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I've been summoned to Grace's bio-dome for a multitude of reasons in the past few years. But today is different. I feel it in my entire body, a sinking feeling of dread, snaking its way around every one of my limbs as I rush through the airlock.
His care team couldn't tell me anything over the phone, just that speed was off the essence.
When I step through the door to his home, everything crystallizes, the usual noise emanating through the entire structure of his house is quiet, way too quiet.
I skitter up to the bedroom, afraid of what I'll find and upon entry, all my worst fears are immediately proven right. Grace, my Grace, is lying in his bed, a withered husk of who he used to be. He's surrounded by his care team, all working in a frenzy. This must be bad.
"What happened? What's wrong with him?" I blurt out, song sounding shrill even to my own receptors.
"Oh… Savior Rocky, you're here already?" One of the doctors asks.
"Yes of course, you told me to hurry, so I hurried." I snark back, it comes out harsh, much harsher than I intended. But who could blame me.
"Rocky… is that… you?" Comes a hoarse voice from the tall bed. Grace.
I push past the three eridians by his bedside and tell them to leave us alone. They try to argue but after a moment comply.
"Yes, my Grace it's me. What happened, are you alright?" I reach for his hand, squeezing it gently. He feels cold against my carapace, much colder than usual.
"I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry…" Grace's voice catches in his throat and he coughs.
"Why do you apologize? You've done nothing wrong." I say, panic snaking its way into my vocals.
In response Grace only looks at me, eyes blurry with a rush of tears. He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and again I notice the way his vitals sound muffled today.
"I'm dying Rock. That's why I'm apologizing. I promised you to never leave you again, to be by your side forever, but my body's giving up on me, has been for a while, really. I just didn't want to ruin the last few years with you." He looks away, tears breaking surface tension and rolling down his hollowed out cheeks.
This can't be, no, no, no, I can't let this happen. "What? No— there must be a cure, whatever illness you've somehow contracted, we'll fix it! I'll fix it!"
"Oh Rocky… c'mere." He grabs the limb holding onto his hand, signaling for me to lay beside him on the bed. I comply, settling near his head and stoking over his thinning hair.
"There's nothing to fix, I'm not sick, just old… I'm really sorry Rock, but this isn't something you can fix." He echoes the words he uttered once, in a different conversation, many many years ago, as he explained to me why my crew died, why there was nothing I could have done to help them. It's a pang to the carapace, reminding me that—just like years ago— I am once again helpless against life's many turmoils.
Of course, I’ve always known this day would come eventually, as soon as Grace told me about his species' pitiful lifespan. I thought I was prepared, I'd hoped it was farther away, a few more years at least.
It's not, I can hear that clearly now. The shallow breathing coupled with a faint rattling and the way his heart beats slower, weaker, gives it away.
Eridians can't cry, not in the human sense, but if they could, I would be sobbing right now. Grace knows this, sees the way my limbs shake and the wobbly tone my voice has taken on, so he wraps me in a loose hug. Maybe it's the most strength he can muster right now.
After a little while of holding me, he whispers something into the top of the xenonite suit. Quietly, like it's a secret only meant for me, and me alone.
"I've always loved you, y'know…"
I freeze, I feel like I'm falling, weight— and senseless again, crushed to the ground by one simple sentence. By one realization. This can't be true, he's joking surely. A cruel, horrible joke, but a joke nonetheless.
"You don't mean that." Is what I answer, tightening my hold on his back. I wish I could keep holding him, until every star burns out into oblivion, taking everything with it. Turning us into stardust so we could finally, truly be united, physically interwoven to a point nothing and nobody could ever hope to separate us again.
Grace chuckles, but there's no humor behind it. "I wish I didn't, but I do. I mean… every word. You don't have to say anything or y'know reciprocate, god you probably don't even feel the same way, but I just— I can't take that to the grave with me… it's selfish I know… I'm sorry."
I feel like a rug has been pulled out under my limbs. All this time, all these years I waited, told myself if he felt the same way he'd tell me. All these years spent orbiting each other, always from a safe distance as to not break any boundaries, it could have been different, we could have been one.
We could have been one.
Had I just said something, why did I wait? Why didn't I say anything? I know why… I knew Grace's situation, the reality, that I was the only person who could understand him, could vouch and advocate for him. It was a difficult decision, to not confess, but it was the most ethical choice.
I was the one in control in a position of power, I didn't want to pressure him into being with me against his will, for fearing he'd lose his only friend on an alien planet. So I was willing to wait. To take what he chose to give me, never asking for more, making peace with the reality that he just didn't return the kind of affection I held for him.
Only it's not true, he does, he did. All this time he did. He's loved me the same way I've loved him, for all this time and never told me.
"I do. I've loved you from the moment I heard your presence in the cold, dark void that is space." My song comes out wobbly and I feel him slipping out of my grasp, no matter how hard I hold onto him.
He gasps out an 'Oh', so quiet I almost don't catch it. "Man, I really messed that up, didn't I?" More tears slip off his lashes. I don't know what to do with myself, the world has narrowed to this very room, to the love of my life dying in my arms.
Fate sure is cruel, to let me know what it's like to hold him without restraint, without distance. The truth settling quietly over us like a blanket, only for death to rip it all away from me, to keep me longing for this—for him— for the rest of my life. So the only comfort I'll ever know is the embrace of soft fleshy arms I'll never get to feel again.
"You didn't, at least we can spend these last moments together like this." I say, pressing my carapace into his chest. I can feel his heartbeat like this, once strong it's now merely a faint, fleeting melody. He presses a gentle kiss to my vents and I feel all of my hearts break in unison. I trace a claw down his cheek, trying to commit every bit of him to memory.
Eridians have next to no spacial memory, which means, when we leave a room we can't recall what it looks like at all. By that same logic, once Grace is gone, buried somewhere in his bio-dome I won't be able to recall his face. I'll never see the fond crinkling of his eyes again, or the way he looks when he smiles, sleeps, laughs, cries, does anything at all.
I feel like throwing up.
"Do you think in another life… we figured it all out sooner?"
I let myself imagine another reality, one where we too met at Tau Ceti, saved each other's lives and the Taumeoba evolved to escape xenonite. Grace would have turned around for me, even though he knew, he wouldn't be able to survive on Erid because of a lack of food and our incompatible atmospheres.
But it wouldn't have mattered to him, as long as I would have been able to live. Maybe on our long journey home, we would have found ourselves helplessly captivated with one another too, but instead of pushing those feelings away and only allowing them in secret, we would have laid ourselves bare for the other. Closed the distance and became one, closer than any two people could ever be.
All I've yearned for over the years could have come true, the casual touches, intimate moments, living together for the rest of his short life, all of it. I feel it in my insides so clearly. I can almost fool myself into hearing a second, newer engraving just below my existing mate mark. Our love forever catalogued on my skin, the same way it is his.
I imagine a life without unspoken truths, without restraint and my hearts ache at all that could have been, all that will never be.
"Maybe, if reincarnation truly exists, I hope I'll find you in every single one of our lifetimes, and I hope that next time, I'll get to keep you for longer, my star." Only after I utter the words, do I notice the silence which fills the room.
The eternal noise Grace's body makes, regardless of the hour or if he's awake, is gone. I shake him gently in my grasp, but get no answer, instead his limp hands slip off my carapace and fall to his side.
Lifeless.