Archive of Our Own

Sometimes they’d take Mary on short trips, to be sure she was still functional, for when Ryland eventually decided to take her back to Earth. (Totally not just for little adventures, just the two of them.) Sometimes Grace would even get to take samples of the ground or flora from other planets and moons, to learn about and experiment with in his free time.

They’d come across a moon that looked to be almost completely submerged in a red ocean. On some of the land masses, there were buildings reminiscent of what Grace might see on Earth, but they were all empty. He and Rocky had scoured every room of every building they saw on the only island they could locate that had any structures on it, but it had been empty for a long while. There was no sign of life, not for a long time. There had been humans here, judging by the Earth languages that old books and pages of notes were written in, but clearly Grace was too late.

He decided, at least, he’d get a sample from the ocean on this moon.

But the closer he got to the shoreline, the more his stomach turned.

It no longer looked like red water. Watching the way it moved, the noises it made as it rolled onto the shore…Ryland was distinctly reminded of blood.

He stared at it. He wanted a sample, of course he wanted a sample. He needed to know what this substance was. But at the same time, something in the back of his mind told him that he really wasn’t going to be happy with the answer.

“Rocky see Earthling. Rocky see human,” chirped a monotone voice from beside him.

“What?!” Grace replied, head immediately on a swivel.

“In liquid. Rocky see human, not too far down. Same shape as Grace,” Rocky observed.

“Wait, what, wha, what do you mean? How far down? Are you sure it’s a human?” Grace asked. He couldn’t see through the opaque viscera, so he wasn’t totally inclined to take Rocky’s word.

“Not far. Rocky get!” Rocky said, and went running into the shallow waves.

“Rocky, no, wait! Rocky, stop, look, my hand is up, Rocky, stop!” Ryland chased him, but he was too late. Rocky, in his little glass space suit, was already completely submerged.

Ryland paced that shoreline for a good 20 minutes, wishing he could take his helmet off if only to pull his hair out. He and Rocky had determined that the air here was probably breathable for him, but they didn’t want to take chances, so removing the helmet was not going to happen. Nor was biting his nails. So he paced. And he paced, and paced, and paced, until Rocky walked out of the ocean and back onto the shore, with a chain tied around him.

“Disgust disgust disgust! Rocky dislike that very much,” Rocky chimed immediately. As he continued to walk, his chain dragged behind him.

“Rocky, what is on the other end of that chain?” Grace asked warily. As much as he wanted to hug Rocky, he wasn’t going to touch him until he stopped dripping.

“Rocky explain already, Grace not listen, question?” Rocky replied exasperatedly.

“No, I know, but you said it really fast and then you left, so- I mean, was it? A human?” Grace rambled.

“Rocky think so. Look like human, to Rocky,” he said, and began pulling the chain with his two front arms. Slowly, the form attached to the other side of the chain emerged from the ocean, none of its features distinguishable. Covered in blood, and now in the coarse sand that stuck to it, the ‘human’ looked no better than a blob.

But a blob in the general shape of a human, all the same.

“Oh my God,” Grace breathed, “Oh my God! Rocky, you found a human!”

“Yes, Rocky say this already,” Rocky replied, and if he had eyes, Grace was sure they’d be rolling.

Grace quickly decided that his suit could be washed later. He rushed over to the person, turning them onto their side, and trying to wipe their face even slightly cleaner.

“Ah! He’s- Yeah, this really is a human, holy crap. Rocky, help me lift him, we’re taking him to the ship.”

“The ship?! No, Grace mistaken. Ship is for Rocky and Grace only. Grace can send message to Earth to come get wet human,” Rocky said firmly, “Rocky want to save wet human, no need adopt. Has heartbeat, wet human alive. Will be fine.”

“Rocky! Are you crazy? We can’t leave him here, he’ll die way before anyone can reach him. Now help me pick him up and take him back to the ship, please,” Grace said urgently.

“Wet human nowhere to go! Can’t stay on ship. Would have to live in biodome with Grace,” Rocky argued.

“Okay then, fine, he can live in the biodome with me. I’m not leaving him here,” Grace gritted, “So help me, Rocky, you are going to do this for me. Or else… or else I won’t talk to you, or teach any of the classes for the pebbles for a month.”

“Grace bluff.”

“Wanna bet?” Grace glared. He knew Rocky could feel his heartbeat, could tell when he was being serious.

Rocky hesitated in silence for a long moment. If he had a face, Grace was sure he’d be squinting stubbornly.

“Fine. Rocky take wet human to ship. If Grace going to be that way,” Rocky bristled, and walked over to pick up the man’s legs.

On the journey back to Erid, Ryland hooked the man up to all of the rescue systems he knew of. Rocky un-dressed the man and put him in one of their hospital gown garments, to save Grace the awkwardness, and Grace did the rest. He cleaned the man’s visible skin of the drying blood(?) and grime, careful of his boils and wounds, pumped his stomach of all the liquid he’d swallowed while drowning, and hooked him up to oxygen, and some IVs. While Armando was running diagnostics and confirming what needed to be done, Grace was wrapping the man’s stump of a left arm, trying his best to get the rest of the fluids under control, so that he could hopefully finally take his space suit off and wash it.

A little over a day later, Armando had fixed up what was left of his arm, taken care of his boils, burns, and wounds, and performed surgery on his eye.

He was breathing semi-normally now, and his heartbeat had evened out.

With the man’s injuries taken care of, Armando had been able to bathe the unconscious man, besides his hair, and Grace could now see most of his features. In attempt to finish cleaning some stubborn debris off of the man’s face, Grace realized that the debris was the man’s face. From his forehead down his neck, disappearing under the gown, he had vine-like welts. These were on his right arm, too. They were so pronounced, so irritated and discoloured, Grace had originally assumed some kind of foreign seaweed or starfish or something had cemented to the skin. Between the welts were open wounds…? as well, some of which had a strange scale-looking texture to them, most where his boils had been the day prior.

But no, the welts and scales were the skin.

This poor man.

With dishwashing gloves on (thick, and they went up to his elbows), he stationed himself next to the bed. He had a chair, multiple pitchers of water (since Erid had plenty, and he no longer needed to worry about preserving it), a bucket, a hairbrush, and a shampoo/soap mixture he’d been making, to keep clean on Erid.

The man had long hair, Grace couldn’t tell how long. It was matted, crusted in the dried liquid, tangled- it was a mess. So Grace got to work, slowly wetting the hair, getting as much gunk out of it as he could with just water. Then he shampoo’d it, and tried to brush it, but Grace winced every time he tried to pass the brush through a strand. Even though the man was completely unconscious still, Grace was afraid of hurting him.

He tried again, and the man stirred. Okay, not as ‘completely unconscious’ as he thought.

“Eye movement detected.”

“Yeah, thanks Mary,” Grace replied absently, waving a dismissive hand in the air as if the ship knew what that meant. His eyes fixed raptly on the man’s face, watching small muscles twitch, and his eyes slowly flutter open. They didn’t open all the way, he just squinted- and, to be fair, he was looking directly into the light above them, so his eyes were probably burning.

As two brown eyes looked up, the hazy figure of another human loomed above him. Backlit by a halo ring of pure light behind his head, no clear features could be seen- just a glowing shape.

“Hey! Hi, can you hear me?” Grace asked quietly, almost a whisper, “I’m Grace, you’re on my ship right now. We’re taking you to safety.”

The man’s dark eyebrows furrowed a little, and then his face relaxed.

“Grace of God…” he muttered, coughed, blinked, “You’re my Angel?”

“What? No, no no no, you’re alive! You made it, buddy,” Grace whispered encouragingly, but the man’s eyes closed again before he was done talking. His breathing evened back out- he was unconscious again.

“Hmm,” Grace sighed, “Well, I guess I’d better let you rest, then. Not like we were getting anywhere, anyway.”

It was probably best if he let the shampoo sit for awhile. Let it break down the dirt, soften the hair, detangle a little bit, before he try to brush it again.

He grabbed a plastic hair protector from the protective gear bins, and after thoroughly scrubbing the man’s whole head of hair with shampoo, he put the cap on the man’s head.

At this point, they had a two day trip back to Erid. Grace occupied it by studying the samples of the ocean liquid he’d gotten off the man’s clothes. First he’d tried to clean the man’s clothes, but that didn’t really work- shirt and trousers were shredded, Grace wasn’t even going to touch the guy’s boxers, and the accessories… Well, the accessories (though stained red) were mostly salvaged, but only because Grace had sympathy for the man. He knew what it was like to only have a precious couple belongings to your name, he didn’t want to have to get rid of everything this guy owned while he waited for him to wake up.

So he kept a scarf (?), a leather shoulder harness thing, and a bandana(?). He hung them up by Rocky’s old heat lamp to dry, and went back to studying the samples, as it was probably too soon to try to finish cleaning the guy again.

To his horror (but not shock), it was blood. Impossible to tell what kind- it seemed like a huge mix. No one blood type or consistency.

Grace was driving himself mad trying to figure out how a moon had somehow become an ocean of Earth-dweller blood. There was not a single scenario he could think of that made it make sense.

“GRACE!”

He jumped, dropping the vial he’d been holding.

“Grace, Grace, Grace! New human wake up! New human wake up and very angry, is bad bad bad!” Rocky came barreling into the room, “Human rip needles out of arm, get off table, and throw bed table tray at Rocky! Human crazy! Rocky tell Grace in first place, leave wet human on wet planet!! Now wet human problem! Wet human big problem, attack Rocky!”

“What?!” Grace shouted. He quickly shucked his gloves off and got up, power-walking out of the room with Rocky in tow.

“Hey, uhhh, human? Guy?” Grace called as he walked through the hallway approaching the med bay, “It’s me, it’s the guy- you saw me when you woke up earlier! I’m coming in, please don’t attack me?”

When Grace rounded the corner and entered the room, the man was curled up in a ball in a corner, looking accusingly at him.

“Where is my arm?” the man asked, alarmed. His voice was gruff, low, but unmistakably terrified.

“Woah, hey, I did not take your arm. You’d already lost it when we found you, we just cleaned up the wound a little,” Grace said, raising his hands in surrender as he slowly stepped in, as if approaching a skittish animal.

“What about my clothes? Where’s my stuff, my pendant?” the man demanded, voice wavering.

“We couldn’t salvage most of your clothes, but we kept and tried to clean a few of your things. We didn’t find a pendant, though, I’m sorry,” Grace frowned.

“...oh…” the man said quietly, eyes glassy. He looked Grace up and down multiple times, ducked his head a little, and then, much quieter, “...Angel…?”

“Wet human recognize, question? Grace know wet human, question? What wet human calling Grace, question?” Rocky asked, attempting (quite poorly) to whisper.

“I’m not an Angel. You’re not dead. You’re alive, buddy! You’re on a ship called the Hail Mary. I’m Grace, this is my friend Rocky. We’re taking you back to Rocky’s planet, Erid, to clean you up and get you back on your feet,” Grace said carefully, continuing to inch closer to the man.

“No, I died,” the man replied with certainty, eyes wide, scared. His left eye couldn’t open all the way, due to the swelling from the work Armando had done, but that didn’t stop the man from emoting properly. Poor guy looked like a kicked puppy.

“No. You didn’t. We’re real,” Grace smiled gently, kneeling on the floor a couple feet from the man. Closer now, he noticed the man’s eyes were two different colours, he assumed because of the damage the left one had sustained. His right eye was a beautiful shade of brown, and so was part of his left eye, but most of the left iris was milky blue.

“He’s definitely not,” the man pointed accusingly at Rocky.

“Why wet human pointing finger at Rocky? What Rocky do?” Rocky lifted his two front arms.

“It’s talking…” the man whispered, the quiver in his voice becoming more prevalent.

“I talking! No ‘it,’ is Rocky. I Rocky. Have name. Wet human being rude, statement,” Rocky put his arms back down, and lightly stomped one of them.

“Rocky, calm down please, he’s probably never seen something like you before. Most humans haven’t, remember? Give him a minute to adjust, he’s got a lot of new information to take in right now,” Grace said gently, briefly turning to his friend, “Let him get used to things.”

“Who do you work for? Who are you taking me to?” the man insisted.

“We-? I don’t work for anyone. It’s just me and Rocky. I was sent on a suicide mission from Earth, the rest of my crew died, I’m the only human I know. We’re a long way from Earth now, anyway, we wouldn’t be able to get to another human if we tried. As for the Eridians, they’re a peaceful species with their own planet, they love making things and doing social stuff. We have no motive, man, I just- We found you, while we were exploring, and I- I couldn’t just leave you there to die. No one else was around, no one else would be able to save you,” Grace explained.

“You want me to believe you were exploring space for the fun of it, you found me unconscious on a planet you’ve never been to before, you picked me up and brought me onto your ship, gave me surgery, cleaned me up, cleaned my belongings, revived me-... what, out of the kindness of your heart?” he asked, last words absolutely dripping with sarcasm.

“Yes!” Grace replied desperately, “Yes, why are you saying it like that? I haven’t had contact with another human in so many years, is it a crime that I saw one stranded on the edge of death and wanted to save them? Even if I didn’t care about you at all, I probably still would have done it out of selfishness, of just- of wanting to see another human being again. Wouldn’t you?”

“No! Hell no, humans are the worst. If I was you, I’d have just killed myself already.”

“Wet human tell Grace to die?!” Rocky practically gasped, and started charging forward, “Wet human kill himself! Or Rocky do it for him! Statement! Do not you understand that Grace-?!”

“Woah, buddy, stop, stop. You’re not helping,” Grace intervened quickly, holding his arms out protectively in front of the man, “He didn’t tell me to die, he’s just saying he doesn’t see things like I do.”

Rocky made a kind of growling noise that Grace had never heard from him before, and he physically bristled, like a bird ruffling its feathers.

“Rocky.”

“Rocky doesn’t like me” the man was frowning, clearly trying to comprehend what he was seeing when looking at the Eridian.

“Wet human is very observant,” Rocky said flatly, as close as he could get to sarcasm.

“Rocky, can you, maybe, like, step out for a minute?” Grace sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose, glasses on his forehead.

“Rocky will still hear everything Grace and wet human is saying.”

“Can’t you, like, I don’t know, go…build a model of the blood moon or something?” Grace asked.

“Grace being weird. Statement.”

“Rocky being stubborn, statement. And I will remind Rocky that he’s the one who dragged this guy out of the ocean in the first place,” Grace said, with just a bit of bite to his voice. For a sweet, often confused guy who didn’t cuss, he didn’t sound menacing often, and clearly, Rocky noticed the shift in tone.

Rocky was quiet for a long moment, and then turned, and started walking out.

“And Rocky will remind Grace that Grace and wet human only alive because Rocky save, but nooo, Grace do not listen,” he murmured as he left.

“Look, I- I’m sorry, about all that. He’s- I’m the only human he knows, so he’s…not thrilled that we’ve suddenly gotten another one. Even though he’s the one who saw you and got you to shore,” Grace sighed again.

“Rocky still hear Grace,” came a bossy voice from down the hall.

“Oh my God,” Grace hung his head for a moment, “Um, anyway. Don’t let this ruin anything for you, I promise, Rocky is wonderful when he’s not…like this. He’s got a partner, too, and they’re wonderful- so are all the other Eridians. We’re just- Obviously, this is a stressful situation for everyone.”

“You talk like a therapist. Or a teacher,” the man squinted, still pushing himself against the wall, creating as much distance between them as possible.

“Whoop! There it is,” Grace smiled. When the man didn’t smile back, Grace nodded a little.

“Yeah, no, it’s- uh- it’s a song, it’s- It doesn’t matter. Um. But yeah, no, I- I am a teacher,” Grace fixed his glasses.

“You said you don’t know humans anymore.”

“I don’t! I teach the pebbles- uh- the kid-Eridians. I teach them about space, and Earth, and the other planets and stars-”

“Stars?” the man asked, frown dropping, eyes becoming big again.

“Uh, yeah, the…? Like, the balls of fire in the sky…?” Grace gestured vaguely.

“No, I’m not stupid, I know what stars are,” the man twitched, looking at the floor. His lip wobbled, and he took a deep, shaky breath, “You…Your solar system. Or…Eridian solar system. Whatever. You..still…have. Them. You still have…stars…?”

“Well, we- I mean, yeah, we still have stars. The whole universe still has stars, for the most part. A lot of them were dimming, for awhile, but Rocky and I saved them. That’s the mission I was sent on, that’s why they put me in space in the first place. To save the stars,” Grace shrugged a little, “Why, uh, why do you ask? Do you- Did your people know about the astrophage?”

Admittedly, Grace had been absolutely brimming with questions since seeing this man, and the human-built structures on that moon. Were they from Earth, like Grace was, or had they been inhabiting this moon for awhile? Had they been there for awhile, did this guy’s generation even know what Earth was? If so, why had they come out here so long ago, and how come he’d never heard of their mission? What was their mission, regardless of when they got there? Did this guy know what all the blood was there for, or why he was the only human left there?

“The astro- The what? Just- How did you bring the stars back?” he stammered, chest heaving.

“We didn’t bring them back, necessarily. We just figured out what was eating them, and fixed it. So that the stars wouldn’t die,” Grace said, “Did you- Did you think the stars were already gone? Like, could you not…see them, from your moon?”

“No, Angel, I didn’t see shit. I didn’t get to see the sky, where I was. I was in that fucking ocean for so long…” he man’s lip wobbled again, and he took another deep, shuddering breath. His eyes were brimming with tears, but his expression was set, to stubborn to allow any more emotion than he’d already unwillingly shown.

“Was…Was that your mission? You guys were on that moon to study the…blood…ocean…?” Grace asked carefully.

“Our mission?” the man laughed joylessly, “I don’t know what their fucking ‘mission’ was. All I know is that they welded me into that stupid fucking submarine, and sent me down over and over again, to collect samples they didn’t know how to study, and take pictures with a camera built to give me radiation poisoning. Their ‘mission’ was to bottle me up and watch me suffer, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Oh…” Grace’s face crumbled, “Oh…my God, holy wow, that’s absolutely awful. What… Why would they do that?”

The man fixed him with a sharp glare. The pain in his dark eyes was enough to silence Grace immediately. He had a feeling that apologizing, and therefore acknowledging it, might make things worse, so he decided to change the subject.

“Do you want to see the stars?”

And then all of the anger melted off of his face, and though he was still clearly refusing to cry, his shiny eyes fixed on Grace again. He swallowed hard, and gave a jerky nod.

Grace held out his hand. The man stared at it.

“It’s probably going to be pretty hard for you to stand up on your own, I’m assuming you’re in a lot of pain, and you’ve been unconscious for at least several days-”

The man looked him up and down, and back up, making no move to take his hand.

“Right,” Grace nodded again, and awkwardly retreated his hand, rubbing it subtly on his pant leg like he’d touched something he didn’t like touching. He took a couple steps back, giving the man space. The man fumbled a little, teetering off balance, clearly unused to not having a left arm to lean on, but he managed. Leaning against the wall, he stood up.

“I’m, uh, I think I said this already, but my name is Grace. Ryland Grace,” he smiled awkwardly.

“Mmhm. You did, in fact, say that already, Angel,” the man nodded.

“Did you really think I was an angel? When you first woke up?” Grace huffed a laugh.

“All I saw was a humanoid haloed by a bright light, calling himself Grace, after I was sure I had died. Yes, I really thought you were an angel,” the man admitted, avoiding eye contact.

“Well, sorry to disappoint,” Grace shrugged, “But, in my opinion, a human saving you instead of you dying is kind of better than an angel, in some ways.”

The man was silent, mouth pressed into a thin line.

“Right. Um. The stars,” Grace continued, and began walking down the hall to the nearest window. He walked slowly, allowing the man to follow from a small distance.

“Do you have a name?” Grace asked, as they approached the window. But the man did not respond.

He was staring, slightly slack-jawed, out the window, shoulders slumped, face open. He blinked furiously, and silent tears finally began to fall.

Grace looked from the man, to the window, back to the man.

“You really haven’t seen the stars in a long time, huh…?” he asked quietly.

Once again, the man didn’t answer. After several moments of silents, he softly asked, “Can I stay here awhile?”

“Uh, yeah, I mean, sure! But you really do need rest, you’re going to have to go back to your bed at some point. You just had surgery, you’ve got wet hair, you’re probably sore, and you need to get your IVs back in- you haven’t eaten or had water in a long time,” Grace reminded.

The man subconsciously reached toward his plastic hair cover.

“Yeah, uh, I know hair is pretty sacred in a lot of cultures and whatnot, so I didn’t want to shave it off or anything, but it was tangled pretty bad, so I tried to wash it, but it was like really bad so I left it soaking in shampoo and soap, and then I thought maybe we could rinse it tomorrow and try to brush it out. I was trying to brush it earlier, when you woke up and called me an angel,” Grace rambled. The man nodded once, still looking out the window.

“Rocky can come back now, question?”

“Uh, not yet, buddy, we’re gonna give the guy some space. I’ll come to you, just give me a second,” Grace called back. Then he turned back to the man, and said quietly, “I’m going to go talk to him, but if you need help back to the bed, just call me. If I don’t hear you, Rocky will, and he’ll tell me. Once you’re back in bed, I’ll get your IVs back in, too.”

The man nodded again.

“I’ll leave you to it.”

Grace walked to Rocky, who was sitting in front of three differently sized models of the blood moon. Grace opened his mouth to speak, but Rocky beat him to it.

“What Angel, question?”

“Uhhhh, well, you know how I explained ‘souls’ to you?” Grace asked, “A lot of humans think that our souls go somewhere else after we die, somewhere in a different universe. If you go to the bad place, hell, you become a demon. And if you go to the good place, heaven, you become an angel. So when he woke up, he thought he was dead, so he assumed I was an angel.”

“Oh, understand. Eridians do not have this. Do not believe any soul belong in bad place,” Rocky explained, “Humans evil, question?”

“Some of them, yeah. That’s why there’s a bad place, so that the evil souls don’t get to hurt the good souls in the afterlife. At least, that’s what a lot of people seem to believe,” Grace shrugged, perching on one of the stools.

“Grace believe, question?”

“Excellent question. I…don’t know, honestly. I hope there’s a good place, or maybe that our souls get to inhabit a new human body when the old one dies, but no one knows for sure,” Grace frowned.

“I think Grace soul go good place. Grace good human. Good enough save other human, even though other human attack Rocky.”

“He was scared. I almost threw a wrench at you the first time we met, remember? Cause I was scared, too,” Grace reminded.

“Yes, yes, Rocky remember. Grace look terrify.”

“I was. And he is, too. Give him time, he’ll come around.”

Eventually, the man went back to the med bay bed. He tentatively sat down, and glanced guiltily down at the IV tubes and needles on the floor.

“Uh…Angel?”

Across the ship, Rocky stood up.

“New human say ‘Angel.’ New human trying summon Grace, question?”

“Yeah, I think so. Thanks, bud.”

So Grace went back to the med bay, picked up the discarded medical equipment, and grabbed some new IV bags, tubes, and needles.

“Do I need those?” the man asked, a worried crease in his brow.

“Yeah, probably. You haven’t had proper nutrients in days, maybe weeks, your body won’t be able to handle much, orally. You can sip water and have some small snacks the next day or two, but that won’t be enough to sustain you and help you heal. The IVs will make you feel a lot better,” Grace said informatively, “If you want to look at the contents of the bags, feel free, they’re labeled. In case you think I’m trying to poison you, or something.”

Not being a doctor, Grace only knew so much, so he let Armando do the actual needle work. The man reluctantly allowed it, after looking the bags over.

“I’ll, uh, leave you alone. So you can sleep. I’ll check in after an hour or so, just to make sure you don’t need anything else. But if you’re asleep already, I won’t wake you. Goodnight…” Grace said, fishing hopefully to be supplied a name. But the man remained silent.

“Uh, yeah. Goodnight,” Grace mumbled, and left.

An hour later, he checked on the man, who was under the thin, scratchy hospital blanket Grace had given him, asleep on his crappy stretcher bed. His IVs were still in, he hadn’t ripped his hair cap off yet, and it didn’t appear he’d moved anything around, which Grace considered a massive relief. The guy must be exhausted, after all.

“Grace no watch new human sleep?”
“No, I don’t think he wants that at all,” Grace said, as he laid down.

“Grace want that.”

“Yes,” Grace admitted, pulling the quilt over himself.

“Grace worried new human health complications.”

“Yes,” Grace sighed, settling on his side.

“Grace worried will wake up and new human died.”

“Yes,” Grace repeated, closing his eyes, “But there’s nothing I can do about it. If I watch him sleep, he’s just going to not sleep, and be more miserable. He needs sleep, if we want any hope of him healing.”

“Rocky watch new human sleep, question?”

“Oh, he’d like that less,” Grace cracked an eye open, “You scare him.”

“Rocky can watch far. Rocky sit in hallway, where new human do not see Rocky from bed. Then Rocky not scare new human, but still watch him sleep, make sure not dying. And then if new human is has something wrong, Rocky come tell Grace,” he suggested.

“You’d do that? Even if that means you won’t watch me sleep?” Grace frowned.

“Yeeees, because Grace no sleep if no one watch new human, Grace too worried. So then Rocky stay here for nothing.”

“...You’ve got a point.”

When Grace went to check on him the next morning, he was already awake, sitting up in his bed.

“Good morning!” he waved, making his presence known before stepping into the room, “Did you sleep okay?”

The man frowned a little.

“You’re really just that nice, huh?” he asked.

“No? I mean, I don’t consider it an extremely kind, heroic thing to not want you to die. If I’m going to try to help you heal, whether or not you’re able to sleep is part of that,” Grace shrugged, “And also, I just…I figure, if we’re going to be in each others lives now, we might as well get to know each other.”

“In each others lives…?” the man squinted.

“Even if we put you back on that moon and told Earth to come get you, it would be years, if ever before they reached you. We’re going to be seeing a lot of each other, unless you want me to kick you out,” Grace reasoned, “So did you sleep well, or not, man? Give me something to work with.”

“I…slept fine,” the man grumbled, looking at the floor, “I was more tired than I thought.”

“I can imagine,” Grace empathized. He had Armando check the man’s vitals, and he brought the man a water bottle and a sleeve of crackers with specific instructions to take small sips and bites. He sat politely, hands in his lap, leg bouncing, as the man opened his bottle. He lifted the bottle to his lips, but didn’t sip yet, observing Grace’s anxious state.

“Are you just going to stare at me the whole time, or…?” he asked.

“Oh! No, sorry, I can- like- turn around, or whatever. I need to stay here to make sure you don’t have a negative reaction to anything, but I don’t have to look at you,” Grace stared pointedly at the floor.

“Um, okay…”

But as the man sipped his water and nibbled his crackers, Grace’s leg bounced more incessantly, and he began spinning on the swivel stool, and he was fidgeting with the hem of his sweater, pulling at loose threads.

“Are you waiting to ask me something? You look like you’re about to explode if you don’t start talking soon,” the man raised an eyebrow.

“Um! I mean, yeah, that’s kind of how it feels,” Grace admitted, “But you haven’t been exactly talkative, especially not when it comes to yourself, so I figured asking my questions would just make you annoyed and not get me any real answers.”

“Well…” the man hesitated, “What do you want to know?”

Grace’s whole face lit up, eyes lifting back to the other man’s face.

“Really?”

“I mean, I never said I’d give you answers. But…I might, depending on what you want to know. So…what do you want to know?”

“What’s your name?” Grace blurted immediately.

“My name? That’s the most pressing, most immediate answer you need?”

“I need to give Rocky something to call you that isn’t ‘wet human,’” Grace groaned. The man huffed out his nose. He stared at the floor, deliberating, and took another sip of water.

“It’s Simon.”

“Oh! Cool. Simon what?”

Simon frowned, “I don’t get it.”

“Like, what’s your last name?”

“Last name? Do people have multiple names where you come from?” Simon squinted.

“Um okay, so you’re not from Earth, then?” Grace pursed his lips.

Simon was silent for a long moment, and he cocked his head, “That was a joke. That’s a joke, right? You’re not seriously telling me that you are from Earth.”

“Why…wouldn’t I be from Earth…?” Grace leaned forward.

“The. rapture…” Simon frowned.

“The rapture?!” Grace repeated incredulously, “The big one? Like, where Jesus gathered everyone in Heaven?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Simon slouched, “The rapture. The Quiet Rapture. Where all life disappeared except a few humans.”

“What?!” Grace gasped, “Say more right now.”

Simon would have certainly been annoyed if it weren’t for the genuine shock and confusion written all over Ryland’s face. How was he supposed to understand an event he’d clearly never heard of?

“Everything disappeared, one day. In my world. I guess everyone was living on Earth, like you guys, until one day, stars started disappearing, and the Earth died. Humans moved to other planets to build colonies and try to restart plant growth and whatnot, but most of it didn’t work. If a colony was really lucky, they had, like, a tree. I don’t remember the name of the first colony I was living on, but everyone had moved to colonies when Earth first started dying, cause they didn’t want to be there when it was fully dead- I was born on that colony. And then later, we moved to Eden. Some colonies thought they could make things work, but it was hard, without any plant life, or other animals… Or so I’ve been told. I was a kid, when the Rapture finished and every star and planet was dead, I didn’t understand. And I’ve never- I mean, Earth was already empty by the time I was born, so,” Simon shrugged.

Grace blinked a few times, adjusted his glasses, changed his sitting position, pointed, lowered his hand, ran his other hand through his hair, and exhaled loudly through his mouth.

“Riddle me this, Simon,” he paused, nervous for the answer, “What year is it?”

Simon’s eyes flitted around for a moment, and he began to fidget with the edge of the mattress.

“Well now I don’t want to say.”

“Simon, dude, I need to know what year you think it is,” Grace pressed.

Simon mumbled.

“Sorry, say that again?”

“2370.”

Grace covered his mouth, and nodded slowly.

“Yeah, so, I really don’t know how this happened, but you- I think you might have, possibly, hopped universes? Like, you come from a whole other timeline than I do,” he said carefully, “Do you know what I’m saying?”

Simon shook his head.

“So. Hold on,” Grace sighed, and got up to retrieve his whiteboard.

“So my world, everything I knew…just doesn’t exist anymore?” Simon asked breathlessly.

“Well no, it still exists, I think. But if I’m right, it now exists without you in it. Because you somehow went through a cosmic portal and ended up here. That would explain why there were no other people in the structures on the moon we found you on, you’re the only one who crossed over,” Grace thought aloud, “Mind you, it’s all a very loose hypothesis.”

“So none of them, none of that…can get to me anymore?” he asked, eyes on the floor as his mind whirred.

“Theoretically, yeah,” Grace nodded with uncertainty.

“And you think the thing that killed my stars is the thing that you were sent on your mission for?” Simon’s shoulders slumped, “And that, if you were as successful as you think you were, the rapture will never happen here.”

“More or less. I think, in your universe, there was a massively destructive mutation of astrophage, over time, that allowed it to essentially take all of your stars away at once. But mutations like that only happen if an organism is given time and opportunities to evolve, which won’t happen, if our solutions worked,” Grace elaborated, “As it is, you probably didn’t have many stars left, when your rapture happened. Astrophage had probably already slowly taken a lot of your stars already.”

“So…if someone was looking for me, in that world. They won’t be able to find me here?” his brow creased.

“Um, no, I’m…I’m really sorry,” Grace bit his lip, lowering his white board, “What- uh- What was her name? If you want to share.”

Simon finally looked back up at him, silent.

Grace’s shoulders tensed a little, clearly sensing he’d said something wrong.

“That’s fine, you don’t have to say.”

“There was no ‘her,’” Simon clarified shortly. And what he meant was that the person looking for him was of no romantic interest. But Grace took a different meaning.

“Oh! Right, silly me, it’s- I mean. Uh. His name…?” Grace squinted, chin tilted up, like he was waiting for Simon to tell him he was right or wrong, “...their name…”

“Romance wasn’t allowed, on Eden,” Simon said flatly, “The people looking for me don’t like me.”

“Oh. Well…good? Then? I guess? I’m assuming Eden was the name of your colony on Mars,” Grace sat back down.

“Yeah,” Simon brought his knees to his chest.

“Okay, interesting. Since you told me I was allowed to ask questions- Why wasn’t romance allowed? Like, was it a ‘celibacy until marriage’ type thing?” Grace guessed.

“No. No marriage. No relationships, at all, ever. The Father always said that being unfaithful was a sin, but that we didn’t have the numbers to be faithful. He wanted people to…breed, essentially, since there were less than five hundred of us on the colony. But to maximize breeding, faithfulness to one person for life wasn’t practical, and being unfaithful wasn’t an option. So romantic relationships just…weren’t allowed,” Simon recalled, “There were ceremonies, where the next people to have children together would be chosen based on age, health, things like that.”

“So they were super strict about the faithfulness rule, but forewent the ‘marriage before sex’ rule?” Grace scoffed, “Weird. Was sex also banned, unless you were picked? Since that’s technically a sin, too?”

“No. I don’t think they actually cared about what was a sin and what wasn’t. I think they just wanted to control people,” Simon shrugged, “I think The Father didn’t want anyone to love each other more than they loved him. Sex was allowed, but only if you could find it off of company time, and out of everyone else’s way. And non-ordered pregnancies were punishable with jail time.”

“That’s so strange,” Grace shook his head, “Do you know if it was like that on any of the other colonies?”

“There was only one other colony we knew of, by the time they put me in the submarine, they’re the ones looking for me. It was us, Eden, against the Consolidation Of Iron. The belief was that there were only enough resources left in the universe for one of the colonies to survive, and their beliefs were too different to try to work something out,” Simon rolled his eyes, “The Father knew that we weren’t going to make it unless everything was based on efficiency. Hence, the ‘no relationships’ thing. He believed that other colonies were prioritizing comfort and grief, and that that’s why most of them had died out so quickly- they weren’t focused enough on survival, they thought they could just believe it until it happened. He would say that God was testing us, and that we needed to prove we were worthy of being kept alive by working for it. He told us we could survive if we also prioritized keeping our tree alive, that it was a gift from God for us to protect. And that if we let it die, he’d punish us, like he did all the other colonies whose trees died. It’s why my mom made us move, she knew the tree on our first colony was dying, and she believed that meant we’d die with it. So we went to Eden, with the Father. He kept saying we weren’t at war, but then he’d send completely untrained people to go make negotiations, with the instructions to obliterate the other team if things went south. And he knew things would go south.”

“Wow, that’s awful. So you were, what, a prisoner of war? That’s why the other side will be looking for you, you’re leverage?” Grace thought aloud. Simon flinched, and looked down again.

“Hey, when can I take this stupid bonnet off?” he asked instead, his voice a quiet grumble.

“Oh! Yeah, we should be able to get your hair back in order after it soaked overnight,” Grace said quickly, taking the que that question time was over. He stood up, putting the whiteboard aside.

“Can I-” Simon leaned back, “Could I just do it myself?”

“Um, no. Right now, you need to keep upper body movement to a minimum, while your left arm and shoulder recover. Reaching up with your right arm for who knows how long to rinse, untangle, and brush your hair is not a good idea,” Grace picked up his stool and brought it back over to the bed, where it had been the previous day. The hair stuff was all still there, Simon had probably been waiting to get that stupid cap off.

“Can the robot do it?” Simon eyed him suspiciously.

“No, Armando is definitely not trained in being gentle and trying not to hurt you. He’s really just worried about efficiency,” Grace winced, “I think he’d rip your hair out.”

“You named the thing?” Simon glanced at the robotic arm, “And you named it Armando?”

“Look, man, I was alone for a long time before I met Rocky,” Grace shrugged, “So do you want your hair out of the cap or not? Cause I don’t have to fix your hair for you, but then it’s just going to stay soapy and tangled.”

Simon’s nose scrunched, unhappy. Then, slowly, he laid down, with his head hanging slightly off the bed, over the bucket.

“Okay. I’ll try to be quick,” Grace nodded. He put some latex gloves on, took the hair cap off, and picked up one of the water jugs.

He was right, letting the hair soak overnight made it much, much easier to work with. He targeted the big tangles first, and then brushing the rest of it out. Simon was silent, he didn’t make a single noise, say a single word, and his eyes were closed the whole time.

It was strange, the contact without contact. With the gloves on, Grace couldn’t feel Simon’s hair, and while Simon could feel human hands, it wasn’t skin. They were on the edge of something, of connection, of comfort, but it didn’t seem that either of them were really ready for that, yet. After accepting that they’d never feel the touch of another human again, they’d both need more coaxing before they got that comfortable.

The whole process took about an hour. Grace felt pretty good about the work he’d done, and smiled a little as he declared Simon could get back up.

Simon slowly blinked his eyes open and looked up at Grace. His eyes opened fully this time, and Grace realized he hadn’t really seen Simon’s eyes well until now.

Simon stared at him a moment.

“Yeah, I definitely thought you were an Angel. From here, the light above you gives you a perfect halo,” Simon admitted, “and makes your face kind of hard to see.”

Grace grinned, and moved out of the way.

“Well, now you know the truth. Disappointing as it may be,” Grace sighed dramatically. Simon huffed, not quite a laugh, but amusement, for sure.

“Do you want clothes? Like, other than the hospital gown? There’s not a lot of options, but I think you and I are similar in size. You’re a little shorter than me, and a little wider around the shoulders, but I think some slightly ill-fitting clothes might be better than a paper dress,” Grace offered. Simon nodded, and sat back up slowly.

He left, and returned with black sweat pants, and his ‘I had potential’ shirt. And then he left the room to allow the man to change. About five minutes later, he heard a soft, “Uh, Grace?”

He peeked back into the room. Simon was in the sweats, but sat without a shirt, holding the black tee in his hand.

Grace stared for a moment. With his hair down, falling to his shoulders as it dried, face fully clean now, and his vast expense of muscles in view, he looked like a whole different man than the one Rocky had pulled from the ocean.

“Um, I can’t really- get this on by myself. Since you said I’m not supposed to squirm too much,” Simon said sheepishly.

“Right! Of course, duh,” Grace nodded quickly, rushing to help, feeling a little stupid for not thinking of that sooner. He helped Simon into the shirt, careful not to actually touch him. Simon felt bad, making the guy help him with something so simple, and he didn’t like that he was now using some of the only clothes this guy had, but he decided not to say anything about it right now.

Grace was right, the shirt looked sort of tight around the man’s shoulders, arms, and upper chest, but it’s not like the seams were bursting or anything. It fit well enough.

“Thanks,” Simon muttered quietly.

“Any time,” Grace took a step back, “Feel okay?”
“Yeah. These are comfortable,” Simon said appreciatively.

“Well. Good,” Grace smiled.

Grace clearly didn’t align with the type of people Simon had known, before this.

“So, on Erid,” Simon said uncomfortably, knowing they’d arrive the next day, “What should I expect? Like, how I’m supposed to dress, how I’m supposed to greet them, if I need to bow-”

“Oh, dude, no, don’t worry! The Eridians are great, they’re not expecting anything from you. Rocky already sent a message home that we’re bringing another human back with us, they’re ready to receive you just as you are. And it’s not like they know what humans should look like anyway, so it’s not like they’ve got much to compare you to. You’ll be totally fine,” Grace waved a dismissive hand.

“Right…okay, but, how am I supposed to- like- What are their rules?” Simon pressed. He was sitting idly on a lab stool while Grace worked on testing the samples from the blood ocean.

“I guess that depends on what you mean by ‘rules.’ Like, you have to stay in the biodome they built for me, or you have to get one of them to build you a suit, since you can’t survive in their atmosphere. Is that what you’re asking?” Grace asked, sliding his arms into the big rubber gloves attached to the glass.

“No,” Simon said flatly.

“Okay, so what do you mean? Give me examples. Like, rules you had on Eden, or something,” Grace continued, picking up a tool Simon was unfamiliar with.

“Well,” Simon shrugged defensively, “The usual stuff. No sitting down in the Father’s presence, do not speak to the Father unless spoken to, Elders take priority on any and all resources, you can only eat the portions you’re served, when you’re served them, people caught stashing or trading portions are considered traitors, never question the Colony’s plan, never speak ill of or doubt the Colony’s decisions, stuff like that.”

Ryland was staring at him.

“What?” Simon frowned, shoulders tensing even more, despite the pain in his left shoulder for using the muscles there.

“‘The usual stuff’? All of that is totally normal, to you?” Grace asked, seeming to have forgotten about what he was holding, no longer paying attention to the samples.

“What, do they not do that on Earth?” Simon asked.

“No! I mean, they do, in like, cults, but not in normal places,” Grace replied quickly.

“What’s a ‘cults’?” Simon frowned. Grace’s forehead made a soft ‘thunk’ as it hit the glass.

It took awhile to explain what a cult was, because to Simon, it all sounded normal. So then Grace had to explain why it wasn’t normal, and what normal should look like, and after about an hour, Simon seemed to start getting it, because he became quiet. At first, he’d been asking tons of questions, trying to poke holes in Grace’s narrative, but the more Grace explained, the more Simon realized he absolutely knew what he was talking about.

So when Simon became quiet, a distant look in his glassy eyes, Grace knew he was just listening, taking in the new information. He probably had a lot to think about.

When they finally went back to silence, and Grace went back to work, it was several minutes before Simon spoke again.

“I always knew something was wrong, I just…couldn’t put my finger on it. Like, how are you supposed to know that someone’s being controlling when you don’t know what it’s like to be free, you know? I knew it felt bad, obviously, but there’s a lot of things in life that feel bad that you just have to deal with. And I thought it was just…one of those things,” Simon thought aloud, looking down at his hand, “Can I ask you some questions about Earth? Just to clear some things up.”

“Yeah, of course. Always,” Grace said simply.

“How many other animals are there? Besides humans. And is ‘grass’ a real thing?”

Grace didn’t even pretend like he was going to go back to work this time, he dropped what he was holding, took his hands out of the gloves, and sat on the nearest stool, facing Simon.

“I need you to tell me what you mean by that. Like, what do you think grass is?” he pried.

“I mean, someone told me it was, like, a plant. That covered the whole ground. Like, wherever dirt was, these little green sprouts would just show up and cover all of it,” Simon explained, too afraid to make eye contact. He had a feeling his question was foolish, but he didn’t know to what extent, and he didn’t want to embarrass himself by finding out.

“You guys didn’t have grass? Not even artificial grass?”

“No. I honestly thought that ‘grass’ was a myth,” Simon admitted.

“Grass is normal, on Earth. It’s pretty much everywhere,” Grace frowned.

“Okay,” Simon pressed his lips together, deciding not to embarrass himself further by asking what grass even technically was, “And the animals. You guys have a lot of them?”

“More than we can even catalogue. There’s a bunch of animals that we know exist, but haven’t been able to locate enough to study properly,” Grace recalled, “Millions of species. I can pull up some pictures on my computer, later, if you want to look at some of them.”

“Is it true that humans can own animals, on Earth?”

“Some kinds of animals, yeah.”

“Are humans allowed to own other humans?”

“Not in most places,” Grace sighed, “We’re working on eliminating that completely.”

“And people can still get married? Like, because they want to? Not for ownership?” 

“Usually,  yeah. Some places are still a little behind, though.”

“What does that mean?” Simon asked.

“Uh, well, some places still think that marriage means that a man owns a woman, in a weird, gross way. And in most places, same sex marriage isn’t legal,” Grace thought aloud, “We’re working on fixing that, too.”

“What is same sex marriage?” Simon squinted.

“Like, men marrying other men, and women marrying other women.”

“You guys can do that?” Simon asked quietly.

“In some places, yeah. A lot of us are trying to make it okay in more of the world, but it’s going pretty slow, last I checked,” Grace adjusted his glasses.

“So. Love, and relationships. Those are encouraged on Earth?”

“In most places, yeah.”

“Huh. What about Erid?”

“Oh yeah,” Grace laughed, “Yeah, Eridians are big on community. Most of them have a mate, maybe more than one in some cases, and a lot of them have kids, and above all else, they’ve got communities. They always hang out together, they hate being alone. Love and relationships is some of the most important stuff you can have, on Erid.”

“Does Rocky have a mate?” Simon tilted his head. He was quite curious about Rocky, as he’d often spot Rocky observing him from afar, but Rocky did not seem keen on actually interacting with him.

“Very much so. He and Adrian have been mates for a few hundred years, I think. They’re crazy about each other, it’s really cute. And kind of gross sometimes,” Grace snickered.

“Wow,” Simon nodded slowly, “Do you have a mate? Or…did you? Before…this?”

“No,” Grace shook his head, “There were a couple people I liked, people I thought of marrying, but it never worked out. That’s part of why they sent me to space against my will, they knew no one but my students would miss me.”

“Oh…”

“Don’t worry about Erid,” Grace said, hoping he sounded comforting, “They’ll like you.”

And oh, did they ever. The Eridians were ecstatic about another human joining them, and more importantly, they were excited that their beloved Grace had another human to be in the biodome with him. There wasn’t a single Eridian who didn’t love their human, and being such social creatures, it naturally made them quite sad that Grace didn’t have another human to keep him company. Bringing Simon back from a mission was best case scenario, as far as they were concerned.

“Adrian! Hey,” Grace said happily, hugging their tall form through his glass-like suit.

“Grace Rocky return!” they chirped back, wrapping their two front arms around him in return, “And bring new human! Rocky very happy Grace now have mate.”

“Wh-What? Rocky, what did you tell the Eridians about Simon?” Grace frowned, turning to his friend. Rocky stood a little taller with indignance.

“Rocky tell Eridians that Grace now have second human, and second human live in biodome with him now,” Rocky replied shortly.

“That’s not all you told them,” Grace narrowed his eyes.

“Rocky say Grace Simon much talk, share clothes, never alone. Rocky say Grace need much space when Rocky join, but Grace not give any space when Simon join, and ask Rocky to leave. Rocky suspect Grace Simon mates, and not tell Rocky,” Adrian explained.

“Buddy! You could have just talked to me, come on! Simon and I are not mates,” Grace sighed.

“Rocky does not believe,” he replied petulantly.

“Whatever,” Grace rolled his eyes, “Where is Simon, anyway?”

“Simon still on ship.”

“Why?”

“Rocky not know. Simon do not talk to Rocky.”

Grace made the short walk back to the ship, and saw Simon in his suit, standing in the archway of the open ramp, staring at the ground.

“Simon? Hey, you okay? Rocky says you won’t leave the ship and you’re not talking to him,” Grace asked, hands on his hips.

“I still think he doesn’t like me. I’m scared to talk to him,” Simon admitted quietly, eyes unmoving.

“Well I just learned that he, apparently, was not avoiding you, but trying to give you and I privacy. If that means anything,” Grace offered. Simon slowly shook his head.

“Do you not want to leave the ship? I promise, it’s safe out here,” Grace continued.

“It looks…” Simon swallowed, “It looks like Earth.”

Grace looked at the ground now, too, and considered this. While Erid didn’t resemble Earth in a lot of ways, the rock, and therefore sand and dirt, did look pretty similar to what Earth had. Simon had told him, in passing, that he’d seen Earth through some old photos, and that they had a small sand and dirt supply on Eden, so he’d clearly made the visual connection.

“Uh, yeah, sort of! The biodome is even better, we’ve got screens like in the projection room to make it more realistic. You’ll like it, I think,” Grace said, “Come on, I’ll stay with you until we get there and we can take our suits off.”

Simon shook his head.

“Why not?” Grace tilted his head.

“What if…it’s not what I wanted?” Simon whispered, “What if I spent all of this time imagining what life would be like on solid ground and then I hate it?”

While Eden had been built on Mars, nobody ever left the man-made structure, except a few people deemed capable of traversing out to look for more usable resources. Simon had only ever known buildings, floors, ceilings, structures, man made things. And judging by how he was acting now, Grace suspected that (much like himself and Mary) Simon had been knocked unconscious before being put in the submarine that had him in the blood ocean in the first place. So Simon had known buildings, a submarine, and Mary, a spaceship, but he’d never been on solid ground before. Didn’t know the feeling of really being able to take a walk, or feeling like he was truly steady at any given point.

Grace held a hand out. They had their suits on, so Simon wouldn’t really be able to grip him for balance, but he hoped the gesture came across anyway.

It seemed to, because Simon’s suited hand landed in his with a clank sound, and slowly, he stepped down, off of the ramp, and onto the ground.

It was strange. Simon couldn’t feel anything shifting beneath him, or the movement of something outside shaking the building, or the sway of being in the ocean, or the creaky floorboards of the shitty bunkers back on Eden. It was like getting complete silence after a lifetime of ringing in his ears, or stepping into a bright room after being in dark.

“They’re waiting to meet you,” Grace smiled encouragingly, “They’re just on the other side of the ship. Come on.”

The Eridians had welcomed Simon with the gift of a crystal crown of sorts, and they gave one to Grace, too. (Apparently they were supposed to make one for Grace when he’d first arrived, as they were customary welcome gifts, but they hadn’t been expecting him when he’d first arrived.) Grace was thankful that the translator was only accustomed to Rocky’s voice, because many Eridians he’d become familiar with were talking about how handsome Simon was, how gentle and humble he seemed, and what a good mate he’d make for Grace.

“You understand them?” Simon asked, on the way to the biodome.

“Yeah, I’ve learned. You will, too, after awhile. Especially since they’re so expressive with body language, it gets easy to pick up on context clues when you can’t totally understand them yet,” Grace said, “They understand us almost perfectly. The first time I met Rocky, he picked up on English within a few hours. Eridians are extremely smart.”

Simon nodded.

Simon tried to be gracious, when it came time to enter the biodome, saying goodbye to the Eridians for now, since most of them wouldn’t be entering with him. He thanked them, and since it’s not like they could shake hands, he bowed respectfully many times before following Grace, Rocky, and Adrian into the door.

“Is bowing a customary polite thing on Eden?” Grace asked curiously, as Rocky and Adrian quickly built themselves suits before they went through the next door.

“Uh, no. It’s a cultural thing from Earth. My mom used to tell me that both of her parents were from a place on Earth called Korea, and that she still remembered a lot of their customs. She taught me a little bit of the language, she used to tell me bits of folklore and stories she grew up on. She taught me things she grew up doing, like bowing to show respect,” he recalled. She also taught him to shake someone’s hand with both hands, to give gifts as a primary love language and show of gratitude and respect, to wait for the eldest person at the table to start eating before serving himself, and that the deeper you bowed to someone, the deeper respect it showed. She would tell him how, back on Earth, sharing food was a big deal in their culture, and extremely common, or even expected. It sounded amazing.

“Huh, cool! That’s nice, that she taught you about where your ancestors came from. The younger people who didn’t remember Earth probably didn’t know where they were from,” Grace said.

“Yeah, it was-”

The next door opened, onto a beach. Rocky and Adrian walked out ahead of them.

Simon walked slowly forward, taking everything in. This looked exactly like some of the Earth photos he’d seen. The blue sky was filled with puffy clouds, and yeah, Simon knew it was a screen, but it looked real, and that’s what mattered. And the waves that lapped at the shore were water, clear, gentle, what an ocean was supposed to look like.

As he stood still just outside the door, mesmerised, Adiran gently took Simon’s xenonite suit off.

And he could breathe. And the air felt clean. And despite having never been to Earth, Simon got the distinct feeling of a safety he’d never known. He was home. A home he’d never gotten to see.

“My house is right over there,” Grace stepped up beside him, now also out of his suit, and pointed left, to a structure on an upward slope of rock by the shore.

“Wow…” Simon breathed.

“Yeah, there’s a lot to show you. Tonight, though, I’m just going to give you some blankets, and you can sleep on my couch- it’s almost night time here, and I’m exhausted after our trip. I’ll give you a tour of the whole dome tomorrow,” Grace offered, and began to walk toward his house.

Grace’s couch was nicer than anything on the ship. Simon slept through the whole night for the first time in years.

He woke up to gentle light streaming in through the windows, and Grace moving quietly around in the kitchen.

“Good morning,” Grace said, when he noticed Simon was awake, “Sleep well?”

Simon sat up slowly, and nodded.

“Do you have any diet restrictions? Like, allergies or anything?” Grace asked.

Simon pushed his hair out of his face, and shook his head.

“Great. Well, in that case, I’ve got some toast, and strawberry jam, and a caffeine drink that tastes remarkably like coffee,” Grace offered.

Simon was beginning to wonder, again, if he’d died and somehow gone to heaven. Grace’s house was nice, the biodome was nice, Grace was nice, he was being freely offered food and drink to eat at his own pace, comforts he didn’t have to work or fight for.

As promised, Grace gave Simon a tour. His house, his classroom, the different glass-like areas where he could meet up with the Eridians without either having to cross into the others’ space, and some of the things he and Rocky had built throughout the dome. Rocky joined them part way through, happily explaining all the different ways he had helped to make Grace a perfect living area.

“And this is the greenhouse, just up here-”

“What’s a greenhouse?” Simon asked, as they rounded a corner onto a glassy structure.

It was a whole building full of plants. A big building, too. Simon’s eyes went wide.

“They sent us with a bunch of plants and seeds, on Mary, to make us feel at home, and give us something to do. So with a lot of help from the Eridians, we got them all growing. We keep having to add rooms, cause things just keep growing more and more…it’s pretty incredible, if you ask me,” Grace said proudly, hands on his hips, “We’ve got seven different kinds of fruit trees, fifteen different crops, tons of flora and succulents, and we’re working on grass and ground covers to move into other parts of the dome. We’ve also got two nut trees, and- oh, shoot, I- What’s wrong? Did I say something?”

He turned fully toward Simon, who had silent tears streaking down his face.

“Why Simon leaking, question?” Rocky asked, in his terrible excuse for a whisper.

“It’s just…been awhile. Is all,” Simon replied quietly, voice shaking.

“They had plants back on Eden, right? I thought you said they had a tree?” Grace asked quietly.

Simon pressed his lips together, and shook his head.

“We had one tree. And that was it. I’ve never- I didn’t even know-” his breath caught in his throat, and he covered his mouth with his hand to keep any other noises from escaping.

Grace opened his mouth, closed it, and nodded.

“I didn’t realize you’d never seen plants before. At all. They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” he asked gently, “Do you want to go inside?”

Simon nodded.

“Simon not upset, question?” Rocky continued to ‘whisper.’

“No, buddy, it’s just a lot to take in. He’s never seen plants before,” Grace whispered back, “Let’s show him what we’ve grown.”

“Rocky not help much with inside greenhouse, Adrian do most of plant work,” Rocky admitted, “Adrian Grace make beautiful Earth garden.”

“Let’s head in,” Grace nodded toward the door.

“Simon still leaking,” Rocky observed, and then turned to Simon, “Words of great comfort.”

Simon cracked a small smile. Oh, he had a beautiful smile.

“Thank you, Rocky,” Simon said, to which Rocky stood a little taller, proud of himself for saying something helpful.

Simon was fascinated by everything he saw. Rocky droned on about how awesome Adrian was and how they had calculated the exact PH levels that the soil for each plant needed, and exactly how much water each one thrived on, and so on. Simon tried to listen, but most of his thoughts didn’t make it past ‘wow, wow, wow, holy shit, wow, oh my god, this is amazing, wow, wow, wow.’

“Simon is amaze, question?” Rocky asked, as Simon stared at a carnation bush.

“Rocky was astound when first see what Grace do with greenhouse. Rocky was amaze, amaze, amaze!”

“Amaze, amaze, amaze,” Simon echoed, nodding. He wiped his face, sniffed, and reached out to very gently brush his fingers over the flower petals.

“Do you want one? It’s about time we trim this one, anyway,” Grace asked. He picked up some shears off the nearest table, and carefully snipped the flower by its stem. Simon flinched- had Grace just killed this beautiful plant for Simon to have? Immediately, he felt horrible for being the reason the flower was snipped. It must have shown on his face.

“Trimming them helps them grow better in the future, so you might as well keep it,” Grace offered.

“I’m scared to grab it,” Simon admitted, slightly appeased but not fully, “I don’t want to crush it.”

“Oh. Well…here,” Grace said, and tucked it behind Simon’s ear.

Simon went deadly still, eyes locking onto Grace’s.

Grace seemed to realize what he was doing too late, because his hand froze on the side of Simon’s head.

“Um, it’s- On Earth, that’s what people- uh- I’m sorry,” Grace retracted his hand awkwardly, “I didn’t ask. I should have just let you- sorry.”

Simon’s hand came up to where Grace’s was, as if trying to recreate the feeling.

“It’s an Earth tradition?” Simon asked carefully, voice still shaking.

“Uhhh, yeah, it’s like- an accessory, I guess. People put flowers in their hair, and behind their ears, you wear them. Sometimes you can tie them together and make a crown out of them, those are pretty popular,” Grace explained, “Or you just give flowers to people to just, like, have. You put them in a vase, like on your desk or something.”

“Is it like a greeting, or…?” Simon asked, wondering if he was supposed to give something to Grace in return.

“No, no, it’s usually for special occasions. Or just to show someone you like them,” Grace explained, and then looked away, a pink tint to his face, “Like, a friend. Or partner or whatever.”

“Oh,” Simon felt his heartbeat quicken. He didn’t realize Grace liked him, or considered him a friend. He knew that they had to be cordial if they wanted things to work out, but he didn’t realize that Grace had any real inclination toward him.

He supposed he did, now.

“You know, if you want to, we could have Adrian teach you the basics, and you can do most of the work in here. Between teaching the pebbles and the other projects I’m working on, Adrian could probably use more help with the plants,” Grace shrugged.

“Would it be helping you?” Simon asked cautiously. He’d already accepted far too much hospitality, considering he had nothing to give in return.

“Absolutely,” Grace replied earnestly.

“Okay,” Simon agreed, “When can we start?”

Adrian was in the greenhouse the next day, teaching Simon everything they knew so far about growing conditions, climate control within the greenhouse, and so much more.

Grace gave Simon and Adrian the translator computer most of the time, and Simon and Adrian got along very well. Adrian was very grounded, calm, logical, and empathetic. They were much more patient with him than Rocky was, and had a lot less snarky remarks to make about him. Simon and Rocky were starting to get along, but their relationship thus far was mostly playful banter. Adrian spoke to Simon like he really meant something to them. They were also extremely helpful, and never had to be asked to step in and hold something steady when Simon needed more than one arm to do something. They understood Simon in a way that most humans back on Eden never had, even when neither of them were talking.

“What Simon think of Grace, question?” they asked one day, as they both harvested the ripe tomatoes from their planters.

“He’s very kind. He’s not very patient, but he really tries to be, which I appreciate. He’s definitely not like anyone I had at home,” Simon thought aloud, “Why do you ask?”

“Grace ask about Simon often. Grace ask if Simon comfortable, if Simon need anything, if Simon want anything, if Simon need space, if Simon express happy or unhappy,” Adrian said, “Grace think Simon does not like talking to Grace. Grace say Simon never initiate conversation, never try to ‘hang out.’ Grace does not want to annoy Simon, but want to know how Simon is doing.”

“Does he really think that?” Simon’s eyebrows pinched in worry, heart immediately beginning to pick up its pace, “Oh my God, I’ve been so stupid. …Wait, really?”

“Simon not stupid, just not used to Grace. Grace need communication. Grace need ‘word of affirmation,’ Grace need to know you appreciate. Grace need ‘thank you’ and ‘good job’ or else assume everyone think bad job, dislike. Grace need affection, or else think not good enough. Grace enjoy hug, fist the bump, touch hands, lean on each other. Make Grace big happy,” Adrian explained.

Simon’s shoulders sagged. He’d been staying out of Grace’s way as much as possible, in attempt to be respectful of his space. He knew this was Grace’s home, Grace’s things, and he had been doing his best to stay out of Grace’s way, so as not to disrupt his life any more than he already had.

He had no idea Grace thought he was ignoring him. And now he felt awful. Like, his chest ached with how bad he felt about the prospect of making Grace upset.

“Adrian, can you please help me with something?”

Simon knocked on Grace’s front door. He’d been told he had free access in and out of the house, but he still felt bad just coming in unannounced and uninvited. He carefully stepped in.

“Simon! Hey, is everything alright?” Grace frowned, “You’re not usually back until after dark.”

“Yeah. Um. About that. Adrian asked me why I was ignoring you. And I didn’t realize that that’s what I was doing. I was just trying not to…ruin anything. Since I figured you probably had a routine, and a way of doing things, and I wanted to respect that. It didn’t really occur to me that you may want to see me, or talk to me, because…nobody has before, and I don’t…I don’t think you’d like me, if you got to know me, honestly. But the last thing I wanted to do was upset you, and Adrian said you hated being ignored, and that I was ignoring you. So. I’m sorry, about that,” Simon said awkwardly, hand in his pocket. Grace was leaning with one hand against the kitchen counter, looking at Simon attentively.

He stammered for a moment before landing on, “Thank you. But, uh, you really don’t need to be around me if you don’t want to. I’m not gonna make you hang out with me, that would just be miserable.”

“You’re not making me do anything,” Simon interjected with sincerity, “I’m not very good at being a friend, but I can try, if it would make you happy. It’s the least I can do, after everything you’ve done for me.”

Grace squinted, “You have to promise to tell me if you hate it, though. If you think I’m boring, or you hate hearing me talk, or you don’t like anything I like, or you think I’m annoying or something, you gotta tell me. I’m not into one-sidedness, like at all.”

“Okay,” Simon agreed, “Same goes for me. If you think I’m…I don’t know, too much of a downer, or no fun, or…whatever, that’s fine.”

“Sounds good,” Grace smiled, “Thank you, Simon.”

“Yeah, of course,” Simon shifted nervously, “I, um, have something for you, if you want it.”

“Really?” Grace stood taller, slight confusion on his features.

“Yeah. It’s- It’s okay, if you don’t like it,” Simon pulled something out of his pocket, taking a step closer to Grace and holding it out, “You don’t have to keep it.”

In his hand was a round pendant on a string. It was a red carnation petal, preserved in clear xenonite.

“It’s for when you go on missions, or whatever. To have a piece of home with you,” Simon explained sheepishly.

“Oh, this is beautiful! Do I wear it?” Grace gingerly accepted his gift with both hands.

“If you want to. I used to wear mine, it’s- it was one of the things I asked you for when I first woke up. Back on Eden, I was one of three keepers of the tree- the Father gave us each a seedling pressed in glass, like this, and I wore mine on a cord around my wrist. He said it was so that I’d always have part of home everywhere I went, and for me to remember how important I was to our future,” Simon explained.

“That’s beautiful,” Grace breathed, admiring the one he’d been given.

“You like it?” Simon asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Yeah, it’s-”

Grace tracked Simon’s movement and noticed that Simon was now wearing a bracelet, one identical to the one he’d just given Grace.

“You have one, too,” Grace said, a smile coming to his face.

“It’s supposed to remind you of home, and it’s not like I’m going back to that colony again, and I lost my old one, so…” Simon shrugged shyly.

“I’m happy to hear that,” Grace said quietly, “This is your home now as much as mine.”

“Grace like gift, question?” Adrian asked, the next day.

“Yeah, I think so. He hasn’t taken it off, yet,” Simon replied.

“Good.”

Rocky was visiting Grace a few days later, in his house, when Simon had briefly stopped in to grab something he’d forgotten earlier.

“Heading back to the greenhouse?” Grace asked, as Simon opened the door to leave.

“Yeah. See you later, Angel,” Simon waved a little, and left. As a joke about how kind and hospitable Grace was, Simon had said that he really wasn’t far off when he’d first called Grace an angel, and he adopted it as a nickname.

Rocky had not yet heard of this.

“Why Simon call Grace thing not Grace, question?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” Grace replied, sipping his coffee.

“Simon say Angel, but mean Grace. Simon not still think Grace mythical, question?” Rocky expounded. He knew about Simon’s very first mistaken thought about Grace, but he’d thought that had been cleared up awhile ago.

“Oh, no, no. It’s like- it’s a nickname. Pet name, we call it. You call people nice or funny things, when you like them,” Grace explained.

“Ohhh, this friend name for other friend, question?” Rocky swayed to the side a little.

“Sort of, yeah,” Grace nodded.

There was a moment of quiet, and then Rocky said, “Grace never call Rocky ‘Angel.’ Grace hate Rocky, statement.”

“No! No no no, I misspoke,” Grace laughed, “Sometimes friends call each other pet names, but not all friends do it. It’s usually just for partners. Mates.”

“Oh, understand. Simon Grace finally mates, statement.”

“Definitely not,” Grace ran a hand down his face.

“But Grace Simon matching adornments. Grace say that’s for human marriage.”

“Oh, these?” Grace pointed to his necklace, “Anyone can have matching clothes or accessories, that doesn’t mean anything. Marriage usually entails rings, on one specific finger.”

Rocky chittered in annoyance, and said, “So ‘Angel’ for mate, but sometimes friends use, question?”

“Yes,” Grace  pointed.

“Human word social rules unnecessary complicate, statement,” Rocky complained.

“I agree, buddy. I agree,” Grace sighed.

Later that evening, Grace happened to learn that Simon had never seen animation before, and he immediately insisted on a movie night. As he made ramen for them both, he recalled his conversation with Rocky earlier today, and laughed to himself.

“What’s so funny?” Simon asked curiously.

“Um, I was talking to Rocky this afternoon, and he- all the Eridians are totally shipping us,” he shook his head.

“To where?!” Simon immediately sat up straight. Grace immediately doubled over with laughter.

“No! No no no, it’s an expression,” Grace corrected, “I learned it from my students back on Earth. ‘Ship’ is short for ‘relationship.’ When you ‘ship’ people, it means you want them to be a couple. You think they like each other, romantically.”

“Oh,” Simon’s face heated a little, “So the Eridians want you and I-...”

“Yeah, they just assumed that me having another human around meant I finally had a partner,” Grace shrugged, serving the ramen into 2 bowls, “They think it’s really sad that I don’t have a mate, so when they heard I was bringing another human being home, they got very excited.”

“Did you tell them…?”

“Oh yeah, I tried to tell them that that wasn’t at all the reason we were rescuing you, but they either don’t get it, or they don’t believe it,” Grace said as he carried the bowls of ramen to the couch, where Simon was.

“Thank you,” Simon said, as he accepted his bowl, “I could have made it, myself. I appreciate it.”

Grace’s face seemed to light up, and he nodded with a small, “You’re welcome!”

And then Grace started the movie.

It was late, the movie was almost over, the ramen was long since finished, and Simon was sitting where he usually slept, wrapped in a blanket. He was tired, and he was sure he wasn’t going to be able to stay awake until the credits (as fascinating as the movie was).

He’d been sitting stiffly upright for awhile, so as not to disturb Grace, but the longer he forced himself to sit up, the more he remembered what Adrian had said.

‘Grace enjoy hug, fist the bump, touch hands, lean on each other. Make Grace big happy.’

Carefully, slowly, Simon leaned to his right, and let his head rest on Grace’s shoulder.

At first, he thought he’d royally fucked up, as Grace considerably tensed beneath him. But as he tried to figure out how to get out of this as un-awkwardly as possible, he felt Grace’s shoulder relax again, and then he felt a tentative arm fall on his back, Grace’s hand on the couch by Simon’s hip.

Simon closed his eyes. He was asleep quickly.

Grace fell asleep not long after.

Simon woke up in the early hours of the morning to soft snoring beside him. It took him a moment to realize where he was, and what had happened, but when he did, he felt his face heat up. He wasn’t sure if this was normal, acceptable. It felt strangely intimate, having fallen asleep together. Simon wondered if Grace had wanted to get up, but stayed put so as not to wake Simon. He hoped that wasn’t the case.

Whatever the situation, he felt bad that Grace was sleeping sitting up, and without a blanket. He wanted to carry Grace back to his bedroom, hopefully without waking him up, but with only one arm, that was definitely not going to happen.

Weighing his options, Simon realized the best thing he could probably do was just adjust their position to be more comfortable, so that Grace wouldn’t wake up sore and with a stiff neck.

So very carefully, he put the blanket aside, laid down, laid Grace down with him, and covered them both in the blanket. He was grateful that Grace hadn’t woken up, if only because he was sure he’d be able to feel Simon’s heart pounding against his ribcage.

This was more than he’d prepared for, when he laid his head on Grace’s shoulder. After years without contact with another human, and a couple weeks of barely any contact with Grace, it was a lot to be laying down with another person draped over him, under the same blanket.

It was scary, and Simon sort of wanted to get up and leave and go hide somewhere. But more so, and possibly even scarier, he wanted to wrap his arms around Ryland and never let go. He wanted to keep this contact, this gentleness, this warmth, with him forever. He never wanted to be without it again.

He wondered, if Grace were awake, if he’d feel the same way.

He got his answer.

He’d fallen back asleep, and woke up in the late morning when something stirred above him. He blinked his eyes open, and saw a head of messy blond hair rise from his chest.

Grace’s glasses hung off of his chin, and his blue eyes were clouded with sleep. He looked up at Simon, blinked very hard, and tilted his head a little.

“Did I fall asleep on you last night?” he asked quietly.

“I think I fell asleep first,” Simon said, “I think I trapped your arm, so you didn’t get up and go back to your own room, cause you didn’t want to wake me.”

“Probably,” Grace replied, and yawned, “I’m sorry. I can-”

“No, take your time. I’m not in a rush to get up,” Simon yawned in turn, and ran his hand down his face.

“Oh good, me neither,” Grace sighed, and his head dropped back to Simon’s chest.

“When we get up, do you want me to make coffee?” Simon asked. Grace always made them both food and drinks, Simon figured he could return the favour once in awhile.

“Woaaahh,” Grace rumbled tiredly, “Say something else.”

“What, about the coffee?” Simon asked, confused.

“I can feel your voice vibrate in your chest,” Grace observed, “I forgot about that.”

“Is it weird?” Simon smiled a little.

“Yeah,” Grace laughed, “Very.”

When he lifted his head again, there was an unreadable look on his face. Like he was happy, but also thinking very hard about something.

“Something wrong?” Simona asked quietly.

“Not at all,” Grace replied, eyes wandering a bit, “I just haven’t seen you smile much yet. And you’re not really smiling now, but you kind of are, and it-”

He seemed to debate what words should come out of his mouth next.

“It suits you.”

And, counterproductively, Simon’s smile fell, into something much more open, conflicted.

What a thing to say. What an awful thing to say. To tell someone who didn’t deserve happiness that a smile suited him. If asked, Simon would say he never deserved to smile again, and that he’d already gotten more joy and kindness from Ryland than he would have ever accepted, under other circumstances. When he was on that submarine, all he’d wanted was to live, to help make things right again.

He didn’t want to reject Ryland’s compliment and make him feel bad, but he couldn’t accept it, either.

So instead, he said quietly, “Angel, I think my legs are falling asleep.”

“Oh! Yeah, sorry,” Grace mumbled, and stood up. Simon immediately missed the contact, but it was for the better. He didn’t deserve the contact in the first place.

Simon noticed that Grace liked to spend a lot of time on the shoreline, just beyond where the artificial waves stopped. He’d just sit there on the dry sand, and stare out.

Today, Grace was in the water. So was Rocky. Simon was on his way back from the greenhouse, ready to help make dinner, when he saw them. They were both laughing, splashing each other, and arguing lightheartedly.

“When you asked to play mermaids, I thought we were both going to be mermaids,” Grace said, accusing but playful.

“No no no, Grace mistaken. Rocky sing beautiful and want to see human world, and have to communicate with hands because Grace no understand, makes Rocky Ariel!” Rocky argued.

“That’s fine! But can’t I at least be, like, Sebastian or something?” Grace asked, arms out like he was trying to surrender.

“No no no,” Rocky repeated, “Grace make funny noises and wrong about how many thing work, but want to help, and from different world than Ariel Rocky. Makes Grace Scuttle.”

“Don’t make me regret showing you movies,” Grace pointed, using what Simon was coming to know as his Teacher Voice, “I don’t have to keep sharing them with you.”

“Grace lying, Grace love movie nights. Would not pass up on movie nights,” Rocky replied, and by the sounds of it, he was quite sure of himself.

“Well, maybe I’ll just start having movie nights with Simon, instead,” Grace put his hands on his hips, chin in the air, “I already showed him Treasure Planet. Maybe I’ll show him The Little Mermaid next.”

“Grace bluffing.”

“Oh no, I’m so serious. Right, Simon?”

Simon hadn’t realized that Grace had even noticed him yet. He hesitated, looking between Ryland and something that looked far too indignant, for something without a face.

“Wellllll, I don’t see why we can’t all have movie night,” Simon played along, not wanting to give either the satisfaction of picking their side in this pretend-fight. If he was being roped into this, then surely he should be able to joke a little bit, too.

“No. Then Simon Grace have human time and Rocky is only Eridian. Unfair, unfair,” Rocky lowered himself a little.

“What if we invited Adrian, too?” Simon suggested. Grace gave him a sidelong glance, a distinct ‘not a bad idea’ look. Rocky lowered himself more, and then stood straight again.

“Rocky like this.”

“Then it’s settled,” Simon shrugged, “Adrian said they’re busy tonight, but we can do tomorrow. Sound good?”

“Sound very good,” Rocky agreed, and offered a thumbs-down. Simon was learning that this meant he had Rocky’s seal of utmost approval. He was so busy being proud of himself for having a good interaction with Rocky, he completely missed Grace staring at him with a baffled expression.

“Great. See you later,” Simon waved, and continued walking.

“Wait!” Grace called. Simon halted, and turned back to him.

“You should join us, maybe we could play something that isn’t mermaids,” Grace said, with a pointed look at Rocky.

“Oh, no. I’m not trying to take all of your time with Rocky,” Simon politely declined.

“Rocky want Simon to join. Grace less mean to Rocky when Simon here,” Rocky chirped.

“Oh please, you say that as if I bully you. If anything, you bully me!” Grace argued.

“Seeing what Rocky is saying? Very short temper,” Rocky shimmied a little, basically shaking his head ‘no.’

“Really. It’s okay, you guys have fun,” Simon tried to offer a smile, or at least a pleasant expression. But then a wave hit his foot, and he visibly flinched.

Unfortunately, his shoes had to be left with Adrian, earlier today, after a sap-related accident that Grace’s washing machine simply wasn’t equipped to handle.

So he felt the water hit his skin, and he did not enjoy it. As it was, he could only stand to have some of his body under the shower spray at a time- if he felt in any way submerged, or under threat of being submerged, his hopes of functioning for the next few hours were gone.

“Simon?”

Simon slowly looked up.

“You know it’s different here, right?” Grace asked quietly, extending his hand, “The deepest part of this is barely enough to comfortably swim in, maybe like…six feet deep, toward the back? But way up here by the shore, it’s super shallow. And the waves are simulated to be gentle, there’s no chance of you being pulled under. I’m not asking you to dive or anything, I just, I don’t know, think it might be good for you to just get your feet in. Get used to it a little.”

“Oh, yes, Earth Thinking Machine says this called ‘exposure therapy,’” Rocky supplied helpfully.

“You’re joking, right? I’m supposed to make myself less uncomfortable by making myself more uncomfortable?” Simon scoffed. Grace just continued to look at him with that never-ending patience that seemed to be reserved only for Simon (and the pebbles sometimes), and extended his hand a little further.

“If I do this, you’re making dinner on your own,” Simon squinted. Grace didn’t flinch.

“And I get to pick the movie we watch tonight.”

Grace’s blue eyes were unwavering.

“And I don’t have to mop for a week.”

Grace began to smile.

“And you’re finally going to learn how to use the washing machine that Adrian and Kara made us.”

“Simon.”

“What?”

“You know you’re not going to make me do any of that.”

Simon sighed deeply. In his time here, it was no secret that he jumped on any opportunity to be useful, and would probably rather die than burden anyone.

“No, I’m not.”

“I will learn how to use the washing machine anyway, though,” Grace laughed under his breath, “I’m overdue for that.”

“You are,” Simon agreed, eyeing Grace’s hand warily. It seemed that Grace was only in to his shins, the water really wasn’t that deep.

“Simon Grace taking foreverrr, Rocky play mermaids alone,” Rocky said with loud annoyance, and splashed off by himself.

Grace closed his eyes to compose himself, and he shook a little with repressed laughter.

“He’s so dramatic,” Simon shook his head, “And so are you. With your stupid eyes.”

“My eyes?” Grace grinned, “What’s wrong with my eyes?”

“Oh, don’t act like you don’t- You totally do it on purpose. Whenever you try to talk me into something, it’s always you with the-” Simon did his best impression of Grace’s pout, when he’d tilt his chin down just a little and look sadly up through his lashes, like some kid trying to get away with something by being cute.

“Oh my g- I do not do that,” Grace gasped.

“You so do! You’re doing it right now!” Simon gestured to him.

“I am not!”

“You totally are! You do this all the time, whenever you want me to tell you something, or when you want me to do something, or try something- every single time,” Simon waged his finger accusingly, pointing.

“Have you ever considered that that’s just my face? Like maybe I just look like that, when I’m, like, concerned?” Grace argued.

“Is that really what you’re going with?” Simon raised an eyebrow, “For someone so smart, I’d think you’d have a better excuse than-”

“Simon.”

“Grace.”

“Are you coming in, or what?”

Simon studied Grace’s hand again.

He thought about how scared he was of stepping off the ship, when they first brought Simon to Erid. He thought about how Grace held his hand the entire time, even through the suit, and didn’t let go. He thought about how grateful he was that he’d agreed to get off the ship and explore. He thought about how much better solid ground was than he’d ever imagined it being.

He inched toward the water.

Simon huffed out his nose, took a deep breath in, and grabbed Grace’s hand. He put one foot in the water. Then the other.

“Oh, and I was going to let you pick the movie tonight, anyway,” Grace smirked. Simon kicked water up at him.

“Excuse me? What the fuck did you just say?”

“I said no! I’m not moving, and you can’t make me,” Simon shouted, “I’m not letting you kill all these people- there’s over two hundred of them on this station!”

“When did you grow a conscience, Simon? You got the highest body count out here, killer. Not one of us has more blood on their hands than you. And you killed innocent people, children. From our own colony.”

“I didn’t want to! It wasn’t my choice!”

The man scoffed, “Simon the Butcher. Lost his nerve.”

Simon clutched his knife in a shaking hand.

“Get out of the fucking way.”

Simon shook his head, breath coming unevenly from wobbling lips, a shivering jaw.

“Then do it. You said you’d kill me before you allowed me to do this. But I’m about to, and for some reason, I’m still alive.”

The man held his hands out to his sides, vulnerable. Cocky. Knowing that Simon couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t kill his brother.

Of course Simon knew that the Father never meant that they were all blood related, but rather that they chose to be each others family. Simon had chosen to believe that this man was his brother. And he hadn’t realized the feeling wasn’t mutual until now. Well, a few moments ago. And it must have showed on his face, he probably looked crestfallen as he felt, because the man began to laugh at him.

“Shit! You’re more naive than I thought! And that’s saying something, fuck,” he laughed, “Oh, poor Simon. How did you ever earn your name? Hard to believe you could ever ‘butcher’ anything.”

“I never meant to,” Simon blurted, “I didn’t earn the name, one day I just…had it.”

“I don’t want your fucking sob story. Get out of the way, now.”

“No!” Simon widened his stance, and gripped his knife harder.

“Simon. If you don’t move out of my way in the next thirty fucking seconds, I swear to God, I will tell the Father that you’re gay.”

Simon almost dropped the knife.

“What?”

“I saw you making out with the guy you have patrol with. It was past curfew, you’d just assumed everyone was already asleep. But I was still up. I saw.”

It’s not like this was uncommon. People of the same sex often sought each other out for sexual intimacy, due to the ‘jail if you contribute to unplanned pregnancy’ rule. While nobody ever verbally acknowledged this, since it was technically a sin, it was an undeniable part of many of their lives. To threaten someone for taking part of it was a low blow and they both knew it.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Simon asked, despite that being the least important of the many questions he currently had.

“Didn’t need to,” the man shrugged, “ ‘til now.”

He crossed his arms.

“You’re gonna have to kill your own brothers to stop this.”

“You’re not my brother.”

“Then kill me,” he taunted.

“If I kill you, all I do is prove your point. I’m only doing this to avoid death, do you not get it?”

“If you won’t kill me, I’m making it home alive. And if I make it home alive, after you ruined my mission, I will tell the Father you’re gay. And you know what the Bible says about gay people, what the Father will think of it. So you’ve got a choice to make, and you have ten seconds to make it before I make it for you.”

And then someone banged on the door.

Simon woke up on the ground of Grace’s living room. He hissed in pain, having landed on his shoulder that was still healing. Eridians had exemplary medicine, but no matter how good the medicine, having an arm amputated takes time to feel okay again.

It was dark, and Simon’s vision was blurry, and his mind was still clouded with sleep. He groaned, disoriented, pain still searing through his shoulder and side. It had been awhile since he’d gotten phantom pain in his ghost arm, but he swore he could feel it now.

A dim lamp in the corner of the room switched on.

“Hey, everything okay?” Grace yawned, rubbing his eyes. When his eyes landed on Simon on the floor, though, he suddenly looked wide awake.

“Simon, geez, what happened?” he asked, walking quickly over and kneeling beside his friend.

“I don’t- I must have been moving in my sleep. I fell-” Simon frowned, still piecing it together, himself. One second he was on Filament Station, and now he was here.

“What? Why? Simon, man, are you okay?” Grace rambled, eyebrows knitted together in worry, “You- What happened?”

Grace reached out with both hands, cupping Simon’s face gently, swiping tears away with his thumbs.

“Am I crying?” Simon mumbled.

“Yeah. You don’t know why?” Grace asked, eyes frantically scanning Simon for whatever triggered this.

“I think I- Pretty sure it was just a bad dream,” Simon shrugged, and sniffed.

“Well it must have been a really bad dream to get you to fall out of bed,” Grace huffed, “I mean, it’s just a couch, and you’re sort of a big guy, so you were bound to fall of at some point, but I mean- not to be rude, but you look terrible. Like, really upset.”

Simon averted his gaze, and pursed his lips.

“I’ll be fine, Angel. I’m awake now, it’s okay,” he sniffed again, “I want to go back to sleep. You should, too.”

And then his gaze snapped up to meet Grace’s again. His chest immediately hurt with a rush of guilt.

“Oh shit, did I wake you up? I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“No, no, it’s okay, it’s fine. I usually sleep like the dead, so I must have been ready to wake up anyway, for some reason or another,” Grace shrugged, “You don’t need to worry about me. If anything, I’m worried about you.”

“Look, I think- I’m just going to go back to bed.”

“And fall off the couch again? No. Come on, we’re going to my room,” Grace stood, and held his hands out to help Simon up.

“Why?” Simon tilted his head. He hadn’t realized how nice Grace’s comforting touch had been until there were no longer hands cradling his face.

“Um, so you can sleep,” Grace said it like it was obvious.

“Angel. I’m not taking your bed,” Simon sighed, scrubbing his eyes with his wrist.

“No, you’re not. Can’t ‘take’ something that’s offered to you,” Grace shrugged, keeping his arms out for Simon to take. Simon was beginning to sense a pattern.

“Well then I don’t accept,” Simon rolled his eyes.

“Shame. Guess you’re sleeping on the floor, then,” Grace said, and he laid down on the couch, making a show of getting comfortable.

He must have known that Simon was onto him. Simon wasn’t going to fall for ‘I won’t put my hand down until you take it’ again, so Grace was switching tactics.

“What are you doing?” Simon groaned.

“Going to sleep,” Grace said simply, turned away from Simon, “Sucks that there’s a perfectly good bed that no one is using, but the couch is pretty comfy.”

“Are you seriously going to do this?” Simon’s head fell to his good shoulder.

“Do what?” Grace asked innocently, “I’m allowed to sleep in my own house.”

“You know what I meant.”

Grace said nothing. Simon sighed tiredly, and ran his hand down his face.

“You’re not going back to your own bed.”

“Nope.”

“You’re going to make me sleep on the floor, when you know I feel like shit, unless I agree to take the bed.”

“Yep.”

“I’m starting to see why people on Earth were so eager to blast you into space,” Simon deadpanned. Grace gasped, and turned back toward him.

“That’s mean.”

“Oh, like you’re not weaponizing your kindness,” Simon raised an eyebrow.

Grace squinted, “Point taken.”

“If I take the bed, will you let me take care of my own dishes for a week?” Simon asked. Grace visibly pondered this. He insisted on doing both of their dishes, washing them before Simon ever got to, because how was Simon supposed to do them with one hand? Grace was sure Simon would figure it out, but it would probably be inconvenient and take forever, and Grace wasn’t going to do that to him.

“We both take the bed, since it’s big, and you do your own dishes for two days. Final offer,” Grace offered, “cause I’m tired, and I teach in the morning. So I will just fall asleep here, I’m not going to stay up just to argue with you.”

“Deal,” Simon replied, probably too quickly. He slept better with Grace in his arms that one time than he had in years, sue him.

“But if I have another nightmare and wake you up, that’s on you.”

“I’ll take it,” Grace smiled, and stood up, “Come on.”

Despite falling asleep on separate sides of the bed, Simon woke up the next morning to Grace trying to gently wiggle out of his arms. Simon must have made a confused noise, because Grace quickly whispered apologies under his breath.

“I didn’t want to wake you up, but I need to get ready for school,” he whispered, as he fully detangled from Simon, and slid out of bed, “You go ahead and keep sleeping. Adrian won’t be in the greenhouse until almost noon, anyway.”

“But now I’m cold…”

“I can be your glorified heated blanket later,” Grace laughed tiredly, “Seriously though, I need to go soon.”

“Ugh. Fine,” Simon huffed, too tired to argue, “Bye, Angel.”

Simon didn’t get back to sleep. When he remembered why he was in Grace’s bed, the nightmare, he couldn’t find it in him to relax enough to drift off again.

He remembered it all, now. Filament Station, his surrender, his time in jail, getting his first seedling confiscated, finding the second seedling in the SM-13, the second seedling destroying that monster-abomination-eel-thing, having to rip his arm off, coughing up blood, watching his skin melt off of his own body…

The Butcher. The Father. The Last Tree. The things he’d done, the people he killed.

He spent all morning feeling miserable. He didn’t serve himself any coffee, he didn’t eat any of Grace’s food. He went to the greenhouse with a chip on his shoulder and a frown on his face. Adrian tried to ask him what was wrong, but he would just shake his head each time. He didn’t need to burden them with his past, or the problems they caused in the present.

But he realized, over the course of the day, that he needed to tell Grace. Grace needed to know that he was living with a murderer. He needed to know that he was extending too much kindness to someone who absolutely did not deserve it. And what he told the Eridians after that was up to him. If they wanted to build him some kind of prison, they could. If they wanted to kill him to ensure their own safety, he’d let them.

Grace was sitting on the couch, doing something on his computer when Simon got home. Grace quickly shut the laptop, and smiled.

“Simon, hey! I was wondering when you’d get back, I was going to ask you how your left shoulder was doing. I know your face and neck healed pretty quickly, but those wounds were a lot smaller, and you needed a lot less stitching there. And the amputation of the growths on your face were surgical, their removal was careful. But your arm- I mean, that was- so I’ve been meaning to ask how the pain’s been, or if any of it isn’t healing as well as the rest of it? Cause you keep putting new bandages on, so I never get to see the progress, if there’s been any.”

“We need to talk,” Simon said sternly, “And not about my arm.”

“Oh,” Grace frowned, and sat up straighter, setting his laptop aside completely, “Did I do something wrong?”

And then a sort of realization crossed his face, and his eyes went big.

“Is this about- Should I have just let you go back to sleep on the couch? I thought-”

“No, Angel, that’s not it,” Simon said quietly, looking at the ground. This was so much more difficult than he thought it would be, when Grace was being so sweet.

“Okay…?” Grace’s eyebrows knitted, and he scooted over, patting the empty space on the couch next to him. Simon shook his head. He stepped into the living room, and sat on the floor by the wall opposite the couch.

“You need to know how I ended up in that ocean. I haven’t been honest with you. You deserve-” he took a deep breath, “I should have just told you everything when I first woke up, and then you could've- made your decision back then.”

“Decision?” Grace adjusted his glasses, “About what?”

“You don’t know me. And if you had known me…I don’t think you’d have saved me. I don’t think you would have wanted me on your ship at all,” Simon sniffed, “I need to tell you why. I need you to listen to me. The whole story.”

Grace shuffled forward on the couch, and leaned down with his elbows on his knees.

“Yeah,” he whispered, “I’m listening.”

“I’ve killed people. Lots of innocent people,” Simon admitted, deciding to just rip off the bandaid.

I almost did, Grace thought, I was willing to let a quarter of Earth’s population die because I wasn’t brave enough to step up for them.

But he chose to keep his mouth shut, because he promised he’d listen. After all, a statement like that did definitely require some context before a judgment could be made. He couldn’t imagine that Simon, sweet and quiet, used to be a violent or hateful man, but he supposed anything was possible.

“It was my job. Back on Eden, there were four keepers of the trees. One of them pruned the tree and did constant tests to make sure it was healthy, two of them took turns guarding it, and I was supposed to water and feed it. But we didn’t have much water, and one day, the Father asked me to water it with something new. He gave me a bucket of blood. Didn’t say where he’d gotten it. I did what he asked, and…I don’t know why, but the tree immediately became healthier. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen, it just…straightened up, and its leaves turned green again, and it was taller. And the Father told me that I wasn’t supposed to give it water anymore. He told me that the tree required blood, in order to live. He told everyone that God was testing us to see how much we’d sacrifice to keep his tree alive, but only I knew the extent of what, exactly, we were sacrificing. He’d tell me that the tree was more important than me, or him. That it was-”

Simon flinched, and swallowed hard.

“That it was bigger than us. That it was God’s plan, and if I didn’t follow it, I was dooming us all. But that if I told anyone about it, they’d get upset, and try to stop me, which, again, would get us all killed. He said they didn’t get it, that I was special. That even I didn’t understand the importance of the tree and of God’s plans for it, but that I understood empathy better than my peers. So he chose me, because I was the only one who could see that, by killing a few people, we were saving a bunch. He told me that killing the people he ordered me to kill was actually saving the souls of everyone else on board. He’d say that we’re just flesh.”

“We are but flesh. But that flesh has purpose, yet! We must bear these burdens, these hardships, this anger, this sorrow. We must bear it. We are the keepers of Eden. We must help them. Our duty is not done. The last tree will live again. When the last Son of Eden joins the grove, there will be a thousand trees. We will die. When we die, our bodies become the soil.”

“I don’t want to kill anyone,” Simon whispered.

“We’re all going to die sooner or later, Simon. But if we let the tree die, we all go to Hell as punishment. You don’t want everyone on this ship to go to Hell, do you? Me? Your mother? Your brothers? You?”

Simon shook his head and used his sleeve to wipe his tears.

“No, of course not. We’ve all done the work, we all deserve to go to Heaven. But we can only go to Heaven if we keep the tree alive. Even if that means we die out, and humans disappear. Life is just for now, Heaven and Hell are forever.”

“Will the people who die for the tree go to Heaven?” Simon asked, looking up through wet eyelashes.

“Of course, my Son! Of course they will. They’re heroes, they’re giving their lives to save everyone else from damnation. All you’re doing is helping them get to Heaven faster.”

“So they’ll be okay? And happy, and with all their other family in Heaven?” Simon sniffled.

“Yes. Do you get it now? You’re helping everyone, if you agree to do this for me. Will you do it, Simon?”

Simon thought very hard about this. If what the Father was saying was true, then Simon wouldn’t actually be doing any harm, even if it felt like he was. He would be helping people. Making sure people like his mom and his brothers made it to Heaven.

“Okay.”

“You have to promise not to tell anyone else, though. Only you and I can know about this. The others…they don’t understand things like you and I do. They’re selfish, and they’re not willing to do hard things like this, in order to save others. And if they hear that you’re doing those hard things, making those sacrifices, they’ll try to stop you. But if you stop, the tree dies for good, and we all go to Hell. Do you understand?”

Simon nodded, and wiped more tears away.

“Good. So you promise to do this for me, and not to tell anyone?”

“I promise…”

“You’re doing the right thing, my Son.”

“I was ten, when he convinced me to start killing people for him. He’d give me a list of names every month. He’d have me kill them, and bring him to the bodies, and the next day, we’d have new soil, and I’d be handed buckets of blood to water the tree with.”

He buried things around the tree, when he was alone. Old (now useless) Earth coins, paper crafts he’d made, anything he could offer. He’d cover them in dry soil, before he had to ‘water’ it. He hoped that it conveyed to the Angels of these people that he was sorry for being the one to cut their time short.

There was a time, when he was digging with his hands to bury some origami stars he’d made, when his fingers hit metal. Curious, he picked up whatever he’d found, wondering if it was one of his previous offerings. After brushing the thing off, he realized he was holding a cochlear implant.

He remembered the boy it belonged to. He remembered the boy signing excitedly to him, showing him the ‘magic thing that would turn on his hearing’ the night before his surgery. He’d gotten a pamphlet about what to expect and how to prepare for surgery, and he was showing Simon the different parts of it long after curfew, fascinated with the whole process.

It had been the hardest thing Simon had ever had to do, seeing the boy’s name on the Father’s list for this month, and knowing there was nothing he could do to get out of it. When the job was done, the previous man to have Simon’s job had come to collect the bodies for the Father. He found Simon covered in blood, hugging the lifeless boy to his chest.

“I know. It’s a lot,” the man sighed, “and you’re so young…this is hard for you, I know.”

Simon sobbed, loudly. A sob absolutely wrenched from his chest, one that probably hurt his throat. The man felt a pang of guilt, and he realized quickly that this was worse than he’d assumed.

He’d knelt by Simon, behind him, and tried to gently pry Simon off of his friend. Simon screamed, thrashed, held his friend tighter.

“Hey. You did the right thing,” the man said calmly, trying to stay gentle as he used more of his strength to get Simon off the ground, “You’re doing the right thing.”

That’s all he could hear, as he held the implant in his palm. He knew that some of the remains and ashes went into the soil, but he’d been able to pretend not to know until now. Until he could see it, feel it.

‘You did the right thing.’

He cried silently, staring at the piece of metal in his hand, and wondering how doing the right thing could feel so terrible.

“He told me it was the only way to keep the tree alive, and therefore save everyone on board from certain death and eternal damnation. That I was sparing all of us from God’s wrath. He told me I was just helping people get to Heaven sooner, when I killed them, and that God would know they died as heroes.”

Tears dripped down his face, off his chin, onto his crossed legs, and the floor.

Grace was staring at him with rapt attention, and he looked to be desperately fighting back his own tears.

“I hated every second of it, but I still did it. And the older I got, the more I realized that I’d been lied to. I know the Father was telling the truth about the tree needing blood to survive, I witnessed it. And I do think he really believed that God was going to smite us all and send us straight to Hell, if we allowed it to die. But I started to realize that the people he had me kill weren’t heroes, in his eyes.”

“They’re not going to Heaven, are they?”

“What makes you say that?”

“One of them pleaded with me, before I-... She told me she knew you were the one who sent me, and she knew why. She told me that you were lying to me. That you were having me kill her because she called you a liar.”

“And did you believe her?”

“I don’t want to…” Simon blinked furiously, “But she looked me in the eyes, and she- I mean, what reason would she have to lie to me?”

“To turn you against me,” the Father sighed, “You’re right. She didn’t go to Heaven.”

“You had me send someone to Hell?” Simon whispered, voice shaking.

“Simon, you must understand, she was going to go to Hell no matter what. And if she stayed alive to convince everyone else to stand against me, she’d be taking everyone else to Hell with her. The tree needs blood in order to live, and she was serving a threat to Eden, so it made sense that she be one of the sacrifices, instead of someone working hard to keep Eden peaceful.”

“Are all of the people you assign to me going to Hell?”

“No, I don’t believe so. But when the occasion rises that someone wishes to overpower me, the threat they pose must be neutralized. God gave me the divine power that I have. To overthrow me would be to disobey God.”

“Oh…”

“You’re doing the right thing, Simon. This is bigger than us.”

“Most of the people he had me kill were just the people that saw through his bullshit. Anyone who realized that the Father was just a power-hungry religious nut would be targeted, because he couldn’t have anyone threatening his authority in any way. If people started to question him, he’d be kicked off of his throne, and he couldn’t have that. I had no idea that I was his personal assassin for people who just wanted freedom from him. I didn’t realize that until after I’d left Eden for good.”

He wiped his tears again, sniffing hard. He felt stupid for crying, he didn’t deserve to cry. He didn’t deserve to mourn for people he took the lives of.

“One day, when I was twenty, I got caught. Someone was- in a place they weren’t supposed to be, at just the wrong time, and he ran and told everyone. I had a trial immediately, and when the Father heard the witness testimony, he asked me why I did it. I knew it was some kind of trap, but I couldn’t come up with an excuse on the spot. I said I was doing it to create food for the tree, that it was the only reason our tree was still alive, and the ones on all the other colonies had died. The Father pretended he had no idea, like I’d decided to do that all on my own. He told Eden that I was pardoned, as I had been doing it in good faith, for the good of the colony, but that I would be executed if I got caught again.”

“He did this for you, for me, for the colony. Not out of greed, or hate. A butcher surely does not enjoy killing his sheep to feed his town, but he knows he is helping his people. Simon thought he was helping all of you, and for that, he is forgiven.”

“Afterward, he got me alone, and told me that I was relieved of my duty, and would be replaced. And that if I told anyone that I hadn’t acted on my own volition, that I would have to be one of the next to feed the tree.”

“I wish it didn’t have to be like this, but you know better than anyone else why it must be this way. I would change it, if I could. You understand, don’t you?”

“They called me the Butcher, after that. The Father had pardoned me, and said I was forgiven under the eyes of God, but none of the people forgave me. I had taken their mothers, fathers, their siblings, their children from them. They wanted nothing to do with me. And I had to just allow it. I wasn’t able to tell them that I didn’t want to, that I would have never done any of it if I thought I had a choice.”

His mother wouldn’t say much to him. She clearly didn’t believe that Simon had done any of that on his own, but she also seemed to understand that asking questions would just get him into more trouble.

She worried for his safety, around Eden. Each time she’d say goodbye to him, each time they had to part, she’d tell him to take care of himself, and to make sure he was being careful. One day, she didn’t say anything- she just handed him her knife and its holster, something Simon had seen her keep on her person at all times for as long as he could remember.

He accepted it, and hoped he’d never have to use it. If he never had to hurt another being ever again, maybe he’d feel just the slightest bit of peace.

But peace wasn’t for people like Simon. Peace wasn’t for murderers.

“There was a time, when um. I was thirty, I was finally starting to think I could contribute something positive to the colony. I’d become one of our best pilots. So I was put on a team and we were sent to do negotiations with the other colony, the Consolidation of Iron. Me and four of my Brothers. I mean, not real brothers. But. You know. Uh, we were told that we were supposed to go over and settle a dispute about one of the moons we were fighting over? And I thought maybe we could talk it out, but my brothers didn’t. So they made a plan and didn’t let me in on it- they decided that we were going to set a bomb big enough to blow up at least half of what they had. And in a place that a lot of people would be killed. After the meeting, we hadn’t come to agreements, and my brothers started sneaking around instead of going back to our ship. I followed one of them, I kept asking what we were doing and why we weren’t going back, he wouldn’t answer me. We ended up in one of their control rooms, and I saw this box with all these wires sticking out, and a button panel on the side. He told me that the plan was to set the timer, and it would detonate once we’d gotten to our ship and left. I didn’t think, I just pulled my knife and stepped in front of it. I said ‘no.’

He threatened me, asked why I suddenly took issue with killing people, especially enemies who deserved to die and would kill me if they got a chance. Someone banged on the door, I panicked, I got out- I thought my brother would leave and hide with me, but he didn’t. He chose to activate the bomb and then hide it. When the C.O.I. security got the door open, he was just standing in the middle of their control room, alone. They arrested him, put him in handcuffs, and he started laughing. He told them that one of his brothers with curly black hair had a bomb, and was going to detonate it at any second. That way, if I somehow made it out alive, I’d be a wanted criminal. I didn’t know how long I had, I ran for the hangar bay- and my ship was gone. I don’t know how they figured it out, I was the pilot, but somehow, they’d left without me.

And then the ground started shaking, and I heard banging, creaking, screaming- I ran to the nearest airlock and just shut myself in. One of the men I’d met in the negotiation meeting was outside, he spotted me- he was begging me to let him in with me, but I was worried he was after me, since my brother had told them the bomb was mine. I didn’t open the door.”

“Simon!”

He could see the far wall crumbling, and one of the open hallways absolutely lighting up.

“Don’t just stand there, do something!”

He could hear the voice of his brother in his head, how he’d probably say, ‘Leave him. We’re all dead anyway.’

And then all he could see through the window was flames.

“When the building settled, what was left of it, the people who didn’t get caught in the explosion were searching the debris for survivors. They found me. I didn’t let them try to prove why it was my fault, I didn’t try to convince them it wasn’t, I just surrendered.”

She grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and had him handcuffed. She dragged him all the way to his holding cell in silence. A lot of the colony was unharmed, as it was rather large, but that didn’t mean the devastation was any less. She had a set jaw and unshed tears in her eyes, one of which was nearly white from a past injury. She didn’t look at him once, after they’d started walking, just kept her eyes straight ahead.

He was in that holding cell for a day, before he was blindfolded, put on a ship, and brought to a different place, a much more secure prison with a much more secure cell for him.

“I was thrown in a cell on some other station. What was left of Filament station couldn’t be sustainably revived, too many of its systems had been too badly damaged. They had to evacuate what was left of it, and a bunch of people ended up dying afterward, from infections in wounds caused by debris from the explosion. I was- they blamed me for all of it. I was in that cell for four years.”

“Eyes up, Convict.”

Shocked, Simon looked up at the woman who’d found him after the explosion. Nobody ever talked to him, for any reason. No matter how hard he tried to talk to the guards, to convince the people who brought him his awful food that he was innocent.

“I’ve been assigned to carry out your penance.”

Simon scrambled to his feet.

“My what?”

“I’ll be honest,” she said, pulling out a ring of keys and unlocking the cell, “They didn’t want to let me do this, I had to fight to get you a fair shot. They don’t know you. And neither do I, but I’m the one who found you in the first place. Any other captain would have had you killed on sight. We were told specifically to look out for Eden scum with curly black hair, since he’d probably know how to save himself from the bomb he brought. So you should consider yourself lucky that no one else got to you before I did. Well, you are lucky. You were the only person in the hangar bay that lived. In fact, 62 others didn’t make it out of Filament Station. And no, that doesn’t include your compatriots.”

She started walking, and she walked fast. Simon followed her carefully.

“I didn’t want them to die.”

“Your friends? I’m sure you didn’t,” she scoffed.

“They weren’t my friends. One of them turned me in for something I didn’t do, and the other two left without me. They didn’t tell me about the bomb, when we left for Filament Station. I didn’t know until after the meeting, when I saw it. I tried to get in the way so he couldn’t- I was the only one trying to stop it,” he pleaded, “I didn’t want anyone to die.”

“So you had no idea about the bomb until right before it got set off?” she asked doubtfully.

“No. I was in that room with him, I’d run when I hard someone bang on the door. He didn’t, he chose to get caught if it meant activating and then hiding the bomb.”

“You know, he told us all about you. The Butcher. How you used to terrorize your own colony,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, well. He didn’t know everything.”

“And then they took me out. They told me that I was going to help them with a very important mission, and that if I was cooperative and completed the mission, I’d be free, and they’d integrate me as a member of the C.O.I.. That, if all went well, I’d already spent my last night in that cell. All I had to do was let them weld me into a submarine and lower me into a red ocean, where I’d press buttons and record stuff, and they’d get the information when I came back up. But it was worse than they thought, and there was something alive down there with me- they pulled me up, but they sent me back down, because they needed more data. They knew I didn’t have enough oxygen, or water or food for that matter. They didn’t care, it didn’t matter to them if I died. They just needed the data.”

The whole world was spinning. He didn’t know what was the monster, what was a hallucination from the oxygen deprivation, and what was a hallucination from the radiation poisoning. He was hearing things, seeing things. He was in a lake of blood, staring up at a massive eye. He was in the SM-13, listening to someone he didn’t know beg him for her life. He was back on Eden. On Filament Station. Back in the SM-13. Where was he?

“The monster was an alien, I think. A bright light. And it was killing everyone that came into its ocean, and using their remains to create this- this massive eel-thing. And the eel kept crushing the submarines the C.O.I. was sending down, and it would just- More and more people were dying, so more and more people were being sent down to figure out why, and no one ever got back to the surface, because the monster was taking them, and the blood ocean would just become deeper, because with each person dead was more blood in the pool- And it could mimic the voices of anyone it had killed, it was using their voices to speak to me. To get me to trust it, and destroy the data before the C.O.I. could get it back. But I didn’t listen, I tied the life jacket to the box with the data in it. My ship was imploding, and it was either me, or the data, and I knew what was more important. As much as I wanted to live, I knew I’d lived more than enough, for someone who took the lives of so many others. The blood that had leaked in had already infected me, anyway, I was sure I’d never recover even if I did live. I braced myself for the eel to close its jaws, and then there was some kind of explosion, and- and there was a tree, and then I woke up on your ship-”

His wet eyes went big, and he tried to take a breath, but he choked.

“The tree. My seedling, the pendant, my- the seed from the Last Tree on Eden. The glass must have broken, and the blood got to it- and it grew. The blood had an immediate effect on the tree, that’s why the Father had me do- I was wondering, this whole time, how I got out after being swallowed by the eel- but I wasn’t, it never got me. The tree sprouted the second the blood touched it, it probably impaled the eel through its open jaws. It saved my life.”

He covered his mouth with his hand.

“The blood really was keeping the tree alive. After everything, I’d assumed nothing the Father had told me was true. But the- Oh my God.”

His chest heaved, and he lurched forward.

“That means that no one had to die!” he yelled, “If a second of exposure to blood turned a seedling into a full tree, the tree on Eden never needed as much blood as we gave it! We could have just asked people to take turns being blood donors, we didn’t need- Nobody had to die! All those people I killed, they died for nothing!”

He wasn’t sure where he’d been, but someone touched his knee, and he startled so badly, he accidentally slammed himself back against the wall to get away from it, and suddenly he was in Grace’s living room again. Grace was kneeling in front of him, tears streaming down his face, reaching out to him with one hand.

“Simon. Breathe.”

“Don’t fucking touch me!” Simon hissed, tucking his knees to his chest as much as he could.

“Simon,” he whispered, “Please, I need you to breathe.”

“Don’t- I swear to God, do not-” Simon kicked against the floor, sliding away from Grace quickly, so he could get to his feet, “I shouldn’t have- I’m sorry. You don’t deserve any of this. You- I’m sorry.”

“Simon.”

“I’m sorry,” Simon shook his head rapidly, reaching behind himself to open the door. The moment it clicked open, he was gone.

“Simon!” Grace shouted out the open door. With a stream of near-curses hissed under his breath, he slipped his shoes on as fast as he could and took off after his friend.

Simon got a good halfway down the beach before realizing he had absolutely nowhere to go. He only paused for a moment before deciding he’d just walk into the water and never come back.

For someone with shorter legs than him, Grace couldn’t figure out how Simon was so much faster.

“Simon!” he wheezed as he finally started to close the distance, “Simon, please, just listen to me! I listened to you, now it’s your turn!”

Simon shook his head and continued to wade into the water. By the time Grace got to him, he was in almost to his waist. (There was a further walk to the deep end than he’d originally assumed.)

“Simon, I need you to listen to me, please, just- oh crap-!”

Ryland, too preoccupied to pay attention to his surroundings, had tripped over one of the current jets and fallen forward, directly into Simon, who hadn’t expected this, and fell right over with him.

The cold water was very sobering. As freaked out as he’d been about being submerged, this was absolutely nothing like being pulled under by the blood. The blood was thick, suffocating, hot, sticky, haunted and haunting. The water was cleansing, cool, gentle, light, and brought him straight back down to the ground. When he opened his eyes, he could see.

He grabbed Ryland and hauled them both back up to standing.

“Jeez, Simon, we could have just talked in the living room!” Grace gasped, “Will you let me talk now, please?”

“I’m sorry,” Simon whispered. He didn’t know what to say, feel, think- he didn’t want to defend himself, but he didn’t want to listen to Grace try to justify his past, and he also didn’t want to hear Grace judge him for all the wrong he’s done, but he couldn’t run anywhere Grace wouldn’t be able to catch up, and there was nowhere else to go, and nowhere to hide, and he couldn’t think of any other options than to just hear what Grace had to say.

“I was willing to let two billion people die,” he panted, swiping wet hair off of his forehead, and adjusting his dripping glasses, “Maybe more. They told me I was the only one who could stop two billion people from dying, and I said no.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Simon grimaced, “Please. You don’t need to make things up to make me feel better.”

“I’m not! I swear on Mary, I chose to save myself over two billion people. I didn’t choose to go on my mission,” Grace said earnestly, hands gesturing at his sides like it would make his point stronger, “They had to chase me, hold me down, sedate me, and put me into a coma. I refused to go on the mission, knowing that a quarter of the world’s population would be gone in the next 30 years if I didn’t get on that ship. But they didn’t have a backup plan, I was the backup plan after their first team died in an explosion in one of our labs. So they medically induced a coma, and put me on the ship anyway. I woke up after my other two crewmates had died, completely alone, completely clueless, and without my memories of Earth, or who I was, or who my dead crew was, or why I was in space at all.”

“That’s horrible,” Simon frowned, “Why didn’t you bring it up sooner? Why tell me this now?”

“Because it’s embarrassing, I mean come on! What kind of horrible, selfish, absolute garbage excuse of a human would let two billion people die because he couldn’t grow a pair? And that’s just counting the humans! Millions of animals, plants- all of them, dead. Some species would have gone completely extinct,” Grace practically yelled, “I wanted you to like me, I wanted you to feel safe, and no one in their right mind would like me or feel safe around me if they knew what I was willing to do. What I did do. I know I ended up on the ship anyway, but I told them no, multiple times. And when they came in with the sedative, I climbed furniture, I broke things, I ran across the entire facility and all the way into a field, and then I tried to climb a fence, and when I got caught, I fought those guards with every muscle in my body, all to save myself. I willingly sentenced two billion people to death. Do you know how many people that is?”

Ryland paused to think for a moment, and he sniffed hard.

“You said you had about five hundred people on Eden by the time you left, right?”

Simon nodded.

“I sentenced four million Eden-s worth of people to death over myself.”

Simon’s eyes widened. Grace was right, he really hadn’t realized how many 2 billion was. Just the five hundred on Eden felt like a lot at times, he couldn’t even remotely imagine.

“You killed, what, ten people a month? Every month, for- you said you started when you were ten, and you were caught when you were twenty. Twelve months in a year, that’s about one thousand, two hundred people you’ve killed, over 10 years. And you only did it because you thought that even more people would die, and be eternally damned, if you didn’t, right?”

Simon nodded slowly.

“I can’t let you keep believing that I’m some kind of saviour and you’re some awful person. You were forced to do something in order to help others, I was being selfish over much higher stakes. That makes me so much worse than you. So if you’re a terrible person, then there was never even hope for me.”

“But you didn’t-”

“But I was going to. And it keeps me up at night, the same way your memories keep you up, and make you fall off of couches. It kills me, knowing what I was willing to allow.”

“You ended up saving them all, though, right? You figured out the astrophage problem, you saved everyone. You were redeemed,” Simon argued.

“Maybe. I’ll never hear back from Earth, so I don’t know. Maybe things got worse since I left, and I’ll never hear about it,” Grace shrugged rigidly, “I have no idea what I do or don’t deserve. I just know what I have. So I can either force myself to be miserable and shun all the gifts I’ve been given, or I can accept them and just try to be better.”

“I’ve already taken so much,” Simon shook his head again, wet curls falling over his face.

“Have you considered what you’ve given, though?” Grace asked, “I mean, you seem to have it in your head that people can be redeemed if they do enough good, right? Cause I consider it pretty ‘good’ to give up your own life, after having already been cheated out of your freedom twice, in order to help others who have done nothing but hurt you. You put your life jacket on the data box, right? For the C.O.I. who arrested you, abused you, sent you on a suicide mission, and lied to you about getting your freedom?”

“I mean- Yeah, but I lived anyway.”

“But you were willing to die to save a colony you’d been told your whole life was the enemy. And you did it, expecting not to survive. Right?”

Simon looked Grace in his clear blue eyes, scanned over his face for something he could make sense of. He didn’t understand any of this. He didn’t understand how Grace, his Angel, could have actually done what he said he did. He didn’t understand how, even if Grace had done that, Grace thought their situations were remotely comparable. He didn’t understand why Grace was still even talking to him. He didn’t understand why Grace was trying to justify Simon’s past for him. He didn’t understand why he was still alive, how Grace had found him, how Simon had ended up in this universe, on Grace’s ship. He didn’t understand how he’d gotten so lucky, or how Grace somehow seemed to understand what he was going through. He didn’t deserve understanding, or empathy, or kindness, or anything else Grace was offering.

“I don’t deserve you.”

“I don’t care whether you think you deserve me or not!” Grace’s hands fell to his sides exasperatedly, “You’ve got me! And you’re not the only one affected, either! Every time you avoid things, and clam up, and refuse to engage, it affects me. A lot.”

“How?! You were fine before you met me, probably better than you are now.”

“When I first saw you, after Armando cleaned you up, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. After accepting for so long that I’d never see a human again, never hear another human’s voice, or feel another human’s touch, for the rest of my life, a human was placed right in front of me. I had so much hope. Hope that I’d have someone in my life again who understood being human and all of the problems it came with, and hope that I’d be able to share food with someone again, and hope that I’d get to hug someone again without armour between us, and hope that I wouldn’t be the only one living in the biodome until I died. You gave me that hope, and every time you completely withdraw, you take it away. You make me think that I had one shot to have another human in my life, and I blew it.”

“This has nothing to do with you!” Simon argued.

“Yeah, well I didn’t know that until, like, now! The entire first couple weeks you were here, I thought you didn’t want anything to do with me. I thought you found me kind of unbearable, to be honest. Even when we started getting along, I thought you were only being nice because you felt indebted to me or something. You never talked to me, how was I supposed to know that you’ve been traumatized by like every person you’ve ever trusted? If I’d have known that, I wouldn’t have pushed you so hard, I would have just let you come around on your own time, instead of making you feel like you had to tell me everything at once and then run into the freaking ocean!”

“I wouldn’t have come around, Angel. I would have found a hole to die in so that you could continue living your comfortable life without someone fucking up your routines and alone time and peace and whatever. I didn’t- I don’t understand why you want me here. I mean, I understand why you got so excited to see another human, but I don’t understand why you still want me here, after I’ve done nothing but fuck things up. I tried to give you space, you thought I hated you. You won’t let me do any of my own chores, because I’m still healing from surgery, so now you’ve got twice the workload. You never get your house to yourself anymore. I’m bad at conversation, and I wake you up when I fall of the couch or hit the wall cause of a nightmare, and I’m using your resources, and all I know how to do is hurt people, and I’m not from Earth, and you constantly have to teach me things about how your Earth things work, and how Eridian things work, and I can’t help you that much with only one arm, and I never react the way you want me to react to things, and I can’t even accept your kindness in good faith, because I’m a monster, and I didn’t even have the guts to tell you that until now, because I didn’t want to ruin another fucking thing for you. Honestly, Angel, I’d love to be the person you wanted to find. I’d love to talk to you about Earth, and I’d love to know your movie references, and I’d love to help around the house, and I’d love to hug you without thinking about how everyone I touch or even talk to seems to die, by my hand or otherwise. But I can’t. Because that’s just not who I am, and I’m sorry.”

“So you give up? You’re not even going to try to coexist with me, because you insist you’re, what, cursed?” Grace asked, “Do you think that’s remotely fair to either of us?”

“Nothing is fair.”

Grace straightened out, and his expression quickly became undreadable.

“Yeah, I guess not.”

He turned around, and started to walk out of the water, and back toward his house.

Simon felt overcome with guilt, but he was sure it would be even worse if he’d given in and agreed to be friends, knowing he wasn’t good for Grace.

“I’m sorry,” he said, to his friend’s back.

“Me too,” Grace replied, without turning around.

A week passed. Simon made himself scarce. He’d come back to the house long after he knew Grace would be asleep, and he’d leave before he knew Grace would wake up.

Adrian had stopped asking if he was okay. After the third time in a day that Simon had answered them with a noncommittal “mmm, yeah, I’m fine,” they’d given up.

On the ninth day of this, Adrian tried a different approach.

“Adrian know that Simon is lying,” they said, as they and Simon built a new garden bed for their next set of crops. Simon went completely still.

“Adrian know Simon is upset. Rocky say Grace Simon big fight.”

Simon kept his eyes on the ground.

“Did. Um. Did you talk to Grace?”

“Yes, yes, yes, Adrian talk with Grace for long time. Grace talk about Simon very much.”

Simon tensed, eyes screwing shut as he took a very slow, deep breath.

“What did he say about me?”

“Grace say Simon big hurt by last home. Grace say Simon think having bad home also make Simon bad, Grace does not think this. Grace say Simon hate Grace, and Simon also hate Simon. Grace leaking always, produce lots of salt water from face.”

Simon’s chest tightened. He hated to be the reason Grace was crying.

“What-” Simon bit his lip, “What else did he say?”

“Grace say Simon past is Simon business, will not tell Adrian Rocky what caused big fight. Grace say Simon will tell Adrian Rocky when or if ready. Adrian try to ask Simon what wrong, try to let Simon talk, want Simon to feel okay to ‘vent,’ but Simon do not talk. Adrian think Simon do not trust Grace Rocky Adrian, and that okay. But means Adrian can not help, if unaware of situation,” Adrian explained carefully, “Adrian want to help, Adrian like Simon a lot.”

Simon’s eyes burned, watering fiercely. He sniffed, and finally looked at them.

Grace hadn’t told even his closest friends what Simon had told him. Grace wasn’t concerned, he didn’t feel the need to warn anyone about how Simon might be dangerous, he didn’t want to betray Simon’s trust, even after everything.

And Adrian had known this whole time that Simon was struggling, and they’d tried to help, but they’d also tried to respect his wishes and give him space.

After all he’d done, all the people he’d hurt and killed, he was going to be shown kindness whether he deserved it or not. And he could accept it, or he could cause even more harm by making those offering it to him feel useless and rejected.

“I don’t know if you’d still want to help me, if you knew about my past,” Simon said warily, “I’d assumed Grace would tell you eventually.”

“Grace say Simon should have freedom to tell or not tell.”

Grace say Simon should have freedom.

Simon tried to take another deep breath, but it hitched, and he covered his mouth before he could sob.

“Adrian, I’m not a good person,” he said through his fingers, “I’ve hurt a lot of people. I’ve killed people.”

“Mmmmm. Grace say Simon feel bad about past, say bad home make Simon do bad things, make Simon feel like bad person. Adrian assume that mean old home make Simon hurt people. Adrian feel very bad for Simon, Simon do not deserve this. Simon kind person, hurt people must have been very hard for Simon,” Adrian slouched, giving the impression they were bowing their head, so to speak. Simon blinked rapidly, and shook his head.

“So you pretty much already knew I’d killed people, and you’re just…okay with it? You feel bad for me?” he wiped his face of a couple stray tears.

“Feel very bad for Simon, yes. Kind people dislike hurt other people, feel very very bad. Simon is kind, Simon must felt very very bad that old home make Simon hurt people. Is why Simon reject help; Simon do not think deserving of help, feel guilty for hurting people. Simon think, didn’t help others, does not deserve others help him. Correct?”

Simon nodded very slowly, trying very hard to keep his breathing even.

“If Simon did not feel bad, Adrian would be concern. Adrian would think maybe Simon dangerous. But Simon very clear feel very bad, which mean Simon kind person, and did not want hurt people. So Adrian not concern for safety,” they shook their head, in a way, “Adrian very concern for Simon, though. Very concern for Simon mental state.”

Simon could no longer stop the tears from falling.

“Thank you, Adrian,” he whispered, “I’m so grateful to know you. All of you.”

“All Eridians grateful to know Simon, too.”

Simon bit his shaking lip. He couldn’t imagine how or why this worked out the way that it did. Why the humans he’d known had never been willing to see the good in him, why it took meeting aliens to finally get a fair shot at life.

He didn’t know why he’d been given another chance, but he’d already fucked it up enough, and he wasn’t about to throw away what good was left. He’d wanted so badly to live, back on that submarine, and he did. He lived, and how he had a chance to be someone. He had a chance to be good, and to have good things and good people in his life.

“Grace grateful to know Simon. Simon grateful to know Grace, question?”

“Yes, yeah, of course,” Simon sniffed again, and used his sleeve to dry his face.

“Because Grace do not think so. Grace think Simon hate Grace and want to leave.”

Simon buried his face in his hand.

“Do you think it’s too late to fix things?” Simon hiccupped, the guilt squeezing at his heart.

“No. Grace say to Rocky Adrian last night that he wish Simon come home.”

Simon sobbed into his hand.

“Simon missing Grace, question?”

Simon nodded.

“Good. Grace missing Simon.”

Adrian inched slowly toward Simon, like they were trying not to startle him, and gently judged him.

“Adrian help Simon pick flowers for Grace, and Simon go home early, suggestion?”

“Yeah, that sounds great,” Simon leaned his head over to rest on Adrian, “Thank you.”

He tried not to feel stupid, walking back to the house with a bouquet of flowers in hand. Grace had probably gotten home from school about two hours ago, and if he still had the same schedule he did when Simon stopped hanging around the house, he’d probably be reading or working on one of his projects right about now.

Simon knocked on the door with his elbow, flowers still in hand. Rocky opened it.

“Just a minute, Adrian!” Simon heard Ryland call from the other room.

“Is not Adrian. Is Simon!” Rocky announced. Simon heard something crash, like something very heavy had been dropped.

“Grace is very surprise. Grace think Simon hate him,” Rocky said quietly.

“I’ve heard,” Simon said sheepishly, “I’m here to tell him that’s not true.”

“Oh. Simon apologize, question mark?” Rocky tilted a little.

“Yeah. That’s the plan,” Simon said, and sniffed again- he’d only stopped crying recently, he was sure his eyes were red.

“Oh oh oh, Rocky leave, then. Assume humans want privacy, question?”

“Would you mind? If you want to hang out at the greenhouse for awhile, I can come tell you when the conversation is over and you can come back,” Simon offered.

“Sound good,” Rocky nodded. And then, much louder, an announcement, “Goodbye Grace! Rocky giving Grace Simon privacy. Will see you later, goodbye!”

“Wait!” Grace came stumbling into the room, glasses hanging off of one ear, “Don’t-!”

But Rocky was already skittering away, and now Ryland was staring at Simon, who was standing in his doorway with a large handfull of flowers.

“Oh,” Ryland muttered, and tried to stand up straighter, “Uh, hey. You can- uhh, come in. If you want to.”

Simon stepped in and gently nudged the door shut with his foot.

“Hey,” Simon said carefully, “Um. These are for you.”

“I- Really?” Grace asked quietly, slowly making his way over to Simon, “They’re beautiful. But can I ask- uh- what they’re for?”

Glancing around nervously, Simon asked, “You did tell me it’s an Earth tradition to give flowers to people you like, right?”

“You like me?” Grace blurted, “Sorry! Uh, I just meant. Like. Since you kind of…told me not to touch you, and that we’re not meant to be close, and that nothing is fair, and also you’ve been completely avoiding me because I assume you’re kind of disgusted with me after I told you what I did…”

“Oh God, n-no, no, I would never- I never thought anything bad of you. I’ve been forced to make impossible decisions enough times, I know how it goes. I wasn’t- I wouldn’t judge you for that, ever,” Simon clarified, “I actually- uh-”

He could feel his face heat up, and he looked at the floor.

“I think you’re wonderful. I can’t imagine being treated the way you were and still finding it in me to be as kind as you are. And I admire you for it, so much. I think of you as-” he took a shaky breath, “As everything good that I never had, and don’t deserve. Like… Like an Angel, I guess.”

Ryland’s eyes welled with tears, and his mouth became a thin line.

“I like you. A lot.”

“Oh.”

“But I don’t know what to do with good things in my life. Because whenever I had good things, I always found a way to ruin them. And you’ve already been through so much, I didn’t- I don’t want to hurt you, but it…kind of feels like that’s all I know how to do. So I thought you’d be better without me, so that I can’t hurt you. But then Adrian said you were lonely, and I realized that I’d hurt you by withdrawing, and it just…feels like I can’t win, I guess? Like everything I do, no matter what, ends up making everyone around me miserable,” Simon sighed, “I’m sorry. I wish I knew how-... I’m just sorry.”

Grace gently took the bundle of flowers from Simon’s hand, and walked them over to the counter, where he set them down to be put in a vase later.

And when he turned back around, he walked straight to Simon and wrapped both arms around him.

“I missed you.”

Simon’s breath immediately hitched, and his whole body went numb, zeroing in to where Grace’s arms held him.

He buried his face into Grace’s shoulder and hugged back.

“I tried to tell you that I didn’t care, I mean- I can’t imagine judging you for something you didn’t even want to do, I mean come on. And clearly you feel horrible about it, it’s not like you mentioned it offhandedly or something- why would I want to make you feel worse? You’ve been through enough already, Jeez,” Grace rambled, “And it’s not like I went through what you went through, but in a lot of ways, I know how you feel. If anyone understands you, it would be me, I think, I mean, right?”

Simon was silent. Eyes closed, he soaked in the contact, the reassurance, and tried to commit it to memory for the next time he felt like running away and isolating.

“I’m sorry. I’m talking too much.”

“Please keep talking,” Simon whispered.

“Oh,” Grace gasped, “O-Okay! Um, about what?”

“How’s your synthetic fabric coming along? That’s what you were working on when I- That was your last project, right?” Simon asked, gently pulling back so he and Grace were face to face again.

“The fabr-? Oh, yeah! Um, that. Uh huh. It’s coming along- Rocky made a blanket, so there’s that. Uh. It’s kind of scratchy, cause I guess that’s just the kind of material Rocky makes, but I guess xenonite can vary in texture and strength depending on the type of Eridian, so he’s having me teach some of the others about Earth textiles to see what they can make. They don’t really care for nor have a use for ‘soft’ stuff, and it’s not like they need additional warmth in their environments, so this is all kind of new to them, but they’re excited. They’ve been making each other hats n stuff as practice, it’s actually really cute,” Ryland smiled fondly, “They didn’t really know they could make fabric, cause they never really had the need to, before. You should have seen them, when Rocky first showed them how to do it- for a species without faces, they’re so expressive.”

Simon listened intently. He had really, really missed the sound of Grace’s voice. In the couple months he’d been here, he didn’t realize just how used to the other human he’d become. Spending time away from him had been much harder than he’d thought it would be, and he was so happy to be back in the other’s presence.

“You have a really nice smile,” Grace said, “It’s not hurting the stitches on your cheek, is it?”

Simon shook his head a little, “No, Angel, I’m fine. And, thank you.”

“Do you-” Grace’s eyes darted toward the couch, the TV, and then back to Simon, “Do you want to watch a movie?”

It was a little bit rough, getting back into the groove of living together, as Simon was doing everything in his power to make up for making Grace upset for over a week. He’d have the coffee ready before Grace even woke up, and he’d often stay up late doing chores and straightening up the house.

Grace told him not to. He gave Simon many reasons as to why he didn’t want Simon doing all this-

“You have nothing to feel guilty for.”

“You don’t owe me anything, seriously.”

“Simon, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

“Dude. You only have one arm. Please act like it.”

“I swear, you’re going to pull a muscle, please just let me do it!”

“You were up before I was up, and I was up early. You need to go to bed, stat.”

“Yes, Si, you do need sleep. You’ve yawned four times in the last 90 seconds.”

But Simon was determined to be of help. Rocky allowed him to help with some things, which was nice. Currently, Simon was helping Rocky better understand human languages by teaching him Korean. Rocky couldn’t speak it, and Simon wasn’t fluent, but he showed Rocky what the written characters looked like, and was translating as many words and phrases for him as he could. He wasn’t sure what use the Eridians would have for knowing Korean, but if they wanted to know for one reason or another, he was happy to be of service. (It seemed they were just fascinated with any kind of new knowledge, and wanted to learn about anything and everything available to them, and that was a good enough reason for Simon. He frequently marveled about how smart they were, it was actually really cool to be able to teach them something for a change.)

“이거 맛있네요.” Simon sighed, absolutely devouring a salad of vegetables he’d harvested from the greenhouse earlier today.

“What?” Grace asked, fork halfway to his mouth.

“Oh, uh,” Simon finished chewing, and said, “I’ve been teaching Rocky Korean, so I guess it just- I hadn’t really had a reason to speak Korean for a long time, so I forgot a lot of it, but now that I’m remembering it and speaking it so frequently, it’s like- I’m starting to have thoughts in Korean again. Which is crazy, because that hasn’t happened since my mom- uh. Since I was twenty two years old. So like, thirteen years?”

“That was Korean?” Grace asked curiously, “What did you say?”

“That this salad is fucking delicious,” Simon said, picking up another forkful, “I haven’t had fresh produce like this in at least two decades.”

“Well I can’t wait to try it,” Grace smiled, “And hey, it’s all cause of you. I hope you’re proud, successful gardening and farming is insanely hard work. You did a really good job, to get such amazing results.”

“Thank you,” Simon replied, and bit into his next forkful.

Grace finally hot his first bite of his own salad.

“Oh my God.”

“Right?!”

“Okay, open,” Grace grinned, letting go of Simon’s hand.

Simon opened his eyes, and gasped. When Grace said he had something he wanted to show Simon on the Hail Mary, Simon wasn’t sure what it could possibly be, considering he saw most of it after being picked up from the blood moon. And yeah, he had seen this room before, but he hadn’t seen it when it was operational.

He and Grace were in a bubble, stood on a catwalk in the middle of a ball of screens. Each screen worked together to make one big, moving image, of massive trees swaying gently under a blue sky.

“Did you make this?” Simon asked, breathless. He wasn’t sure how Grace would go about doing such a thing, but it looked too beautiful to be real.

“No, not at all. This is super normal, on Earth. There’s trees pretty much everywhere, it’s really nice,” Grace smiled, hands on his hips, “It’s one of the few things I miss. The forests on Erid are nice, but the sky is a different colour, and the trees here look totally different, and you’re in the suit so you can’t really, like, smell them or touch the bark- it’s not the same.”

“Yeah, one of Adrian’s friends, Julia, she helps us in the greenhouse sometimes. She heard I liked trees, and now she really wants to show me around one of the Erid forests closest to the biodome. I need to take her up on it sometime,” Simon said thoughtfully. He didn’t even want to blink- he was turning in slow circles to take in the full image and appreciate every leaf in sight.

“Seriously, Angel, this is…I mean, shit. Earth is fucking gorgeous,” he sighed in disbelief.

“Well, maybe the biodome will look like this, at some point. You and Adrian are doing some incredible work with the saplings you’ve got, and I don’t know if it’s the soil or atmosphere or what, but the trees you planted are growing exponentially faster than they do on Earth, by a long shot. So I don’t doubt we could have a view like this at home, in a couple years,” Grace said encouragingly.

“I hope so,” Simon replied wistfully.

Grace let Simon admire the trees for a long time before showing him what he and Rocky often used this room for- first was the disco backdrop, with fun lights resembling glow sticks and neon signs.

“Check it out,” Grace grinned, and turned on the speaker. He typed something else into the computer, and music started playing. Princes of the Universe, by Queen. Grace grabbed an imaginary microphone and began dramatically lip-syncing, and Simon cracked a smile.

Grace moved like no one Simon had ever seen. Despite his name, Simon had never known Grace to be particularly graceful, and in fact, he could be quite clumsy. But when he was dancing, Simon had no idea why, Grace became a different person. Maybe he felt more freedom to move when he wasn’t doing something important, something he might mess up. Maybe dancing just activated a different part of his brain, or something.

He moved with a smoothness, as if he’d pre-planned each dance step and rehearsed it before this. He moved with the control and precision of someone who was used to working with dangerous chemicals, but the freedom and peaceful carelessness of someone who realized a long time ago that he had nothing left to lose, like a reputation or dignity. In a public, crowded setting, most people might consider Grace’s performance a little embarrassing, or ‘cringe,’ but it was just them. And Grace knew Simon wouldn’t judge him. And Simon, for his part, was completely endeared.

“You’re a really good dancer,” Simon said, “Really, you’ve got talent.”

“Thanks!” Ryland grinned, “My students used to make me do a little dance before their tests, for good luck. There’s probably a couple videos of it floating around on the internet somewhere.”

“That’s adorable,” Simon said, watching Grace pant and drop his imaginary microphone as the song ended, “You really loved those kids, huh?”

“More than anything,” Grace replied earnestly, “Salary didn’t even pay well enough for me to get a car, but I didn’t care. Those kids were my favourite thing about Earth, hands down. Out of everything, I miss them the most.”

It was so sweet, it made Simon’s heart hurt a little. He wondered how the kids felt about Grace- they probably loved him just as much as he loved them. If Simon had ever had a caring, fun authority figure in his life, as a kid, he certainly would have loved them.

“Oh! I haven’t even shown you-” Grace opened a box and pulled out a real microphone, and plugged it in.

“What’s your favourite song, Simon?” Grace asked, approaching the computer.

“We didn’t really have a lot of music on Eden,” Simon shrugged, “And the stuff we had was pretty niche, I guess. So I probably don’t know any of the songs that you know. But I really like, um, ‘Northern Star’? I don’t know who it’s by, it was on a CD.”

“Okay, alright,” Grace nodded, typing something into the computer. He played the beginnings of a couple songs, to which Simon shook his head, as he didn’t recognize them.

And then the song he knew started, but without the voice.

“This is the one,” Simon nodded, “But the singer is gone?”

“It’s called ‘karaoke,’ it only plays the background music, so that you can be the singer,” Grace handed him the microphone.

“Oh, I don’t think-”

“Just try it!” Grace smiled, and how could Simon say no to that face? Nervously, he brought the microphone up to his face.

“‘You’re why I was right to trust myself.’ He said, ‘keep me up, keep me out late. Keep me close, I need your faith. Keep right where you are, cause I’ve followed this far, like I’m sure that you’re the Northern Star.’”

Grace’s expression fell. Simon had a great voice when he was speaking, but he wasn’t prepared for Simon’s singing voice to be so heavenly. Grace wasn’t sure he’d ever heard anything so beautiful in his life. His heart kicked into high gear, slamming into his ribcage, and he had the sudden urge to do something. He wasn’t even sure what.

So he continued dancing, swaying to Simon’s voice.

As they walked back to the house, Grace asked, “So did you ever get voice lessons, or are you just naturally that good?”

“What?” Simon tilted his head, “What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re the best singer I’ve ever heard. Like, by a long shot. I never knew anyone who could sing like that on Earth, except maybe one of my friends Emily,” he recalled, “But she’d had lots of lessons, and she was a performer for a living. So did you have training like she did, or are you just effortlessly perfect at it?”

“I wouldn’t say- I mean, thank you, but-”

“No ‘but’s. Just take the compliment,” Grace grinned, bumping his shoulder into Simon’s as they walked. Simon flushed a little, and nodded.

“Thank you.”

“Have you ever looked up your name?” Simon asked, later that night. They were both on the couch, Simon was reading a book, and Grace was on his computer.

“All I’d find would be my old school’s website,” Grace shrugged.

“Even after you went to space? You don’t think there would be any articles about you or anything?” Simon continued. Grace looked up from his computer, now staring distantly at the wall.

“You know, I hadn’t thought about that.”

And then he began typing.

“Holy crap!”

He tilted the laptop so that Simon could see the many, many results that came in.

He clicked on the first link.

A video started playing. It was filmed from the back of his classroom, where his students all sat, facing someone in the front. From here, all of the kids looked…different. Taller, more mature.

This must be recent, Grace thought. Several Earth years had passed. But even so, he knew his kids. While a little bigger and older, those were his babies.

“It’s them! Those are my kids!” he pointed, gasping, “Oooh, looks like Kelly finally cut all her hair off- she’s been wanting to do that for a long time. And Josie, look at him, he’s gotten so tall! Oh man, he used to be the shortest one in the class. They’re all so big, shoot!”

The teacher on screen began to speak, “So you might be wondering why we brought you back to your eighth grade classroom.”

The kids murmured.

“We know it was a really hard year for you guys. You were the honours science class, you guys specifically chose the harder class because you were passionate about what you were learning. And your teacher was passionate about what he was teaching you,” the man continued. A few mutters traveled the class, and one of the kids covered her mouth, “Oh my god, please don’t tell us he died.”

“If the government killed Grace, I am walking out and never coming back,” said another kid.

Grace laughed quietly. Oh, his poor students didn’t know the half of it.

“I am not here to tell you that your beloved eighth grade teacher is dead, that would be horrible!” the man waved his hands, “No, I’m actually here to tell you that- Well, I’ll let you see for yourself.”

The man in the video turned off the classroom lights and turned on the white board projector, and the kids went dead silent.

On the whiteboard appeared one of Ryland’s video logs. One he very much remembered making.

“Hello Earth, this is Space Grace with log number- I don’t remember.”

The classroom erupted in cheers. Kids got out of their seats, jumped for joy, screamed, hit each other, hugged each other, slammed their desks.

Grace’s eyes welled with tears.

“Uh, I’m making this one for my students.”

Many more screams.

“All my past classes, but especially the one I had to leave behind. The one I didn’t get to finish the semester with, the class of ‘25, I think?”

By the sounds of it, several students burst into tears.

“I mean, I doubt this will make it to them, they’re probably all in new high schools, on new paths by now. And it’s probably not NASA’s top priority to make sure this gets to them, wherever they are. But I’m going to pretend that they’re going to hear this, because I’ve been really upset that I never got to give them closure. I want to believe that they’ll see this video, and be able to stop wondering about what could have happened, cause I know nobody’s going to tell them anything. I mean, they hardly told me anything, and I’m the one in space. And that’s assuming my students even cared that I disappeared, that they wonder about me- I mean, I hope they do. Um, anyway.”

All of the students had sat back down. Many were holding each other in one way or another.

“So yeah, uh, to my students! I miss you so much. Like, more than literally anything else on Earth. And I am so, so super sorry that I never got to say goodbye, or tell you what was going on before I totally disappeared on you. That’s been my biggest regret, looking back.”

A few of the students ‘awwwe’d.

“To make a long story short, I was given a choice to go to space, and I said no. But as it turns out, it wasn’t a choice, and I went anyway. But they knew I would freak out, so to keep me safe, they put me in a medically induced coma before sending me away. What this means is, I had no idea I’d be leaving you until it was way too late. If I’d have said yes, I would have had time to go home and pack my things, tell you all what was going to happen, I could have said goodbye- I wish every single day that I’d said yes, if only to see you all one more time before I had to leave. I’m really sorry that I didn’t.”

The substitute teacher seemed to notice that several students were crying, and he grabbed the class tissue box to pass around.

“I was told that my boss, Miss Stratt, came to the classroom to tell you all that I was going to space, and that she’d deliver any cards or drawings you wanted to make to me before I left. The rest of my crew got to pack their most prized possessions, pictures and things, but because I’d been put in a coma early, they had to pack my stuff for me. And I guess I talked about you guys so much, Stratt figured that my most prized possessions would be things you all made for me.”

He held up his stack of drawings and cards.

“She was right. I look at these every single day.”

A few more gentle sobs came from around the classroom.

“My crewmate thinks they’re cool, too. Um- Now, I’ve got bad news and good news. And I’m going to start with the bad. Which is that, uh, you probably figured this out already, but I’m not coming back.”

Several students gasped, a few sniffed or blew their noses.

“It’s why NASA wanted us to have our most prized possessions- because they knew we wouldn’t ever see them again, if we didn’t have them with us. So I’m really glad to have something from all of you with me,” Grace in the video smiled a little, “I actually showed all of your cards and drawings to my new crewmate, and like I said, he loves them. Hence the good news- Rocky, come tell them what you think of their drawings.”

Rocky rolled into frame in his ball.

Every kid in the classroom either screamed, gasped, stood from or fell over in their chair, or some combination. Several of them gripped and/or shook their classmates.

“Rocky think human children cards very cute! Children horrible at drawing, is adorable.”

“Hey, come on, be nice,” Grace smiled, “I swear, kids, this is his way of complimenting you. He’s very…straightforward. Plus, the translator I made him doesn’t work with one hundred percent accuracy, so keep in mind he’s not totally fluent in English.”

The rest of the video was Rocky introducing himself, and the students cheering when Grace’s message was done.

It was hard to continue navigating his computer when his eyes were so blurred with tears, but Grace clicked another link. This one was an article, more recent than the video. Simon’s hand found Grace’s shoulder.

Statue built at Grover Cleveland Middle School to commemorate teacher-turned-astronaut

Ryland Grace, a science teacher at Grover Cleveland Middle School, was recruited for a NASA mission almost five years ago. While select details about Project Hail Mary have now been made available to the public, almost all information about said project was completely confidential at the time. When it came time for Grace to start his medically induced coma before takeoff, he had been unable to say farewell to his students before going under. Due to the lack of public information, and a lack of explanation from their teacher, Grace’s class was left wondering what had happened. Two days before the launch of the Hail Mary, a NASA operative came to the classroom to say that Grace was going to space for an undetermined amount of time, and that if they wanted to make cards to send with him, they could.

(There is an adorable video of the students watching one of Grace’s logs confirming he got their cards, linked here.)

Due to rushed circumstances, the bike that Grace rode to and from school every day was left at its bike rack, outside one of the school’s buildings. For the rest of the school year, Grace’s students left offerings at his bike, decorating it and leaving gifts in the basket and by the tires. When asked why they did this, one student replied, “It’s a surprise for when he gets back.” This was, of course, before public information was available that the Hail Mary had been designed as a one-way trip.

When school was let out for summer that year, the staff at Grover Cleveland Middle School insisted the students take their gifts back to be sure no one would take them in the months the school was left unsupervised, but this photo was taken before the shrine was dismantled.

Grace stared at a photo of his bike, right where he’d left it, washed out in colour by the sun. The whole thing was wrapped in ribbons and paper chains. Hanging from the handlebars were handmade models of planets, strung by fishing wire. Cards and drawings were taped to the wheel spokes. On the seat, in the basket, and on the ground around it, were piles of gifts, some wrapped. Grace could see geodes, crystals, crocheted Earth toys like the bean bag of ‘lava’ he’d throw around during class, stuffed animal foxes, fox figurines and sculptures, a LEGO rocketship, and some woven and beaded bracelets that said things like ‘we miss you’ and ‘best teacher ever.’

He hadn’t realized anyone had missed him.

He no longer had control of his breathing, or how fast the tears were coming. He kept scrolling.

The class of 2025 has just graduated high school, and before they took off, many of them shared one request. Having visited their old middle school to say goodbye to some of their favourite teachers before going off to college, several students noticed that Grace’s bike still remained in the same place, rusted, washed out by sun and rain, and with flat tires. Nobody at the school wanted to remove it, as it served a sort of memorial to Grace and his legacy at the school, but after almost five years, the students could see that the bike was not going to last much longer, outside.

Over one hundred students that had been in one of Grace’s classes at one point or another had collectively written a proposal, submitted to the school, that Grace’s bike be removed and preserved- and that a statue of the bike be built in its place, to commemorate him permanently.

The school obliged. The statue was placed yesterday, and there are already fifteen cards for Grace in the statue’s bike basket. The statue’s plaque was written by and agreed upon by the students who wrote the proposal, and it reads as following:

“In loving memory of Dr. Ryland Grace, a hero, a role model, a wonderful man, and the best teacher a kid could ask for. Thank you, Mr. Grace, for saving the stars.”

“Angel?” Simon whispered, “Ryland, breathe.”

Ryland’s hands were shaking, badly.

Simon gently shut his laptop for him, and set the laptop and book aside, on the floor.

“Hey,” Simon extended his arm, “Come here.”

Ryland fell forward, sobbing into Simon’s shoulder.

Once he calmed down enough to breathe properly, Grace spent the better part of an hour leaning on Simon, telling him all about his kids, and how much he missed them, and how he wished he could tell them all he was okay. Simon tried to comfort him, but he’d never been very good with words, so he just listened, nodded, rubbed Ryland’s back, played with his hair, held his hand. It seemed to work, since Grace ended up falling asleep on his chest, having exhausted himself by crying so much. After all, he’d already been just about ready to turn in for the night when he’d made the search for his name.

Simon was very careful not to wake Grace as he shifted them both around, but thankfully because of the position Grace had fallen asleep in, it wasn’t too hard- Simon had gotten Grace’s legs around his waist, Grace’s torso leaning against his own, his head on Simon’s shoulder, so that Simon could gently (and respectfully) fit his arm under Grace’s thighs, and carry him that way. With the way Grace complained about his joints, Simon was not about to let Grace fall asleep upright and without his pillow, the poor guy wouldn’t be able to move his neck the next day. So Simon carried him to his bed, where he gently laid Grace down. He was about to pull back to lay the blankets over him when something tugged at his neck- at some point, Grace had tiredly wrapped his arms around Simon, and he did not seem keen on letting go.

“Angel,” Simon whispered, in case Grace was partially awake, “I’m trying to let you lay down, but you gotta let me go, I can’t stay like this.”

He was bent over the side of Grace’s bed, awkwardly half-sitting on the side.

“Lay down,” Grace muttered tiredly, “ ‘m comfy.”

Simon considered this for less than a second before obliging. He might have had qualms, if they’d never slept in the same bed before, but this would be their third time doing so, so he figured he might as well.

“Alright, Angel, scoot,” he smiled, gently maneuvering Grace further over so he could lie down, as well. In the time it took him to settle in and grab the blankets, Grace had already slung one of his legs back over Simon’s hip.

“Yeah, yeah, you got me, I’m not going anywhere,” he whispered, as he pulled the blankets up to their shoulders.

When Grace woke up, he was so comfortable, that he immediately tried to go back to sleep. After all, it was Saturday, he didn’t need to get up for school. He reached a hand up to adjust his pillow, and found himself grabbing-

…not his pillow.

Slowly, he opened his eyes and lifted his head. He was looking directly up at Simon. And one of his hands was firmly grabbing one of Simon’s pecs.

“So…” Grace mumbled, “I definitely thought. I was grabbing. My pillow…”

His hand flattened on Simon’s chest, no longer gripping.

“And instead…I think I accidentally assaulted you. And I. Am very sorry.”

He raised his hand, only for it to tiredly fall back onto Simon’s chest.

“And also. Your muscles. Make incredible pillows.”

Simon burst out laughing. He’d tried to stay still and quiet, play it casual, not embarrass Grace. But this was far too funny, and he couldn’t help himself. He threw his arm over his face, laughing like he couldn’t ever remember laughing before. He laughed so hard his stomach hurt.

“I’m sorryyyyy,” Grace whined, now burying his red face into his actual pillow, “I seriously did not mean to grab your tits I’m sorry.”

Simon nearly fell off the bed, wheezing. His hand clutched his stomach, eyes shut by how wide he was smiling.

“My what?” Simon gasped for breath, tears forming in his eyes.

“Oh please, don’t act all innocent, it’s not news to you that you have…basically boobs. You’re the one who did all the working out to get those muscles, you have to know how they look. I literally mistook you for a pillow, that’s- it’s egregious, seriously.”

Simon heaved for breath, and wiped tears from his face.

“I’m- I’m gonna go make coffee, I think I’ve done enough talking,” Grace swung his legs over the side of the bed.

“Nooo, tell me more about my tits,” Simon wheezed, “Come on!”

“Oh my god, forget I said anything,” Grace shielded his face with his hand. He was deeply regretting that the first time he got to hear Simon laugh was at his own expense.

“No, Angel, stop- I’m sorry!” Simon said, still laughing, as he got out of bed to follow Grace, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. 사랑해요.”

“What does that mean?” Grace asked accusingly as he grabbed the coffee pot, “Sa-lang-hey-o. Does it mean, like, ‘idiot’ or something?”

Simon sobered up pretty quickly, the moment he realized what he’d said. He cleared his throat.

“Something like that,” he lied, “It’s affectionate, I’m not trying to be mean. But what you said was stupid, and also hilarious. Both can be true.”

“Whatever,” Grace shook his head, “I was basically still asleep, it doesn’t count.”

“Mmmhm. Whatever you say, Angel,” Simon hummed, and reached past Grace for his mug.

When Simon came back from the greenhouse Sunday evening, Rocky and Grace were waiting for him in the living room.

“Hey, how’d it go?” Grace asked.

“Fine, Adrian and I finished building the next set of planter boxes, and they’ve all got soil now, so we should be able to plant the next crops soon,” Simon shrugged, “How was school?”

“Pretty good,” Grace nodded.

“What about you, Rocky, how was your day?” Simon asked.

“Rocky very busy, doing big project. Rocky love projects,” Rocky replied.

“Cool! What were you working on?” Simon continued, taking his shoes off and walking into the living room with them.

“We were just about to show you, actually,” Grace grinned, “How about you sit down?”

“Oh?” Simon squinted with suspicion, slowly sitting down on the couch, “Okay…?”

“So you know how I’ve been asking you about your shoulder and how it’s been healing?” Grace asked, biting his lip excitedly. He was basically standing on his tip-toes, Simon had never seen him so ecstatic about something.

“Um. Yeah…” Simon leaned back a little, “What about it…?”

“Rocky Grace been working on big project for long time. Adrian help. Rocky Grace know Simon having trouble adjusting to loss of left arm, and Adrian say Simon work very hard, would benefit from second arm. Rocky worried, after Simon attack Rocky first day, Simon could be big danger with two arms!” Rocky held his front two arms up dramatically, “But Simon prove Simon very nice. Simon prove no more harm, and Simon prove very helpful, and Simon prove work hard, and Simon prove make Grace big happy!”

Grace flushed a little, “Okay, Rock, I think he gets it.”

“Simon do much good for Grace and Eridians, so Grace, Rocky, Adrian make Simon new arm for ‘thank you’!” Rocky bobbed excitedly.

“What?” Simon gasped.

“If you want to use it to its full capacity, you’ll have to let Armando give you a minor surgery, so that it can be properly attached to you. I can explain it more in detail later,” Grace waved a dismissive hand as he walked over to the couch. He pulled the blanket off, and picked up the prosthetic arm it had been covering. It was xenonite, Rocky’s xenonite, and it looked extremely complex. There were tons of mechanisms, and a beautiful pattern of a tree up the outside, in teal, clearly done by Adrian.

“We had Adrian take the measurements and dimensions of your right arm, so that the left one would match. It should be an exact fit for you,” Grace sat in front of Simon and held the arm out, “If you agree to the surgery, Armando will have some small xenonite pieces put in the stub of your left arm, and you’ll be able to attach and detach the xenonite arm easily whenever you want. And, um, if you go through with the surgery, you’ll be able to control it like your own flesh arm.”

“No way,” Simon’s eyes snapped up, meeting Grace’s, “No way.”

“Yeah, it’s why it took us so long. Rocky could have made a normal, stagnant prosthetic arm in like, an hour, but we wanted to give you something you could really use. We’ve both been doing a lot of research on how to make this work, and if we’re right, and you get the surgery, you’ll be able to control each piece like a muscle. It will take a lot of getting used to, and probably tons of trial and error, but you’ll be able to bend and un-bend the elbow however you want, bend the wrist joint in whatever way you need it to go, and move each individual finger in any way you’d be able to do on your flesh hand. Hopefully. And if not, we’ll keep working on it until you can,” Grace explained.

Simon gently pushed the prosthetic arm out of the way, until Grace (confusedly) set it gently on the ground. He fell forward, and hugged Grace as tightly as he could.

“Oh!” Grace murmured. Carefully, he wrapped his arms around Simon.

“Rocky help, too!” Rocky walked up behind Grace, and held an arm out to Simon. With a smile, and misty eyes, Simon reached out and gave him a fist bump.

“Of course. Thank you, Rocky. So, so much. And I’ll be sure to thank Adrian, too,” Simon said quietly, sincerely.

The surgery was the next day, after Simon had vehemently agreed to it. Two weeks later, he was healed enough to try the arm on for the first time. When he first got it to work, it worked a little too easily, and it jerked his whole body around a little bit with how quickly it whirred around. But it didn’t make any noise, like Simon feared it might, and once he got used to the sensitivity of it, he was able to move it semi-normally. It took him a couple weeks to figure out the nuances of it- on the first day back in the greenhouse, he tried to pick up a pot made of clay-like xenonite and it immediately shattered in his grip. So then he learned how to get the arm to behave more gently, but that just made him drop things more frequently, as he was handling everything too softly. Figuring out how to adjust those features on command was definitely a learning curve, but by the end of it, it was almost exactly like having his normal arm back. Being able to use it normally, and see it while he worked, sometimes he’d forget that it wasn’t his real arm, and he was even beginning to get phantom feelings. It was amazing.

“Eridians really are so much cooler than us,” Simon marveled, as he turned their new massive, very fluffy blanket over in his hands, “How are they so capable of literally everything?”

“Beats me. I have no idea why they waste their time and talents making us so many gifts, either, but I am so not complaining,” Grace agreed, holding the blanket up to his face and feeling the fluff against his cheek.

“Starfire was showing me her tattoos, yesterday. I didn’t know Eridians even could get tattoos, but she explained the whole process- it’s kind of like really intricate, shallow carvings. They can literally do whatever they want, it’s incredible,” Simon marveled, running his flesh fingertips over the edge of the blanket, which didn’t have (or need) a hem, “Do you think they could do tattoos on humans?”

Grace tilted his head.

“Maybe, why?”

“I want to get this covered up, if I can,” Simon lifted some of his hair off of his neck. Grace had caught glimpses of the tattoo before, and the scars over it, but he’d never asked, or stared too long, knowing it was probably a touchy subject. Simon had a tattoo on the left side of his neck, on a part of the skin that hadn’t been mutated when they found him- it looked like an X, with the bottom lines extended down, and the top lines splitting into branches. And there was a pink, raised scar of an X over the tattoo, altering what used to be dark, precise lines.

“Eden gave us tattoos, each of the keepers of the tree. C.O.I. burned it off of me, when I was in prison. I don’t associate with either of them, and I’d rather not have to think of them every time I look in the mirror, so it would be cool if I could get something nice done over it,” Simon explained.

“Sounds good. Rocky and Adrian are coming over for movies later, we can ask them tonight,” Grace offered, “In the meantime, speaking of appearances, I think we’re both due for a haircut, don’t you?”

Within a week, Simon had a haircut and a new tattoo. Ivy vines and flowers went up the side of his neck, up to his hair line behind his ear, and the artist had done such a beautiful job, the old tattoo and scarring couldn’t be seen even if he looked for them. And now that he didn’t want to cover his neck all the time, he’d allowed his hair to be cut back to shoulder length, as it had grown out part way down his back over the last few months. Between the hair, tattoo, and arm, Simon felt like a whole new person. More than ever, he felt like himself, whatever that meant. He was still figuring out what being himself meant, but it wasn’t as scary a thought as it used to be.

It was a lot of new Feelings, which was always at least a little scary, but he thought he was coping pretty well. Adrian and some of the other friends he’d made were really helping, and Simon was brimming with gratitude to finally have support- friends that genuinely wanted what was best for him and would help him to achieve his goals.

They even helped him identify some of the new feelings, when he didn’t know what they were.

For example, when he was ranting to Adrian about Grace. How he talks too much, but Simon kind of adores hearing every tangent he goes on, and how he’s infuriatingly humble but also somehow a total braggart, and how he’s so smart it’s almost off-putting sometimes, and how he’s so effortlessly funny when he’s being himself and so un-funny when he’s trying to make jokes, and how Simon was getting this crazy urge all the time to just, like, grab Grace or bite him or squeeze him or something. Adrian called this ‘cuteness aggression,’ and said they dealt with a great deal of it when first getting to know Rocky.

Simon had gone rather still.

“You don’t think I’m in love with Grace, do you? I mean, the way you’re in love with Rocky.”

“Oh oh oh, Adrian do research on human romantic attraction! Adrian was wonder why hug and fist the bump, and learned about many ways of human physical affection. Internet say romantic humans want to touch mouths, ‘kiss.’ Does Simon want kiss Grace?”

Simon flushed, “I hadn’t thought about it until now- I mean, I have thought about it, but it was just-“

Adrian tilted a little. Simon sighed.

“Yeah, okay. Yes, I do want to kiss him.”

“Grace driving Simon crazy lately, statement-question?”

“Yeah. Like, I find a bunch of stuff he does annoying, but I’m never actually annoyed with him, which…annoys me? Sometimes I think I should be frustrated with him, but then I look at his face and I just- can’t. But then there’s this leftover energy where the anger should be, but isn’t, and that’s usually when I just want to like. Shake him. Pick him up, squeeze him, whatever. Also, I accidentally told him I loved him…? He didn’t understand it, thank God, cause I said it in Korean. But like, I didn’t even mean to say it, it just kind of came out.”

“Mmmm yes. This sound like unresolved attraction, very much. Now is good time use human slang ‘down bad,’ question?”

Simon pinched the bridge of his nose, “…yeah, maybe.”

He’d had a couple crushes during his child and teen years on Eden, but it was nothing like this. Nothing that made him crave to see them smile, nothing that made him want to hear them talk for hours, nothing that made him want to wrap himself around them and never let go.

Simon was in love, for the first time. And considering his past, this definitely wasn’t the worst nor most difficult problem he’d ever had. He could handle this.

Grace could not handle this. He didn’t know what was happening, and Rocky wasn’t being very helpful.

“So Grace like Simon very much. This is problem why, question?” Rocky asked exasperatedly. He and Grace were currently making temperature-controlled humidifiers for the greenhouse- or at least they would be, if Grace could focus.

“I don’t know! It’s like- It would be fine if I liked him a lot, I like you and Adrian a lot and it’s not a problem. But for some reason, I literally can not stop thinking about him. It’s ruining my work, it’s ruining my classes- Like, has he infected me or something? I don’t get it, I’ve never been this way about someone before,” Grace rubbed his face repeatedly, as if he could scrub the idea of Simon out if he tried hard enough.

“What Grace thinking about Simon?” Rocky pried. If they weren’t going to get work done, he was going to get to the bottom of this, so he could fix it, and then they could get their work done.

“I don’t-! Just…him! How he’s been doing all sorts of random stuff around the house to get used to his new arm, and how sometimes I come out of my room and he’s just…working out, since he can do a lot more stuff a lot easier now, but he’s just, like, doing pushups on my floor, shirtless, and I feel super weird when I look at him, because I feel the need to, like, avert my eyes, but clearly he doesn’t care, because he’s the one who chose to be shirtless when he knows I’m home-” Grace’s glasses were hanging off of his chin, hair sticking up from running his hands through it too many times, “He’s just so much more comfortable lately, and I’m glad! But also I feel like I’m getting to know a whole new version of him, like he’s not scared anymore, and now he’s just…himself. And I’m so happy for him, I really am, but he’s making me feel like a creep. I think it’s because I just haven’t had human contact in so long, and he’s right there, but like, I want to be with him, all the time. I want him around. Always. And when he’s around, I want to talk to him, and I want him to talk to me, I want to hear his voice, I want to make him smile, I want him to like me, I want to touch him, like, give him hugs and be with him on the couch- Have I seriously gone this crazy, going without human contact for so long? I barely had human contact back on Earth, why am I suddenly so desperate for it? It’s so unlike me, Rocky, I don’t even know what to do with myself half the time.”

“Grace heart rate very elevated. Grace bloodflow go to face. These are common physical effects when Grace think of Simon, question?” Rocky tilted.

“I mean…yeah? I guess so?” Grace sighed.

“Mmmm. Rocky will do research, figure out how to make Grace normal again.”

“Thanks, bud,” Grace said tiredly, sending Rocky a thumbs-up from his chair.

Rocky was back the next day, after school, while Simon was still in the greenhouse.

“Hihihihihihi, Rocky have many questions,” Rocky said, not waiting for Grace to open the door all the way before coming in, “Grace was having these thoughts before, or only since Simon get tattoo and haircut, question?”

“Before, long before. But it’s gotten so much worse since the tattoo and haircut, because he…changed. Like, he’s smiling more, and he doesn’t try to make himself smaller anymore, and he’s been initiating conversation and contact more often, stuff like that,” Grace complained, as he poured himself another cup of coffee. (He’d already had four today.)

“Yes yes. Grace suspect this all because too long without human contact, statement-question?” Rocky asked.

“Yeah, I mean, I can’t imagine what else it would be,” Grace shrugged.

“But Grace worried, because this never happen to Grace when go too long without contact on Earth,” Rocky continued. Grace nodded, and took a sip from his mug.

“Grace have a couple Earth friends, have hugs and fist-the-bumps occasionally. Not often,” Rocky stated.

“Yup.”

“Grace ever get to hug or fist-the-bump with human students, question?” Rocky asked.

“Sort of. On Earth, you’re not really supposed to hug a kid unless they’re your family, so no hugs except at graduation. But we’d shake hands every morning, which was fun. On the way into the classroom every morning, each kid would shake my hand, and I had a secret handshake with all of them. Each kid got to make up their own, and I’d have to remember each one, and which kid it belonged to. So we’d fist-bump, and high-five, and clap, and point, and do all sorts of silly stuff. It was fun,” Grace recalled, with a fond smile on his face.

“So Grace get contact every day, but small, professional contact, with humans not the right age to be friends,” Rocky summarized.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Grace sighed.

“Grace ever have mate, question? Besides girl who chose Mark,” Rocky asked. Grace snorted- Rocky said Mark’s name like it was a slur. Absolutely brimming with malice.

“Um, not really, no. I went on a couple dates here and there, every few months, but I’d never go on more than two with the same person. I’d keep trying dating apps and things like that, hoping maybe I’d click with someone, but I never did. The only serious relationship I ever had was the one I already told you about,” Grace fiddled with the handle of his mug.

“Remind Rocky why Grace and girl-mate separate, question?”

“Uhhhhh, she just…didn’t think I took her seriously, I guess. She thought I was more invested in my work than I was in her. She would say that I was delusional, for thinking that any of my work was actually going to make a difference, and that I was stupid for prioritizing my work over the relationship. And maybe she was right, but so was I! I probably should have been a better partner to her, but I also did end up making a difference. A pretty big one, too. So…” he trailed off, and shrugged again.

“Would Grace say Grace was in love with her, at time of dating?”

“No, probably not. I mean, who knows? I don’t really know what being in love feels like, so I guess I wouldn’t be able to give you a solid answer on that one. That’s why I went on so many one-time dates with so many different people, I kept hoping I’d fall in love, or be really attracted to someone, but I never was,” Grace explained, “Sometimes I wondered if I was, like, defective. Broken, you know? It’s why all my friends were women- All guys my age could talk about was sex, wanting sex, needing sex, having sex- it was exhausting. And I couldn’t relate. It never seemed as important as everyone made it sound, especially not when I could be spending my time doing something important. And like, yeah, relationships and sex and dating and all that sounded fun in theory, but in practice, it was so boring. That attraction just…wasn’t there.”

“Have Grace ever felt attraction to person?”

Grace thought about Simon doing pull-ups on the doorframe, shirtless, the muscles of his back visibly moving, arms working effortlessly.

“Yes,” he mumbled into his mug, hiding his face behind a sip of coffee, “But only for Simon. Which makes me think I’m only feeling it because I’ve gone too long without another human.”

“Grace want mate with Simon, question?”

Grace accidentally inhaled coffee, in his attempt not to spit it out.

The humidifiers were working, and they had temperature control, but not very refined temperature control. The mist either came out scalding hot, or ice cold. They were working on the heating/cooling system in the living room when Simon came back early from the greenhouse.

“Hey, I had a question about my arm,” Simon said, slightly out of breath from the walk to the house (that he’d clearly taken quite quickly), “Am I able to overextend the elbow? It keeps overextending a little when I carry really heavy things, which is totally fine, but I want to make sure I’m not going to accidentally break it or something.”

“Oh! Yeah, so you can actually totally control how much the elbow extends at any given time. It can way overextend, if you need it to. You’ll need a screwdriver, but if you-“ Grace got up to gently grab Simon’s prosthetic arm and point to the right gear, “if you tighten this one, you get less extension. Loosen it, more extension. Each notch is a ten degree difference.”

“Wow. You guys thought of everything,” Simon’s eyebrows raised a little, “I think Rocky says it best- amaze amaze amaze.”

Rocky put his two front arms up and vigorously jazz-handed.

“We’re really glad you like it,” Grace smiled, “You gonna head back out to the greenhouse?”

“Yeah. Thank you,” Simon smiled back.

“ ‘Kay. Do you need a screwdriver?” Grace asked, walking back to the couch as Simon walked back to the front door.

“Nope, got my own now, Adrian made sure I had a set of tools in the greenhouse so I don’t always have to run all the way back here,” Simob assured, opening the door, “I’ll be back before dinner.”

He shot Rocky a quick thumbs-down, which Rocky happily returned. Grace went back to work.

“Good to see you, Rocky!”

And before he shut the door, “and thank you, Ryland.”

Grace’s head shot back up, but the door clicked shut behind Simon before he got a chance to ask.

Simon had never called him by his first name. As it was, even ‘Grace’ was pretty rare from him. From Simon, he was always ‘Angel.’ Always.

Rocky also took notice of this.

“Why Simon call Grace thing that is not ‘Grace’? Not ‘Angel,’ either, question?”

“What do you mean?” Grade asked, trying to look at his laptop screen again as if he could focus.

“What Ryland, question? Same as Angel? More pet name, question?”

“Oh,” Grace nodded, and then shook his head, “No, no, Ryland is my name.”

“No no no,” Rocky said matter-of-factly, “Rocky know Grace name. Grace name Grace.”

“Yeah, but that’s my last name, it’s different. My first name is Ryland,” Grace explained.

“Grace own two names, question??” Rocky continued, baffled, “Why humans need two names, question!”

“Well, there’s a lot of us. If we only had one name, it would be hard to identify an individual, because there would be tons of people with the same name. So we have two names, to identify us specifically, since having the same combination of names isn’t super common. Our last names tell you what family we’re from, and our first names belong to us individually. So everyone in my family was ‘Grace,’ but I was the only ‘Ryland.’ First name Ryland, last name Grace. Ryland Grace. Does that make sense?”

Rocky chirped his acknowledgement, and lowered himself to the ground while he pondered this.

“Humans generally call other humans by first name, question?”

“If you’re familiar with each other, yeah,” Grace shrugged.

“Grace Earth friends call Grace ‘Ryland’?”

“Yep,” Grace nodded.

“So Grace is lie to Rocky, question?” Rocky stood back up indignantly.

“What? No! I told you my name was Grace, and it is! It’s just not my first name.”

“No no no,” Rocky wagged an arm at him, “Grace say name is Grace, called Grace. But Grace lie, Grace called Ryland.”

“Do you want to call me Ryland? You can call me Ryland,” Grace asked desperately.

“Nnnnnno,” Rocky shifted back a little, “Rocky like ‘Grace’ better. Ryland bad name. Grace sounds music! Ryland sound bore.”

“Hey!” Grace gasped.

“What Simon first name, question?” Rocky quickly continued.

“His first name is Simon. He told me he doesn’t have a last name. So he’s just got the one,” Grace said.

Rocky seemed more confused at this, “Last name not requirement, question?”

“Well, it was required by the government back on Earth, but he’s not from Earth, so I don’t know if last names existed where he’s from. I guess I’ll ask him about it sometime,” Grace shrugged.

“If Simon part of family now, Simon also ‘Grace’ now, question?” Rocky swayed a little, “Rocky Adrian also ‘Grace’ now, question?”

“I mean…” Ryland paused. It’s not like there was anyone who could stop them, or make them file paperwork for it. It’s not like it would matter, or change anything.

“Sure, yeah, why not? If you want to call yourself that, you can.”

“Mmmm, may cause confusion. Too many ‘Grace.’ Just Grace Ryland. Maybe Simon,” Rocky mumbled.

“No, Rock, it’s Ryland Grace. Not Grace Ryland,” Grace reminded.

“No, no, mmm, Rocky think this sound wrong. Rocky like it better the other way, statement.”

“Oh yeah, huh?” Ryland smiled amusedly, “Rocky is being bossy, statement.”

“Rocky is being right, statement.”

Rocky was still around when Simon got home. He was angrily muttering and cursing at the machine under his breath. He’d done everything right, he couldn’t figure out why the humidifier wouldn’t do what he wanted it to do.

“Everything okay over there?” Simon asked, as he took his shoes off.

“Rocky mad mad mad! Humidifier not doing its job, statement. Humidifier should be working, Rocky work very hard!”

“Maybe you should work harder,” Simon deadpanned. It was a joke, but the look Rocky gave him could have been lethal. He didn’t have a face, but all he had to do was turn Simon’s direction and Simon knew the joke had not landed well.

“What the fuck. Statement.”

Simon immediately collapsed with laughter. Grace jumped like he’d heard nails scraping on a chalkboard. He quickly also turned to glare at Simon, who held a hand up in surrender.

“I didn’t teach him that, I swear!” he managed through wheezes.

“Rocky tired of this. Rocky going home,” Rocky huffed, and it sort of sounded like someone gave up on playing the flute halfway through a note.

“Yeah, you’ve been working on it way too long, you need a break. Don’t even think about it until at least tomorrow,” Grace encouraged, “Maybe Simon will be done laughing by then.”

“I’m sorry!” Simon gasped, “I’m sorry, but that was the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever heard, oh my God-”

“Goodbye Grace. …Goodbye, Simon,” Rocky chirped, as he cleaned up his mess and headed to the door.

“Bye, Rocky, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Grace said, with a quick pat to the top of Rocky’s suit. Simon gave a weak wave from the floor.

It took Simon another minute to stop laughing, and another 10 minutes to stop giggling to himself under his breath. He got changed out of his work clothes, and came out of the room to see Grace preparing dinner for them in the kitchen.

“Do you need help? Should I set the table?” Simon asked.

“Yeah, uh-” Grace looked intently at the pot of pasta in front of him, back to Simon, “Are- um- Are you, like, mad at me for something? Or did I, like, do something wrong earlier…?”

Simon straightened up, and frowned, “What? No, not at all, why do you ask?”

“Uhh, it’s nothing, I just- It’s nothing,” Grace shrugged choppily.

“You’re a terrible liar, you know that?” Simon asked, stepping into the kitchen with him, “Come on, what happened? Why do you think I’m mad at you?”

“I don’t! It’s- Forget it, okay? It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” Grace blurted, feeling his face heat up.

“Did- Did I do something earlier? I feel like today has been totally fine, did I say something that made you think-? I can’t think of anything I might have said-” Simon stammered. He felt awful; what had he done to upset Grace like this? And why wouldn’t Grace just talk to him about it?

“Simon, seriously, it’s stupid. I’m being stupid. Can you please just get the dishes ready?” Grace asked, feeling the warmth spread to his ears and down his neck. This was so needlessly embarrassing, he wished he’d just kept his mouth shut about it.

“Hey,” Simon grabbed Grace’s shoulder, gently turning him so they could face each other, “Please, if I did something wrong, I need to know.”

“You called me ‘Ryland’ earlier,” Grace blurted, and immediately felt his face get hotter.

Simon looked taken aback.

“Um, yeah. That’s…your name, isn’t it?” Simon asked, “Or do you hate it, and that’s why you go by ‘Grace’? If that’s the case, I’m so sorry-”

“No, it’s really not a problem,” Grace couldn’t make eye contact, “It doesn’t make a difference if-”

“Are you sure? Cause I can-”

“You just never call me Ryland,” he shrugged again, chin down, “So…I just…”

“Do I not?” Simon sounded genuinely confused. He’d never put too much thought into how he addressed Grace, he couldn’t imagine why calling him by his name would be so upsetting.

“No,” Grace’s voice cracked, and he cleared his throat, “No, you don’t. You only…um…” He trailed off, mumbling.

“What?” Simon asked, leaning a little closer to maybe hear better.

“You only call me ‘Angel,’” Grace said quickly, sure that his face was as red as it could get, by now.

“What?” Simon repeated, and his face slowly broke out into a beaming grin, “So I called you by your regular name and you thought you were in trouble because you’re used to me calling you ‘Angel’?”

Ryland’s mouth became a thin line, and he nodded.

“Oh my God. That is so-”

“Stupid. I know, it’s stupid.”

“Cute,” Simon breathed, “That’s…fucking adorable.”

“Shut up, please,” Grace whined, physically pushing Simon’s face away with his hand, too mortified to look at his face.

“Hey! Come on, I’m being nice!” Simon complained, but his smile was still evident in his voice.

“You’re laughing at me,” Grace corrected, “Just get the dishes, will you?”

“I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing because that was the cutest thing I’ve ever heard,” Simon continued, “I’m so sorry, I’ll never make that mistake again. From now on, I’ll be sure you know that you’re still my Angel.”

When Grace let go of his face, he happily went to get the bowls down from their cabinets. He delighted in Grace’s flustered silence as he set the table.

“Someday, you’re going to do something super embarrassing, and I’m going to get my revenge,” Grace muttered. Simon started laughing again.

“I’m so serious. This is two strikes for me and none for you, this is unforgivable,” Grace shook his head.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure I’ll make a mistake sometime soon, and you can laugh at me all you want,” Simon permitted lightly. He wondered if this he was succeeding, if Grace was flirting back with him.

“Oh for sure. And I’ll make sure to really rub some salt in the wound by calling you ‘cute’ while I’m laughing,” Grace rolled his eyes. Okay, so it wasn’t working, Grace didn’t take it the way Simon had meant it.

“Oh my G- 너 정말 바보 같아. 사랑해,” Simon sighed, running a hand down his face.

“Ah! There it is again, sa-lang-hey-oh. You’re calling me stupid,” Grace pointed accusingly.

“I did call you stupid,” Simon confirmed, even if Grace had completely mistranslated the second half of his phrase, “I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad.”

“Then why did you say it!” Grace stirred the pasta dutifully.

“Because you are cute, Angel, that’s just a fact,” Simon grinned, leaning against the counter.

Grace froze. Was that…? No, there was no way Simon was coming on to him.

“Whatever,” he grumbled, and went back to stirring.

That night, they both got in bed, as they usually did- they’d been sharing a bed more often than not lately. Between all the projects and movie nights, falling asleep on or next to each other was common now, and sharing a bed was just more practical that way.

But they never touched. They’d usually wake up holding each other, but that could be blamed on sleep movement- going to bed, they’d stay on their opposite sides.

Maybe it was the fact that he’d been pretty overtly flirting earlier, and Grace didn’t understand, that Simon decided to take more drastic measures. Even just with one arm (he always took his prosthetic off before bed, if he remembered), he grabbed Grace’s waist, and pulled him over, until Simon’s chest was flush with Grace’s back. Grace made a Noise, but didn’t move. Simon could feel Grace’s rapid heartbeat against him.

“Is this okay?” Simon asked quietly, “I’m cold.”

“Yeah, sure,” Grace replied, voice shaky, “Goodnight, Simon.”

“Goodnight, Angel,” Simon smiled. That was pretty much the confirmation he needed- Grace liked him back.

Over coffee the next morning, Grace was typing away on his laptop. They both sat on the couch, Simon reading one of Grace’s choose-your-own-adventure-novels. Grace was working on updating Rocky and Adrian’s translator, for Simon’s sake. He was getting better at understanding Eridian, but the translator was still very helpful to him. Every now and then, Simon would hear the computer make a noise in Eridian, and repeat the word in English.

After a good ten minutes of quiet, Simon felt Grace jolt beside him.

“Everything okay?” Simon asked, glancing up from the book. Grace was staring blankly at his computer.

“Angel?”

Grace slowly looked up at him. His expression was unreadable.

He pressed a key on his keyboard, and his laptop spoke again.

“사랑해요. Sa-lang-hey-oh. ‘I love you.’”

Simon froze.

Well. He’d been caught.

They made intense eye contact in silence for awhile before anyone said anything.

“That’s what was going through your head each time I made a fool of myself? That’s what you were saying, this whole time?” Grace asked evenly.

This is not how Simon pictured this going.

But it was now or never.

“Yeah, so what? ‘That bother you?” he replied calmly.

“No,” Grace replied quickly, and then, “Yes! Yeah, it does bother me, actually. Why would you only tell me in a language I don’t understand? Did you not want me to know?”

“Oh no, I just thought I was being really obvious in English, also,” Simon admitted.

They stared at each other some more.

Grace opened his mouth to say something. Rocky opened the front door.

“Hihihihi! Rocky sleep and feel much better about humidifier. Rocky ready to finish project now!” he announced.

“Ah, that’s my cue to get dressed and get to the greenhouse,” Simon stood up, setting the book aside, “We’ll talk later, Angel.”

And with a wink and a subtle smile, Simon left the room.

He told Adrian everything. He rambled as they worked, nervously recounting everything that had happened this morning, and everything that had lead up to that conversation.

He felt a little calmer by the time he needed to pack up and go home for dinner, thanks to Adrian’s sage advice, but that didn’t mean his heart wasn’t hammering against his chest.

“Hey,” he called as he walked through the door. He bent down to take his shoes off, and noticed that Rocky was gone, and the living room was clean, void of projects.

Huh, they must have finished the humidifier early.

When he stood back up, Grace was walking quickly toward him.

“Angel, hi-”

Grace grabbed his face and kissed him.

Simon’s eyes were wide when Grace pulled away.

“Oh,” Simon breathed, “So you thought about what I said, then?”

“Couldn’t stop thinking about it, actually,” Grace admitted, eyes roaming his face openly, “I thought I was going crazy, the last couple months, you have no idea. I thought I was making things up in my head because I’d been touch starved for too long, but the longer I waited for it to go away, the more I felt. And I had no idea that you might feel the same. And if you do, I need to know, because I’ve literally never felt this way about someone before. Simon, I need you to be completely honest with me right now. Did you mean it?”

Simon’s breath was gone. Grace was holding his face, he could still feel the ghost of Grace’s lips on his own, and this beautiful man was professing his love for him.

“That I love you?” Simon asked, just to be sure. Grace nodded. Simon nodded back.

“Yeah, Angel, yes, of course,” he said, “Can I- You- Kiss me again? Please?”

“사랑해요,” Grace smiled, and leaned down a second time. Simon met him halfway, arms wrapping around him, keeping him close.

They skipped movie night that night.