Chapter Text
This is all Rocky's fault. He was stupid, stupid, stupid. How could he be so stupid and let this happen? Between the two of them, Grace was supposed to be the stupid one, not Rocky.
They were supposed to be okay, fine. Rocky and Grace saved the stars, saved Earth and Erid, saved humans and eridians. Rocky helped Grace and Grace helped Rocky. Then Grace saved Rocky. So Rocky had to save Grace.
Now they're supposed to be safe and fine.
But Grace isn't fine. Not at all. And it's all his fault.
For almost two years, everything's been fine. Not just fine, good, great, amazing. He and Adrian finally got their reunion and haven't been too far apart since. Adrian and Grace made friends, which, despite what he says sometimes, makes Rocky happier than anything.
Saying stuff he doesn't mean, bad influence from Grace.
Grace dome environment is almost perfected, thanks to Adrian and some other science eridians who were more than happy to help Grace. It was supposed to be as close to perfect as they could get on Erid. Good waves, good beach, good house.
Rocky could come and go often with his new suit. Other eridians could come too, but they're few and far between. It's most just him and Adrian who actually go in to talk to Grace, everyone else stays outside with a thicker wall of xenonite between them.
But since Adrian hasn't gone into Grace dome for more than a few weeks — busy with fixing the fog machine from outside — this has to be Rocky's fault. Because Grace shouldn't be getting sick, there's no way for bacteria or viruses to get to him in the Dome, so the only one that could've made him sick is Rocky.
And in hindsight, he should've seen the signs.
Eridians don't get sick the same way that Grace has told him humans get sick. They don't really have terminal illnesses like Grace told him about, a concept he still finds even more horrifying than Grace eating habits.
They have some bacteria and viruses, but they don't actually make eridians very sick. They also don't spread from eridian to eridian, only ever getting picked up from the environment, not from each other. They don't stick around for long either, too hot to survive for long, they prefer colder creatures or plants.
The worst illnesses just make eridians a bit sluggish and cold, maybe make them sleep longer than they should, but never anything deadly or very harmful.
So, when he'd woken up — Adrian watching him nearby as they did if Rocky didn't sleep around Grace — with a fatigue he usually didn't have after sleeping, a heavy feeling that lasted too long in his limbs, and just the slightest coldness covering his outer layer, he didn't think anything of it.
It wasn't enough for him to notice, but he still should've. He's stupid for not realizing it before he went to visit Grace.
He made Grace a stupid xenonite bracelet that day because he'd mentioned having some back on earth. A bracelet he stupidly contaminated with whatever illness he had and brought into Grace dome. The dome that he's the only one that can enter and exit without being scanned, because it'd be too much of a hassle to check him each time.
And everything was fine at first, his limbs were a bit sluggish but he couldn't care less, Grace liked the gift, put it on the moment he figured out how to. Grace even made jazz hands at him, something he'd slowly started doing more and more. It made Rocky wish that he could have a mouth to smile at Grace with.
He was so stupid, but Grace was fine for a while. No shaking or fever or pain, he was completely fine! And then he wasn't fine.
Rocky didn't stay to watch Grace sleep, but now he wishes he had. Grace always told him that humans were fine when sleeping, that he didn't need someone to watch out for him, but that doesn't change the fact that Rocky and Adrian got called in because something was wrong with him.
Really wrong. Not 'fell of the bed in his sleep' or 'woke up from a nightmare' or 'tossed and turned a bit too hard' wrong. Not humanly odd kind of wrong, but falling apart kind of wrong.
None of the other eridians had dared go into the dome before they got there, which left Adrian and him to check on Grace.
Rocky thought that watching Grace wilt away on their last few months of travel to Erid would be the last time he looked so bad, but what he finds is even worse than that. Armando is going wild in the living room, unable to go help Grace without being pushed into the room by someone, which Adrian quickly turns to do.
That leaves him alone to scuttle to Grace's bed where he's half sitting and half lying. It looks worse than the scientists described it as. There's some kind of bodily fluid splattered against the floor next to where Grace is set, which Rocky carefully avoids for the time being.
"Grace, Grace, Grace! What's wrong? Grace okay?" He speaks before he can get up on the bed. Eventually, just as Adrian is pushing Armando through the door, he gets up on the bed beside Grace. He can't see it, but the slight tremors and shakes coming from Grace's whole body are hard to miss.
Armando cleans the fluid from the ground with unmatched efficiency while he keeps trying to talk to Grace, not quite daring to reach out yet. "Grace okay? Need help? Rocky and Adrian are here, how do we help?"
There's no decipherable response from Grace as he curls himself down from the pillow onto the main bed. A rumbling sound that Grace taught him was called 'groan' is the only response he gets. Rocky's come to recognize it from the time that Grace only sustained himself on the Taumeoba.
Groan without talking means hurt. Means 'need help' and 'in pain' when Grace can't make the words come from his mouth.
And Rocky wants to help, more than anything in the world. He reaches one of his arms out to Grace's hand, only to pull it back just as quickly when Grace flinched back into himself. The sting he feels is deep in him, not physical, emotional.
Just as he pulls away Armando is on Grace in a moment. Something gets pressed against Grace head, then his neck and arm. The robotic voice that starts counting off Grace vitals barely does anything to cut through the concerning noises of whines, groans, and whimpers that echo in the room.
"Temperature highly elevated, 103 Fahrenheit. Increased heart rate, 140 bpm. Lower blood pressure, 60/40 mm Hg."
Rocky doesn't need one of the eridians assigned to Grace well-being to tell him those rates are bad. Bad, bad, bad.
Adrian bit away from the bed as Armando presses another limb to Grace arm, speaking in that same cold tone. "Administering acetaminophen dosage and IV fluids to manage symptoms." Before Grace, still making those horrible noises, can swat away the touches to his body an IV is quickly inserted in his arm, securely positioned to not rip out while Grace thrashes.
"Not good. Grace needs medication." Adrian speaks for the first time since they were called to the dome. Their voice is usually so comforting and calming to Rocky, but the worried tone combined with their words makes it impossible for him to relax.
Their supply of everything that was on the Hail Mary is limited, so Rocky quickly catches what Adrian's issue is. "We have more medication, question?" Grace still thrashes, but he's calmed down a bit with the pain killer trickling into his system. The same can't be said for Rocky, especially as Adrian taps his legs in urgent disagreement.
"Not yet! Still working on duplicating formula." It makes Rocky let out a panicked trill. He doesn't want to, but he hurls accusations to Adrian that he can't hold back (Grace's bad influence). "Why not? Grace need! Keep Grace alive, that's job! Do job!"
He feels shame rush over him the moment he stops talking. Shame and worry and fear all mixing into one the longer he looks between Grace and Adrian. He doesn't know what he expects to happen, but it doesn't.
Adrian hums calmly in a way Rocky can't believe he can manage after what he'd said to them. "Rocky. Grace will be okay. Grace said he won't get sick, so medicine not most important project."
Rocky doesn't even notice that Grace has calmed down quite a bit, still making noises but no longer writhing. Adrian doesn't climb up, the bed would splinter and break under their combined weight, but they do reach out an arm to take one of Rocky's. "Will make medicine. Find out what's wrong with Grace and fix it." They make a chirping sound — not a word, not in the way that most of their sounds are words — that Grace has compared to 'promise'.
It means a lot for eridians, more than 'promise' means for humans. It means enough to calm Rocky down finally. Rocky wishes for a moment that eridians had the ability to cry like humans could. Grace didn't cry often, but when he did, Rocky could hear the relief and sadness and everything in a way that words didn't convey.
"Thank you." He starts quietly, still not quite moving from Grace side but getting ready to make space for Adrian and the other scientists to take a look at Grace. "Rocky sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Shouldn't have said that to Adrian."
"Adrian understand. Rocky worried for friend Grace," they shift their voice to be a closer tune to Rocky's own — comforting, joking "Worried, worried, worried."
Grace stops making the horrible sounds, instead calming down and falling asleep.
"Adrian also worried about friend Grace. Grace also Adrian friend."
And Rocky can only agree, of course Adrian is worried, they care about Grace as much as Rocky cares about Grace. Well, almost as much, Adrian still can't tolerate watching Grace eating.
Now that there's a lot less screaming and panicking from all parties involved, slowly but surely some other scientist come to the dome to take a closer look at Grace. Rocky doesn't stray far, preferring to stay huddled beside Grace's side of the bed where he can keep an eye on his friend.
His friend, who by all means, looks like he's fast asleep. There's still the shaking and trembling in his limbs that makes his figure somewhat fuzzy to Rocky's vision, but aside from that he's as still as he is anytime he sleeps.
Armando and Leia — the name Grace gave her — work simultaneously on running different scans and extracting samples. Rocky has to hold himself back from making a fuss when she takes a blood sample and Grace gives a short, sharp noise that he's never heard but doesn't sound good.
Adrian also stays, watching Grace with him as he sleeps. It's only when Leia has all the samples and such necessary that Adrian leaves to head back to the lab outside with her. Rocky's glad that they are the one to analyse what's wrong with Grace, even if they have to leave Rocky to his own devices for the next while to do so.
Rocky moves up to the bed again as softly as he can with the thing being made for something of Grace's weight. He suppresses the urge to move even closer, close enough to touch and feel Grace's heartbeat against his hand. Grace's body temperature is already way too hot, Rocky wouldn't be helping him by staying too close.
It takes a lot of hours for Adrian to come back into the dome. Grace sleeps through it somewhat soundly. He sleeps much longer than he usually does. Too long, long enough that Rocky starts to worry if he's actually just sleeping or something else.
Grace is leaking more than he usually does — "sweat, it's called sweating Rocky." — but Rocky can tolerate it since he knows it'll cool Grace down eventually. Or it should. It doesn't, he's still way too hot to be safe, but maybe it will if Rocky just waits long enough.
Rocky doesn't have to be on Grace's chest to hear the way his chest rattles as he breathes. Not the 'snoring' kind of breathing that Grace sometimes got when he slept. It sounds like his lungs are breaking apart or something.
Before he can keep spiraling on about each minute thing that could possibly be a symptom of what's wrong with his friend, Adrian comes back through the open front door. Rocky hops to attention while staying as still as he can to not disturb Grace's sleep.
"You know what wrong with Grace?" He calms his volume after he hears himself speak. "You can fix?"
And Adrian-
They don't look exited. They don't look relieved or happy, they look worried. More worried than before. Not good.
"What, question?" Adrian moves closer, something solemn and unsure in his notes as he starts answering Rocky.
"Grace sick." Rocky doesn't state the fact that they clearly already know this, because this has to be going somewhere. It does, sadly.
"Grace sick with bacteria from Erid. Only make eridians very little sick because of high temperature, but Grace body cold enough for bacteria to survive longer."
Rocky doesn't get all the implications of that, but judging from Adrian's grim expression, it's bad. "What now? How do we fix it?" He doesn't ask how Grace got it, he already knows in the back of his mind but he's refusing to acknowledge it until he knows what'll happen to Grace.
"Need cure. We can make it," that sound for 'promise' again that sets a heavy weight on Rocky's main body. "Only need to know what kind of cure to make." Because why would they know which of the dozens of medicines that Grace had on the ship is the right one.
"Need to ask Grace or Armando." Adrian continues before he can speak.
That's an issue, because Armando doesn't understand Rocky without the language device. And even if it did, he's not sure if Armando would have the information they need.
"So, need to wait for Grace to wake up?"
A chirp, low and uncertain and scared, comes from Adrian. "Yes. Can't make cure until then."
Rocky feels the panic and fear from before so much more than he thought was possible.
Grace turns in his sleep, breath rattling and body burning like a star.
A dying star.
Grace is dying and they can't fix it.