Chapter Text
I don't feel right.
I haven't for a few months now. I don't know why. Or what it is. Or what is causing it. But something just feels wrong.
The wrongness has been here since we arrived on Erid. I felt it when we docked at the space elevator. It was subtle. Tension in my joints and an ache in my core that wasn't entirely painful, just off. I was still able to do everything I needed to. Introduce Grace to the entire planet, make sure nobody was going to vivisect him, reunite with Adrian, introduce Grace and Adrian, and confirm that all of my logs and instructions had been met before providing the Taumoeba to the science sect and letting them deal with the rest. Overall, nothing more complicated than what we had dealt with in space. It was nice to be home.
The last few weeks have been a series of checks and balances. Conferring with Grace and Adrian and the biodome team to make absolutely sure that everything was followed. Touring the dome to octuple check that there were no leaks and no bad things and nothing that could possibly go wrong. To my surprise and relief, Adrian had fought for us for a very long time before we returned. Xe did not let anyone cut corners. Xe pushed to make the biodome as close to our home as physically possible. There is just a few hundred meters of stone that separates us from Grace. Eventually, when we actually get fully settled.
For now, I've stayed on the Hail Mary with Grace. Adrian struggles with this, but xe understands. It was too risky to move him right away. We had to make sure that the food would be safe, solve several vitamin deficiency problems, sickness, make sure the rest of his teeth weren't going to fall out and ensure his health was up to Armando's standards before we could try moving him off of the ship. Erid has doctors, yes, but Armando is the best human doctor I know of, and I would not be trusting anything that Armando did not personally approve of. It knows every medical thing about humans ever and how to fix them. Erid is learning.
They've learned well. I did not meet as much resistance with bringing along a fragile alien than I had expected. Whether that is because Erid had years to prepare themselves or because he saved the universe I do not know, but I will not question it. Grace is here, and Grace is safe, and that's what matters. Adjusting the ship's course to increase the gravitational force on the way here actually did quite a bit to help him adapt. He had to use a wheelchair for the start, but he has graduated to leg braces and a cane now. He is getting better faster than I think either of us expected, and I can not be more grateful for that.
That may be why I haven't bothered to think about the wrongness until now. I had to make sure Grace was okay and taken care of. Emotions have been high. I've been spending most of my time on Mary even though we are home and up in orbit things are familiar and easy. Down here, it is loud. Busy. Too many questions. Too many stupid questions. This is the first time in months that I have had a moment of peace with Grace, alone, and of course now is when my stupid brain asks the stupid question of what the wrongness is.
And it why has it been getting progressively worse.
Before it was just subtle. Now, walking on the wonderfully crafted beach with Grace, it is becoming more and more obvious that something is seriously wrong with me.
My legs are heavy.
Why are my legs heavy? Nothing should be heavy to me. I'm an Eridian, I've lived most of my life on this planet, and nothing should be heavy. But my legs are heavy, and my thoughts are heavy. Muffled. I can't hear my thoughts properly.
The grain beneath my claws slides away as I walk. Confusing. Mary doesn't have sand. There should be floor here. When did Mary get sand?
Where am I?
Oh. Yes. On the beach. With Grace. Grace's new beach. He's talking about something. His voice is barely loud enough to hear. I can't tell what he is mumbling about. Talk louder, Grace.
No, that's not right either. He is talking normally. He is laughing at his own joke. I didn't hear it. I didn't hear him laugh, but I know he laughed. His mouth opened and his lungs contracted and he was smiling. But I didn't hear it.
Actually I can't really hear much around us at all. I know there is the fake ocean and Grace's house and the cliffs but they are distant and barely audible. Fuzzy. I can't get a clear response.
Is it the sand?
No. I've walked on this before. I should be able to hear everything.
I can't. I step again, and I can't hear Grace.
Something's wrong.
My leg shudders.
I think Grace just said my name. Is he okay? Am I okay? I hear myself answer back but it's wrong. The words, the sound. I made noise, but the notes are all off. Am I okay?
Grace is tapping the suit. Hitting it, actually. He's yelling my name now. Then someone else's name. Someone I should know. I should know that name, but I don't, and his voice is wrong. It sounds the same way his clothes scrape across his skin, but I can't really hear that either. Everything is wrong.
I should be able to hear him.
I try to walk. Can't.
Grace hums. I think. It is so quiet.
Quiet.
Wrong.
I don't feel right.
And then it's gone. Grace's screaming hits me full volume, immediately sending all of my auricles blazing and the whole suit resonates with his voice.
"--ou okay?! ROCKY!"
"Stop yelling." I groan, pulling my legs in around my carapace. Oh. I'm in the sand. My attempt at walking apparently made me topple over. The way I had fallen pinned two of my legs under me. I try to get up and it is harder than it should be, my legs are heavy and I can't— I can't make them move. A whine escapes my valves against my will. Grace immediately presses a shoulder against my suit, digs his heels into the sand and helps me free my trapped limbs. I yank them out of the sand, more irritated than concerned, and shake off the grit. The wrong feeling is settling back down, and in its place I just feel frustrated.
"Thank."
"What the heck was that?" Grace's voice is high and tight, but he isn't yelling anymore. He's still sitting in the sand beside me and he won't take his hands off of my carapace. I can hear his eyes flick every which way, trying to see anything that could have caused that. He is worried. I can't blame him. I would be worried too. I probably should be.
I really should be.
"Tripped."
Grace stares at me with his mouth slightly open. I am an expert in human expressions, or I like to think I am anyway. I've done the studying. This is the expression of dumb-founded. Or disbelief. I'm not sure, given the context.
"Tripped?"
"Yes."
"Buddy. You have five legs. You don't trip."
Ah. It was disbelief. I can tell by the way his mouth shifts to a frown and his eyebrows scrunch together that he doesn't believe a word of my excuse. Well, I only used one word, so. He doesn't believe any of it. Worth a try. "Am okay."
Grace makes an irritated sound.
"Don't lie to me."
There it is.
Grace seems to be an expert in Eridian expressions too.
"Not lie."
"Rock."
"I'm okay!" I finally get control back over my valves enough to speak properly. That's better. Though I think I snapped that more than said it. "Sorry. I'm okay."
Yeah, maybe if I say it enough that will make it true. Better than the alternative, which is that I am dying of radiation sickness and I've seen the symptoms of that and they're scarily similar to this and I am trying not to freak myself out or Grace out but I don't think it's working—
It is absolutely not working. I can hear properly, and I can hear Grace's heart properly. It's fast. He's worried already. I think he's getting more worried.
"Let's go find out how big you need this door." I try to change the subject. I don't really give Grace a chance to think about it. My claws are already on their way across the beach again towards what is to be his new home. The construction team moved Armando in yesterday, so now we just need to build a door and Grace can move in tomorrow. "Unless you don't want a door."
"No, I want a door." To my relief, Grace follows. He pushes himself up onto his feet and grabs his cane to limp after me. His eyes stay on me the whole time we walk, and he isn't telling jokes or doing small talk anymore. I notice. Of course I notice. Of course he would notice something was off. But if I don't draw attention to it, maybe he will stop worrying about it.
I know he won't, but I can hope. He's been through enough already. He's finally getting better. He doesn't need to be worrying about me getting worse.
The rest of the trip up to the house is slow (why did they add so many stairs???) but we're finally at the house. It's a fairly good reconstruction. The front wall is the only piece missing, which is why we need the door, but the rest is finished. Armando is mounted in the middle of what would be the living room. There are tracks and pulleys along the ceiling so that it can move almost anywhere in the house that it would need to go, in case of emergency. It waves to us as we walk in.
"Armando!" Grace chirps and wobbles his way over to pat Armando's headclaw. It isn't quite a head and it isn't quite a claw, so I didn't know what else to call it. "Look at you, livin' in style!"
I skitter over and give Armando a high five. I have three claws, and its smaller grabber claw has two, so high five. It chirps happily and waves at the empty wall.
"Yes, I will fix it."
Armando doesn't really speak. It chirps and whirrs and trills, but it doesn't actually make any sense. Grace says that it doesn't have the programming to communicate and that it isn't built to be intelligent, but we both know he doesn't believe that. Instead we just pretend to know what it is trying to say and fill in the gaps of the conversation. Funnily enough, it is kind of like what we were both doing when we met and couldn't understand each other's language. Maybe Armando has a language we just don't know yet.
Eventually we will find a way to move Mary in too. Grace says he wants her to stay on the ship because he wants a break from her voice, but then just yesterday he was wondering if we could build a system into the house that she could help to maintain it. Alert us of any issues, regulate temperature and gas fluctuations, pretty much all of the same stuff she did on the ship but in the house instead.
After living with two robots for almost five years, its hard not to bring them along.
"Do you like the house?" I ask Grace as we walk down the hall towards the finally finished bedroom. We had to bring a mattress from Mary because Erid isn't exactly known to be full of soft, plush things to sleep on, but it actually appears to be just like the human residences that I have studied. They did a really good job putting this together.
"It's great. A little cold. I like the windows - lets a lot of light in." Grace is half paying attention to me. That's fine. This is his home now. I let him explore it, wandering around at his side and following along in his mini-adventure. He finally starts talking again about where he is going to put things and what he would like to change. We've been here all of five minutes and he is already talking about what he wants changed. I feel a rush of warmth for my friend. That means he is getting better for real. I'm happy.
Warm. Grace said it was cold. I don't feel cold.
Uh oh.
"—for you. It's gonna be weird."
"Weird, why?" I pretend I know what he was talking about and turn to face him. It's a habit I haven't been able to kick. The other Eridians find it strange, but that's their problem. Grace looks at me and shrugs, hobbling back towards the living room. His shoulders are sinking in. He's bothered. I follow, focusing on that concern more than the way my shoulder joint is trying to seize up.
"Don't get me wrong, and no offence, but I am looking forward to sleeping on my own for the first time in ages, but it's gonna be weird."
Ah. That.
"We talked about this." I remind him quietly. "If you are uncomfortable, tell me. I will fix."
"But there's no space here for you. You'd have to stay in the suit the whole time."
Oh! That. Hah. Grace is so dumb sometimes. But he's my dumb, and I love him for it. I laugh.
"No, no, no. Here, look." I duck around Armando and tap on the big window in the living room. "This is fake window. Back of house is attached to the biodome wall. There is a room on the other side for me and Adrian to visit when you want company. Nobody else is allowed to come in this way unless Grace is trying to die, then anyone is allowed to come help. Otherwise just us."
I know that's the right response when I hear the tension vanish from Grace's shoulders. At least I can alleviate one worry.
"But you do have to suffer through me watching for at least one more night."
"Oh, how tragic." Grace laughs and starts to go back to where the door will be. I've already made the calculations I need to build it. He uses his cane to tap on the side of the wall. "Are you just delaying making me a door so I don't have to move?"
"No! Would not!" Actually. "Should. Good idea."
Short words. Warm.
Grace laughs again and says something else as he walks outside.
I don't hear it.
I get swamped under a blanket of muffled ringing so overpowering that I can't hear anything besides my claws against the floor. I try to lift a leg to tap. Can't. Can't move. Can't hear Grace.
Grace? Where's Grace? Where am I? There's no sound. I click but nothing comes out and nothing comes back to me. Am I clicking? Am I doing it right?
Something touches my carapace. It's a vague, blurry feeling. Four claws. I jerk back. Or try to. Pain radiates through my leg. I can't hear anything but I can sure feel that. Burning. Freezing. Did the suit break?
Where's Grace?
I can't hear anything. It's silent. The ship has died again. I'm lost and I'm floating and my leg hurts and I can't find Grace, it's so quiet, I can't find anyone. I've fallen out of the ship and I'm lost in space and there's nothing.
It's quiet and it's wrong and it hurts and I don't know where I am—
My claw touches something soft.
A ripple goes up my leg.
Someone is tapping. Two someones.
I can hear that. It's far away and so close and so quiet and so wrong and I hold onto that with everything I have.
Tap tap tap.
Tap tap tap.
Tap tap tap.
Gradually it gets louder. It's coming from the very top of my carapace. And one of my legs. Someone is talking. No. Screeching. Five valves all letting go at the same time. Someone is hurt. I recognize that voice. Who is that?
Oh. I'm is that.
I'm screaming.
Just as fast as it did last time, the ringing stops. The sound all floods back in a rush as sudden as it had vanished. I'm hit with a wall of noise from every direction that makes me cringe, and I force my valves still. That definitely helps with the noise.
Tap tap tap.
Grace has my leg in his hands. His heart is definitely faster than it should be. His eyes are wide and he is holding my leg as tight as his grip will allow, I realize, because I am flailing and that is the only way to stop me from hitting him. I freeze.
Armando taps the top of my carapace again.
"Rocky?"
My vents are shuddering. Slowly the sounds around me dissipate into something I can actually register. I'm not floating. I'm suspended. Armando has both arms under me and its headclaw on top, and every few seconds it taps gently against the suit. One of my legs is pinned against its frame, twisted uncomfortably which is probably why it hurts so much. The ones that Grace isn't holding are held back out of the way just because of how Armando had grabbed me. I find myself impressed at my own reinforcements of Armando's joints. I did a pretty good job if its able to hold a flailing Eridian off of the ground.
"Rocky?" Grace asks again, tapping his finger on my leg, just over Adrian's inlay.
"O——ok-ay." I manage to scrape out.
Grace narrows his eyes. I don't have the energy to argue. I tap my claw back against his arm and slowly, very slowly, Armando lets me back onto the floor. I just sink down against it, valves wheezing. Grace follows and sits down beside me, wrapping his arms around me in a proper hug. I hold his arm in my claw, listening to the scar underneath it.
"Gr—ace?"
"Yeah, buddy, I'm right here."
I shift my legs into a less painful position and whine.
"Something… wrong."
Grace pulls out of the hug and stares at me. Then he scowls.
"Yeah, y'think?"