to his shock, it moves beneath him. Only then does Simon realize that he is not on normal metal or plastic; he is on many, many small asteroids- asteroids? He guesses they really wouldn’t be called asteroids anymore… rocks? He vaguely remembers that this is what they are called. He had seen asteroids before, but they were always jagged, sharp, and grey. But these? These are round, much smaller than an asteroid, and colorful. They ranged from black to orange, with a few bluish-green ones. They remind him of a marble set his mother gave to him. He tried everything to keep them, but eventually he grew so desperate that he sold them. It still shoots a pang of grief through him at the thought.
He tears his eyes away from the small rocks and takes in his surroundings. For a brief moment, all his muddied thoughts stop. The sky is a brilliant blue with a few lazy clouds. There are huge rock formations all around him, similar to the tiny ones below him. They were beautifully marbled with streaks of color. Simon can not get over the sheer size of everything. The huge body of water seems to go on for miles, then blend into the sky. Everything is fucking massive. He is completely overwhelmed by the vibrancy of it. He has heard stories and even seen the occasional picture of Earth. But this? This is incredible. Simon lacks the proper vocabulary to even begin to describe what he’s seeing, but he settles for unreal.
Unreal.
Oh right. This isn’t real. I am dead.
He doubts his mind could make up something so rich and different from the SM-13. So he settles on dead. Is this heaven? Is my mom here? Can I- before he can finish his thought, he reminds himself that he surely wouldn’t have ended up where she did. He didn’t deserve it; he's sure of that. He reaches in vain for the sheath on his shoulder, which he knows won’t be there. Maybe his sacrifice for the black box counted for something, and his afterlife wouldn’t be so bad.
Simon had completely sworn off religion and all of Eden's teachings as one last “fuck you.” He didn’t believe their dogma anymore… right? Eden wanted to abandon him and leave him for dead? Fine, he’d do the same. He was sure of that… but when he found that seedling in the sub… he couldn’t help but cherish it.
Everyone at Eden had a slightly different idea of what heaven was like. But Father always preached that heaven would not be about abundance, but about the absence of needs. That the roads would be paved with gold so smooth and clean they would look like glass, the walls made of precious metals. The sun would shine forever, never giving way to night. From the throne of the Lamb a river of blood flows, and there are a thousand trees on either side of it.
Simon’s idea of heaven was always muddied, but he always liked the idea of peace; he still wanted things to do. The idea of doing nothing all day made his skin itch. Boredom was definitely the worst part of prison. Simon liked to be useful. Somewhere quiet could be nice, but after his time on that sub, he would really like someone- anyone to talk to. That fuck-ass eel didn’t make very good company. Maybe he could have had some semblance of companionship with Ava or David, maybe even Jack. He might actually be able to see Jack and Ava.
If he got really lucky, he might get to see a tree or two.
God, he misses the trees.
Before he can process that completely, he feels a hand on his shoulder. It's not a shove or a grab; Simon could even call it gentle. But after enough people tried to kill him in prison, Simon doesn’t take strange hands coming up from behind lightly. Without much thought, he's on his feet, grabbing his assailant's arm and swinging them in front of him.
The figure stumbles and almost trips over their own feet, letting out a surprised squawk. But they manage to stay standing. The sudden jerk causes Simon’s grip to slip, but he lunges again, desperate not to lose his advantage. He is hurt, confused, awfully dizzy, and his lack of a left arm is really throwing off his balance. He overcorrects and stumbles back, taking a fistful of the figure's shirt in a fruitless effort not to topple over. “Shit-!”
This, in fact, does not work, and he collapses back into the water in a half-sitting, half-lying position. It looked like he was stopping halfway through a sit-up, propped up slightly on his arm, almost falling again as he tries to put weight on his left arm. His foe, being dragged down by Simon’s unrelenting grip, managed to stay upright for a brief moment longer by bending over almost completely, before losing his balance, sticking both arms on opposite sides of Simon to catch themselves. The stranger is on their hands and knees over him, taking in short, quick breaths.
Fuck this is bad; this is really, really bad.
Simon, effectively pinned, eyes dart up to his attacker, scrambling for some way out of this. He looked up, his world narrowing down to a single face—and his breath caught in his throat for an entirely different reason.
An angel.
Simon is looking at an angel.
The light behind the being was violent, haloing it in a soft, impossible glow. It has messy, light-blond hair poking out every which way; Simon can’t help but be reminded of a crown. It has a pair of glasses hanging dangerously off one ear. Simon stared, paralyzed; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen anything so delicate. He was surprised he could even remember their names. Glasses.
Its clothes look impossibly soft, although its pant legs are almost completely soaked, as are the edges of its shirt. What really captures Simon's attention is the creature's eyes. They’re blue. So blue. Like the ever-expansive water or piercing, open-sky blue. They were clear—terrifyingly clear. He curses himself over and over for his lack of vocabulary. It makes sense that the angel would resemble the best parts of this heaven. And he was staring right at it.
Heaven.
Simon had wanted to live so, so desperately. He wasn’t lying when he said he’d give anything just to survive.
It’s more than me; it’s more than me. He has to remind himself.
“Not everyone can be saved.” Ava’s tone was still crystal clear in his mind. He hated Ava when she said that… But now? Simon is starting to see where she's coming from. Simon hopes he saved someone, anyone. If this was going to be his afterlife, maybe dying wasn’t so bad.
On the angel's face, there is neither malice nor even anger. It has worry and maybe a bit of guilt written all over its features. Simon hopes he hasn’t done anything wrong already.
The angel pulls back, no longer looming over Simon, but it kneels just at Simon's feet.
“Holy moly! Hey- it's okay; you don't need to be afraid. I'm not going to hurt you.” Its voice is soft and reassuring, like trying to comfort a little kid after a nightmare. Simon feels like a little kid waking up from a nightmare. “I'm so sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you like that.” The being continues.
“BE NOT AFRAID.”
Father's voice rings in Simon’s ears, authoritative and confident. Simon flinches, and he feels his back straighten involuntarily in an attempt to stand at attention. He taught us that angels understand that their presence can be intimidating and scary to skittish little humans. -Demeaning, why did he always have to be so fucking demeaning?- The mere sight of something so holy could make a human tremble.
Simon’s mouth opens, but he can't muster up more than a quiet stammer. Father was right; Simon is shaking like a leaf. He hated that. He hated that even now. Father would be so smug about being right. He would just love to rub this in his face about how he knew better, that he knew best, and Simon would do his best to listen. He always had this way of talking that would always send Simon straight back to being a little kid. Father was always egotistical and thought he knew everything.
He prayed- No! He physically recoils at the thought, a shudder passing through him. Simon didn’t want to pray anymore. Simon hopes he’s wrong about everything else. Because if he weren’t, what did that mean for what he had done? What did that mean for the future of the sinner waiting in the water?
The angel seems to be waiting for Simon to do something, say anything. But what could he even say to an angel like this? His throat closes up, and he simply continues to stare in absolute bewilderment and awe. He hopes the angel understands.
After a few beats, the angel must pick up on this because it says, “I'm Grace.” After one more moment, it adds. “What's your name?”
Grace
God’s free, undeserved love, help, and forgiveness to humanity. That's what He sent. He sent Simon, Grace. A sinner, a killer, a Butcher; He gave me Grace. And Simon's going to do everything in his power not to fuck this up too. Simon's eyes burn because maybe he can stay, maybe he can do better, maybe he can finally make amends… if he's even capable of that.
Grace’s expression shifts, and it furrows its brows, but Simon is in no place even to begin to attempt to decipher it. “Hey, hey, hey, there’s no need to panic. You’re going to be okay. Help is on the way, but you have to control your breathing. Innnnnn… and ouuuuut, okay? Can you do that for me?” It says, moving its hands up and down on the corresponding breaths.
Simon manages to nod weakly. He hadn’t realized he had started hyperventilating or how exhausted he was. Every part of his being aches. To Simon’s credit, he really does try to breathe, but everything starts to blur and tilt, and it takes every ounce of Simon’s being to keep Grace in focus. Simon wants to sleep so badly, and if Grace can forgive all of his other transgressions, he hopes it can forgive this one. The last thing Simon hears is “It's okay, you can sleep, b-but you gotta wake up, okay? You got to wake up, I-I’ll watch you sleep.”
With that permission, all of Simon gives up, and he lets himself hit the water once again.
Grace wouldn’t let him drown again, right?