Chapter Text
Children were never easy.
Ryland Grace unbuttoned the top of his collar, sighing with the exhaustion that always came after teaching a room full of Eridian children. Lovingly dubbed "pebbles" due to their small, rock-hard carapaces and tendency to scuttle over every available surface, the young Eridians were brilliant, but keeping a dozen of them focused on basic terrestrial physics was a workout.
He expected the dome to be empty. Simon was out in the lower caverns, working alongside Rocky and a team of Eridian engineers on a geothermal irrigation project for the newly imported terrestrial crops. He wasn't supposed to be back for hours.
But as Grace reached his own front door, he froze. Something was off.
It wasn't a sight at first, but a sound. A quiet, rhythmic thump-thump-thump echoed from the kitchen area, followed by a sharp, metallic scuffle.
Grace froze, his muscles locking tight. Someone or Something was in his house.
The biodome was entirely sealed. No one could get in without cycling the main airlock, and there had been no chime. Adrian and Rocky knew better than to just let themselves in while he or Simon weren't home, and any other Eridian, usually a researcher, had to make appointments and give notice. and yet, That was definitely the sound of footsteps he'd heard.
He grabbed a heavy metal wrench from a tool kit resting on a nearby bench, one of Simon's, holding it tight against his thigh as he slowly pressed the door open. He crept forward, his heart hammering against his ribs, keeping his steps entirely silent and carefully avoiding that one spot that creaked a little. He peeked around the corner of the breakfast bar, weapon raised, ready to defend his home from whatever had found its way in an...froze.
His breath caught in his throat. The wrench slipped an inch in his grasp.
Sitting on the floor near the kitchen cabinet, huddled under the shadow of the counter, was a child. A human child.
Grace blinked, rubbing his eyes with his free hand, wondering briefly if he was hallucinating from exhaustion. The boy looked to be no older than nine or ten, wearing an oversized, coarse gray tunic that looked somehow familiar in its rough, utilitarian stitching. He was curled into a tight ball, his knees pulled up to his chest, trembling so violently that his small boots were hitting the cabinet doors. He was staring around at the sterile, modern lines of the biodome with wide, utterly terrified eyes.
"Hey there," Grace said softly. Realizing he was still holding a massive wrench, he quickly set it down on the counter and dropped to one knee to make himself look smaller and less threatening. His mind was still screaming with impossible questions, but his teacher instincts took over the panic. "It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you."
The boy flinched at the sound of English, shrinking back until his spine hit the cabinet. He didn't speak. He just shivered, clutching at the fabric of his oversized sleeves, looking at Grace as if expecting a blow.
"Can you understand me?" Grace asked, keeping his voice steady, warm, and low. "My name is Grace. You're safe here. Are you hungry?"
The child swallowed hard, his gaze shifting up to the counter where a fresh loaf of bread sat, a recent test that had turned out remarkably well. He gave a microscopic nod.
Grace smiled gently, moving slowly so as not to startle him. He cut a thick slice of bread, spreading a little eridian-fruit jam on it, and placed the plate on the floor halfway between them. Then, he slid back to give the boy space.
For a long moment, the child didn't move. Then, driven by a hollow, desperate hunger, he lunged forward, snatched the bread, and retreated back to his corner, eating it in frantic, messy bites. He watched Grace the entire time, hyper-vigilant, like a stray animal that had spent its short life avoiding boots and stones.
As Grace watched him eat, a strange sense of unease settled in his chest. There was something hauntingly familiar about the structure of the boy's jaw, the deep, dark ring of his eyes, and the quiet, defensive hunch of his shoulders. But Grace brushed the thought aside. The child finished the last crumbs of the jam-covered bread, licking his sticky fingers with desperate intensity. The sugar from the Eridian-fruit jam—a safe, sweet hybrid Simon had helped cultivate—seemed to do wonders for the boy's frayed nerves. His tiny shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch, though his dark, wide eyes never left Grace.
"Good, right?" Grace said softly, keeping his voice at the same soothing pitch he used when a pebble got scared by a loud physics demonstration. "We have plenty more. You don't have to worry about running out."
Grace slowly, deliberately began to straighten his legs. He kept his hands open and out where the boy could see them, moving with the exaggerated slowness of someone trying not to spook a deer. "I'm just going to stand up now, okay? I'm going to grab my computer from the counter over there. I'm not going anywhere."
The boy tensed, his eyes tracking Grace's upward movement, but he didn't bolt.
Grace reached the counter and pulled his laptop toward him. His fingers flew across the keyboard. He needed to find out how this was physically possible. This boy was human. Visually, at least, he looked identical to a human child in every way. He understood English. Grace was almost entirely certain of it, but the scientist in him knew he should probably run a few non-invasive scans—check his DNA, check his vitals. But looking at the raw terror radiating from the tiny frame, Grace immediately shelved the thought. He wasn't going to subject a traumatized kid to medical equipment yet.
Instead, he quickly fired off an urgent message to Adrian and the rest of the main Biodome security team: Check the perimeter logs immediately. Did we have an atmospheric breach or an unrecognized transport arrive? I have a situation at my quarters.
Next, he pinged his husband. Simon, can you come back to the dome? Right now.
Setting the laptop down, Grace leaned against the counter, keeping a comfortable distance. "Hey," he murmured gently. "Can you tell me your name? It's okay if you don't want to, but I'd love to know what to call you."
The boy looked down at his own dirt-streaked knees, twisting the hem of his oversized tunic. For a long time, the only sound was the faint hum of the biodome’s life support. Then, in a voice so quiet it was barely a whisper, he spoke.
"Simon."
Grace blinked. He let out a soft, startled chuckle. "Simon? Wow. That's... that's an odd coincidence. I know—"
Before Grace could finish his sentence, the main airlock chime cut him off, followed immediately by the heavy hiss of the pressure door flying open. Simon had skipped even removing his atmosphere suit, only taking off the outer xenonite shell. He'd come running the moment he received Grace's message.
"Grace! Sunshine, are you okay?!" Simon’s voice echoed up the beach, edged with panic.
"I'm okay, Starlight," Grace said quickly, putting up a hand to soothe him. "I'm perfectly fine, I promise. But look."
Grace gestured softly toward the kitchen cabinet.
Simon turned his head, his breathing ragged as he pulled Grace towards him, and then he froze. Every ounce of color drained from his face.
The little boy in the tunic shrank back into the corner at the sudden noise, staring up at the tall, heavily scarred man who had just burst into the room.
Simon didn't say a word. He couldn't. He stared at the child—at the exact shape of the jaw, the specific, defensive hunch of the shoulders, the trembling fingers wrapped around a pendant like it would protect him from whatever was happening. It was him. It was him, long before the blackness of the blood ocean, long before filament station, before he had ever been branded a convict or known as the butcher. It was a version of himself that shouldn't exist, from a time that had been swallowed by history.
"Starlight? Si?" Grace asked quietly, looking between his husband and the boy, noticing Simon’s total paralysis. "Are you alright?"
Simon forced his eyes away from his younger self, locking his gaze onto Grace. He swallowed the absolute impossibility of what he was seeing. He knew they couldn't talk about this right now. Not in front of the kid. The explanations, the truth—he would have to tell Grace later, when they were entirely alone.
"Yeah," Simon managed to mumble out, his voice hoarse as he deliberately stepped into a position that shielded the boy's view of his scarred face and prosthetic arm. "Yeah, Sunshine. I'm... I'm alright. Just surprised. Rocky will be here soon, we need to figure out what to do with him."
Grace looked back at the terrified little boy, and a strange, overwhelming wave of tenderness washed over him. Back on Earth, Ryland Grace had been a schoolteacher who loved his students, but he had never really considered adopting or having children of his own. The idea of fatherhood had felt entirely detached from his life. But then again, back on Earth, he had never imagined himself married, living on an alien planet, deeply in love.
Looking at this child, named Simon, who was clearly lost, starving, and terrified, Grace felt a profound, soft-hearted pull in his chest. If no one was looking for him... if he truly had nowhere else to go...