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Grace stared numbly at Stratt. She stared resolutely back. He wanted to run, to sprint in the opposite direction, to turn and run and never ever come back. He didn't move.
"I can't."
He was practically pleading with her here, even as his voice wavered, his words spoken so quietly, so uncertainly. No. Not uncertain. If anything, this was the most certain he had ever been. Maybe guiltily then. Or nervously?
"You must."
Stratt didn't move, just sat there, across the desk from him, her hands clasped together on the desk in front of her, lips pressed into a thin resolute line.
"I can't," He repeated, because he didn't know what else to say. He couldn’t.
"Where would you rather die, Doctor Grace? In space, having saved the entire human race, or down here with the rest of us?"
"Please, Stratt, I can't."
"I understand, I know you are afraid, but you have to understand–"
"No! YOU have to understand. I can't. I cannot go to space, I'm not made for space, I do science, I'm not – I don't do dangerous stunts that's not me. That's not. I can't. I can't go to space."
"Doctor Grace, this isn't an option. You have to go. I just want you to go willingly."
Grace was shaking his head now, panic rising. This wasn’t him. Colt was the one who did crazy stunts. Colt was the danger seeker. Colt took all the danger seeking, brave, self sacrificing, idiot, genes in the womb and left Grace with the brains and the anxiety. Colt made him promise to be safe when he moved away. Made him promise that even if Colt was on the other side of the world doing stupid risky stunts and putting his life in danger every day, Grace would stay safe. He would stay safe and leave the danger to Colt. Now they wanted him to go to space? To go to his death in space, far from his brother, his twin, his other half?
Colt had always dreamed of going to space, it was part of why Grace got into astrobiology to begin with – so that maybe one day he would work on a project big enough to get him in charge of a mission that would let Colt go to space like he dreamed of as a little kid. For Grace to be the one to go, leaving Colt behind to die, stuck on a planet without his twin? No. He couldn’t.
"Please, Stratt, it's not that simple," Grace begged, pleaded, cried. Stratt shook her head once, disappointment radiating off her.
"I wish you weren't such a coward Doctor Grace," Stratt sighed, before beckoning someone inside.
---
Grace gasped, eyes wild as he took in the chaos surrounding him. He wasn’t on Stratt's Vat anymore, he was in the Hail Mary. They had been collecting samples and it had gone wrong. Was – Was Rocky okay? He couldn’t lose Rocky, not after having already lost Colt.
"Rock'?" Grace called weakly, trying to press back against the gravity pinning him to the wall of the ship. This was bad. This was so very bad. The ship was damaged, likely falling towards Adrian already, Grace couldn't move, and he had no clue where Rocky was, "ROCKY!?"
Still unable to move, Grace felt wetness on his cheeks, his hands ached to push upwards to his face and check if it was blood or tears he could feel, but he couldn't even get them to move. Colt would know. Colt would know what to do. The guy had been lit on fire, jumped out of buildings, been in a thousand car crashes. He knew how to handle this, knew how to deal with danger, knew how to stay calm. Grace would do anything for that skill right now. Instead he was barely breathing, screaming his alien friend's name and sobbing pathetically. He should never have been sent here. He knew nothing. He was weak and scared and in so much danger. He couldn't do this. He couldn't.
A figure appeared in front of his blurry eyes, accompanied by sounds that Grace couldn’t quite comprehend through the panic, but somehow knew what they meant. "You're okay, we're okay, I've got you".
"Co– Colt?" Grace asked shakily, reaching out to his brother's form, blinking rapidly in a pathetic little attempt to pull himself together. His vision cleared a little, revealing the form for what it really was, not Colt's worried face mere centimetres away, but Rocky, rushing towards him, trilling comforting words in Eridian. Huh. Even without the translator some part of Grace's brain had comprehended the words, if not perfectly translating them.
Rocky grabbed Grace, and the last thought before the agonising burns sent him plummeting into unconsciousness was panic because Rocky wasn’t in his ball. He was in Grace's atmosphere. He was risking himself to save Grace. It was so reminiscent of Colt that he would have sobbed if unconsciousness hadn't overtaken him. He did, of course, sob when he woke and remembered those last thoughts.
By the time he'd managed to stumble weakly towards where Mary told him Rocky was, he was shaking, and breathing quickly. Rocky didn't move, and Grace crumpled down next to him, banging on the xenonite wall, pleading for Rocky to wake up. Eventually he fell asleep, curled up against the wall, as close to Rocky as he could get. His dreams were plagued with images of Rocky dying to save him, of Colt doing the same, and he woke with tears streaming down his cheeks, Rocky still not having moved in the slightest.
It took a long time for the alien to wake, but when he finally did, Grace twisted himself around his ball, wrapping him in a tight hug for a long time. For once, Rocky didn't complain, perhaps even reciprocated.
When their silence broke, it was because Rocky was asking a question.
"When in danger, Grace said new word, statement. What word mean, question?"
That took a long time to decipher, not because Grace didn't understand the question, but because his memories were shaky at the best of times and the overwhelming panic hadn't exactly been the best time.
"Do you mean Colt?" Grace asked hesitantly.
"Yes yes yes, what mean, question?"
Grace smiled softly, trying to work out the best way to describe his amazing brother.
"He's my brother, I loved him more than anything in the world, you would have loved him too. He was always the brave one out of the two of us. He always wanted to go to space, and somehow I beat him here."
"Grace miss sibling, question?"
"Yeah, Rock, I miss Colt more than anything."
"Understand," Rocky sighed, the pitch making it clear how sad the words made him. He did understand. Perhaps better than anyone else. He too had left behind people he loved. He too had feared for a long time that he would never see them again.