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There is no winter in interstellar space, or there is endless winter, deepest cold pressing at the metal skin of the Hail Mary.
Due to instincts of his bear self, Grace fretted that he was lean, malnutrition sapping his strength. He had no reserves of flesh, no safe, deep-dug den to retreat to.
Rocky encouraged him through the worst of it, spun stories about what a grateful world would build for Grace on Erid. Rocky ensured his alien mate a sealed environment suited to him: a biodome stocked with plenty, large enough to run in.
*
As Grace settled on Erid, he first had only a terrible amount of taumoeba to eat. He imagined he could feel the vibration like a faraway earthquake under his big paws. Rocky in the midst of thrums, joining the best minds on Erid.
Grace got to feast on the wonders of Eridian science. Enough, soon, to round him out to ursine health. When he was shifted, his bear-self was the right shape for autumn, big-humped, lumbering, heavy of belly.
Rocky built himself an annex to the biodome that abutted Grace's den, the xenonite wall between attuned for clear sound. Like the zoo exhibits Grace remembered, that had a section of transparent wall to display inside of a small animal's burrow. The annex was only for Rocky. Not staring public but listening, loyal loved one.
"I will watch your winter sleep," Rocky said.
Deep in his den, curled up in bear-form, beside his mate, Grace finally let the torpor take him.