Chapter Text
Rocky looks more exhausted than I’ve ever seen him as he packs up the Hail Mary for the trip to Erid. I’m reminded of the sixth graders at the end of a field day, haggard and covered in grass stains, dragging their feet into their mom’s minivan. Exhausted, relieved, and looking forward to dinosaur chicken nuggets for dinner.
Or maybe me, getting home after chaperoning field day, haggard, hair sweaty under my helmet, dragging my bike up a flight of stairs. Exhausted, relieved, and looking forward to dinosaur chicken nuggets and a beer for dinner.
I really shouldn’t be thinking about food I’ll never eat again, not right after accepting that fact I’m going to need to start rationing the scant amount of human-safe nutrients available on this side of the galaxy. I brush the thought away. That’s a problem to solve later. Right now, I should help Rocky. Those two burned arms are clearly giving him trouble.
“Go get cleaned up, bud, I’ll get the rest of this.” He just tilts toward me a little, in the way that means he’s not giving me all his focus. He’s still covered in taumeoba sludge and his toolbelt is hanging on by a singed thread. I float towards the xenonite barrier and knock. “Hey, pass the rest of that through the airlock and I’ll take it down.”
Rocky chirps, closing up the canvas-looking bag he’s stuffing to the brim, and adds it to the growing pile in the tunnel airlock. I won’t give him any grief for overpacking this time; he’s not going to be able to come back to the Blip-A. Anything and everything he wants to take back to Erid is coming.
We’ve both been running on empty for a while. Me, searching for the Blip-A for days, and Rocky trying to keep it from falling apart before I could get there. Not knowing I was even coming at all. However much stress I was under just being worried about him, it must have been so much worse for Rocky.
The crash is inevitable. There’s no return celebration this time, we just drift back through the airlock and detach from the Eridian ship. I push Rocky’s ball to connect with his tunnel so he can get settled. “I’m gonna get us on course, then we’ll have some G’s,” I yawn.
“Grace need sleep, question?”
I look at Rocky. He’s still maneuvering out of his ball; one arm trips on the lip of the airlock.
“When’s the last time you slept?” I say quietly. He taps his fingers together. “Rocky?”
“Two hundred eighty thousand seconds.” He’s being cheeky not rounding to hours, but it’s not until now that I realize I haven't turned the translator back on. I’ve just been listening to Rocky, and understanding nearly every word.
I raise my brows, and give him my best judgemental look over my glasses. He, too, has learned my language and knows I mean business. If he had the energy he could probably wear me down, but we both know he doesn’t.
I nod my head in the direction of the dormitory. “Go get your nest set up, I’ll be there to watch in a minute.”
In the cockpit I make sure everything’s in order and set course. I can’t help the smile that settles onto my face. I know Rocky can hear me grinning like an idiot, and I hope he knows it’s because of him.
When Mary is shooting towards 40-Eridani and up and down have been re-established at a comfortable 1.5 G’s, I climb down the ladder to the dorm. Rocky is in his usual perch, wrapping a thick bandage around one of his injured arms. The other is already wrapped tight enough that it constricts his movement at the elbow-joint.
“I will heal,” is all he said when I first asked. Rocky was never the most forthcoming about his own biology, as much as I tried to needle it out of him for science. When it comes to his eating habits, I get it, but I do want to have some idea of what’s going on with his health. At the very least, to avoid another accidentally blasting off his scabs situation.
“How bad is it?” I ask.
Rocky does a so-so gesture. “Not as bad as oxygen burns. But that is still healing.”
I hiss, thinking about getting another burn on top of the scars wrapping around my left arm.
“May moult. That is why Rocky wrap.”
“Moulting?” I had a few notes on moulting in the Eridian biology paper I sent back on the beetles, but not much. I got the sense it was another private matter for Eridians, like eating was. And honestly, fair. I wouldn’t want anyone to watch my exoskeleton slough off either. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yes, thanks to Grace.” Rocky sings. I laugh tightly. I hope he doesn’t keep harping on me saving his life for the next four years, it’s gonna get real old real fast. He finishes wrapping the other limb and awkwardly shuffles into a more comfortable position.
I slide down the wall to sit, and pull my laptop over to have something to do. “Anything else I should know? Y’know, before you pass out on me and can’t explain whatever normal bodily processes are happening?”
“No,” he says, then tilts his carapace. “...will probably sleep long long time. Grace no worry.”
I guess that makes sense, he’s got a lot of healing to do. “Okay, thanks for the warning. I’ll be here.”
Rocky trills a high, joyous note that fizzles out like a balloon letting air out as he immediately drops into deep sleep. I can’t help but laugh and shake my head, turning to my screen to find something that’ll keep me up for as long as possible.
A full Lord of the Rings marathon is powerless against my exhaustion. I take a break after Two Towers to do some jumping jacks and get my blood flowing, but I still fall asleep before the fellowship gets anywhere near Mordor. I startle awake during the middle of the behind-the-scenes documentary.
Behind me, Rocky is still asleep. I frown and check the time. This is the longest he’s slept by a good few hours– not counting the days-long sleep after Adrian. I tap the xenonite even though I know he can’t hear me.
In the end, Rocky sleeps for nineteen hours. I take two more light naps after my marathon, but the rest of the time I’m pacing the small length of the dorm. When Rocky finally wakes up, I’m brushing up on my Eridian biology knowledge like I’m not the one who wrote the only paper on it a few weeks ago.
Some scratchy-sounding whistles catch my attention. “Well, look who’s back in the land of the living,” I breathe out with relief.
Rocky shakes out his arms, and puts barely any weight on the two bandaged ones. Lucky, he’s got three more functioning ones to get around with. “Good morning,” he hums. He likes how nonsensical the human phrase is, especially out here. “Good good good morning.”
“Good night,” I reply, stretching and yawning. Now that he’s awake and seems alright, I’m quickly careening towards unconsciousness myself. “Your turn for sleep watch.”
“Oh, wanted to check ship,” Rocky whines. “Grace probably break everything while Rocky gone.”
“Not everything.”
Rocky grumbles with playful annoyance. There’s a bit of a rasp in the notes, something I may not have noticed behind the translator if it was on. I tip my head to the side, tugging my glasses off. “Go on, you can hear me from anywhere on the ship anyways. You don’t need to be right on top of me.”
Rocky reluctantly leaves my side to go make sure we don’t blow up before we make it to his home planet. I take a shower and wrap myself in all the soft things the ship has to offer. I’m out before my head hits the pillow and have dreamless sleep.
Even if he’s not directly above me, knowing he’s there erases all my anxiety. Listening to Rocky’s claws echoing against his tunnel walls is like white noise.
I wake up curled on my side, and instinctively roll onto my back. Rocky’s right above me, carapace poking over the edge of the other cot.
“How’s Mary doing, in your expert opinion?”
“Functioning, no taumeoba escaping. Grace do good job stopping leak.”
“Thanks, bud!”
“Not so good job with Rocky’s tunnels. Lab airlock partially dismantled.”
“Okay, sue me for wanting a little more space in the one room I use the most,” I huff. “I wasn’t gonna take apart the whole thing…”
“Rude.”
I roll my eyes and shuffle out of bed. Rocky knows it takes me a minute to fully wake up, but usually once I’m on my feet he's bouncing to get back to work. Right now, he’s still perched above the bed.
“So, Mary’s all good, how's Rocky doing?”
Now he stands up. “Rocky is fine. Grace come to lab now. Much planning to do!”
I watch him work his way up the handholds with more effort than usual, then groan and pass my hand through my sleep-mussed hair. It’s hitting me again, the realization of what exactly I decided to do. It was the right choice, the only choice, and I don’t regret it a bit. But it’s a lot to process.
Good thing I’ll have four more years in this tin can to process it all.