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Three years.
Ryland Grace has spent three years aboard the Mary, hurtling through the stars towards Erid. The journey is beginning to take its toll on him. The food supplies have had to be rationed more carefully as the months have passed, leaving Grace thinner and weaker than he was when they first left Tau Ceti. He tires more easily now. Some days, he struggles to find the energy even to get up and check the Taumoeba stores. He's trying his best to live with it, but it’s only getting harder each day. If he was alone, Grace knows he would have given up long before now.
But he’s not alone. He has Rocky.
For three years, they've had each other.
They've talked until there was nothing left to talk about, then somehow found more. Grace has made it his mission to immerse Rocky in human culture. They’ve spent countless hours in the screen room, with Grace explaining at length why Apollo 13 is one of the few space films he can actually tolerate, and why The Princess Bride is objectively one of the greatest movies ever made. Rocky's favourite is The Martian, although Grace suspects that's mostly because it contains an abundance of problems for him to solve. They watched Star Wars once before Rocky decided that the physics of lightsabers were [stupid stupid]. Grace still maintains that this is beside the point. “Ever heard of suspension of disbelief, Rock?”
They've argued about whether Die Hard counts as a Christmas film, once Grace had explained the concept of Christmas (Grace no, Rocky yes), whether dinosaurs would actually make good pets (they eventually agreed on yes, if it was a herbivore and half the usual size).
Rocky has developed a particular fondness for Earth music, too, although his taste is impossible to predict. He likes the rhythmic stuff best, especially anything with a strong bass line, and once spent three days trying to reproduce the opening beat of a song using pieces of xenonite and a wrench. Grace has yet to decide if it was impressive or deeply irritating. At some point, it stopped being a way to distract from the hunger and pass the time. It became their normal.
Rocky has listened to Grace ramble on and on about ‘strange and idiotic’ Earth activities [...Humans jump out of flying machines for fun, question?] — and Grace has learned enough Eridian to understand the strange little sounds Rocky makes when he's amused, annoyed, worried, or trying very hard not to admit that he's worried.
Somewhere along the way, the Hail Mary has stopped feeling like a prison and started to feel like a haven. Lately, Grace has found himself wishing the journey would last a little longer.
Grace is lying in a nest of blankets, curled up next to the xenonite barrier that bisects his sleeping quarters. He’d drifted off only a few hours earlier, but it turns out that trying to stay asleep with hunger pangs is a near-impossible task. Starvation could be a real pain in the ass sometimes.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees movement through the xenonite.
“Hey, Rock. You awake?”
[No. Am sleeping.]
Rocky is sitting opposite him, contently curled up in a not-so-little ball. His heavy stone carapace rests against the wall, completely relaxed. In the gentle blue glow of the ship’s night lights, his rough features look almost soft. He’s been working on a project, Grace can tell— his xenonite ‘knitting needles’ are resting beside him— he must have become distracted somewhere along the line. The word cute crosses his mind. Grace very deliberately ignores it.
Grace looks at him flatly through the barrier. He knows that Rocky can hear the expression.
“You’re such a liar.”
Rocky gives a soft, mock-offended chirp, and sticks a limb out to point at the ship’s clock, which reads 0200. It’s a gesture that’s only for Grace’s benefit; Rocky can’t see the numbers on the screen. He doesn't need to. His crystalite brain keeps track of the time just as well as Mary does.
Rocky punctuates his point with a disapproving click. [You’ve only been asleep for four hours. Only halfway through sleep cycle.]
Ah. Rocky's been growing more protective of him lately. Grace had tried to play down the exhaustion, not wanting Rocky to worry about something he couldn't fix, but Rocky was far too perceptive for that. As Grace continued to lose weight, the cold of the Mary left him shivering more often, until Rocky suggested he sleep beside the barrier and use his carapace for warmth. In the end, it had been an easy decision.
The sleeping arrangement should feel routine by now; they've done this hundreds of times. Despite this, Grace finds himself staring up at the ceiling, unable to calm his thoughts.
Sitting next to him, Rocky shifts behind the barrier.
[Go back to sleep, Grace. You need it.] Pause. [Or will be more stupid than usual tomorrow.]
Grace ignores the jab; they both know there’s no cruelty in it now. The Mary hums around them, a constant. Sleep lingers in front of him, just out of reach. “I don’t think I can just yet, pal.”
Rocky lets out a frustrated rumble. Grace chuckles softly as he feels its vibrations through the xenonite. Rocky is not as amused.
[Grace. Is important you rest. Unhealthy to interrupt sleep.] There’s a pause. Grace turns his head to see Rocky fidgeting two claws together.
[Am worried about you, Grace.]
Grace tries to shake off the guilt that washes over him. He knows Rocky has been worried; he’s seen it in the way Rocky has thrown himself into finding a substitute for Grace’s rapidly dwindling supply of coma slurry. Rocky has always been more of a show-don’t-tell kind of guy, so hearing him actually say it aloud is unusual.
“I’m fine, buddy. I won’t even get out of bed, I promise. I just want to chat to you for a bit. Please.”
Rocky stops fidgeting to tilt his carapace at Grace. It’s clear he’s not entirely convinced by Grace’s protests, but he lets it go anyway.
[Fine. What do you want to talk about, question?]
Grace starts to ramble.
He tells Rocky about San Francisco, about the fog rolling over the Bay and how he'd complain about it every morning even though he'd secretly liked it. He tells him about his kids—the ones who drove him insane, the ones who stayed behind after class to ask questions, and how they were often the same kids. He likes to imagine they're scientists now, he says, doing the kind of work that might actually save the world. Work Grace never got the chance to do. Rocky listens patiently, as he always does, though Grace knows he's probably heard half these stories before, courtesy of his leaky old brain. He drifts into talking about ordinary things he'd never thought he'd miss—the smell of coffee, rain against the windows of his tiny apartment, his weekly dinners with Marissa.
“Human beings are weird about affection,” Grace says. “Sometimes you don't even have to be talking. You can just sit next to someone. Hold their hand. Fall asleep next to them.”
Rocky makes an interested sound.
“It's not even necessarily romantic.”
A pause. Grace reconsiders.
“Sometimes it is.” He recalls his stilted date nights with Linda, and the quiet expectation that came at the end of them. A kiss, because that was what you did. Affection because it was expected of him, rather than because he particularly wanted it.
“Sometimes you kiss someone.”
The words were barely out of his mouth before he wanted to snatch them back.
There’s silence from the other side of the wall.
Grace scrambles to recover. “You know. If you like them.”
More silence.
He chuckles awkwardly. ”That’s a weird human thing. I’m sure you don't do that with Adrian, huh, pal?”
Rocky is quiet for a moment.
[No. Did not.]
Grace resists the urge to stick his foot in his mouth. He’d managed to accidentally taunt Rocky with the mate who might have moved on from him decades ago. If they were even still alive. Nice going, dummy.
“I’m sorry, Rock. It was crappy of me to mention them. You must miss Adrian a lot, buddy.”
He responds with a note of dissent. [Don’t be sorry. Is not the reason for sadness.]
Grace waits for Rocky to continue, to clarify what the hell he meant by that, but the silence between them persists.
He takes in Rocky's glum demeanour - he’s memorised the meanings of Eridian body language by now. Or one Eridian’s, at least.
“What’s up, pal?”
[Nothing is up.]
“You're staring.”
[Have no eyes. Cannot stare.]
Grace raises an eyebrow. “You know that’s not true. You’re Starey McStareface– eyes or no eyes.”
[So are you.]
His face flushes. “I'm not.”
[You are.]
Grace looks away, taking in a slow breath, basking in the soothing warmth coming through the wall. If he closes his eyes and pretends hard enough, he can almost make himself believe he’s lying next to another human.
He hadn’t realised how much he’d missed the sensation of simply feeling another person’s warmth next to him. He was never one to be overly affectionate back on Earth, but now he finds himself missing simple touch more than anything. Now that he’s started reminiscing, he can’t seem to stop. He rambles on to Rocky about stupid human things—handshakes, hugs, simply sitting next to someone on the couch, content to do nothing together.
He pictures a lazy Saturday back on Earth, relaxing on the couch on the rare afternoon when there’s nothing better to do; tries to imagine who he’d want next to him on that couch. Rocky is the only person who comes to mind. Grace would like to pretend that’s because he doesn’t remember anyone else– a product of his screwed-up memories, courtesy of Stratt. He knows better.
Rocky makes a concerned noise. [Okay, Grace?]
Shoot. He’d stopped speaking. That probably hadn’t lessened Rocky’s concern. “...I didn't realise how much humans touched each other.”
An understanding hum. [You miss it?]
“Sometimes.” A pause. “More than sometimes.”
Rocky is quiet for a moment.
[Wish I could touch you.]
Grace stops breathing. For one horrible, wonderful second, he lets himself imagine it. Rocky's claws against his skin. No xenonite. No gloves. No careful distance.
His thoughts turn abruptly to Adrian, and the warmth of the moment sours into guilt.
Grace shuts the thought down so quickly it almost hurts.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “Me too.”
There’s too much space between them. It's still not enough.
The temptation to break through the xenonite and feel Rocky’s claws on him remained. It would hurt like hell, he thinks, but it’d be worth it. He’d have a second claw-print scar to match his first. He tries not to think too hard about the way that thought makes his breath catch.
Things would be different between them, Grace thinks, if he'd been born Eridian. If he’d hatched on Erid back when Rocky had, hundreds of years ago, would they still have become best friends? If Rocky’d had other members of his species to talk to, other options, would he want to know Grace at all?
He pictures Rocky as a human— two legs, two eyes; the whole package. He’d still be a talented engineer, of course. Grace can’t imagine a world where Rocky isn’t one of the smartest minds on the planet.
Maybe Stratt would have recruited him, too. They‘d have met at the facility in Baikonur, maybe even grown close, until Stratt shipped him off into the emptiness of space. There’d be no Eridian to help him at Tau Ceti, that time. He would’ve died alone on the Mary.
He turns to Rocky. “Do you ever think about what things would've been like if we'd met somewhere else?”
Rocky tilts his carapace in question. [Different place?]
“Yeah. Somewhere we weren't the only two people left.”
Rocky is quiet for a moment. [Would have looked for you. Would find each other again.]
Grace stares; the bluntness of Rocky’s reply has knocked the wind out of him. “You can’t– you don't know that.”
[I know.]
“That's not how hypotheticals work, bud.”
Rocky gives a soft chirp. [Still know.]
Grace is shaken. Rocky says it like it’s a true, irrefutable fact; something that cannot be denied. Like gravity. Like death. Like something that had always been inevitable.
It goes against everything Grace has ever believed about fate, about predetermination, about a higher power.
Despite everything, he almost believes it.
“You really think that?”
Rocky gives a quiet, certain trill. [Yes.]
Grace smiles despite himself. He’s feeling a little playful now. He can’t resist the urge to tease Rocky: “Even if we'd had other people? Other friends? Other choices?”
Rocky goes quiet.
For the first time, Grace notices that the attention isn't on him anymore. Rocky’s carapace has turned slightly towards the floor, one claw worrying absently at the edge of a xenonite knitting needle.
[Maybe.]
The certainty is gone. Grace's smile fades.
“…Rock?”
[Is different now.]
“What is?”
Rocky doesn't answer immediately.
[Here, there is only you.]
At this, Grace's stomach drops. “Rock, what do you mean by that? I was only teasing. You know I think we'd be friends in any universe.”
Rocky lets out a flat, whistling noise. Grace recognises it– the Eridian equivalent of a dejected sigh.
[Sometimes I think you only need me because there is nobody else.]
That devastates Grace. “That's not true.”
[How do you know, question?]
Grace opens his mouth to reply, but the words die in his throat. He knows that every answer that comes to mind would lead them somewhere he isn’t sure he can go.
Rocky seems unsurprised at Grace’s lack of response.
[Grace. Know I tease about you being stupid and leaky. Is not true. You are smart. You are capable. Bravest person I have ever met.]
Grace sucks in a sharp breath. He hasn’t told Rocky about the real reason he found himself at Tau Ceti, what happened at the compound that day; he’s terrified Rocky will hate him for it. It’s just another bullet point to tack onto the end of his long list of his cowardice.
“Rocky. I appreciate what you’re trying to say, but you’re wrong about me.”
An angry trill of notes comes from beside him. [Am not wrong. Know I do not know everything. Do not care. Know you are good person. Saved me. Saved Earth. Saved Erid.]
For a being without eyes, Rocky is extraordinarily observant—not that Grace was ever under the impression otherwise. Somewhere along the line, he’d figured out that Grace had remembered something he hadn’t told him. Grace sees that knowledge in every nightmare he chokes awake from, waking to find Rocky soothing him from the xenonite dome above his bunk, softly singing is okay, you are here now, is alright. Rocky knows there is something Grace hasn't told him. He still believes Grace is a good person.
Grace is desperate to correct him, but he knows that Rocky will simply refuse to acknowledge his protests. Stubborn bastard.
“...Fine. Let's agree to disagree. But what does that have to do with this? With you thinking I only need you because I'm stuck here?”
[You are reliant on me.] Before Grace can try to voice his protest at this, Rocky continues. [Not because you are incapable.]
There’s an almost-shuddering whistle through his vents.
[When we arrive on Erid, you’ll have no food, no water, no shelter. Your survival depends on me talking to others. Asking them for help. Advocating for you. Could lie. Tell them you are evil space monster. Leave you on Mary.]
Yeah, like that would ever happen. Grace raises his eyebrows.
[Would never harm Grace. But. You cannot be sure of this.]
“Of course I know you’d never do that to me, Rock.” The accusation stings— the idea that Grace might genuinely believe Rocky would abandon him feels almost insulting. “After everything we’ve been through, do you really believe I’d think that about you?”
[No. Do not, but– cannot be sure. Am weird space alien. Like E.T. But cannot read minds.]
“…E.T can’t read minds, either.”
Rocky ignores this. [Am terrified that you would feel… obligated. If something changes. If we–] he cuts himself off.
[Know you think I am wrong about this. Hope I am. But you are the most important person in my life and–] He cuts off with a low keen. [I cannot do that to you, Grace. Cannot put you in that position. ]
Grace wants to cry. To punch, to kick, to claw at the wall between them and tell Rocky that he's wrong, he would never– Grace knows Rocky would never, the same way he knows his own heartbeat in his chest. He doesn’t. It would make him a hypocrite.
Sometimes when he looks at Rocky, tinkering with his tools in the lab, or sleeping curled up in his ball, he can't help but feel exactly the same way. He’s terrified that Rocky feels the same way about him—that their attachment is borne simply from necessity. After countless lessons about Eridian culture, Grace knows well that Eridians are a very sociable species. Forty-six years alone with no one but the dead bodies of your crewmates for company would make anyone vulnerable to that kind of attachment. Maybe Rocky had simply latched onto the first being he'd seen—leaky blob alien or not.
They’d worked together well on the Astrophage problem, yes– but that had been a life or death situation; quite literally the end of the world. When they got to Erid, everything would be different. Rocky would be among his own people again, worshipped as a hero. He'd get to not only speak his own language, outside of the pidgin he had adopted for Grace’s benefit, but have it spoken back to him as well. He’d be able to breathe in his own atmosphere– no suit or life-support systems needed.
Rocky would be with Adrian. His mate.
He wouldn't need Grace to talk to anymore. Grace would spend his days in a biodome on Erid if he was lucky, or stuck drifting above them in the Mary, if he wasn’t.
If he was being honest with himself, Grace had stopped caring what would happen to him, physically, a long time ago. His main objective for the last three years had been taking Rocky home. He deserved to be among his own people again; Grace’s own wellbeing mattered little in comparison.
But, still. Grace is selfish. The thought of Rocky moving on with his life, forgetting about him, makes him want to turn the ship around and sail as far away from Erid as they could get until he eventually succumbs to starvation.
The excitement he had once felt at the prospect of getting to Erid has been replaced by dread.
Grace doesn’t say this out loud. He thinks that Rocky might already know.
Grace slowly raises his palm to rest against the xenonite.
Silently, Rocky raises a claw and places it opposite.
He traces the shape of Rocky's claw with his fingertip, shuddering a deep breath. Grace thinks about Rocky on Erid, long before he had set off for Tau Ceti. Had he done this with Adrian? Lay down in the home they shared and placed their claws together when they needed comfort? Heck, do Eridians even like this, or is this just another example of Rocky just putting up with weird human neediness for Grace’s sake? He’s torn between needing to know, and dreading to hear the answer.
[What are you doing, question?]
Grace snaps out of his spiralling thoughts. He pauses his movements, one finger still resting on the clear xenonite. “Huh?”
Rocky taps the wall gently with a claw. [Finger is drawing. Not a circle. New shape.]
Rocky has seen him fidget at the desk in the lab enough to know that he likes to trace circles into the nearest surface when he’s thinking hard about something. It wasn’t the same motion he had been making just now. No, Grace had been absentmindedly tracing– a heart. He chokes.
“I– it’s a heart, Rock. I was tracing a heart.”
Rocky makes a curious chirp. [Like pump-organ, question?]
“Sort of.” Grace considers taking the easy way out, leaving the explanation at that, but he can’t quite bring himself to do it. Taking a breath, he continues.
“That’s what it was originally meant to represent, but it’s become more like… a symbol. New word. Something that represents a concept.”
[Heart represents what concept, question?]
“Love. It represents love.”
[Love?]
“Yeah.”
Rocky tilts his carapace slightly. [What kind of love?]
Grace looks at him. “What?”
[You said heart represents love. Humans have different kinds?]
“Yeah. Family. Friends. Romantic love.”
Rocky's claw remains resting against the xenonite. [Which kind is heart?]
Grace's mouth goes dry.
“It depends.”
[On what?]
Grace looks down at his fingertip. He hadn't meant to draw a heart. Not consciously, anyway. “The person you're thinking about, I guess.”
Grace turns to Rocky, half-expecting the inevitable follow-up question. It doesn't come. Maybe Rocky already knows the answer.
They remain like that for a while, neither quite ready to break the moment nor willing to move away from it. The Mary hums quietly around them, filling the silence with the familiar sounds of the ship, but neither of them feels any need to speak. For once, Grace doesn't feel the need to fill the silence, and Rocky seems perfectly content to simply sit beside him.
Grace stares at the barrier, watching the lights ripple across the xenonite in soft, shifting patterns, like sunlight filtering through water. He doesn't take any comfort in it. The only thing he can bring himself to feel towards the barrier is a deep frustration.
Grace huffs a sigh. “It's stupid.”
He gets a questioning chirp in response.
“That we're so close.” Grace looks at the barrier. “And this thing is still between us. I know why it’s needed.” He pauses, taps one finger against the wall. “I still wish it wasn't here, sometimes.”
There’s a silence, and then–
[Sometimes I am glad it is.]
Well, that hurts. Grace turns sharply to look at him, ignoring the nausea clawing in his stomach. “You are? Why?”
He feels all of Rocky’s attention on him through the xenonite.
[Because I do not know what I would do if it wasn't.]
Oh, God. Joy and dread hit him at once, so tangled together he can't tell which one is worse. His whole body goes rigid, his heart pounding so hard he feels his ribs shake. He wants to answer him immediately, wants to say yes, me too, but the words won’t come. The reality of it feels almost unbearable.
He says nothing.
Neither makes any attempt to move for several seconds.
Mustering up all his courage, Grace leans closer. Rocky does the same; their faces slowly meeting against opposite sides of the barrier. Grace closes his eyes. He could practically kiss the xenonite between them. It’s almost too much.
He feels a warm, gentle pressure against his cheek. He doesn’t have to open his eyes to know that Rocky's claw is dragging carefully over his face.
Grace releases a shaky breath. “Rock...”
[Grace.]
“If I did something stupid right now...”
A pause. [Would not think it was stupid.]
Grace opens his eyes. The claw against his face stops moving.
They stare at each other. Both stuck in a stalemate.
Grace sighs. “Yeah. That's the problem.”
He waits.
Rocky doesn't move his claw. Neither does Grace.
The distance between them is nothing. A few centimetres of xenonite. A sheet of material designed to keep them both alive.
Grace has never hated it more.
“You know what I mean,” he whispers.
Rocky is quiet. [Yes.]
Grace swallows. “And you know why I can't.”
Another pause. [Yes.]
“Okay.”
[Okay.]
They lie there in silence. Their hands are pressed so tightly against the xenonite that Grace can almost feel the divots of Rocky’s hard claws through the barrier.
“We're idiots, aren't we?”
Rocky gives a soft warble. It’s not a happy sound.
[Yes.]
Grace laughs quietly, though his eyes sting.
“So we’re in agreement on that. That's... something, I guess.”
[Is enough for tonight.]
Rocky’s claw remains pressed against the xenonite.
Grace keeps his eyes closed.
He hears Rocky move.
The faint scrape of his carapace against the floor. The soft tap of a claw against xenonite.
Grace doesn't open his eyes. A moment later, warmth settles against his hand. He knows Rocky is touching the other side of the barrier.
Grace curls his fingers slightly. He doesn't touch back. Not quite.
Neither of them says anything.
The Hail Mary sails onwards.