Work Text:
Eridian Homework Sheet – Week One – Seth
Question One: What was your favorite part of class this week?
Answer: The experiment where Teacher Grace taught us about how fires are put out on Earth even though they have so much oxygen in the air.
Question Two: Did you make any new friends in class?
Answer: I made friends with Caleb and Siobhan.
Question Three: What surprised you most about Teacher Grace?
Answer: He was really tall.
Question Four: What surprised you most about the topics we covered in class?
Answer: I was surprised that humans don’t catch on fire when they breathe.
Question Five: What does the word ‘home’ mean to you?
Answer: Home is where I live and sleep.
***
Eridian Homework Sheet – Week One – Annabella
Question One: What was your favorite part of class this week?
Answer: Meeting Teacher Grace and all the other students!!!!!
Question Two: Did you make any new friends in class?
Answer: Yes, everyone is my friend.
Question Three: What surprised you most about Teacher Grace?
Answer: He’s technically the same age as me!!!
Question Four: What surprised you most about the topics we covered in class?
Answer: One of the biggest things in human culture is eating together! Gross!
Question Five: What does the word ‘home’ mean to you?
Answer: Home is like our house with everybody inside it and it’s nice.
***
Eridian Homework Sheet – Week One – Dinosaur
Question One: What was your favorite part of class this week?
Answer: The fire!!!
Question Two: Did you make any new friends in class?
Answer: Not really
Question Three: What surprised you most about Teacher Grace?
Answer: Squishiness
Question Four: What surprised you most about the topics we covered in class?
Answer: Humans need to drink water all the time or they will get sick or they won’t be able to talk
Question Five: What does the word ‘home’ mean to you?
Answer: Where I sleep and watch my family sleep
***
Eridian Homework Sheet – Week One – Carlos
Question One: What was your favorite part of class this week?
Answer: EVERYTHINGGGG
Question Two: Did you make any new friends in class?
Answer: Yes!!! I hope so
Question Three: What surprised you most about Teacher Grace?
Answer: Could still tell when we were messing around behind him even though he can’t sense that way!
Question Four: What surprised you most about the topics we covered in class?
Answer: Humans just set things on fire for fun sometimes
Question Five: What does the word ‘home’ mean to you?
Answer: My house where I live and have all my stuff!
***
Eridian Homework Sheet – Week One – Crunch
Question One: What was your favorite part of class this week?
Answer: Talking
Question Two: Did you make any new friends in class?
Answer: No
Question Three: What surprised you most about Teacher Grace?
Answer: He talks a lot
Question Four: What surprised you most about the topics we covered in class?
Answer: They were easy to understand
Question Five: What does the word ‘home’ mean to you?
Answer: Where my family is and where I can be safe all the time. Also where I keep all my stuff and can play games.
***
The first week of classes were always nerve wracking, even before he found himself on an alien planet with completely different social norms to his. He’d just wrapped up his first week of classes with the kids, their homework submitted via a different Eridian teacher who worked near the Biodome and could scan the responses into Grace’s laptop.
He was sort of glad that he wasn’t grading actual papers, because he’d started to cry halfway through the third response sheet. He wasn’t even sure why, at first, hadn’t even noticed until a teardrop fell to the back of his hand as he wrote notes about which kids liked what, and who they were friends with.
Grace pushed his laptop away, resting his head on the back of his chair. He didn’t even know why he was crying, other than the fact that it was all… so familiar.
Each pebble had a story and a family and a personality so different yet so similar from his kids on Earth. Rekha probably would’ve gotten along very well with Carlos. They might’ve been best friends. One of his earlier students, long graduated high school by the time the Astrophage crisis began, would have loved the Eridian classroom, with it’s ledges and textures and a view of the beach.
It hit him, then, how much he missed home. He’d cried on and off about it for weeks, but had settled into his life on Erid with little fanfare after that.
It had only been a partial lie, when he’d told Stratt he was worried about his kids and she threw it back in his face. Of course, the main reason was he was scared for himself. Scared that he would screw everything up, just like how he screwed up all of his relationships, his career, his personality. But he did think about his former students every day since he got the memories of them back.
He wondered if they were okay. If all of them had managed to survive the rapid cooling of the Earth, or if they were lost as world governments hoarded everything they could. All he wanted was to help people. He was afraid the whole time, but he did help eventually.
Rocky suddenly burst through the front door. “Grace! Have news! Live-view satellites up and running! Can project real stars onto biodome!”
Grace sniffled and closed his laptop, hastily wiping away tears as he got to his feet, his knees, hips, and back already protesting the added gravity.
“Well, come on,” Grace said, moving past Rocky and stepping onto the porch. He gasped, the biodome lit up with stars, the real stars, not just the static image he’d grown used to over the months. They were all there, brilliant and shining, stretching across the sky and down to the horizon, their light reflecting in the calm, gently moving waters.
He’d never be able to see anything like this back on Earth- not just because of the completely different orientation within the Milky Way, but because of the light pollution in his home. On a good night, you might have been able to see one or two stars, but this was a live view from above Erid’s thick, dangerous clouds.
“Thank you,” He said, “I’m… I really needed this, I think.”
Rocky hummed, “Glad you liked. Going to tell me why you were crying?”
Grace glanced down at him, reluctant to tear his eyes away from the sky. “Uh, well, the pebbles just reminded me a lot of the kids on Earth. So, I was… homesick, I guess.” As he said it aloud, he realized that it was kind of stupid. Earth hadn’t been his home in a long, long time.
“Ah,” Rocky said, considering, “Grace still do not want to go home?”
He shook his head, studying every star he could see. “I think this is my home now.”
Grace knew that Rocky was doing his best to remain neutral on the matter, but he did a little dance of excitement at Grace’s admission, his claws clicking together.
The stars were beautiful that night.