Chapter Text
Stratt’s hair has always been striking, and Ryland is used to keeping his eye out for the flash of red among the sea of people on board the aircraft carrier that tells him she’s nearby.
He makes his way over and takes a seat beside her, nudging one of the full plates of food he has with him in her direction.
The kitchens are sort of overworked, but they have good solid meals three times a day, and Ryland takes full advantage of that. He knows Stratt won’t have thought to get something to eat, and he can tell just from looking at her that she’s probably not slept either.
He nudges the plate again, giving her a side eye. “Come on, don’t ignore me, I know you know I’m here.”
Stratt looks up from her tablet and whatever she’s doing (probably talking the EU into giving them more rockets) and blinks. She stares at Ryland for a solid few seconds, seeming a little dazed, before she visibly shakes herself off and gives him an acknowledging nod.
“Good morning, Doctor Grace,” she says, pulling the plate closer.
Ryland had put some light toast with butter and cinnamon on there, as well as some of the fruit spread they had. He’s gotten eggs and sausage for himself but he knows she won’t eat anything heavier than the toast and so he’s given up trying.
Stratt chews in silence for a while and Ryland takes the opportunity to eat his own breakfast as they wait for the mission briefing to start.
They watch idly as the President of the US enters, flanked by a whole set of body guards, and Ryland catches the very subtle eye roll Stratt gives the visiting dignitaries.
She gets tired of the pomp and circumstance thing very quickly, she doesn’t seem to have the ability to wait like Ryland has had to develop.
She leans over just a bit and says very quietly,”What, do they think he will be in danger on a boat full of scientists?”
Ryland shrugs, pushing his glasses up onto his head. “I mean, US presidents have historically not had great experiences with cars. Makes sense they’d be wary around boats.”
He’s discovered that Stratt studied history in college, and she still thinks like a historian, in the long-sense view of someone who’s used to dealing with centuries of time.
She takes a bite of toast, swallows, and glances at him. “How do you get America to join a global project?” she says half under her breath.
It took him a while to realize this, but Ryland is the only person Stratt ever even tries to crack jokes with. They’re all horrible history puns and mostly not funny but he always laughs, to some degree because she’s actually sharing them with him.
He shakes his head. “No clue.”
Stratt takes a sip of her coffee. “Tell them it’s almost over,” she says, completely deadpan.
Ryland can’t help it, he actually giggles, and he’s rewarded by the sight of a tiny smile that just peaks out from behind the rim of Stratt’s coffee cup.
The dream morphs, and he’s on the deck of the aircraft carrier. He’s sitting cross-legged on the flight deck as the ocean roars around them at almost one in the morning.
The warmth of the bonfire they’ve started is doing its best to beat back the chill as he watches Ilyukhina give a very impassioned rant about… something… while sitting balanced on top of the wing of an F-28. He has no idea how she got up there, and her accent is getting thicker as the night progresses.
This was a celebration, a party for the core group when they’d figured out exactly how they were going to make the centrifuge work.
Dr. Lokken is sitting on a bench, looking somewhere between mortified and amused at the dramatic length of purple draped around her like a cape. (It may or may not have been ripped down from a curtain rod in one of the officer’s lounges.)
Ryland is content to just watch the others have a good time— Dimitri and Ilyukhina have somehow both snuck vodka on board and have been passing around shot glasses for everyone while talking excitedly about something that Ryland thinks is sports related.
DuBois and Shapiro are on the ground beside him, and he thinks they’re both very drunk because Annie is just full body laying on top of Martin like a weighted blanket. They’re both giggling near uncontrollably.
Ryland, being the designated non-drinker, is honestly finding more fun in watching his friends make chaos than in anything else going on.
Ilyukhina jumps off the F-28 in a way that makes his knees hurt just thinking about it and prances over to him. “C’mon, Grace, dance with me!” she says, pulling him to his feet.
Before Ryland can really say no he’s whisked away into some kind of crazy Russian two-step. Dimitri has produced a CD player from somewhere or other, and the music is something full of drumbeats and resonating synth.
Ryland isn’t sure he’s laughed like this in a long time, like he is now as they all dance around to the music and generally make giggling messes of themselves.
His beat up sneakers and Yao’s boots and Lokken’s heels and DuBois’s ridiculous leather dress shoes that they’ve all told him to stop wearing beat patterns on the tarmac, rhythms that harmonize with the music resonating up and down inside his body.
Ryland whirls around in circles with the others, switching partners, switching dances, sharing steps from their different countries and laughing as they all try to figure out each other’s moves, until they finally all collapse, out of breath, on the flight deck in a heap.
The air is chilled, a strong Atlantic wind blowing through their bones, but Ryland hardly feels it. The others are warm around him, the rumbling of their voices resonating beneath his skin.
He looks up at the stars, half-listening as Yao tells a wild story about something his grandchildren did at school, and is startled by the warm glow inside his ribcage that fizzes and bubbles in little electrical sparks. They lay there a long time.
There is an explosion, the sound of a shockwave rippling and somehow Ryland is pitched forward into grass, into the moment when DuBois and Shapiro died, and he shakes his head, reeling, looking around for Eva.
She is on the ground, collapsed in a heap, and he reaches for her, tries to grab her but when he touches her hand it is desiccating, the skin shriveling and receding as the nails turn black, and he flinches back, terrified, as auburn strands of hair flicker in the breeze like tongues of fire.
Then a jolt and he’s in space, falling away from the Hail Mary and the scariest thing isn’t the feeling of falling, there isn’t any, but the fact that the ship and Tau Ceti and the stars and the light are being swallowed by a darkness so complete and so cold—
Grace jerks awake, shivering in the cool air of the ship, his blankets half-kicked off and on the floor. His skin aches, the phantom sensation and the warmth of the others pressed close beside him that night leaving him shuddering as he tries to get a breath.
And Eva— Stratt, it’s been a while since he’s dreamed of her, and yet every time he wakes with a hollow, stinging grief in his chest that he can’t explain.
He scrubs a hand down his face and exhales deliberately slow, trying to get his heart beat to calm back down. Surely Rocky can hear it, and he doesn’t want him to worry.
He tugs the blankets back up onto the bed and wraps them tight around his shoulders, trying to take comfort in the small amount of warmth they’ve retained.
He’s not sure what he was to the others. Some part of him is sure that he was just that coworker you tolerated because you needed them around, and they’d include him in things out of pity (or fear of Stratt, either one).
The other part of him is pretty sure that they were friends. They were friends… right? A bunch of people forced together by impossible circumstances, trying to save the world, who maybe wouldn’t normally be close but who’ve been bonded by the things they’ve had to deal with….
Grace tells himself they were friends. It makes it a little easier to breathe.
He takes a minute to just sit, to let himself reorient. He’s been running on very little sleep since they found Simon, and his body has just finally had enough and made him shut down for a while. He’s not sure what time it is.
Grace yawns and shakes his head, trying to get rid of the sluggish feeling. He glances up at the photographs he has pinned to the wall.
There’s not many, but a few had been in his crew bag, and he’d found some of the others tucked into Ilyukhina’s things or scattered around the ship.
He has the feeling that she had somehow stashed her polaroid camera on board but he hasn’t found it yet. It’s something she was always carrying around, snapping pictures when she thought no one else would notice. There aren’t many.
Grace trails a knuckle along the edge of one of the photos, the one of Ilyukhina trying to sneak into the Kremlin. It makes him laugh every time, she was… she was brave. And warm.
There’s a couple of photos with Yao in them, too. He’d not been able to send everything with them, when he… when he gave their little funeral speeches, and putting up a photo or two helped while his memory was coming back.
Now it… makes him feel a little less alone.
There were things he wishes he could have said when he first woke up, but it was before he remembered them properly, before he had known that they were his friends. It doesn’t really matter, though, in the end.
Grace exhales, staring at the photos. There’s a couple that had been squirreled away in Ily’s bag of the Hail Mary team that she must have taken when he wasn’t paying attention. He’s surprised by how many he’s in.
The one he reaches for was taken on an international flight, from the look of it. Ilyukhina’s in the bottom left corner of the frame, only her eyes and raised eyebrows visible, but the thing that the camera is focused on is the row behind her, where Grace and Stratt are sitting.
They’re both fast asleep, and Grace’s head is slumped on Eva’s shoulder. Her body is subconsciously angled toward him as they sleep, her hair curtaining down around them both.
It’s the most peaceful he’s ever seen Stratt look, to be honest. She ran on even less sleep than he did, usually. Even in this photo there are bags under her eyes.
Grace pulls himself out of bed, trying to force down the feeling of directionless panic that rears its head whenever he thinks of Stratt. He doesn’t know what’s causing it, and it worries him, but he has to chalk it up to his faulty memory.
He pulls a blanket around his shoulders like a cape, still chilled, and pads out from the dormitory into the hallway and up toward the lab.
He can hear the sound of muffled voices, and for a moment a shiver washes over him at the reminder that he isn’t alone. He’s not alone anymore.
He finds Rocky and Simon on the floor of the hallway, by the window, where Simon apparently slept again in a nest of blankets. Simon is leaning on the xenonite ball, talking back and forth with Rocky as they examine what seems to be a model of the Hail Mary.
“—so you’re saying that we could make a little sandwich, basically, and the hull segments can be welded— oh, right, we don’t know what tools we’ve got,” Simon is saying. “If they’re traditional welding tools we’re going to have a problem, those don’t work without atmosphere.”
Rocky trills softly. “Will see. If not work, can use xenonite glue. Make multiple layers. Make bulky but worth the effort for shield. Will need to cut apart submarine, though.”
He chirps a greeting. “Morning Grace. Sorry stepped away, many many thoughts about ship fixing. Sleep well?”
Simon looks up at him, shaking his hair out of his eyes, and gives him a little half smile. “Mornin'.”
Grace waves a hand, and thinks to himself that Rocky must really like Simon if he left the room to talk to him. Granted, Rocky can see the whole ship, so. “Don’t let me distract you. What are you guys talking about?”
Rocky waves him over, doing a little jazz hands dance. “Figuring out how to fix hull. Current plan is to make sandwich of layers with submarine hull and astrophage and xenonite.”
Grace lowers himself to sit on the walkway beside them and tilts his head. “Why not just the iron?”
Simon actually answers this time, and although his voice is soft he sounds enthusiastic about it. “Main problem is that the sub’s not fully lead-lined, and anyway we wouldn’ want to use lead ‘cause it’s really heavy. But iron doesn’ fully stop radiation and can like refract particles through, so we need somethin’ else.”
Rocky bobs along beside him, gesturing to the model they’ve made. It’s a combination of xenonite figurines, pencils, duct tape and what seems to be bits of cereal. “But can make xenonite container— very thin, thin thin thin, just enough to trap little bit of astrophage so can absorb particles. Then can put between two layers of iron hull and weld down.”
Grace knows very little about engineering but he grins. “Sounds like you two have been busy.”
(He’s fine. He’s totally, completely fine. He’s focusing on this conversation now.)
Rocky chirps in a rhythm that seems to be him humming. “Yes, very busy. Busy busy. Been making plan while Grace sleep. Grace sleep for ten hours, very good.”
Grace rubs his eyes. “…feels like it. Give me a minute and I can get my suit on. No time like the present, right?”
He pauses when Simon snags a corner of his blanket. Simon looks up at him. “…I’m gonna go,” he says softly.
Grace frowns, turning to look at him. “You don’t have to, it’s okay—“
Simon shakes his head. “Rocky ‘nd I have thought ‘bout it. It’ll be easier for me to go, I’m good at welding an’ shit.”
Grace winces automatically at the swear, his teacher instincts taking over in the absence of an awake and functioning brain, and Simon backtracks. “Sorry, I-I’ll try not to swear—“
They’re distracted by Rocky perking up. “Swear? Is words Simon has been using swears?”
Grace drops his face into his hands. “No, Rocky, I am not putting them in the translator.”
Simon looks back and forth between them, seeming mildly confused, and Rocky bounces. “No no, Rocky want human swears! Give Rocky human swears!”
Grace gives a long-suffering sigh. What a morning. Already.
He sinks back down to sit beside Simon. “Are you sure you’re okay to do this? I-I mean, I don’t have any EVA training but it’s really scary to do, I don’t want you to feel like you have to—“
Simon, very slowly and carefully, lays a hand on his arm, and Grace freezes. He can feel the touch prickling even through the blanket and it’s all he can do to pay attention to Simon’s words.
His eyes are warm and brown and serious. “Grace, it’s alright,” Simon says softly. “I’ve done spacewalks before, I grew up doing them.”
Grace exhales shakily, because of course he would, of course he would be better at it than him, of course he would be brave enough— he has to stop the thought before it gets away from him.
He musters a small smile. “Alright then. Knock yourself out— or, no, actually don’t.”
***
Simon is somewhat surprised he managed to make it to the airlock at all. He’s wearing a heavy red EVA suit, one that used to belong to one of Grace’s crew-mates, and he checks the tool belt again as everything floats around inside the small space.
The struggle they had to get him into the suit is something that he doesn’t really want to think about, especially not since he’s going to have to do all of it over again at the other end of this.
Grace had been pretty worried about him, fussing and checking and rechecking the tethers, but Simon had just endured it patiently.
Grace sends Simon one last look, his hand on the inner airlock door. “Are you sure about this? Last chance to back out.”
Simon can’t really shake his head in this helmet but he hopes the shrugging motion he makes with his shoulders gets the point across. “Grew up in space, ‘m used to it.”
Grace exhales slowly, before nodding and beginning to pull the door closed. “Alright, fine. Rocky and I will be in the cockpit, we’ll be in contact over the radio the whole time.”
Simon waits as the door thunks closed and latches and as the airlock depressurizes. He takes a deep breath.
He has actually done spacewalks before, and he’s gotten fairly used to the rhythm of things and how stuff moves outside a spaceship, considering how much patching Eden’s paneling and its craft had needed over the years. He checks the vacuum-resistant welding tools on his belt.
Grace and Rocky are talking about something over the radio that he can’t quite be bothered to tune into, and he pulls himself slowly forward toward the outer airlock door using the handles.
He’s still not quite prepared when the airlock door swings open. It was one thing to see them, but still Simon’s breath is taken away because the stars are right there, just beyond the door, and there are so many of them.
When they would do work on the outside of Eden, the brothers and sisters would try not to look up from their work, not glance out into the endless dark, and they would all pretend not to hear its siren call. There was nothing out there, a total lack of anything to hold fast to, nothing to keep you from falling away and away forever. Mostly they tried not to think about it.
But this— he’d known the stars would be out there, shimmering and glittering in their multitudes, but he hadn’t realized exactly what that would mean.
It’s like vertigo, it’s like standing on the edge of a cliff and staring down and out into the expanse of the sea, and Simon exhales in a rush, stunned. The sky is just so big.
For a moment he’s seized by the insane urge to detach his tether and take a running leap into the abyss, to swim forever in a sea of stars until the universe ends in fire…
but Simon pulls himself back from the thought, shaking his head, and slowly makes his way out of the airlock and onto the hull.
He moves aft slowly, toward the place where the panels have been ripped off. He can see the dark bulk of the submarine tethered beside the Hail Mary, and he has to fight the chill that runs down his spine.
It takes more effort than it should to keep moving forward, to keep hooking and unhooking tethers, but he does it, because Grace needs this done.
Simon can do this. He’s come this far, he can handle some ship repairs. It’s work that he’s familiar with, work that he can actually do, can actually contribute and pay Grace back for his kindness.
He knows that Grace doesn’t see it the same way, he knows this, but it doesn’t stop something inside of him from insisting that the debts to be repaid cannot be ignored.
He hauls himself up to stand on the hull and moves forward, the tether sliding soundlessly down the railing it’s clipped to. It is quiet out here —or, mostly quiet.
Simon tunes back into the radio and asks a question. “I’m looking at the hole now. How do you want me to go about this?”
Rocky answers quickly. “Look and see where boundaries are. Take measurements, Rocky will get started on xenonite panel. Flexible, like cloth, can be glued to bottom iron. Simon cut bottom iron panels and weld down then come back inside.”
Simon bites his lip for a moment, thinking. “‘Kay. Gonna take me a minute.”
He levers himself down to where the hole curves down toward the side of the ship and stares inside. There is nothing in there but a reattached and refilled fuel tank, complete with jagged xenonite patches to fix holes.
Simon produces a tape measure and starts trying to figure out the area of the hole. He measures, readjusts, measures again, then adds a good ten extra centimeters to account for curvature of the hole and extra space for welding.
It’s almost meditative, working like this in 0g, and it feels very good to be doing something like this again.
He’d been a pretty fair mechanic on Eden, and he’d always been tinkering with the little corvette he flew. The Kraken was, despite its name, little more than a pile of scrap metal, always in danger of falling apart, and no one else really wanted to deal with it, but Simon loved the thing.
It was a little rickety, and he often had a hell of a time finding parts for it, but it was fast, and he knew he could rely on the little ship. He’d spent countless nights when he wasn’t needed by the Father with his head in the engine block, trying to figure out how to improve the fuel efficiency.
It took his mind off other things, let him pretend he was more than the Butcher everyone else on Eden seemed to value so much.
Simon hums to himself in satisfaction and glances back down the length of the Hail Mary. “You guys are really lucky, by the way, this could’ve been in the crew area. The hole’s about three meters by four meters.”
Rocky chitters in affirmation as Simon begins his journey onward toward the Iron Lung, tucked against the aft starboard side of the ship.
Grace laughs humorlessly. “You might say that, I suppose.”
Simon curls his hands into fists in the bulky suit gloves as he moves closer to the dark shape of the submarine. There’s something weird going on with his chest— he can’t quite get a breath.
He grits his teeth, but there’s nothing he can do, his steps have begun to slow, and there is a frantic fluttering feeling stuck up underneath his ribs.
Simon stops, closes his eyes, takes a very long and deliberate breath through his nose.
The suit smells faintly of something chemical, probably some kind of cleaner. It’s not blood. It’s very far from blood.
Closing his eyes was a mistake. It’s too dark, and it’s too still, Grace has gone quiet on the radio, and the only thing Simon can hear now is the blood rushing in his ears.
The muscles of his heart seemingly clench inside his chest, terrified that all it will take is opening his eyes and he’ll be back in the Iron Lung, lost back beneath the ocean of red red red with no way out and no chance of salvation— no one’s coming for him, not now, not ever, there’s nothing to do but die—
There’s a crackle of static on the radio. “Simon? Are you there? Are you okay?” Grace asks, his voice low and tense.
Simon takes a shuddering breath and hums in acknowledgement.
He’s being ridiculous. He’s already been offered every single bit of proof possible that this is really happening.
Grace speaks again. “You don’t have to do this, I can, it’ll be alright if you don’t want to—“
Simon still can’t breathe. He still can’t get a decent amount of air into his lungs, and he’s sure that his panicked breathing is audible over the radio.
He clings to the sound of Grace’s voice, to the memory of his hands, warm and gentle and touching him softly, on his arms, his neck, his sides, that first time they’d touched and Simon hadn’t hesitated to grab his hand.
The places Grace has touched him tingle like the tails of comets, streaks of warmth and light.
It’s an uphill battle, and a long one. When he’s able to focus on words again he immediately feels guilty.
Grace sounds near tears. “Please, please answer me, anything. Please. Simon, just— just hang on, okay? I’ll come get you, we can do this another way.”
Simon swallows dryly and forces a sentence out, his voice gone a bit raspy. “‘M here. ‘M okay.”
Grace exhales shakily, a rush of static over the radio. “Okay. Okay. Good. Okay, I’ll be right there, I just gotta get a suit on, just hold on—“
Simon shakes his head. “No. It’s alright. I’m— I’m better now. Stay put.”
He still hasn’t opened his eyes, but… yes, the Iron Lung will still be there, and he will still have to go inside it, but there will be stars, too.
There will be stars.
He pries his eyes open, his lashes damp with tears, and finds the glittering universe waiting to greet him, bright and multitudinous and much, much too large to care for the failures of one small human.
Simon takes a shuddering breath and squeezes his hands into fists.
Grace doesn’t sound convinced. “Please come back inside, I’d rather you were safe—“
Simon doesn’t want him to have to do this. He has to be brave. “I can do this, Grace… I need to.”
He starts forward, slow and careful, one step at a time toward the Iron Lung and the aft of the Hail Mary.
Toward the edge of the ship and the infinity of starlight. Toward his past and his present and… hopefully toward his future, too.