Chapter Text
Something was… off with Dr. Grace. Eva had him down to a science, knew almost everything there was to know about him, so she noticed when his posture changed. Or his voice. Or vocabulary.
She noticed it first when she had “approached” him in the lab. He’d been working on a project —— something involving a lot of repetition, which Stratt thought surprising, as Grace doesn’t have much of an attention span for anything —— and she had been repeatedly asking questions about the experiment and taking notes for a meeting she was attending. After asking her fifth or so question, Grace set the test tubes down.
“Can you please just let me work on this!? I don’t have the time or patience for all these questions!” He said sharply before getting back to work. Something uncomfortable crawled in Stratt’s chest. This didn’t sound like Grace. If he were that annoyed, he’d say something like, ”I appreciate the questions, but can you just write them down and ask them later? This is a pretty intense project and I want to stay focused without neglect your questions.” Or something. She wasn’t an expert.
She noticed something else odd. He seemed to be conflicted. His facial expressions changed rapidly, but he said nothing. He continued on with his ever-repetitive work and left Stratt in her silence.
—————
She noticed something else odd, of the opposite nature. Sometimes, she’d find him roaming the halls late at night, picking at his fingers and hair with a lost look on his face. She didn’t bother talking to him when he acted that way, but she definitely noted it.
Sometimes she knew better than to strike conversation and instead send him an email because he’d broken down into tears trying to talk to an intern earlier in the morning. Sometimes she sat and listened to him talk to Dr. Lamai with surprising knowledge of coma care that he didn’t seem to retain in everyday conversation.
She complied all these little oddities, along with other notes —— his handwriting was inconsistent, writing on lab reports was significantly less legible than that on other documents, sometimes it was cursive, sometimes he was left handed —— into a Word document, then did a little bit of research. There had to be something, for lack of a better term, wrong with Dr. Grace. These kinds of personality inconsistencies don’t normally occur.
After her research proving —— surprisingly —— unsuccessful and non-linear, she decided to do the next best thing.
She grabbed Dr. Grace by the wrist when he was finished reporting his findings to the biology team and dragged him into her office.
He worked away from her grip and awkwardly took a seat. She sat across from him and pulled up her 17 page Word document on Dr. Grace, scrolling down to the section on his varying personality traits.
He fiddled with his badge, pulling it slightly from its place at his belt and letting it snap back while he waited for the other shoe to drop.
Stratt looked up at him and asked,
“Dr. Grace, do you Dissociative Identity Disorder?”
Grace blinked and shook his hand back and forth —— “so, so, maybe” —— and cleared his throat to speak.
“Uh… kinda, but not exactly? with DID you have specific alters and amnesia between fronts, but I —— we? —— don’t really have that. It’s like… When someone else is fronting, I can understand what happening but like… through a tunnel.”
Stratt was taken aback at the response. She was expecting somewhat of a “yes,” but wasn’t expecting him to hurl vocabulary at her. From what she understood, Grace was the “host,” the one who fronted —— interacted with others, did work, acted as the main personality —— the most often. Alters were his other personalities. The angry one, or the shy one. They didn’t seem to “front” as often.
“Could you explain all your alters to me?” She asked tentatively, and he nodded.
“Mhm. So, to start…”
—————
Eva Stratt had a lot more pages on her Dr. Grace Word document. Or rather, Grace as a collective. She’d learned that Ryland and his alters all collectively go by “Grace,” given that it’s their last name.
Stratt, being Stratt, also had detailed information on all of Grace’s alters.
There was Adam, the “anger-holder” of the system. He had a lower tolerance for annoying behavior and lashed out more. His main role within the system was, well, holding anger. That way, other alters didn’t lash out very often. He was also, surprisingly, the one with the most patience when it came to repetitive tasks and ran most of the astrophage tests for Ryland.
Secondly, there was Liam, the caretaker. He was the one with medical knowledge, and —— according to Ryland —— the best with kids. The caretaker mostly took care of the other members of the system, or, when fronting, care for others a lot. When Ryland brought up times when Liam fronted, Stratt could definitely recall him coming across as more empathetic and more anxious around ideas of suffering. Ryland explained that Liam had horrible anxiety around pain and suffering of others and rarely ever fronted during work because of such.
There was also Hetty, the system’s little and one of the few girls. Ryland explained that she’s a 6 year old girl, essentially, and was to be treated as such if she ever fronted. Ryland also explained that she only really fronted at night when she knew they were alone.
The other girl in the system was Cecelia, a 19 year old with horrible anxiety. Ryland explained that the interaction Stratt had seen with the intern was Cecelia, as she could hardly string together a full sentence. She was a trauma holder, as were most of the other alters, but she bared the most. Ryland said that if she ever fronted to never force her to speak, and make her use ASL if absolutely necessary.
—————
After a few weeks of this system knowledge, Stratt could somewhat-easily tell who was fronting. It was Ryland, mostly, but sometimes Liam. She also had her fair share of heated encounters with Adam, but that was about it.
She also noticed the difference in physical ability between alters. While Grace’s body definitely had POTS and EDS, Liam definitely seemed to be more of a wheelchair user while Adam was usually only reliant on a cane. She’s have research more, but she was pretty sure that was a real thing.
All in all, the knowledge of Grace being a system hadn’t caused any major issues.
That was, of course, until Hetty fronted during a meeting.
It was a business meeting, so Grace had only been there for the sake of being the First Officer. Thank goodness.
She’d noticed that Grace appeared more spaced out, a little nervous, picking at his (her?) skin and lips more, muttering to himself. Stratt catalogued those as things that Hetty did, and hoped that the meeting would wrap up fast enough.
—————
As soon as the clock hit 1000, Stratt ushered everyone out and turned to Grace.
“Ryland?” She tried. She didn’t want to risk her guesses being wrong and treating a perfectly capable adult like a six year old. Her suspicions were confirmed, though, when Grace’s head shook and fingers were shoved in her mouth.
“Hetty?” She asked, to which Hetty nodded shyly. Stratt took a moment to internalize this before scooping up her things and grabbing Hetty by the pinky and leaving the conference room. Stratt scaled the Vat quickly, hoping to avoid anyone noticing her dragging “Grace” by the hand to her office. She didn’t need even more rumors.
She noticed Hetty lagging behind her considerably, groggy and slow. Stratt remembered that Grace had been mildly complaining of pain, and she couldn’t imagine Hetty’s pain tolerance was any higher than Grace’s.
She noticed suggestive glances from interns and the occasional scientist, but otherwise made it to her office unscathed. She sat Hetty down on the sofa in her office and notice that she was crying. Hetty chewed on her fingers and tried to blink away tears in vain. Stratt sighed and rifled through her drawer and cabinets before finding what she needed. While she wasn’t exactly accustomed to children on this boat, she was prepared for neurodivergency. Stratt couldn’t expect all of her workers to be one-sided, arrogant, assholes.
She grabbed a chew-necklace and quickly sanitized it with non-toxic sanitizer before shoving it into Hetty’s mouth. The girl grabbed the beads and twisted the silicone in her fingers before contently stuffing her mouth with them and gnawing. Hetty slipped her shoes off and lay on the sofa, head resting on the armrest. She curled in on herself and groaned. Stratt, bubbling with concern, crouched down to meet her.
“What’s the matter?” She asked, trying to convey concern instead of her usual coldness. She cared, she swore she did, but it was hard to show that sometimes.
Hetty made a vague gesture, flailing her arm up and down the side of her body before muttering, “Hurts…”
Of course she’s in pain. Grace had been struggling, so would she. Stratt grabbed some heatable bean bags —— that she definitely did not keep just for Grace, what are you talking about —— and slipped them into the microwave. She noticed that Hetty covered her ears slightly at the hum of the microwave, and Stratt made sure to end the microwave early —— and that the beanbags were warm enough. She handed them to Hetty, who nestled them into her joints and noticeably relaxed.
As Hetty seemed to drift off to sleep, Stratt got back to her work. She scheduled meetings, signed forms, and emailed leaders. She was halfway through a contract in Russian when she heard a faint,
“Can you… come over here?” Hetty asked feebly. Stratt set her pen down and looked over at Hetty.
“What do you need?” She asked softly, and Hetty shrugged.
“Mm-m-mm. Just… want someone.”She muttered awkwardly, and so it was.
Stratt stood up and grabbed a clipboard and her forms before moving over to sit on the floor. She read through more papers, her signature filling the lines, until at one point she felt fingers carding through her hair. Hetty’s nails were just a little past fingertip length, and Stratt would be lying if she said it wasn’t nice.
The two of them were at peace, Hetty —— and the rest of Grace’s alters —— getting a break, Stratt getting some time where she isn’t horribly stressed, until the three people sacrificing their lives for humanity —— one of which being a horrible gossip —— barged into the room.