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Grace didn’t go to the greenhouse very often. It wasn’t that he didn’t like it, he had told Simon once. It was just Simon’s space, like the office near the classroom was his space. They lived in each other’s pockets, even if it was miles of room compared to living on the Hail Mary, so personal space was important.
Simon, who’d never really had personal space (prison didn’t count, he said, that wasn’t personal space, that was isolation), did love that he had somewhere to go where it could just be him.
They had shared areas, of course. The main house, the beach, everywhere else except Grace’s office and Simon’s greenhouse.
After Grace had shown him his first Disney movie, Simon had hummed songs from it for hours, so Grace showed Simon the music library onboard.
He’d filled the greenhouse with music. He’d absconded with one of the laptops connected to the information database from Mary. He’d had music in his life, before, but it wasn’t the same. Scraps of songs people had hung onto from the old days. Hymns. Work songs. Instruments were rare and mostly homemade, when people had them.
When your every breath depended on manufactured oxygen, there wasn’t a lot left for singing.
He had learned songs from his mother, some in English and some in Korean. Mostly lullabies and nursery songs, silly little things he’d hum to himself sometimes. Rocky learned the melodies immediately, Eridian memory being what it is, and would sing them back to Simon while they worked.
“He’s like a music box with legs,” Grace had said one day when Simon and Rocky were supposedly piloting the ship. Simon had hummed a couple of notes unconsciously while he concentrated, and Rocky hummed the next few with added harmonizing notes. It had quickly devolved into Simon teaching Rocky every silly nursery song he could remember.
Simon had been walking by the lab a few days later when he heard talking and stopped, just out of view of the room.
“Grace no sing, question?” Rocky had asked. “Simon hum, Simon sing.”
“He sings?” Grace had asked. Simon had blushed even though no one was around. He didn’t know Rocky had heard him. “I haven’t heard him.”
“Quiet quiet quiet. Simon sing,” Rocky had replied. “Why Grace no sing, question?”
“I’m not a good singer, it’s just not something I ever really thought about,” Grace had said. “Some humans are more musical than others. Glad he’s using the music database, though, someone should.”
It wasn’t quite true. Grace would hum, drum out rhythms on his legs when he was thinking, and sing karaoke with Rocky sometimes. Simon never joined in, didn’t really see the point, but he’d laugh along with them and their antics.
He had no frame of reference, really, for any of the music or what he liked, so he tried everything. Grace had shown him how to make playlists and filter for what he did like. They’d wired speakers in the greenhouse so he could play music as loud as he wanted.
In the house, at the beach, they laughed and talked. Sometimes there were movies. Sometimes there was just peaceful quiet as they lay together. Sometimes it was raised voices and slammed doors, but not regularly, and never for very long. Often, it was moans and pants and keened names.
But the greenhouse was his place. The plants that kept them fed on something other than Taumoeba mush and lab-grown meat grew lush and green.
“They sent seeds and plants with us as a sort of record of Earth life, in case some alien species found our ship floating and us dead some day,” Grace had explained. “I took them and planted them once I did the math on how much food I’d have to get to Erid. The math was...bad.”
Simon played music while he worked. Loud, raucous, rattling the windows music. Gentle, instrumental music with no words at all. He tried everything at least once.
One day, a song brought him up short. It wasn’t a long one, only a few minutes, just one voice and a guitar.
“Blackbird singing in the dead of night”
The memory hit him like a meteor. He scrambled to the computer, trying to get back to it before the song ended. The player was just reaching the end of the song, and he restarted it.
And restarted it.
And restarted it.
He set it to loop and just sat on the bench, watching the little dot of the player bar as it reset again and again.
“Take these broken wings and learn to fly”
It was a man’s voice. His memory overlaid a woman’s voice, cracked and tired. A little slower, a little sweeter. She’d made it a lullaby.
He touched the sheath he kept around his neck. He didn’t have a harness here, didn’t need one, but Grace had found him a cord to hang the sheath on..
“You were only waiting for this moment to arise”
He shook himself, started moving again. He hummed along, letting the song loop over and over as he worked. He trimmed dead leaves and harvested what was ready, wondering what they’d have for supper that evening. The outside light was heading toward twilight, but he didn’t notice.
He started singing along.
“Simon?”
He whirled, the song dying in his throat. Grace was leaning in the doorway, watching him work.
“I didn’t know you could sing like that,” he said.
“I wasn’t...” Simon started. The song started over. “I was just working. I didn’t realize how late it was.”
Grace came in, carefully stepping around pots and plants, holding his cane but not using it. “You’ve been playing the same song for more than an hour and it’s past dinner time. Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Simon replied.
Grace put a hand on Simon’s face, thumb brushing his right cheek. “You’ve been crying.”
Simon reached up a hand, brushed the tear track on his cheek. “I didn’t notice.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Simon.”
He blew out a breath, looking down. “My mother sang this to me. When I was young.”
“You had the Beatles in your world?”
“I guess so?” Simon said, tilting his head back and inhaling. Now that Grace had pointed out he was crying, he was trying to stop the tears. As usual, his left eye was dry. “Of course that’s what you focus on.”
“I was getting to the other part,” Grace said, letting his hand fall. “How old were you? When she died?”
“Young. Old enough to remember her,” he stroked the sheath under his shirt. “She would sing me to sleep sometimes, when she wasn’t exhausted herself.”
Grace held his arms out, just a little, an offering, and Simon stepped into his embrace.
“Blackbird, fly, blackbird, fly”
The song played on as Grace held him, rocking gently back and forth. It was soothing, and Simon relaxed into him. A few more tears fell. It was an old grief he’d cried out long ago. But the comfort was welcome.
“What do you need?” Grace asked into his hair.
“Food, I think, and then a movie?” Simon replied, half a question. “Something nice.”
“Okay,” Grace said, kissing the top of Simon’s head. “We can do that. Come on, let’s go eat.”
He followed Grace into the house, shutting the door behind him.
Later, as they lay tangled together, Simon’s arm over Grace’s chest, Grace’s hand in Simon’s hair, Grace hummed thoughtfully.
“You should come to the classroom tomorrow,” he said.
“Why?” Simon mumbled, deeply satisfied and half asleep.
“The pebbles would love to hear you sing. You can teach them about music. Our music.”
“You’re joking.”
“No. Come to the classroom tomorrow,” Grace said, scrubbing his fingernails against Simon’s scalp. “They love you.”
“Okay,” Simon agreed. “Okay.”
He slipped into sleep with the feeling of Grace stroking his hair.
“Into the light of the dark black night”