Chapter Text
"I just think it might be overkill," Grace grumbled, awkwardly testing out his range of motion. It was, admittedly, the best thing Rocky could come up with on short notice, and it is a work of art. But the point still stood.
"Is not overkill. Nothing will overkill you if you wear suit. Not want die, question? Wear suit."
"Bossy," Grace complained.
"Complain when you still alive," Rocky balled up a fist at him, even shaking it slightly. He looked like he was about to Grace to get off his lawn. Despite the seriousness of their oncoming situation, a Grace couldn't help but laugh.
He was wearing his EVA suit, and at Rocky's unending insistence, a thicker, clumsier version of a xenonite suit on top of it. He put up a big fuss about it, but really, Grace was just touched that Rocky cared about his safety so much. It'd make the retrieval of their sample ball that much harder, but at least it was puncture proof.
Rocky also had extra safety measures at Grace's insistence. The both of them were a bunch of worrywarts for each other, but Grace couldn't say he was that upset about it. Rocky had his ball firmly wedged in a little crook in a bent section of his tunnels—he was able to hear Grace's controls with his nifty little screen reader even from that far away! Inside the tunnels and inside the ball—both of them were doubly protected. He just hoped they got to complain about how much time they wasted rather than thanking the heavens they worried more than they should've.
But it was time go, now.
"Ready?" he asked nervously.
"Ready," confirmed Rocky.
It was lucky he was wearing gloves—his palms were slick with nervous sweat. He gripped the throttle for dear life. Everything was going well.
Until it wasn't.
Adrian was beautiful, Grace knew that. But it was deadly. The gravitational pull ripped a hole in one of their fuel bays, and Grace only just made it inside before one of them popped off with a horribly loud explosion. The metal of the Hail Mary screamed, and Grace could barely hear Rocky's thunderingly loud wails from where he sat.
They were dragging—falling. No matter how hard he pulled on the throttle, the Mary just couldn't get up. His fingers stretched to reach the eject button. The xenonite suit made his movements slow and clumsy. If he could just push that... if he could just eject the fuel bay...!
His eyes were going to pop out of his head. His brain was going to melt out of his ears—the force pushing on him was way too much, too heavy, too much like hands against his neck and shoulders—
But he didn't have to think about that for too long. As soon as he heard another pop, Grace was out like a light.
***
When he woke, the first thing Grace noticed was that his arm had fallen asleep pretty darn good. He tried to groggily move his other one, but it was trapped underneath his blankets. He wriggled around, trying to reintroduce some blood flow back into his limbs. He slumped downward.
?
Gravity was... pulling at his head. Upside down.
Grace couldn't quite manage to get his eyes wide open before he went back under. But he did see green. Quite a lot of it.
Hmm... there wasn't much green on the Mary...
***
He managed to cling to consciousness this time. He sorta wished he didn't.
Everything hurt. His neck. His sides. His back. A low, ringing noise constantly thrummed in his ears, and considering he could barely hear his own breathing, he figured he probably popped an ear drum.
A loud groan ripped out of his mouth as he struggled to right himself. Squishy material was underneath his hands, but it was a thin layer—metal soon reached his palm and he pushed himself up.
Grace looked up.
Half of the Hail Mary peered back at him.
It teetered precariously, waving ever so slightly back and forth. Connected only by a few support beans and countless threads of wire, Grace immediately tensed for an impact he knew he wouldn't survive. But it just hung there, limply.
"Oh," Grace whispered, barely hearing his own words. He slumped back onto the ground. It was so weirdly soft. "Oh, we died. Dead. Explosion. Aw, man..."
But his heart was thundering in his chest, and he could feel absolutely everything that hurt on his body, and he was pretty sure that an afterlife wouldn't make you suffer like that. 'Cause that would suck.
So maybe he was alive.
...
Rocky!
Grace sat up, pushing past the instant vertigo he felt swimming in-between his ears. Pain raced up his legs as he tried to move them. His chair—it was crushing his legs. Weakly, he tried pushing it away. His arms trembled with the force, but the chair must've been damaged in the crash (oh, God, do not think about it, do not think about it) because it quickly gave in and crumpled to its side with a resounding crash.
Grace winced. He definitely heard that one.
Shaking his head to clear the noise (and immediately regretting it), he grabbed the nearest thing he could (dull, powered off control panels, fuck, do not think about it) and hauled himself up into the world's worst hobbled slouch.
The Hail Mary was absolutely obliterated. Metal crunched underneath his feet as he slowly and painfully dragged himself further into the wreckage. There was no fire—and Grace could not smell anything, in the airtight suit he was in, but there were black, sooty streaks all over... everywhere.
The further he went in, the harder it was to keep his composure. Grace's breaths were shaky, now. Pain filled him every step, and fear engulfed his entire body. What the hell was he going to do if he couldn't find Rocky?
He didn't have to think for long. Grace found him.
Grace sunk to his knees, barely feeling the pain his protesting, broken limbs gave him for it. Tentatively, he shook the ball Rocky was in. The Eridian was motionless.
"Rocky," he croaked. "Rocky... Rocky, please wake up." His tears slipped into his mouth, but he couldn't clear them away even if he wanted to.
He collapsed onto his side, an arm haphazardly thrown across Rocky's ball. There was a hole in the Hail Mary right above him. He could see a great big... tree. It glowed with flecks of purple and blue. Bioluminescent, his brain slowly supplied.
And beyond that?
The green, swirly sky of Adrian. The planet they'd just crash landed on.