Chapter Text
They were not that far away, which was a crazy thought. I had long since started imagining the rest of my life drifting across the universe with a snarky rock by my side and an even snarkier ship eating sludge alien pudding. But no, here I was, on another stupid EVA in three years holding a probe that was closely resembling one of the beetles and aiming it halfheartedly towards Threeworld. Which was a crazy sentence to say after four years (awake) in space. I was staring towards the planet, a massive explosion of colour against the black backdrop, it was the most beautiful thing I’ve seen since our Adrian fishing incident. We were still moving fairly fast, it was a sort of fly by and the only reason we even could be the ones releasing the taumoeba onto Threeworld was because it was just perfectly in place for it. We had deaccelerated for half of the journey here, and now we were in the perfect moment and place to release the probe — of course with permission from the science hive down on Erid.
“Alright Rock,” I adjusted my grip on the probe, a nice small thing with what Rocky had said was a ‘taumoeba seeder’, or that’s what I was calling it based on what Rocky had said. “Ready with Stuart.”
Steve Hatch would’ve loved that name I distantly thought as Rocky hummed an affirmative in my radio and I let it go, “I still don't understand humans need for naming objects,” It drifted slowly out from the ship a small little Astrophage engine, similar to the spin drive, activated when it was far enough away. Small bursts I couldn't see with the naked eye corrected its course towards Threeworld, “Stuart is on its way.”
I didn’t know what to expect the colours to be, I had guessed and gotten right that Erid was blue, later confirmed by the telescope when we started to enter the solar system. But Threeworld had been a mystery until now, always hidden behind either Eridani or other celestial bodies. It was a brilliant shade of purplish blue with fantastic swirls and thick atmosphere. I half saluted Stuart the fourth beetle ever made as it made its way towards Threeworld, “it seemed fitting, Stuart is actually the original bassist in the band that i told you about, which the original beetles are named after.”
The small engine would cut out when it got out of short range radio, the rest of the journey would be assisted with Threeworld’s gravitational pull and boom. Erid saved. Well it was more technical than that, it had a tonne of sensors that would correctly distribute the taumoeba in the correct part of the atmosphere and release the little buggers on the all they can eat astrophage buffet in a sort of timely manner so they didn't just clump up in one spot and die of starvation.
Erid saved, I huffed out a breath, fogging up the visor of the Orlan helmet. If I wasn’t so tired I would've probably felt more elated. But right now all I can think about was how beautiful Threeworld is and a fat nap waiting for me inside. “Wish you could see colour Rocky,” I mumbled, huffing my way towards the airlock, “what does this one sound like?”
“It sounds very…” Rocky paused, I could hear the little taps and clicks he does with his claws to get a better view, “compact.”
I chuckled, “it’s a very nice shade of purple,” I have come so accustomed to EVA’s these past years it's automatic the way I latch on my tethers. I have perfected the most efficient way of moving across the hull and suddenly i find myself in the airlock wriggling out of the Orlan, hopefully for the last time — firstly because i hate doing EVA’s and i don’t wanna be in space anymore, but secondly it stinks… It reeks of years worth of work and sweat and just hanging out in the airlock stinking up the space (haha) without seeing a single drop of water and soap.
Funny thing is the whole airlock smelled of space, what does space smell like you ask? Not good, I can tell you that, seared steak and like someone had welded recently in there fuming it up. It wasn’t a good combination and with my diet of alien amoeba and aspirin tasting coma slurry. I felt queasy every time I had to step foot in there nowadays. Or I felt just generally queasy all the time but hopefully soon that wouldn’t be a problem — hopefully.
I trudged my way back to the control room, or as much of a trudge I could get with zero G but I managed it very well at this point, and slid down into the pilot seat. “Pilot detected,” Mary helpfully told me for the umpteenth time during this journey and I pushed what I liked to call the ‘resume’ button of our course towards Erid. I had triple checked the numbers probably sixty times these last weeks. And Rocky had already consulted with the space station crew we had been in contact with for a while and it all checked out. I could relax, but the tension in my body wasn’t quite released until, well I don’t really know how long. There was the food situation, the deadly atmosphere and the slew of medical problems I currently had. But for now I could relax a bit.
”Are you alright, question?” Rocky asked, all while doing complex manoeuvring with some sort of radio device for Stuart and looking at his tactile screen towards the course projection on one of the main screens close to his bulb. It was amazing the dexterity of the Eridians and their way of multitasking really.
I sighed, and nodded slowly, I was tired, and hungry… and sick. I was really sick, malnourished and starving slowly. I could now fit Ilyukhina’s clothes very comfortably and Rocky had slowly started to be more nervous about my food situation once my gums had started to bleed. He hadn’t been impressed by my pirate voice either. So much nervousness he’d continuously asked for updates from Erid about said food situation. For now they haven’t gotten everything under control, just a few parts of my diet, they needed a sample of the coma slurry and for now the only sample within this part of the Milky Way was on the ship. But they for now thought that my starvation would be halted once we docked and resolved within weeks.
Early in the trip back to Erid I had experimented with my food. The coma slurry was awful tasting and with a bit of mad sciencing the shit out of it i had managed to make somewhat different flavours and thickening agents from stuff around the lab — thank you Stratt for infinite human knowledge and how to mad science food into a different texture with basic chemicals. I had to try and keep my general gut health intact somewhat, alternating between the thicker porridge stuff I had managed to make with the taumoeba and the slurry. My gut was not good, and I would probably need to be slowly reintroduced more solid food when that hopefully happened. The biggest problem for now with the food was the fat and proteins, the Eridian Scientists hadn’t quite figured out how to get all the heavy metals out of Eridian animals that had some of the proteins i needed, so we were still in the process of figuring that out.
”I think I’m gonna take a nap,” I said, feeling the pull of the engines again into the make shift gravity of propulsion from the spin drives, it wasn't the full 1.5gs we’ve been operating on for a while, now it was more of a cruising speed that would put us in a nice low orbit around Erid and close to their space station. Despite so many years in space, it still made me a bit nauseous when the gravity came and went. Rocky hummed again, he had to reluctantly let me sleep unsupervised for a while now, much to his dismay. He couldn't spend all his time sitting above my bed or staring at me from the same room now that I slept most of the day. Lack of proper nutrition would do that to a guy.
“I’ll come watch soon,” Rocky said, I just nodded and trudged normally to my bed. Armando had pointed out several times in the past months that I was experiencing a medical emergency and listing up a bunch of symptoms and diseases I probably had from malnutrition. I had eventually managed to dig through the systems and muted the whole thing. I had woken up once to the arms reaching for me when I had experienced some serious muscle cramps and now it was somewhat only activated when someone yelled “medical emergency”. I had not screamed, Rocky may say otherwise but I had been completely calm and collected and did not have any type of flashbacks to when I first woke up to the arms of harassment jostling me around, thank you very much.
who am i kidding, i screamed, loudly and probably gave Rocky the Eridian equivalent of a heart attack.
Again he wasn’t impressed with my R2D2 impression either. A guy can’t have any fun anymore without your best rock spider friend saying you're stupid from lack of nutrition.
It was still two weeks until we would dock with Erid’s first ever space station. The many decades Rocky had been gone had changed the game for Eridians since they too now had the never ending source of Astrophage to power cities and whatever new tech they had gotten after Blip A had left for its mission. Humanity would probably have done the same if they hadn't all starved to death by now, I have to stop thinking that, and I force myself to kindle the little flame of hope residing inside my chest. The beetles would be there by now, and Stratt was probably laughing at me and Rocky’s antics while some big wig politician gave her a foot massage and made a probe for Venus.
I’m laying in my bed, staring up at the ceiling with a lot of complicated feelings churning in my gut… together with the hunger.
Humanity is strong willed, I had to keep believing I wasn’t the sole survivor of humanity. They would figure it out, they probably had already but I wouldn’t see it for another thirteen years. I didn't know if earth was still this wonderful dream place my head has managed to make it into these past years or it was ruined by an ice age or war.
The thing about long term space travel, it kinda messes with your head. The monotone walls, the constant hum, and of course the whole everything that sounds different could potentially kill or strand you in space. I think I’ve handled it fine, I may be starving slowly, and I may have some… let's say triggers with certain sounds and flickering lights. But other than that I was fine.
I had painted most of the walls, synthesised some paints, mostly reds and oranges. It looked like a scribbled mess of crazy all over the place. There were models and hanging mobiles from the ceiling. I had a ‘wind’ chime hanging in front of one of the vents that circulated the air. All of the changes to the space were so that I didn't go crazy. I had read up all about it, my little 101 on how to not be crazy when you finally arrive at your interstellar neighbours doorstep and have to represent all of humanity. No biggie.
Most of my sleeps was pitiful. I would wake up on and off, sometimes because of pains, sometimes because of hunger or just sounds. And sometimes because I couldn't quite stay asleep. It was just a few more weeks, I had to keep telling myself that. And however long it would take before I could be transported down to Erid’s surface.
I was a bit nervous about that as well, I was gonna be the sole representative of humanity and I wasn't gonna be fit for it truly. Starved and begging for help while also having saved their planet. There were culture differences and the language and god I couldn't even begin to think about just the sheer amount of communication I would have to do in the coming days after docking.
There would be so much to deal with, and my brain right now wasn’t even functioning at half power. Thankfully Rocky had prepared me as well as he could, he stopped using his simplified version of eridianese, had taught me how to both write and read, and even made me a somewhat crude keyboard organ thingy so I could actually communicate the basics. I’ve spent the last two years practicing the moment but I was still not good. I was fluent in my understanding but god, all the rules, if any one ever says English is difficult. Well, eridianese takes the cake. The names are difficult, the titles are very culturally important, there’s tone and chords that transform everything in the sentence, and don’t get me started on the fact that they also use stomps and body language I can’t replicate. Tone infliction, is it in major key or minor key, pronouns that don’t specify gender but titles and such. It was a pain in the butt.
But it was still two weeks, i had time to figure out my outfit, stress about the trajectory and docking and the food situation. It would be fine.
—-
When your sick time is weird, and with time dilation and space travel it gets weirder. My perception of time was wacky at best, I had to constantly ask Rocky about how many hours I had slept whenever I woke up. I would be in a daze between sitting behind the radio with Rocky rattling off information about my diet, about earth, our ship's status, some many many pleasantries with big military admirals, some sort of politicians and what I would need for survival on the surface. It was exhausting and slow going. But at the same time, my time perception was just gone.
And now here we are.
at Erid
Docking
I wasn’t freaking out. No, I'm cool, calm and collected — and sweating.
“Grace is leaking a lot,” Rocky commented from his space ball by my feet. He was dressed in his celebration outfit, and had been practically running around in there with excitement.
”Thank you for the confidence boost,” I ruffled my hair, it stood all over the place with the odd sort of near gravity we were experiencing. That was scary. The Hail Mary had blared at least fifty different alarms during the approach but Rocky had assured me it was fine, Rocky had made sure to add a lot of strength to the hull for my trip back to Earth before the whole outbreak. But it was still nerve wracking. It had creaked and Mary had told me at five different points in the process that the hull was compromised, the gravitational pull was skewing their orbit trajectory and that we had low fuel. She didn't know we were docking but still, nerve wracking.
”It will be fine!”
Oh I wished I had that enthusiasm. I did, deep down I was so goddamn happy to be here I didn't know where to even begin. But I would actually just fall back into bed and just lay there for eternity. When that airlock opened, the real work would have to begin. And right now I was done for, I had so many vitamin deficits and what not it was scary how sick i truly was. My cardiovascular system made me dizzy at all times, which didn't help with the wonky gravity.
But that would have to be a worry for later.
I had my keyboard, and the best fitting flight suit on (again Ilyukhina came through and saved the day) I shaved and cut my hair earlier this week. I looked horrendous, I smelled horrendous as well because of the soap situation on board, but thankfully Eridians can’t smell. And technically they couldn’t see me like I saw me. But I wanted to feel presentable, so I tried at least.
The docking had been eventful, they’d decided to use a tunnel sort of system like me and Rocky had used back at Tau Ceti, already pre-fabricated in the months they’d been in contact with us. Which was wild.
Erid had changed in technology, with the ever present threat of ecological collapse they had to expand their space research. The old space elevator was now a tourist attraction and I could actually see it from the window. The new elevator was longer and connected to a space station that could technically disconnect from the whole thing and be in a nice stable orbit around Erid. They had also expanded deep space satellites and communications. Which was a win for me and Rocky.
Months ago we had managed to establish contact, it was slow, and wonky because the Hail Mary wasn’t built for long range communications like that. But it had some of it built in probably from the communications it needed during the orbit around earth and sending info back to earth until it was out of range. So Rocky had made some adjustments, helped by the knowledge on computer science on his own laptop and a human with somewhat good dexterity and it had worked. We had established contact, transmitted a message that told of Rocky’s situation and my situation that looped until we got an answer.
I had been sleeping the first time we had gotten a reply, and had woken up to a high pitch screech from Rocky that had gotten me leaping out of bed half naked and crashing into the control room in a full blown panic.
After some sobbing and half hearted yelling that no sound like that should be yelled inside a space craft I had heard the most beautiful thing ever. A reply.
Even Rocky had sobbed. In his Eridian way, and we hugged pathetically through the barriers between us. It had been so long since we both had heard any other living being it took us an embarrassingly long time to figure out what to even reply with. That had taken two whole days of bickering.
And look at us now, best reps from Tau Ceti, saviours of the world. One was vibrating out of his carapace and the other was anxious sweating so much it would soon bead and drift slowly towards the left because of the janky gravity. I had tapped my first ever correspondence on the keyboard for three straight hours yesterday practicing and now I felt like my hands would just glide right off the whole keyboard.
The plan here was that Rocky would go out first, or I would push him out, step back into my airlock, wait for Rocky to get to the Eridian side and then I would repressurise my side and step forward.
When the moment arrived, I could barely see in the dark tunnel, but thankfully the xenonite they used wasn't the really thick black one, this was a bit splotchy brown with a sort of translucency to it so Eridani’s light shone through it. I swung open the outer airlock door, I could hear the excited chitters and distant conversations from the other Eridians that made up our welcome team. I pushed with all my might to get Rocky out and into the tunnel where they had thankfully installed magnetic railings so he could manoeuvre towards the actual airlock by himself.
I stepped back inside again, nearly fleeing from the whole thing. All of them could technically see me, ever since they connected the tunnel they could perceive and see more of me than what I could see. But the door felt comfortable and safe to stand behind. Hiding just a bit so I could calm my racing heart. well that was probably also a mix of being both starved and having physically exerted myself by pushing Rocky all the way from the airlock in the dormitory. And of course three years in space with only a snarky Rocky by my side… And Mary, she was sometimes a very good conversationalist.
I heard the hissing of gasses, there was a massive uproar of just noise shortly after and then it was my time to shine. I had strapped on a makeshift headlamp, my keyboard hung across my shoulder and I wore the flight suit with the mission crest and crycillic characters on my chest. I pressurised my side slowly, it held like usual, and I swung open the door again.
I was met with music, a symphony of Eridianese that felt overwhelming. I could barely hear any of the actual meanings, there were so many in the tunnel. At least twenty Eridians all surrounding Rocky. He was enclosed in what could nearly look like a massive group hug full of song.
Rocky stepped back and gestured before I felt the attention shift from him to me, “this is Grace, he saved my life and Erid.”
My hands slipped over the keys, I had practiced for so long it felt nearly impossible to stand before the gathered Eridians here and play, like a sudden stage fright. My hands shook and I floated a bit further towards the clear xenonite wall, “hello, I am Grace, Sorry for no good Eridianese. I want thank all for help and for let me stay here.” Well the rest of the speech I had prepared was simply forgotten. The tunnel erupted into song, I caught words of great gratitude, a bunch of welcomes and a symphony of thanks. There was more to be done for sure, but right now I basked in the welcome party.
An eridian stepped closer to the wall between us, decked out in what I could only describe as a uniform of some sort. “Sol friend Grace,” his chords were a bit more monotone than Rocky, and a bit formal in intonation, but I understood him well, “you are very welcome to Erid.”
Tears welled up in my eyes, and Rocky had to hastily explain to the entourage that it was in fact very normal and a show of me dealing with a lot of emotions.
Yup best reps for sure.
—
The whole welcome was nice, our world expanded from just the Hail Mary to a part of the space station, even for me. I had now a full corridor that led further into the space station so I could be a bit closer to other workers and project teams that had been made when me and Rocky first had made contact. Rocky was out at the moment and I was floating in the tunnel with some Eridians that were a part of my medical team that had been assigned to me. It was nice, they had gotten a lot of information about my biology through the many hours over the radio with Rocky and me, and with the added benefits of the two computers I handed them, a crash course in laptops and the English to Eridian dictionary with a text to speech function. The work was remarkably efficient. Rocky wasn’t wrong when he said humans were inefficient, because in the few months we had been in contact with Erid a lot of work has already been done, is in its final stages or is in full swing now that we were here.
Right now we were documenting the slew of medical issues that had to be addressed. Most of the synthesized vitamins were on their way, in a matter of a few days i would get it, but they were particularly worried about the taste after they learnt that humans would puke if something tasted horrible.
”We don’t want you to have to expel any nutrients we don’t have everything ready yet and need to preserve as much as possible,” one of them said, there were three of them, one who mostly spoke to me who I’d called Dr Grey cause they were grey with some mottled brown spots across their carapace, “is there a way for you to get nutrients directly to stomach, question?”
I had Armando's manual on my laptop open. I had delved into the mechanics of it for a couple of hours now just to figure out what that can do for now and what my medical team had to learn. “I had tube,” I played on the keyboard, and then gestured towards my nose and then down to my stomach, “got soft food and water in tube.”
”Is it possible to get a tube now, question?” Dr Grey asked while the others noted down our conversation or plucked away on the computer encased in xenonite Rocky had elegantly designed with a textured screen.
I searched the manual for NG tube insertion and there it was, within the coma maintenance protocols regular insertion and inspection of NG tubes. I held up a finger in what I have taught them to wait. I floated down towards the dormitory, not so used to the wonky gravity that pulled me towards the left I clipped just a few doors.
Armando was dormant in the ceiling, after the food had run out and the coma slurry had been taken out so I could manually access it, it had been just hanging there. “Medical emergency,” I said and they sprung to life to assess me, the arms reached for me and I slapped them away, “NG tube insertion required.”
I waited a baited breath until Armando pulled some stuff from the ceiling and the arms reached for me yet again. This time I let it and it placed me on the edge of the bed. A pouch of water is pushed into my hand “swallow water when instructed, the tube will be guided through the nose and down into the stomach” I let myself be a bit manhandled and let the machine do its thing.
I try not to tense up as the tube slid wetly into my nose, and I dutifully swallowed as the tube went back into my throat and Armando told me. It was surprisingly smooth and while I did feel it in the back of my throat the gagging I was expecting didn’t happen. Armando drew out some liquid and it vanished into what I’ve come to know as the testing part of the machine. “NG tube in place,” a bit of tape taped the tube down to my cheek, it bobbed in and out of focus but I could live with that for now. I grabbed a medical syringe from the medical supply box I had dug out from storage, filled it with water and floated back through the Hail Mary back through the airlock.
Nice.
I got back to Grey and the others again, the three of them all did jazz hands which made me smile. I did the jazz hands back and tried to ‘sit’ again with my laptop and keyboard. DrGrey stepped a bit closer to the xenonite wall and started tapping the wall in a rhythm I usually only heard whenever Rocky needed to ‘see’ things better. “Amaze! It’s in the stomach,” I held up a finger again and took the syringe attached it to the end of the NG tube and slowly pushed on the plunger. All three recoiled a bit in disgust, and yeah i expected that, they could hear all the funky stuff inside my body unfortunately. Despite it all Dr Grey stood there in this sort of position I knew from living with Rocky that was like me standing with my jaw on the floor, “amaze amaze amaze!”
The taste problem was solved for now with the tube, as long as the nutrients could be dissolved in water and pushed through it we didn’t have to think about the taste yet. The conversation after that was very productive, the Eridian who was currently using the laptop (I’ve started to call them Dr House cause I went with the tv show doctor names, sue me,) had a theory on how to get meat and protein. I wasn’t too fond of the idea, mostly because it involved a bit of autocannibalism. Of myself of course but still, meat made by my own cells. It would be fine though, the getting of my stem cells though, that would be a pain in the back — literally.
—-
There was always a flurry of Eridians in the Space Station, and with specially made hull robots to assess damage to my ship, flexible xenonite suits to be in my atmosphere, I was nearly always surrounded.
I was hooked up to Armando, we didn't have a pump for my nutrition, so I had to be connected to Armando to get the synthesised vitamins and minerals they slowly had made. I watched them, there were currently six Eridians including Rocky on the Hail Mary, engineers, biologists and some other titles I couldn't find a good translation for. All picking apart my life support system to figure out how it functioned, how the ship functioned and the thinking machine (the computer that made up Mary) worked. There were also two who were picking through all of my stuff. Cataloguing what was on the ship. Most of the lab equipment had been catalogued already and they were carapace deep in the storage bins where I’d put most of the ‘hobby’ stuff. Thankfully the project Hail Mary Taskforce had the thought of adding some hobby stuff in with everything else. A last little thank you for saving our lives. I didn’t have any, obviously, but I was thankful for the items we did in fact have.
Who knew DuBois had a green thumb and loved botany in zero G? I had seeds, actual seeds. I hadn’t thought about it ever since i found them but when we started to pick apart Mary it was like a godsend. There was even a Bonsai tree hidden amongst the self sustaining botanical wall I hadn’t even noticed. An actual tree! A small one but, hey, a tree is a tree.
It was chaos, I felt like I was floating in a sea of just vibrations from how many different notes and chords wafted around me. Not that I complained, it was a welcome change.
I was slowly getting better, there were a few vitamins that were more difficult to synthesise without plants and such but it was all slowly coming together, I had to sit hooked up to Armando for about three hours a day and then i had to go over to the UV lights and stand there for about thirty minutes to soak in the rays, with sunscreen — or in reality a lot of sink to stave off the UVA rays and try to get as much UVB instead. Dr Grey and Dr House together with the rest of the medical team had managed to start the process of making meat from my stem cells — my back was still aching from that whole process of gathering said stem cells. I still have some beef with Armando for that. But thankfully Rocky had been there to hold my hand, like actually.
I had sobbed like a baby both at the procedure and the fact I now could hold his hand. That first hug felt like pure heroin when I felt the warmth from the suit and the trills of his voice against my skin. God that had been a good feeling. Probably better than heroin. Which I probably should find and explain whenever we get to that part of the cataloguing the ship.
My strength has started to come back, I’ve hosted a multitude of English classes for the Eridians working closely with me and Rocky to get me safely down to the surface. They now could understand me somewhat whenever I didn't have my keyboard on me.
I was so thankful for him. My eyes strayed over to where he was instructing some other engineers what everything behind some panels were, he was gesturing up towards the ceiling. They probably could see everything underneath the panels. Where I saw my crazy not so pretty paintings decorated every white surface they saw wires, pipes and everything else. Rocky looked good where he floated, god I was thankful for that guy. Who had both saved me twice and worked so hard to save me a third time.
He was the best engineer I could’ve wished to have found at Tau Ceti, the bestest friend I could’ve ever asked for in the entirety of the universe.
He had barely left my side, only a few moments but as far as i know he hadn’t even left the space station. He had slept by my side, had watched me sleep as often as he could and generally been within his own hearing range. If I couldn't see him, I could just yell Rocky and he would skitter into view.
My thoughts strayed towards Erid, Rocky had been welcomed by a few friends, we had barely been able to talk about it really with the chaos on board. But there was something gnawing in my head. I haven’t heard nor seen Adrian. The one thing Rocky could barely contain himself from was Adrian, the entire road here he had talked about how they met, how good Adrian was, their future plans and well everything.
“Hey Rock,” it got his attention, and he excused himself from the other engineers, and floated towards me.
”You okay Grace?”
”yeah,” I rub my eyes, I’m tired, I haven’t slept well with all the noise despite everyone trying to be very accomodating. It’s just that Eridians aren’t used to being able to wake up from a sleep, so they tend to misjudge how much noise actually wakes me. And with the automatic lights they can’t see it’s sometimes a bit difficult to get the full 8 hours. ”Just wondering, have you seen Adrian yet?”
Rocky goes a bit still, before he shakes his carapace, a very human thing I love that he’s picked up from me.
”Why?”
I’ve lived with Rocky for now nearly four whole earth years. I have seen him angry at board games, frustrated at engineering projects, sad about being so far away from home, happy, excited, jealous, hurt… This felt different. He fiddled with his claws, two legs keeping him steady so he doesn’t float away.
“I can’t leave the station,” he said, still fiddling like he’s nervous.
”Buddy you have to go to Adrian!” I felt shock, why on earth, no Erid, wouldn’t he go down?
“No, can no leave Grace,” despite hours and hours of us painstakingly teaching me proper eridianese, sometimes Rocky slipped back into the simplified version with me. Like an accent between the two of us, “Adrian no have access to come up, told me through wire.”
”Rocky…” I tilted my head, I tried to get a read on him but it's sometimes difficult despite all these years.
“No argument, I no want to leave you here Grace.”
“It’s very kind of you to think of lil old me here, but I’m fine,” I gesticulated towards Armando “can’t really go anywhere until I’m done with today’s slurry.” I try to laugh it off but I know Rocky doesn’t buy it.
Deep down I know why he doesn’t want to leave me here, the same reason why he doesn’t want to leave. No matter how much he wants to see Adrian he can’t quite leave the room. I've seen it multiple times, him halfway towards the elevator doors only to stop and turn back around. Like he's afraid to actually step foot on it.
”I think I get it,” I try, I soften my voice, I let my hand float up towards his fiddling claws and envelope them, “I would be terrified too..”
”what if something happens, I can no fix?” Rocky flexes his claws, turning them so they curl around my hand softly. Never too hard, always so gentle.
I chuckled, as hard as it is to not have him close by, Dr Grey had a very nice conversation with me about codependency earlier this week, “go down to Adrian after you’re done with the engineering team, please, time it so you’re here when the slurry’s done. I won't move from this spot.”
”I will think about it.”
I let go of his claws and curl my hand into a fist, “that’s good,” he returns the first bump.