Chapter Text
Ryland Grace had been on the Hail Mary for… god knows how long. After picking up Rocky and finding him stranded, they were finally on their way to Erid. It was a relief to finally get to go somewhere they could call home after so long. Grace had come to terms with the fact that he wouldn’t be going back to Earth. Not much was waiting for him anyways. His students had graduated and no doubt the world had moved on. It didn’t matter. He was at peace… mostly.
Grace was in the lab working on a small pet project just to keep his brain stimulated. He’d been messing with a small circuit and seeing how the astrophage could run through it to Rocky’s confusion.
**“What Grace doing, question.”** Rocky hummed in a melodic tone which transferred through the translator over the speaker of the Hail Mary. Grace chuckled softly. “I’m just messing around buddy. We’ve got enough to spare so I thought I’d see how it works myself. Most of the actual engineering was done without me so it’d probably be a good thing if I figured it out.”
Rocky chittered before clambering off to a different room while Grace continued. Life in the Hail Mary had been shockingly peaceful other than his worry about food stores. Even then he had plenty of the slurry from when he was in a coma, it was just gross. The idea of drinking that for months made him want to hurl but that was a problem for later.
The peaceful moment of work was interrupted by Mary suddenly blaring a loud alarm. The voice over the intercom scream mechanically, **Contamination Breach, Contamination Breach.**. Grace covered his ears at the loud voice and looked around in confusion. The room looked fine, meaning it had to be another area of the ship.
“Mary, where is this breach? And turn off that damn alarm!” Grace groaned, confused and disoriented as he made his way to the door of the lab. He exited into the hallway and looked between the data corridor and the system corridor. Finally Mary responded and turned the alarm off. **Contamition Breach in the “Mental Health Node”, Doctor Grace.**
Just as Grace was about to turn to the system corridor, Rocky came clambering down the opposing one and nearly ran over Grace. **”Grace, What happen, why ship scream, why Grace just stand there?!”**
“Woah woah, chill it’s probably just a misread. I’ll go look just-… go chill out in the lab maybe? It’s gonna be fine Rock.”
Grace patted the top of Rocky’s enclosure comfortingly which only made the eridian chitter in annoyance before going into the lab. Finally, Grace was allowed to make his way to the Don’t-Go-Crazy room.
He opened the door and saw nothing wrong at first, then he looked down. The circular room was filled at the bottom with blood. It was sticking to the lit up walls and grotesquely illuminated from beneath. Grace nearly threw up when he saw it and had no clue how to react. He stood frozen until, from beneath the light, he saw something dark move within the blood.
It twitched for a moment and started to make an almost human shape, although missing an arm. Then it began to thrash, making Grace jump backwards as he saw the frantic movements. Finally, whatever was in there found its footing in the shallow pool of blood and broke through the surface. Grace stood stunned, staring at the blood covered human in front of him.
“What the-… wait!” Grace rushed out of the room, grabbed one of the tethers from the space suits, then came running back. He tossed it down for the still panicking human and helped him up onto the platform. The large man looked at him with wide eyes before they rolled back and he passed out against Grace.
Grace was left sitting there in shock as he was covered in the blood from the other man. What the hell just happened.
── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──
All Simon could remember was pain and terror a lot of it, flooding his systems and making everything else feel like nonsense. Just as he was about to drown in the damned tin can they called the SM-13, a sudden pressure built on his body. It felt like he was being ripped in half and crushed into nothing at the same time. It was unbearable, then suddenly he was surrounded by blinding light, filtered through thick red blood. At first it felt tranquil as the pain stopped, then he realized he was drowning all over again.
Simon thrashed inside of the blood, reaching for anything and kicking until finally he found some kind of footing. He pulled himself out of the blood and looked around through he stained vision. Everything’s as so… bright. All he could see was red and black as his blood soaked hair crowded his vision. Then he heard it, a voice. Somebody screaming or talking… everything was so loud he couldn’t tell the difference.
A rope was dropped down in front of him and with his one good arm, he grabbed on. He was tugged up by another set of human hands. Finally, he was brought onto a long metal bridge He wiped his hair out of his face and looked up at what had pulled him up.
Everything was so bright, a crisp blue light surrounded the figure, making his golden hair glow like a halo. The father had always spoke of angels but he never expected one to be so… he didn’t have the words to describe the man in front of him. Simon tried to speak but as the adrenaline wore off, he passed out in the angels arms, finally at peace after so long. He must’ve finally been dead.
___
Simon woke up in a sterile white room with a mechanical arm tending to his wounds. He looked at himself groggily and saw he was in a black shirt and yellow jumpsuit. He was no longer covered in the living vat of blood he’d come out of. He sat up and nearly hit his head on the mechanical arm tending to him still. He saw the angel from earlier, now very obviously just a normal man, scribbling on a white board while a giant rock in a glass cage sat beside him.
This had to be some kind of dream or death hallucination, right? Simon thought to himself. Then he saw the large rock formation move. Without second thought, Simon screamed and tossed whatever was closest at it, which happened to be a bottle of isopropyl alcohol. The rock chittered at him in melodic tones, which only severed to confuse Simon more.
Grace turned to look at Simon and went wide eyed. He put an arm out in front of Rocky to keep him from storming Simon and spoke gently. “H-Hi, I’m Ryland Grace, you can call me Grace though! This is Rocky… he’s a long story and you’re-… you’re human. But how, how did you get here and especially on the ship!”
Simon squinted at the man, barely understanding him as he spoke so fast. He grimaced at the moving rock and moved farther back on the medical table. “What is that.” He said and pointed at Rocky. Grace sighed and looked between the two. “As I said, this is Rocky, he will not hurt you, but he also does not appreciate being assaulted with objects.”
**”Yeah, do not assault Rocky! Very rude human.”** Rocky huffed as his translator echoed over the intercoms, which only served to make Simon flinch and look around before covering his eyes. Was this all a trick of that monster again? Was he really here or was this fake like last time? How could he know, what-. Simons thoughts were interrupted as Grave approached slowly.
“Hey, you look really overwhelmed just, try and breathe… Rocky can’t hurt you and I don’t plan to either. We’re just as confused as you are.” Grace sat on the edge of the medical table and Simon flinched away. The thought of being touched sounded like literal hell right now. “Whatever, just-… stay back. And keep that thing away from me.”
“Can I at least get your name?” Grace said calmly.
“… Simon. My name is Simon.”