Archive of Our Own

“So this is the E string, the high E. Then there’s the B, G, D, and A strings. Last is the low E string.”

There’s a dull humming in the background, one that has long since become familiar to you. The constant whirring and buzzing of the machinery that made up Mary; which was the affectionate name Grace had come up with for the spaceship that was now your home (and eventual deathbed). You were lounging comfortably in an oversized t-shirt, clearly well-loved with how the fabric frayed at the edges. The taste of cheap, waxy chocolate lingered on your tongue- the kind of sweets that were shelf-stable enough to last a four-year space flight. In your lap you balanced a guitar, which had been one of the few sentimental items you’d brought with you.

And here you were, explaining the different parts of the instrument to a rock-spider-looking alien.

There’s a clicking sound as Rocky taps the claw at the end of one of his arms, “six strings, what purpose, question?” His voice, which should otherwise sound like a series of chirps, trills, and melodic cries, is automatically translated with the computer program Grace had hastily put together. Said scientist was currently sitting in another chair, tossing a knit-ball of planet Earth up and down as he watched your impromptu music lesson. Out of the corner of your eye, you can see the lopsided smile that tugs on his face. You choose to ignore it, not enjoying the leap your heart takes at the sight.

“It’s so that you can do this,” you answer, offering him an example. You play the minor scale, sliding your fingers along the strings and plucking them in a well-rehearsed pattern. After years upon years of playing, it was second nature to you.

Rocky gets incredibly excited upon hearing the chords, waving his arms eagerly. “Amaze, amaze, amaze! Eridians have tools like this too! Rocky can show, can make with xenonite!”

You grin, “oh, I’d love to see that. I’ve always loved music. Humans have, like, probably hundreds of different instruments. More than I could ever count. From all around the planet, from different cultures and peoples. We can even use our own bodies to make music, that’s singing.”

“Singing, question?”

“It’s when us humans use our voices,” you explain, pointing to your throat, “and we make vocalizations. Like, for the karaoke thing Grace was showing you the other day. I’d say it’s pretty similar to your Eridian language.”

Rocky bounces on his back limbs, an approximation to nodding. He taps his claw before asking, “Rocky hear singing, question?”

There’s a heavy pause in the conversation, and your shoulders stiffen when you realize he’s asking you to display an example of singing. “Oh-” you gasp, “oh, I dunno about that-”

Grace finally chooses to interject. “Don’t be modest, you’re a great singer.”

Your cheeks flush with heat, and you turn to shoot him a glare. “Ryland-” you practically hiss his name, and you roll your eyes at the cheeky grin he gives you in response. “Look, gimme some time to practice, and then I’ll show you, okay? I haven’t really done much singing since before the mission. I’m super rusty.”

As you speak you slide your fingers along the thinnest string of the guitar, an old self-soothing habit. But when you feel a sharp sting at your fingertips, you cringe and yank your hand away. A curse escapes your lips as you look at your hand, groaning when you see the droplets of blood beading on the pad of your index finger. You supposed it made sense that after four years in a medically induced coma that your calluses would heal themselves, but you’d be damned if that would let you stop playing. If you were doomed to die on this ship eventually, you planned to ensure that your final years were going to be filled with music.

Rocky sees your distress, and you take a guess that his little crystal-instrument that offers him extra vision is able to pick up on the blood now trailing down your hand. “If using instrument causes pain, why continue to use, question?”

You hum as you wipe away the blood and suck on the tip of your finger. Sure, Armando could probably patch you up, and there had to be bandages somewhere in the medical bay, but you didn’t want to exit this conversation just yet. In your periphery, you can see Grace watching you intently. You don't dare glance in his direction, because you think your face might catch on fire if you catch him staring at your lips.

“Hmm. That is a good question,” you finally respond after stopping the blood flow, “personally, if I didn’t have music I wouldn’t have much of a reason to live. I think, like anything good in life, a bit of pain is worth it.”

“Examples,” Rocky retorts, demanding more insight.

You tilt your head to the side as you think. It’s one of those unfortunate lapses in thought, where the mind fails to offer up any memories to support the statement. Finally, you turn to look at Grace, searching for his input.

The scientist scratches his chin before saying, “liiiiike, eating a bowl of spicy noodles.”

You snap your fingers, “exactly! The spice hurts, but the delicious meal is worth it. Or like scraping your knee so you can learn how to ride a bike. Or like-”

“Like Rocky loving Adrian, question?”

The sudden profoundness of the sentence makes you jolt. You glance up, locking eyes with Grace, who looks equally stunned. There’s a pang in your heart as you consider his words. Just yesterday was when you learned that Rocky had a mate, and he’d told you both that his relationship had so far lasted for 186.3 years. It wasn’t enough, so he said. 46 of those years, you’d learned, he had spent here; orbiting Tau Ceti on a mission similar to your own. You couldn’t even begin to imagine the heartache that accompanied being away from the love of your life for so long.

You fidget with the frayed edges of your shirt and slowly nod your head. “Yeah… exactly like falling in love.”

Whether or not Rocky realized how heavy the air had become with what he’d said, he luckily changed the topic. He taps his claws against the panel of his xenonite tunnel as he speaks. “You are both navigator and artist. But these do not combine. Rocky is both engineer and artist, both of these require making things. How does navigator and artist make sense, question?”

You jump on the opportunity to change course and discuss something that doesn’t hurt your heart as much. “See, I get why you might think that. But ultimately, I think of music and mathematics as siblings,” you explain, plucking a few strings as you speak, “numbers and tones, equations and melodies, they’ve never been that far off from one another. Astronomy is my job, and I do adore space. But music… that’s always been my passion.”

As you speak about yourself with Rocky, Grace watches from the side with a fond smile on his face. It was a bit funny. He’d had similar questions when you had both met back on Earth.

It would be easy to say that your life had become a whirlwind the moment that Eva Stratt had tracked you down. A truthful statement. Factual. Appropriate.

Being cornered outside of a dive bar where, just moments before, you’d been playing bass guitar for a local band had been a complete shock. And yes, you’d tried to run away from them. But how else could you have reacted, considering it had been one o’clock in the morning and you’d been surrounded by a group of intimidating strangers dressed in all black. The only thing that had stopped you was Stratt’s commanding voice. She’d said your full name and title, even including the Dr. bit- which you hardly ever went by, you didn’t let many people know about your PhD in astronomy these days.

While hesitant, you chose to stop and speak with her. Her file on you was extensive. She had data about your work history dating as far back as your first college internship at NASA. You’d confirmed your astronaut experience, the months you had spent orbiting the planet on the ISS, the many conferences you’d spoken at and the scientific journals you’d contributed to.

But what Stratt considered to be most important was a paper you’d written well over a decade ago, during that first internship. A paper about maximising fuel expenditure in space travel beyond our solar system’s gravitational influence. Attached to the file with a paperclip was a photograph of you when you were freshly twenty years old, still bright-eyed and naive. It had been a long time since you’d seen that face.

And that was how you got swept up into Project Hail Mary. It wasn’t just your knowledge that you contributed, either. They needed an experienced navigator, one who would assist the pilot and ship computer in charting courses. You didn’t need much convincing to volunteer yourself. Billions of lives were in the balance. Children who deserved to have a future just like you had. So you dove headfirst into months of physical and mental training alongside your fellow volunteers.

It was in the midst of the project where you had met Ryland Grace.

He was incredibly smart. Simultaneously, he was also incredibly silly. Which was a breath of fresh air, considering the vast majority of other people you’d been spending your time with were deathly serious. You were one of the only ones who would laugh at his little jokes and quips when he was explaining new discoveries about Astrophage. You figured that must have been part of why he had slowly begun to drift toward you- not many people on the research vessel were amused by him the way you were.

Your first private conversation had occurred on the ship’s mast. It was evening, and most of the personnel aboard the boat were in the mess hall for supper. But you were sitting alone with your guitar, sunset casting a glow over you as you strummed a song. Not any particular tune, just a random assortment of chords. The sound of waves crashing against the metal hull served as your inspiration.

“Not hungry?”

The sudden voice made you jump, a yelp escaping you as you turned your head.

You came face-to-face with Grace, who held his hands up in surrender. “So sorry, did not mean to scare you like that-” he’s quick to apologize, and you can only laugh at his nervousness.

“It’s fine, Dr. Grace,” you say, “no harm no foul. And nah, just wanted to get away from the crowd for a bit. I’ll sneak some food into my cabin later.”

He slowly nods before gesturing to the instrument you held. “An astronaut and a musician? That’s impressive.”

“I like to think of myself as a musician first, actually,” you reply, shrugging your shoulders, “all the astronomy stuff came after.”

Your reply seemed to stun him. He seems to consider your words carefully before he replies, “that’s… super neat. I don’t know if I could say that there’s anything else I care so much about.”

His words intrigued you. He did seem like the type to bury himself in his studies, but so much so that he would neglect fun? Play? The joys of life? A myriad of questions flashed through your mind. Did he have a family back home, a spouse, a pet, children, friends? Was he the type of person to keep a clinically tidy home, or was his old room a mess of stuff? What did he do in his downtime? How did he keep himself sane?

“You got any hobbies, Dr. Grace?” you ask. A safe question. A normal question.

He gives a small wave of his hand, “you can drop the Doctor part, if you want, I hear it all day. As for hobbies… er… um, I can play a mean game of trivia.”

There was a part of you that sensed he may not have been being entirely truthful, but regardless, you still played along. “I’ll hold you to that,” you grin, “we’ll play a game before I get jettisoned into space.”

It was the start of a friendship, destined to be sweet but short-lived. Grace was consistently anxious, and you were consistently mellow, meaning you balanced one another out. He’d confide in you when he was stressed out of his mind about the mission, and you’d whisper frustrations to him whenever you felt overwhelmed by your crewmates. Though you hid it well from everyone else, Grace could pierce through the walls you put up. He saw the weight of the world on you, and he did his best to put you at ease on the nights when it dragged you down the most.

You made peace with it, at least that’s what you had said to him. If it meant that humanity could go on to make art and music and endless wonderful creations for many more eons to come, it would have all been worth it. Even if it required you to sacrifice yourself.

This thought process helped you make the most of your final days on Earth. You listen to a lot of music as the countdown to the flight begins. You were insatiable for it. Any free moment you had, you were popping on a set of headphones and listening to the vast collection you had amassed on your device. Music spanning decades, genres, and languages. You shared this with Grace as well, spending hours in your cabin rambling and answering his questions. He seemed to take joy in how passionate you were, just as you enjoyed listening to his rambling thoughts on Astrophage.

You’d taken part in the ship’s karaoke night, of course. After a few drinks and a lot of consideration, you’d finally picked a song that felt right. As soon as the first words to Super Trouper by ABBA passed your lips the bar erupted in excitement. The crew clapped along as an accompaniment, though the lack of sobriety in the room was evident based on how out-of-sync some of the scientists were. During the chorus you lock eyes with Grace, who’d been sitting unmoving by the bar for the majority of the evening.

You’d winked at him, causing him to quickly avert his gaze as his face flushed red.

Once your journey on the vessel was done you’d spent your final hours on solid ground with careful consideration. Grace had found you sprawled out in the grass not too far away from the office buildings. You ran your fingers through the grass, breathing in deeply as you tried to memorize the feeling of each individual blade. Wind rolled over your body, wind that pushed the clouds thousands of feet above you. It wouldn’t be too much longer until you were in a deep sleep, soaring past the lower atmosphere.

It didn’t take much convincing to get him to join you. You laid side by side in the grass. You asked him to recite the chemical compositions of various objects to you. Your fingers brushed together, then you’d curled your pinky around his, and not too long after that you were holding hands. Neither of you made a comment on it. You didn’t have to.

The plan was to send you to the pre-flight quarantine ahead of the rest of your crewmates. From the very safe and sterile room, you’d coordinate with mission control on the final pre-flight checks and the autopilot route to get to the star Tau Ceti while the four-man crew was in a multiple-year-long medically induced coma. You were rushed on a very tight schedule, which afforded you very little time to give your goodbyes.

Your farewell to Grace had been short, simple, as unemotional as possible. Perhaps that was for the best, because you’d become quite fond of him over the course of your friendship. You didn’t want his final memory of you to be one where you were a sobbing wreck.

It was within the first 24 hours of quarantine when you’d received the phone call.

There had been an explosion.

Your mission specialist and science expert, Dubois, was dead. So was his backup, Shapiro. 

The pit of dread that formed in your stomach made you want to throw up as you listened to Stratt’s monotone voice on the other end of the line. Her words became a dull drone in the background as your thoughts raced. Fond memories flashed into your mind of the hours and days spent training with them. How dedicated they both had been to the cause. How bright and intelligent they each were. The untapped potential.

Dead. Gone. There weren’t even bodies to deliver home to their families. They had been instantly vaporized. 

You snap back to reality. There is too much on the line to begin spiraling. Just as you open your mouth to ask, Stratt informs you that there is a backup to the backup. You won’t be lacking a fourth member. She declines to offer you a name but assures you that they are qualified and prepared for the mission.

Well, you couldn’t ask for much more than that, you supposed. In all of your grief and concern, you hadn’t even thought to press her on who the backup’s backup was. Surely it had to have been someone you’d met throughout the course of the project. Someone who had been present for Grace’s lectures on Astrophage, witnessed the many experiments, and had been briefed on the mission. But you didn’t even attempt to guess; you just threw yourself back into work.

The rest of the quarantine goes by quickly. Your mind is on autopilot, coping with the overwhelming sense of loss. The final checks are complete. Your bags are packed and sent aboard. The doctors perform your final physical check. And last but not least, you’re put into your coma.

Your final view of Earth is the mission staff smiling at you, wishing you luck, assuring you that you will do a great job.

Then you fall into a deep sleep.

.

.

.

So imagine your shock horror when you wake up four years later to find Ryland Grace as your sole companion on the ship.

He had woken up a few days before you had, granting him the ability to get associated with his surroundings and shake off the post-coma fatigue. Which means, embarrassingly for you, you were completely uncoordinated when he had found you coughing and wheezing after having yanked the breathing tube out of your mouth- along with the other various wires and tubes that had been attached to your body. The ship’s computer had alerted him to the fact that you were awake when it had begun asking you a series of cognitive questions.

“What is 2 + 2?”

You’d been choking on your own spit before you managed to stumble through an answer, “uhgh… 4?”

“Oh my god, you’re awake,” Grace had exclaimed from the doorway, a sob of relief escaping him, “thank goodness.”

The computer speaks again, “please recite the solfège.”

Grace quirks his head to the side, “huh, it never asked me that question.”

Though your voice is hoarse and raspy after years without use, you do your best to respond. “Do, re, mi-” the scale is interrupted by a coughing fit, and you attempt to steady your breathing before you continue, “fa, so, la, ti, do.” You didn’t even attempt to sing the words, fearing you might shred your own vocal cords.

“You’re a singer?” the scientist asks, a question which perturbs you. He never referred to you as a singer on Earth, only ever as a musician. He should know this.

As you grab onto the table and try to stand on your feet, you say, “the tests are individualized; we picked the questions that would gauge our cognitive abilities best before the mission. I picked the solfège.”

Glancing over at Grace exposes you to the fact that he looks intensely confused. He lifts a shaking hand and points at you. “How do you know that-” he asks, but just as he begins to speak, your knees buckle and you start to fall forward. He runs to you, grabbing onto your arms to steady you, allowing you to lean your weight on him. Internally you chant a string of expletives, feeling humiliated. Your legs shook just like a baby deer’s would. The only real friend you had made in years, and this is the sorry state he sees you in?

You look down… had his biceps always been this toned? No, it must’ve been the medical system, electric shocks to stimulate the crew’s muscles during the coma. Yes. Yes, you remember that part of the planning. Doesn’t make the way his shirt fits on him any less distracting.

Coincidentally, looking down like this clues you into an even more pressing matter. “Dr. Grace,” you mutter, spitting out his name quite formally, “not entirely sure how appropriate this is, considering I’m only wearing my medical gown.” His gaze follows your own, and you can hear the hitch in his breathing when he fully realizes how revealing the plastic on your body was.

“Right!” he shouts, face red as a cherry as he tilts his head back to stare directly up and away from you, “right, yes, good point. Why don’t you stay and sit here and I’ll bring you some clothes from your bag?”

It’s as good an idea as any. You nod mutely as he gently guides you back to the table without looking. He’s intensely cautious as he lets go of you, like you were a fragile ornament he didn’t want to break. As soon as you’re seated and stable, he makes a complete 180-degree turn in a rather robotic fashion. The sight would make you laugh if it weren’t for the pain in your throat. He may have been more embarrassed by the whole nearly-naked thing than you were. A few minutes pass as you listen to distant shuffling and bumping around on the ship. Idly, you wonder if Grace is the only one awake, or if Yáo and Ilyukhina were up and about too. You’d feel a tad ashamed if you were the last one to stir, considering your important duty as navigator. The ship must have been very close to Tau Ceti by now if you were all rousing from your comas. You were eager to see the star field with your own eyes and put your expertise to good use.

When Grace returns, he has a pile of your clothes in his arms. He’s still shyly averting his eyes as he sets them down beside you, before politely excusing himself so you can change. There’s a small part of you that nearly stops him to ask for help, considering the shakiness of your limbs, but you think that such a request might cause him to spontaneously combust. The on-board medical robot could assist you if you needed it.

You’d been handed sweatpants, a loose t-shirt, and a pair of socks. Folded and hidden in the middle was some underwear. You snorted. What a gentleman.

After some struggle, you manage to tug on your fresh clothes. It’s an immediate boost to your morale; you feel a bit more complete now. Next, you needed to get some water in your system and work out this sore throat. You stretch your jaw, moving it from side to side and clacking your teeth together. Ever so slowly you work to get feeling back in your legs, stretching them gently and hopping from one foot to the other until you feel balanced. After swinging your arms around, you find yourself idly tapping your fingers against the table as you hum. A familiar tune.

By this point, Grace had returned to the medical bay to check on you. His face lights up, and he snaps his fingers as he thinks aloud, “oh, I know this song. That’s uh… it’s, uh-”

“Smells Like Teen Spirit,” you say, grinning when he scowls at you for answering for him, “but I thought you told me that you hadn’t listened to that much Nirvana. When we listened to the album Nevermind it was the first time you’d heard it in full.”

The smile on his face falters for just a moment, and you fear you’ve said something wrong. “Yeah…” he trails off, “we should talk about that. Look, uh, I found this in your bag- and I wasn’t trying to pry, or anything, it just so happened to be on top-”

You glance down and realize that he’s holding something in his hands. Something flimsy and small. A Polaroid picture; specifically, a photo you’d taken with him on the research vessel. You were both grinning, though Grace’s expression looked a tad more strained- though, if you recalled correctly, that was because moments before he’d had a very stressful meeting about the target goals for Astrophage production. He had one arm around your shoulders, while you held up two fingers behind his head like bunny ears.

He glances back and forth between the photo and you. Then he asks, “do we know each other?”

The question makes your breathing hitch. You’re not able to stop the incredibly confused, “what?” that spills past your lips. “Yes- yes, we know each other. Do you not remember?”

Grace winces, clearly able to see how poorly you’d taken his question. “Uhhh, I’m working on that, sort of struggling with the whole memory thing right now. We’ve got plenty to discuss, but first- follow me.”

You’ve got about a million questions to ask him, but you do as he says. You trail closely behind him as he walks through the ship, helping you climb up a ladder that brings you to the center room. You recall the diagrams you’d been briefed on; this was where the on-board laboratory should be. Before you get too curious and attempt to explore, Grace stops you in your tracks and points to the right. You follow his gaze and turn your head, and the sight before you makes your jaw drop.

Through the window of the ship, you can see stars. Thousands upon thousands of stars decorate the inky black void of space. You nearly stumble over your feet as you quickly move to get a closer look. It certainly wasn’t a star field you recognized. No familiar constellations or points of interest. A completely new view of space, unknown to humanity prior.

“Oh… wow,” you murmur, overwhelmed by the beauty of it, “that’s… that’s just… wow.”

Grace chuckles lightly beside you, “you’re certainly having a better reaction than I did.”

Your brow furrows as you turn to look at him, “... what do you mean? How’d you react?”

He proceeds to regale you with the story of how he, to put it lightly, freaked the fuck out upon waking up from his coma. Everything had startled him, from waking up on a ship, to realizing he was in space, to further realizing that he wasn’t even in the solar system he called home anymore. The more he talks, the more concern begins to bubble up within you. This didn’t sound right at all. Something was very, very wrong.

“Dr. Grace,” you say his name softly, interrupting his story, “... how much do you remember?”

He opens his mouth, then shuts it, then opens it once more, not unlike a fish out of water. You feel your heart plummet when he begins to shake his head. “I don’t… I don’t really remember anything,” he whispers, cringing at himself, “but I’m starting to get bits and pieces! I remember that I was a teacher. Um. I remember the Petrova Line and the Astrophage… and that I apparently figured out how to make them breed? I think that was important, right?”

“Immensely,” you reply immediately, “this is wrong, memory loss to this extent was never supposed to be a side effect of our comas. Are you telling me that you didn’t remember anything when you first woke up?”

He pulls his lips into a thin line before nodding his head once. “Well, how much do you remember?”

And thus you recite the entire mission statement to him. The Earth’s Sun was dying, Stratt’s task force had located one star that wasn’t infected with the Astrophage, then Project Hail Mary was founded. The smartest minds in the world had in a coalition to build a rocket and send a team into space to get to this star, figure out why it wasn’t dying, and send that information back home. It was a one-way trip, which it seemed Grace had already figured out. You were glad you didn’t have to break that piece of bad news to him.

You pinch the bridge of your nose and sigh deeply. If Grace was the mission’s scientist and he had large gaps in his memory, it could throw a serious wrench into the process of solving the whole ‘sun-dying’ issue. You supposed it would simply be a new job for you to help him regain his memories to the best of your ability. At the very least, you could fill him in on the things you’d been present for. “How much longer ‘til we get to Tau Ceti?”

“When I woke up the computer in the command room said we were still a few days off, so we should be getting there pretty soon,” Grace replies.

“Okay, great, that’s good at least. We didn’t wake up too early or anything, we’re still on track,” you smile, clasping your hands together. Any positive news you could get right now was desperately needed. “How about Yáo and Ilyukhina? Are they up yet? I should probably go over our approach maneuvers with Yáo so that we can-”

“They’re… they didn’t-” Grace interjects, his voice faltering as he tries to get the words out, “they were-”

He doesn’t even have to say it. You can tell from the heartbroken look in his eyes. There’s a rush of blood in your ears as your heart pounds loudly. As quickly as you can will your body to move past him and rush back to the medical bay. Your hands fumble as you search for the panel that held the ship computer. When you find it, you read through the data of the ship’s life systems. 

Yáo Li-Jie: Deceased.

Olesya Ilyukhina: Deceased.

Your hands shake as you step away from the wall. No. No. This couldn’t be happening. This was all wrong. No pilot and no engineer. Just a navigator and a scientist with amnesia. You want to scream. You want to lash out and throw things and kick the wall, but you’re entirely too cognisant of how expensive everything in this room is.

You hear a small sniffle behind you.

When you turn, you see Grace standing silently, tears welling up in his eyes. His voice trembles as he attempts to explain, “I didn’t know what to do. They were both dead and- and you weren’t, but I didn’t know how to get you to wake up, and I was all alone, and I didn’t know what was happening, and I-”

Without thinking, you close the distance. Your legs move before your mind wills them to and before you know it you have him pulled into a hug. He all but crumples in your arms, silently sobbing as he pulls you closer. Your throat tightens with emotion as your own eyes threaten to cry. It must have been a very difficult few days for him, stuck in space with no memories of who he was.

You run your hand along his back, an attempt to soothe not only him but yourself as well. He shudders, his face buried into the crook of your neck. 

All you had now was each other. And you would do your damndest to make it work.

And make it work, you had.

Mary was steadily approaching your next location: Tau Ceti E, the planet orbiting Tau Ceti, and if Grace and Rocky’s theory was correct, this planet would be the key to solving why the Astrophage wasn’t killing this star.

Oh yeah. Rocky. Your duo had become a trio, and both Rocky’s expertise and personality were something you greatly appreciated. Even if the alien could be a tad overzealous, with a complete lack of understanding of privacy, you liked him a lot. You could tell that Grace did too. He and the Eridian were fast friends. You adored watching their interactions, how they would bicker back and forth, but so often they were on the exact same wavelength of thought.

Currently Rocky was asleep, getting some rest in the final 24 hours of your approach to Tau Ceti E. When Eridians slept it was as if they became dead weight, completely immobile. But with the promise that you and Grace would keep watch, he was able to doze peacefully.

You were sitting at the edge of the laboratory, allowing you a vantage point to see both where Rocky was sleeping atop one of the pods and where Grace was hunched over his laptop in the lab. While passing the time during these last 11 days, you’d been using the ship’s intercom system to browse the extensive library of music you’d brought with you.

“Hey, Grace,” you call out his name.

His head shoots up and you scoff when you see the way his glasses are hanging off of his ear. “What’s up?”

You point at him, “gimme a decade.”

He purses his lips, twirling a pen between his fingers as he mulls it over. “Hmm. We haven’t done the ‘80s yet, have we?”

“Ooooh, great decade for music,” you beam, “Queen, Billy Joel, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Cyndi Lauper- ugh, I could go on and on. Hey, Mary!” The ship’s computer makes a humming sound, awaiting your input. “Please play the 1980s playlist from my collection!”

The intercom spins to life as Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey begins to play. Grace makes a sound of approval, nodding his head along to the iconic piano notes. “Great choice, Mary,” he praises the ship with a grin and a thumbs-up. The ship, of course, can’t see his thumbs-up, but the gesture is appreciated nonetheless. 

You hop up to your feet and dance around the laboratory. If Grace had been trying to focus on anything, that effort was long since abandoned as he watched you move around. Though he’s too shy to dance, you do manage to get a sweet air guitar solo out of him. You blitz through Billie Jean, Another One Bites the Dust, Everything She Wants, and Maneater. By the time Whitney Houston’s angelic voice starts to play through the speakers, you’ve winded yourself with all of the movement.

“Ohhh, I wanna dance with somebody,” you hum along, sliding across the floor with your socks and nearly tripping over your own feet. You throw your arms up in the air with a laugh, “I wanna feel the heat with somebody!”

Grace had been watching you with a lopsided grin on his face, leaning his head on his chin as his eyes followed you around the lab. During your time on the ship he had slowly been recollecting his memories. He’d been piecing together parts of your friendship, but he didn’t remember everything yet. “You dance a lot back on Earth?”

“Uhh, a long time ago,” you answer, shifting your weight from side to side as you sway to the music, “I haven’t done too much dancing since my early twenties though, back when I was engaged-”

The scientist makes a choking sound, one that startles you so much that you stop in your tracks. “Engaged?” Ryland repeats, eyes wide.

“Yes, engaged,” you reply with a laugh, amused by how shocked he seemed, “don’t sound so surprised.”

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean it like that,” he quickly retorts, scrambling to explain himself, “it’s just, y’know, you’d never brought it up before- so I was just a little shocked- but, I mean, of course someone would wanna marry you, you’re- you’re so… I’m gonna stop talking now.”

You laugh, rolling your eyes at him. It was the exact same panic he’d gone into when he learned that Rocky had a mate. You choose to tell him more, “things just didn’t work out between us. He wasn’t much for music. So, naturally, it was never going to last. He thought it was a waste to dedicate so much of my time to my instruments and all that. Said I needed to be fully focused on my work as an astronaut.”

Grace frowns, “he sounds… like… an idiot.”

He chose the word carefully, and you could tell that he must’ve had a worse insult in the chamber.

“Yeah, well, that’s why I broke things off,” you shrug your shoulders, “though I guess I never considered the fact that I hadn’t really danced much since then.”

Ryland glances between his desk and then you, as if trying to make a decision. Before you get a chance to ask, he’s on his feet. As the song starts to fade out, he walks up to you and holds his hands out. A smile tugs on your lips as you slowly put your hands in his own. “Dr. Grace, are you asking me to dance?” you ask with a grin.

“Jump on the opportunity now before I chicken out,” he replies honestly.

You lace your fingers with his. “Deal.” 

The next song comes on, but you’re hardly paying attention to which. All you can focus on is the way it feels to have Grace hold onto you like this. The specific shade of blue in his eyes as he stared back into your own. The nervous laugh that escapes his mouth as you swing one another around. You have to force your eyes to stop staring at his lips, lest your crush on him become completely obvious.

Oh, that was another issue you’d discovered during the weeks spent on the ship. 

Your affection for Grace had turned into a budding crush.

Well, you’d be lying to yourself if you said it was a new development. You were pretty sure this had started way back on the research vessel. Could you blame yourself? He was easy on the eyes, smart, dorky, humble, kind, caring. But you never really allowed yourself the chance to fully ponder this little crush of yours. You thought that you’d be getting sent off into space to die, after all, and he’d stay on Earth. So what was the point? It seemed that the universe had other plans for you (or, at least, Stratt did. That woman worked in mysterious ways). 

So, here on Mary, within the close confines of a spaceship, you’d been able to think on this crush a bit more. And yeah. You had it bad.

You couldn’t stop looking at him, always stealing glances when you had the chance. You always wanted to touch him, whether it was a friendly pat on his shoulder or letting your hand rest on his back. You always wanted to be near him. He’d quietly complained to you about Rocky’s clinginess, but you were sure that yours must’ve been worse. 

Due to the combination of his amnesia and general obliviousness, you were fairly certain that he was totally unaware of how you felt. If he had noticed it he hadn’t said anything, at least. You knew that you’d have a choice to make eventually: confess your feelings or suffer in silence until you both eventually met your demise. That would have to wait until the mission was complete. You had a star to save first.

As the radio changes to the next song, a slower tune, you gradually shift closer to one another. It feels completely natural to do so, to rest your head on his shoulder as his hands find purchase on your waist. He was nervous, you could tell, from the way his finger fidgeted with the fabric of your shirt. Together you sway back and forth, bodies finding rhythm in tandem.

“You should calm down,” you murmur, “I can hear your heart, it seems a bit fast.”

A laugh gets stuck in Grace’s throat as he tries to respond. “Easier said than done, this all seems like second nature to you.”

You hum, using your hand to trace circles on his other shoulder, “music makes everything easier. It’s like communicating in another language… it lets you say difficult things without having to use words.”

Taking a risk, you tilt your head and glance up at his face. He’s already staring back at you. Blue, so blue, his eyes reminded you of the ocean. You realized that you missed the sound of it, missed the waves crashing against the ship, the rocking of the boat that used to be your home. But this was home now. Here, with Ryland.

“Ooh, new activity!”

Rocky’s robotic voice cuts through the tension as both you and Grace jolt in shock. Peering over his shoulder, you see that the Eridian had woken up and was now using his xenonite tunnel system to make his way into the laboratory and join you both.

“Hi Rocky,” you sigh, letting your forehead hit Grace’s shoulder. So much for the sweet moment.

“Rocky senses elevated heart rate and increased body temperatures. Friends are okay, question?”

Grace nods, keeping his arms around you. It seemed he didn’t want to let go of you just yet. “We’re fine, Rock, nothing to worry about.”

“Good, good, good. No sickness. Then, human mating behavior, question?”

That causes you and Grace to jump apart, and your cheeks heat up in embarrassment from the alien’s insinuation. “Nope, not mating, just dancing,” you groan, covering your face with your hands.

“But your bodies were conjoined-”

“I’m going to the mental health room!” you raise your voice, interrupting Rocky as you storm out of the room. Was it an overreaction? Perhaps. But the last thing you needed was to get your cover blown because Rocky was being a bit too inquisitive with his questions. 

You needed to decompress, stare at some footage of Earth, and try to forget what Ryland Grace’s heartbeat sounded like.

Adrian was beautiful. The planet, that is, after Rocky had deemed ‘Tau Ceti E’ to be too boring of a name you’d come to a consensus to name it after his mate instead. You couldn’t stop staring at it. The mass of green and orange clouds swirling around in the upper atmosphere, moving around in a silent dance. You were so curious to know what the surface of the planet looked like. Were there oceans? Mountains? Active volcanoes?

Rocky and Grace had figured out what was in the clouds, though. Life. Active life that, if their theory was right, acted as a predator to the Astrophage. In your solar system when the Astrophage reached the planet Venus, it was to breed and further their pursuit of star-eating. Here, though, when the Astrophage reached Adrian, the numbers were the exact same. No more, no less. The life on Adrian seemed to be preventing the Astrophage from eating the star Tau Ceti.

You had found your solution. Now you need a way to get it back home.

The concept Grace had come up with was to go space fishing. Over the last few days, you had spent hours working with Rocky to connect five kilometers worth of chain that he had crafted out of xenonite. At the end of that chain would be a collection device so that more of the predator could be collected, examined, and potentially bred. The difficult part would be getting Mary into the proper position. She’d have to be angled flying backwards just outside of Adrian’s upper atmosphere. If she got too close the planet’s gravity would rip the hull apart.

… needless to say, it was a daunting task.

Currently, you were working in the laboratory with Grace, helping him prepare the sheets needed for the predator collector. Over the days you had both grown closer and closer, and being side by side like this felt just as natural as it had back on Earth. Your hands would brush, you’d be back to back with one another, sometimes you playfully bumped your hip against his. Neither of you commented on the proximity; you never had to.

He was nervous about piloting the ship. It was written on his face whenever the topic came up. You’d done your best to assure him that all of his practice had paid off and that everything would be fine. Plus, if something went wrong, you could serve as a backup pilot in the command room- even though you didn’t have the proper training. But it seemed to help soothe him.

You glanced at him out of the corner of your eye. How had he been the backup’s backup? How did Grace end up as the science expert? You’d had multiple conversations back on Earth where he had expressed how not-brave he was. The concept of going to space was mortifying. Knowing that you’d be dying on the mission was terrifying.

He had once asked you, “how can you do this? It’s horrific.”

The answer you’d given him was the same as you’d said to many others, “it’s for the good of the planet. I have the experience. Plus, there’s not really anyone who would miss me.”

And Ryland’s response stunned you. You could still remember it so clearly. It was nighttime and the majority of the vessel’s crew had gone to bed, but you and Grace were night owls. You’d been sitting together in your cabin, sat on the floor, sharing a quiet conversation after splitting some bread you’d snuck out of the mess hall. He had been looking at you with an unreadable emotion on his face. And quietly, with words meant for no one but you, he had whispered, “I’ll miss you.”

Your heart had skipped a beat. It felt like a confession. Or were you reading too deep into it? You hadn’t had the time to figure it out; the time for the flight had been quickly approaching. You’d tried to laugh, but the sound had come out short and strangled. “Well, I had already volunteered before I met you,”  you’d mumbled, “but maybe if I knew you before all of this, I might have made different choices.”

Words left unsaid. Feelings left unexplored. Except now, out here in space, you had a chance.

Reminiscing on that conversation made your face feel warm. Has Grace remembered that night yet? Or was it still lost, like so many of his memories were? You snap yourself back to reality, realizing that Rocky was speaking to one of the cameras that you’d been using to document all of the discoveries of this trip. Silently, you rub your hand along Grace’s back, and you receive a small smile in turn.

“Rocky has built predator collector! Rocky chain spooled and ready! Grace pilot training, not as good. What think Earth?”

There’s a heavy pause this time, and you realize that he’s awaiting a response that will never come.

“Hello?” Rocky insists, tapping one of his claws against the glass.

“They can’t hear you, pal,” Grace sighs. There’s a heaviness in his words as you each share a look. It might finally be time to share a hard truth with Rocky, one that you’d both been tiptoeing around. “We’re not actually talking to Earth, Earth’s too far away. Y’know, we just record these messages and we tell them what we’ve learned, and then when we’re done we send them all back in a probe.”

There’s a clicking sound as Rocky seems to think, piecing things together. Your leg bounces anxiously, knowing the inevitable conversation that’s about to occur.

“Why not you tell them yourself when you return home, question?”

There’s a tightening feeling in your chest, emotions you don’t want to feel start to rise up without your permission. You turn to face away, hugging your own body, making yourself look smaller. Rocky immediately notices the change in your body language as he calls out your name with concern. Grace, on the other hand, is doing a much better job of acting casual about the whole ordeal.

“Yeah, well, this is a one-way ticket for us, pal,” he replies, inelegant but blunt, as a very confused “what?” from Rocky quickly plays through the computer. “We had enough Astrophage to get here, but not enough to get back.”

There’s tapping as Rocky moves through his xenonite tunnel, attempting to follow Grace as the scientist moves gear around the lab. “So what happens to friends, question?”

“Oh, we’ve… we’ve got enough food to last us at least a couple years. Maybe a couple more if we stretch it out?”

Your voice is small when you supply, “and enough entertainment to last a lifetime. We have, like… every single Hollywood film since the ‘60s on a hard drive here.”

But Rocky is not soothed by any of this. He sounds frantic, his trills spilling out faster as he concludes, “so friends die, question?” The tapping of his claw against the tunnel is loud, and you spot a quiver in his limbs out of the corner of your eyes.

Grace was continuing to move about the room, storing supplies and cleaning the space. It seemed like a coping mechanism, like always, he was hiding behind work. You, on the other hand, were unmoving from your spot. With a deep sigh, Grace answers, “yeah, once we’re done, we’re… we’re gonna die.”

“Why didn’t you tell me.”

The scientist attempts to play it off, “it slipped my mind.”

But the Eridian isn’t having it, “No. Grace say humans go home.”

Grace kneels in front of Rocky’s tunnel and is attempting to talk him down, but Rocky isn’t listening. The sight brings tears to your eyes. The reality of the situation was going to rip your little group apart. It was startling how emotional you’d become about it, while on Earth you had resigned yourself to the fact that you would die in space. But it would be worth it to save humanity. But now, you had Grace here with you, and you had befriended Rocky, and suddenly being faced with the fact that you’d die on this ship was a thought that made you spiral.

“Listen, listen. I got to meet you. We got to do all this amazing stuff. I’m good. I’ve made peace with it.” But he’s lying. You know he is. The Ryland Grace you knew would never have been settled with this reality. He was saving face to protect Rocky.

“What mean? What mean make peace?”

“It means… I know we’re not going home. I know why. And it’s okay.” He glances over at you, perhaps seeking reassurance, but his expression drops when he sees the tear streaks on your face. He turns his attention back to Rocky and lifts his hand.

“Thumbs-up?”

“No.”

“Tiny thumbs-up?”

“No,” Rocky retorts, more definitive this time.

This time when Grace speaks you hear a falter in his voice. The facade he was upholding was breaking. “We’ve got stars to save, okay?”

Rocky shifts, his body clicking as he thinks on what to say next. “Grace… you are… need word.”

“What word do you need?”

“To risk self to help another.”

Grace’s response is immediate, “uh, dumb.”

And that’s when you choose to interject, “brave, you mean.”

His head whips around as he turns to look at you again. Now he can’t run away from his feelings anymore. When you lock eyes with him you take in his body language. The heavy rise and fall of his chest as he takes deep breaths. The subtle shaking of his hands as he wills himself to remain composed. And the glint of a tear in his eye that threatens to fall. He slowly strides over to the computer, where you watch as he types the word ‘brave’ into the language database he had created for Rocky.

Rocky had been following him through the xenonite tunnels, and though he wasn’t speaking, you’d spent enough time around the alien to know that he was in deep thought. 

“How much Astrophage you need, question?”

Grace answers in a heavy tone, “two million kilograms.” His eyes are locked onto the window, staring out into the vast starfield that lies beyond the ship.

“... I can give.”

Both you and Grace go still at this. Slowly, you let your arms fall as you fully face Rocky again. You shake your head. It couldn’t be possible, could it?

“I go home six years slower.”

The response is immediate. “That’s too much,” you each say in unison. You can’t help but think of Adrian, Rocky’s mate. He’d already been away from home for over four decades. You couldn’t bring yourself to ask him to stay away any longer. 

“Rocky watch crew die. Could not fix. Grace say friends will die. Rocky fix.”

You feel your legs shake as you crumple, falling down to the floor. Silent sobs rack through your body as he speaks. You couldn’t believe it.

“Friends go home.”

Home. Earth. Back to that blue sky and bluer oceans. Back to people. Back to life. Back to music- new music, joyful music. Back to a sun that wasn’t dying because your team had figured out a way to fix it. Home. Home with Ryland, because you had no doubt that after all of this you would both be attached at the hip. No one on Earth will ever fully understand what you’ve both been through.

You feel a hand on your back, Grace’s hand, as he sits beside you. He sniffles, no longer able to hide the fact that he’s crying. You shift, wrapping your arms around him and pulling him into a hug as you cry together on the floor. His arms are secure around your waist, hands holding you tightly. You never wanted to let go of him again. 

“Uh… I thought you made peace, question?”

Grace’s words are muffled as he speaks into your jacket, “I didn’t mean any of that. That’s just something you say.”

You let out a small laugh, though it’s stifled by your crying.

This time, Rocky addresses you. “Sound distressed. I thought this was good thing. What wrong, question?”

“Happy tears,” you announce to him as you clear your throat, “these are happy tears, Rocky, I promise.” 

You both proceed to introduce Rocky to the concept of a group hug. This confuses him at first, especially considering the physicality of the tunnel that stopped you from properly hugging him. But when Rocky leaned his body against the panel, that was more than enough.

You and Ryland share a look through tear-filled eyes and happy smiles. Everything was going to be alright. Maybe on the journey back to Earth you could get him to dance with you again. You could even teach him how to play guitar. Wouldn’t that be a sight to see?

The second time you wake up in Mary’s medical bay, you’re in immense pain.

“Eye movement detected.”

There’s plastic on your face. A breathing mask. You lift your arm to rip it off and cringe when you feel sharp pain in your chest.

The ship’s computer greets you with a polite, “good morning” as you struggle to sit up on the table. It felt anything but good. Your body is screaming at you to stay lying down, but you don’t want to. You need to get up. As soon as you’re awake the memories come flooding back.

Adrian. The predator catching device. Grace going fishing.

“Ryland?” you call out his name loudly, wincing at the pain in your sternum.

The ship got too low. Gravity started pulling you down. You couldn’t maneuver the ship because Grace hadn’t been properly tethered.

“Rocky?” you shout, struggling to stand to your feet.

As soon as Grace had reentered the ship you’d attempted to steer it away from the planet. The fuel tanks had a leak. You’d lost control of the ship.

Your voice cracks as you call out again, “Ryland? Ryland!”

Excessive centrifugal force. Your body had slammed into the ship’s control panel. You’re shocked that you hadn’t fractured a rib.

You rip the IV drip out of your arm, ignoring the blood that’s drawn. You go stumbling through the ship in search of your friends, shuffling uncomfortably in the medical gown. You have to lean on Mary’s walls as you walk, not quite having regained the strength in your legs. A glance out the window shows you that, at the very least, you were far away from the planet Adrian. Adrift in space.

It’s in the laboratory where you find them.

Grace is sitting against the xenonite tunnel, not having changed out of his medical gown either. Rocky is lying lifeless in his tunnel, and based on all of the soot and debris you’d found throughout the ship, it looked like he’d leaked a lot of matter on his way here. You couldn’t tell if he was sleeping, or if he was…

Ryland’s voice breaks through the silence. He looks up with sad, tired eyes. But when his gaze lands on you, they brighten just a smidge. “C’mere,” he says, opening his arms and offering you a space.

You all but run into his grasp, ignoring how the bruises on your chest sing with pain as you sit beside him. He holds you tight, resting his chin atop your head. You hide your face in the crook of his neck, shuddering as you take in a deep breath. You’re almost scared to ask the question, but you need to know. “Rocky… is he?”

“He’s alive,” Grace answers, his voice raspy, “he was awake, he just… he needs rest.”

Relief surges through you, and you gasp, quivering in his arms. “Thank god… I was so scared-”

“I know,” he whispers, running his hand along your back, “I know, but we did it-”

“Please never do anything that dangerous ever again,” you say, shifting your head so that you can look at him properly. He has gauze above his eyebrow that needs to be changed, and stitches that Armando probably administered. And he looked so tired. You lift a shaking hand to push his hair back, a gesture that Ryland immediately responds to by leaning into your touch. “Promise?”

He lets his eyes fall shut as he rests his hand in your palm, “I promise.”

You both sit there together for a long time, listening to the hum of the ship as you watch Rocky sleep, listening to the beeping of machinery, listening to each other’s heartbeats. You’re unsure how much time has passed before you start to fall asleep in his arms. What stirs you awake is Grace speaking up.

“I’ve been remembering more things,” he murmurs.

You shift, leaning your weight against him. “Yeah? What’ve you got in that head now?”

The response was perhaps a bit too light-hearted, because his reply is, “the explosion.”

Your stomach twists as you recall the memory. “The one that killed Dubois and Shapiro? I wasn’t there, but Stratt called me about it while I was in quarantine… you were there, weren’t you?”

He lets out a shaky breath as he nods his head, “saw it… heard it… went running to the building, but there was nothing. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? I’ve been trying to figure it out. I was never supposed to be on this ship, was I?”

“No, that’s why I was so surprised to see you when I woke up,” you reply, “but considering your expertise, I guess it made sense that she picked you as the backup’s backup.”

But Grace doesn’t seem satisfied with your answer. “Something’s still off. I don’t get it. Why me?” he questions, a frown settling on his face, “why would I choose to come?”

“Grace,” you attempt to interject, but he’s not listening.

“I wasn’t an astronaut, I was a middle school teacher-”

“Grace.”

“It makes no sense for Stratt to have-”

You shift, grabbing the sides of his face and forcing him to look at you. “Ryland Grace,” you say his name sternly, finally shutting him up. You stare into his eyes as you continue, “you are a genius. You were at the forefront of Astrophage research. Who learned how to breed the Astrophage?”

He doesn’t immediately answer; instead, you see the way his gaze flickers across your face.

“Who?” you repeat, more demanding.

He relents, “I did.”

“Who taught the world’s leading scientists the method to breed Astrophage?”

“I did.”

“Who was the first human to translate an alien language?”

“I was.”

“Who captured life on an alien planet?”

“I did.”

You pull his face closer to yours, gently pressing your forehead against his. You’re careful not to irritate the stitches above his brow. Your final statement, “and who’s going to save the Sun?”

But he catches you off guard with his reply, “we are.”

Scoffing, you lean away. “The answer I was looking for was ‘I am’, but that’ll suffice. What I’m trying to say is that you are the right man for the job. You’re a smart man… you’re a good man, Ryland.”

Your hands feel wet, and you realize it’s from his tears. You know you don’t need to add anything more; your point has been made.

In the coming days, Grace makes steady progress with the Taumoeba; that was what he’d chosen to call the predator organism collected from Adrian. You, however, had been banished to bed rest by him. The bruises on your ribs needed more time to heal. Every time Grace caught you trying to wander around the ship he would quickly force you back to the sleeping pods, in spite of how much you moped and pouted.

By the time your body heals and the ‘doctor’ of the ship permits your movement again, you find yourself spending most of your time sitting beside Rocky’s xenonite tunnel. It lets you watch Grace in the lab as he makes his advancements with the predator. You both take turns talking to Rocky, filling the air that had once been full of the alien’s chatter. When there were lulls in conversation, you would bring your guitar and play songs beside him, strumming familiar arrangements in the hopes that maybe you’d find the right song to wake him up.

He just keeps sleeping, though.

You thought you’d be able to cope with the grief better, but you had moments where you just couldn’t handle it. You’d stow away, finding a dark corner of the ship to burrow yourself in a blanket and hide from the universe. Sometimes Ryland would find you, and hold you, and sometimes you’d sit together for hours like that. You’d also taken to sharing a sleeping pod. Ever since the incident on Adrian, you never wanted to be too far apart when sleeping. It was an unspoken fear, you thought, each of you afraid of the other one not waking up. The pods didn’t offer a lot of room, so sharing the bed meant you were forced to take up one another’s space, wrapped up in each other’s arms to rest. Neither of you complained about this.

On one such day, when your emotions were getting the better of you, Grace finds you curled up into a ball in your sleeping pod. You were staring at the bed Rocky had built a tunnel atop of to sleep on. You missed when he’d sleep in the same room.

“Hey,” Grace says softly, coaxing you to look at him, “come with me. I think that we’ve just made a very important discovery.” Intrigued, you follow him and slide off of the bed. Before you leave the room, he stops you and says, “bring your guitar.”

Now you were even more confused.

But you comply, grabbing the instrument and following him into the lab. You stare at the wall of xenonite breeding tanks that Rocky had made, admiring Grace’s hard work in amassing more of the predator. Atop one of the tables, Grace has set a sample of the Taumoeba. On the computer screen, you can see the camera in the microscope that allows you to see the translucent, gelly-like shape that the tiny predators took.

Grace beams at you before pointing to your guitar. “Play one of the chords.”

You quirk your head to the side, “any of the chords?”

He makes an unsure sound, “ehhh, one of the higher-sounding ones.”

Your brow furrows as you give him a wry look, but you do so anyway. You check to make sure it’s properly tuned, and then you pluck the B string. There’s an immediate reaction in the microscope, a flurry of activity as the Taumoeba become livelier in reaction to the sound. Your jaw drops.

“Holy cow,” you gasp, “they react to noise?”

Grace nods, unable to wipe the grin off of his face. “Exactly! All we’ve got to do is find the right frequency and resonance, and I think we might be able to double the rate at which they’re currently breeding!” You hardly get a chance to set your guitar down before he’s grabbing onto your arms and spinning you around. Laughter erupts from each of you as you stumble around the laboratory.

In the midst of your giggling, you focus your eyes to get a good look at him. Like, really look at him. He looked happy. He looked healthy. In brighter spirits than you’d seen him when he was stressed out of his mind back on Earth. Those eyes had life in them again. Between those gorgeous baby blues, that dorky smile, and his brilliant mind, it was no wonder you were so smitten.

The spinning begins to slow as Grace notices how intense your stare was. He nearly trips over his own feet when your eyes meet, which makes you crash right into his chest. It’d be safe to assume that his face felt just as warm as yours did right now. His laugh is a tad more nervous as he says, “you feeling okay? Didn’t make you dizzy, did I?”

You hesitate, just for a second, before setting one of your hands on the side of his face. You hope he can’t feel how much you’re trembling, but it’s probably obvious. Your other hand moves his glasses, which had once again been dangling precariously from his ear. You take a chance, flicking your eyes down to glance at his lips. His eyes do the same to you. You make a move before your brain can talk you out of it. A gentle touch as you lean in, bringing your face closer to his. You can feel the way his heart pounds, blood rushing to his face as his cheeks flush pink. You brush your thumb over the stubble of his beard. His breath gets caught in his throat.

He whispers your name, the air warm on your lips.

You kiss him quickly before you chicken out. A smell peck, feather-light and chaste. But it sends a message.

When you lean back you’re able to see the blown-out look in his eyes. For once, Ryland Grace was completely speechless. You have to probe a response out of him.

“... was that okay?” you ask quietly, “I haven’t completely freaked you out, have I?”

He quickly shakes his head, blinking rapidly, “no- no, that was okay. More than okay! Really, really okay-”

As he speaks, he walks backward through the lab, trying to hide just how red his face is. On his way, he ends up tripping over a shelf and nearly falling flat on his ass. You cover your mouth, stifling a laugh. You spend the rest of the day floating around one another, blushing like fools and sneaking shy looks.

Between your developing relationship and the advancements with the Taumoeba breeding, things were going better than ever. Now all you needed was for Rocky to wake up.

The screens in the mental health room were alight with videos of fireworks. Your little trio was having a well-deserved party, celebrating not only the successful breeding of the Taumoeba but also the fact that Rocky was awake and healthy. You and Grace both donned party hats, an accessory you were fairly certain you hadn’t worn since you were a child. Rocky had clearly outdressed you, fully outfitted in an array of adornments made up of crystal, rock, and xenonite. 

You can’t help the tears that begin to prick at your eyes as you take in the moment. There was a strong sense of finality that hung in the air. The end of a journey. You try to wipe these tears away before the other two notice, but Rocky catches a glimpse.

“Happy tears, question?”

You nod as you rub your eyes, “yes, Rocky, happy tears.”

Rocky trills, clicking his claws together as he moves back and forth in his xenonite ball. Curiously, you scooch closer to him so you can ask, “Rocky, what are you going to do when you get back to Erid?”

The Eridian perks up at the question, and his answer is immediate, “Rocky return to mate, Adrian.”

You smile fondly, not having expected anything less from him. In turn, he asks you the same thing. “And you. What will you do on Earth, question?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” you grin, “I know exactly what I’m doing. By the time we get back it’ll be, what, like 22 years since we left? That means I’ve got two decades worth of music to catch up on. I will be having a very long listening party.” You peer over at Grace and extend the question to him, “what about you? What will you do back on Earth, Dr. Grace?”

A look of consideration crosses over his face as he thinks. “... I’ll probably get back to doing what I do best.”

“And that is?” you goad him, poking his leg with your foot.

“Teaching,” he answers, simply and plainly. That was something you’d love to bear witness to. Sure, you’d seen him lecture world-renowned scientists as a part of the Petrova Task Force. You’d sat in on many a ‘class session’ with him as he taught the previous science experts of the mission about Astrophage. But to see him truly in his element, making a change in the lives of the youth, molding their minds, preparing them for the future… you hoped to be able to see it someday.

You share a look with Grace, who smiles at you affectionately as he rests his chin in his hand. An idea springs to your mind and you snap your fingers before speaking to the ship, “Mary! Please play the victory playlist!”

Grace laughs aloud, “you made a victory playlist?”

“I got bored,” you shrug your shoulders.

We Are the Champions by Queen crackles over the intercom, and Grace’s face lights up in recognition. During the chorus of the song you each lift your arms, moving them side to side as if you were at a concert. Rocky attempts to mimic this movement, lifting two of his limbs up and swinging them in time with you both. As the rest of the playlist goes on, you alternate between mimicking the instruments, dancing around the platform, or lip-syncing the lyrics. By the end of it, you’re splayed out on your back, mouthing the words to The Final Countdown.

A query from Rocky makes you perk up. “Rocky hear singing, question?”

You lift your head to look at him before flicking your gaze back over to Grace. The scientist tilts his head to the side as he looks back at you, raising a brow as he awaits your response. Something about the look in his eyes tells you that he also wants to hear you sing.

“Gimme a moment,” you murmur, pushing yourself to your feet and jogging out of the room. A sense of nervousness bubbles up in your stomach. You hadn’t given a live performance in, technically, years. And on Earth you were never a solo performer; you always played support to someone else’s limelight. By the time you return to the mental health room with your guitar, you can feel the rapid pounding of your heart in your chest. You take in a deep breath as you sit down in front of the pair. As you rest the guitar in your lap you let your eyes fall shut, the bright flashes of fireworks performing a lightshow on your eyelids.

The proper accompaniment to this song was a piano, but you’d make it work. You fumble your fingers along the strings as you find the right sound. You rouse your courage, play four chords, and start to sing.

“Once there was a way… to get back homeward. Once there was a way to get back home,” you keep your voice light, trying to hide the way it wavers as you match the guitar’s pitch. You can’t bring yourself to open your eyes, but you know that Grace is staring. You can feel it, the way his eyes bore into you. All of your confidence would disintegrate in an instant if you confirmed this. “Sleep, pretty darling, do not cry… and I will sing a lullaby.”

The song is short, sweet, and nostalgic. When you finally manage to pry your eyes open, you receive a round of applause from Grace and some very excited jazz hands from Rocky. You stand to your feet and give a bow, basking in the praise.

“Amaze, amaze, amaze! Such talent!” Rocky cheers, “Grace admire much, yes.”

“Rocky-” Grace practically hisses his name.

“Rocky say something wrong, question? But Grace say that-”

“Alright! How about weee, uh, move on-” Ryland interrupts again, much more insistent on getting the alien to quiet down. “Look, Rocky, I know this isn’t much, just a little something. Your very own laptop.”

“My portable Earth thinking machine!”

Your gaze bounces back and forth between the two of them with a wide grin on your face. This little trio, the little family you’d created in space, felt so complete. 

That grin falters for just a second when you remember that this leg of your journey will very soon be coming to an end.

Mary is a much quieter ship without Rocky’s presence. 

The ship itself still makes noise. You still play music over the intercom. But there’s a notable absence. No more alien trills, no more tapping in the tunnels, no more rolling from his xenonite ball. No more long conversations between Grace and Rocky. No more computer translations.

It was the start of a four-year journey back to Earth. It would be long and arduous, especially considering you didn’t have a coma to pass the time with this go around. But you and Grace had each other. And that helped significantly.

Currently, you were lying down in the sleeping pod, tapping away on your laptop. You’d had the idea to program your own music trivia game, attempting to solve your boredom by making a way to challenge your extensive knowledge. And once upon a time Grace had told you that he enjoyed trivia. You were going to hold him to that statement.

“Alright, which one sounds better? Beef ramen or chicken ramen?” 

You look up from your screen, an amused smile on your face as Grace enters the room. In each of his hands, he holds a packet of ramen- of which the ship had been stocked with a plentiful amount. It seemed to never go bad.

“Does the ramen flavor even matter when you just douse it in mustard anyway?” you retort, saving your progress and shutting the laptop.

He points an accusatory finger at you, “don’t yuck my yum if you refuse to even try it.”

“I’ll take your word for it, chef. Gimme beef ramen tonight.” You sit up in the bed, stretching your arms above your head as a yawn passes your lips. In turn, you hear a sound of shock from Ryland.

“You stole my shirt?”

Stilling your movements, you glance down to confirm. You had, in fact, snagged his Cats the Musical t-shirt this morning because you were too lazy to search for something fresh in your duffel bag. You give him a lopsided grin, “sorry, it was the closest thing. Do you want me to-”

“No-” he quickly interrupts with a shake of his head, “n-no. Keep it on… it looks good on you.”

Before he leaves the room again he walks up to the bed to give you a quick kiss on the lips. This was also a new development. Cautiously, but happily, you were exploring your relationship together. It was exciting to let yourself fall for someone again, since it had been a very long time since you’d even allowed yourself to love back on Earth. Music has been your only love for the majority of your adult life.

Until Ryland Grace stumbled into it, anyway.

You were slowly letting one another in, listening to your hearts more than your brains. Though there wasn’t any real sense of time in the middle of space, you crafted a schedule together. Mornings spent in each other’s arms. Days spent working together, either on the same project or in a silent parallel with your individual interests. Nights spent confiding in one another, much like you had all those years ago on the research vessel.

On this night in particular, you were lounging on the floor. Ryland’s head was in your lap, and you used one hand to run your fingers through his hair. The other hand holds a book, one from the small collection that had been stowed onto the ship. When you glance down at Grace you spot a faraway look in his eyes. He stares at the wall with a clouded gaze, as if he were dissociating.

“Ryland?” you murmur his name, brushing your fingers along his cheek, “you okay?”

He blinks, refocusing his vision to look back up at you. He smiles, but it’s strained. “I’m good. Just… remembering things again.”

You shut your book and set it aside. “What is it this time? You wanna talk about it?”

Grace shifts, sitting up so that he can look at you at eye level. He hesitates, just for a moment, before supplying you with an answer. “I think I just remembered when I first got feelings for you?”

Your eyes widen. “Oh, really? Do tell.”

His fingers absentmindedly play with the frayed fabric of his cardigan sleeves. “We were on the boat, weren’t we? And we were talking about the mission. And I just…” he trails off, trying to find the right words, “I just couldn’t believe how fearless you were. Volunteering to die in space. And you said that there wasn’t anyone on Earth who would miss you-”

“And then you told me that you’d miss me,” you complete his sentence with a fond smile, “I remember that talk.”

“I didn’t want you to go. I wanted to be so selfish that night,” he confesses, “I wanted to beg you to stay with me, because I didn’t want to lose you. Even if it meant abandoning the mission.”

Your heartbeat stutters. “Why didn’t you tell me?” you ask, far too curious not to.

He gives a bashful smile, “you know me. Too cowardly.”

A small chuckle escapes you as you shake your head. “For what it’s worth, I was already crushing on you at that point, too. If you’d said something, I might have seriously considered it.”

Grace practically chokes as he says, “what?” a little too loudly.

“I’m not sure if I can pinpoint exactly when it happened. You were just so cute,” you reply with a grin, “and smart. And funny. And hot. Plus, you like musical theater, but that was just a bonus.”

You both fall into laughter. A sweet moment. A tad too sweet. Because when you look at Grace again, really look at him, you can see that the clouded distance in his eyes hadn’t quite gone away. When he notices you stare he tries to avert his gaze, the smile disappearing from his face.

A tense silence falls over the room.

“... that’s not what you were really remembering, was it?” you ask, your question phrased carefully.

He shakes his head.

You reach out, taking his hand into yours and holding it closely. “What happened, sweetheart?”

Grace breathes in a deep breath before saying, “... I remember how I ended up on the ship.”

“You were Shapiro’s backup, weren’t you?” you reply, rubbing your thumb against his palm.

But when you see the look in his eyes, you know that your statement was very, very wrong. He runs you through the memory. After the explosion he was sitting in a room with Stratt, Yáo, Ilyukhina, and other members of the task force. In order to maintain the mission with its original flight time and a fully-manned crew, everyone had looked to him to become the new science expert. And he had told them no. He couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do it. He wasn’t an astronaut, he wasn’t experienced, he wasn’t brave. But Stratt needed him. The entire world needed him. 

And after three hours, when he hadn’t changed his mind, he was forcefully drugged and induced into his coma early.

It seemed that his amnesia had been an intentional choice by Stratt as well so that he couldn’t sabotage the mission. Because Stratt knew that he was a good man. And Stratt knew that he would solve the Astrophage problem.

He never got to say goodbye to the planet, the way you had. He never had the chance to come to terms with his own death. He had no choice. 

Ryland Grace v. The World. Of course, he had lost.

“How could they do that to me?” he asks with a trembling voice, “and the worst part is that I don’t even know how to feel. Am- am I mad? Sad? Relieved? Stratt was right, I figured it out, we fixed it, but I- I-”

You bring him in close, wrapping your arms around him in a hug. What more could you do? Any reassurance you attempted to think of felt flat and vapid. ‘It was worth it, wasn’t it? We’re going to save the world!’ But he already knew that. It didn’t change the fact that he had been stabbed in the back by people he trusted the most.

What you chose to do, instead, was to offer his autonomy back to him.

“However you want to feel about it, I’m going to back you up 100 percent,” you murmur quietly, “you can be whoever you want to be. When we get back home, you don’t have to be ‘Ryland Grace: Savior of the World’. If it makes you happy, you can just be ‘Ryland Grace: Middle School Teacher’. And I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

And maybe that’s all that either of you wanted to be. A teacher and a musician.

The careful balance of the life you were building together on the ship continued. Grace liked to hear you read aloud to him, anything, it didn’t matter what subject, so long as it meant your voice was filling the air. Likewise, you adored hearing his nerdy spiel on whatever topic of the day seemed to enthrall him most. ‘Nighttime’ was the quietest, lying down in your shared pod as you whispered about the future. Whispered about life on Earth. Whispered about what Rocky might’ve been up to.

And each sleep you had in Ryland’s arms was the most soothing sleep of your life.

.

.

.

Until one day, in the middle of the sleep cycle, you both jolted awake to blaring alarms.

“Contaminant detected.” repeated over and over again by the ship’s computer.

A familiar sense of dread settled in your stomach as you both jumped out of bed and scoured the ship to find the source. 

Grace gets to the computer first, his hands working fast as he flicks through multiple screens to read through the data.

“Where does it say the contamination is?” you shout over the alarm, disoriented by the flashing red lights.

He pulls up a camera feed and moves the monitor to show you. He yells back, “in the cleanroom.”

That dread twisted into distress. No. It couldn’t be the cleanroom. Shouldn’t. That was where the breeding tanks for the Taumoeba were stored. If there was a contaminant, then-

It seems that you and Grace had the same thought at the same time. Grace shuts the ship engines down, and you both launch into work mode. As soon as zero gravity is initiated you both get into your space suits, because the next step is to depressurize the cabin as you search for the contaminant source. Grace beats you to the laboratory’s clean room, and by the time you get there he’s swabbing the tanks for a sample.

Once the lab centrifuge is activated, you sit at the edge of the room anxiously bouncing your leg. Grace works quickly, getting the samples on a plate and activating the microscope camera to see what the issue was. Before you get a chance to see what’s on the monitor, he reacts by hitting the screen repeatedly.

It was the worst scenario.

Once he’s calmed down, you work together to seal off the breeding tanks in plastic. Grace chooses to work through his thoughts by speaking to the documentation camera. You sit beside him, unable to speak because the pit in your stomach makes you feel like vomiting. 

“There’s a leak. The problem is the xenonite. The Taumoeba can get through it… probably because we bred it in the xenonite breeder tanks, it evolved to escape it. We were able to stop it before it ate all the Astrophage on the ship…”

He pauses, and you know that his train of thought is the same as your own.

“Rocky’s ship is built of xenonite. The Taumoeba will already be in his fuel lines. He won’t be able to find the leak because the leak is the ship itself. He’ll be without any fuel. Stranded. His life support systems will fail. If that doesn’t kill him the radiation sickness will. He’s looking at a long, slow, painful death. Alone.”

About an hour passes as you both sit and stew in the situation. Rocky was somewhere out there in space, marked for death, just as you had once been. Except he wouldn’t even be able to bring the solution to the Astrophage to Erid. It wouldn’t just be him who died. It would be a substantial portion of the Eridian population as their star dimmed.

This was the most distressed that you had ever seen Grace. Even more than when he was first lacking his memories.

In your mind, there was only one way to move forward. And you would wager a guess that he would agree. 

As the ship spins listlessly in space, there’s a ‘sunrise’ through the window from the distant Tau Ceti. Light filters in, highlighting the deep bags under Grace’s eyes, the tear streaks on his cheeks, the lines of stress on his forehead. 

You rise to your feet and put your hands on your hips. “Well,” you speak up, drawing his attention to you, “what was Rocky’s angle of approach when we left Tau Ceti’s gravitational influence?”

Grace’s voice is hoarse, his brows drawing together in confusion, “what do you mean?”

You shrug your shoulders, “we’re going after him, aren’t we? I need to know the angle so we can calculate the flight time and fuel expenditure so we can catch up to him.”

The smile that spreads on Grace’s face is contagious.

After eating a meal you both launch into the mathematics. As Grace calculates the distance, you calculate the amount of Astrophage that will need to be spent. It comes out to 56 days. 56 days to turn around, triangulate Rocky’s location, and save him from his own ship.

You take a step back to look at the whiteboard, mulling over the numbers. There’s a touch on your arm, and you turn to meet concerned blue eyes.

“We can’t do both. We can’t rescue him and go back to Earth.”

“I know,” you nod, “I’ve made peace with it.”

You echo the sentiments he had once given to Rocky.

He grabs onto both your shoulders, forcing you to stare directly at him. “Are you sure? There is no going back,” he insists, “ever since we thought that going back to Earth was an option, you haven’t stopped talking about it. I might not miss it, but you will. The people, the music, the-”

“Ryland,” you interrupt him, holding the side of his face, “I appreciate you making sure. But my mind is made up. We can send home the probes; it’s what we were always supposed to do in the first place. But Rocky is too important. Besides, if I get bored of the eighty years' worth of music I have collected, I can make my own.”

Grace pulls you into a tight hug, whispering repeated thanks as you stumble around the room.

You laugh as you get tangled up with him. “C’mon, Dr. Grace. We’ve got stars to save.”

Sunlight filters in through a window and you grumble, turning in bed to hide from the light. There’s a soft chuckle beside you as an arm moves beneath the covers, a hand at your waist that pulls you close. You sigh happily, breathing in a familiar scent as you curl up closer.

Only for the alarm clock to cut through the morning serenity.

You both groan, and you peel your eyes open to glare as Grace sits up to snooze the alarm.

“I swear to god, one of those mornings I’m going to break that thing,” you mutter, pouting at him as you sit up.

Grace has a lopsided smile as he turns back to look at you. “I would implore you not to do that, honey,” he replies, pressing his lips to your temple, “because if I don’t use the alarm to wake up, you know exactly who will show up to force us out of the house instead.”

You roll your eyes, “Rocky can kiss my ass, I wanna sleep in with my husband.”

He laughs as he tugs your arms, gently pulling you back down onto the mattress. You smirk, taking this as permission to litter his face and neck with kisses. Each time you capture his lips with your own, he whispers your name breathlessly. Your fingers are tangled in his hair as his hands hold onto your sides, breathing each other in.

Complete serenity. As happy as a newlywed human couple living on an alien could be. Which was, to be clear, very happy.

There’s a sudden, rapid knocking at your front door.

A growl emits from the back of your throat as you sit up. Ryland presses a kiss to your jaw as he pats your back, “c’mon, that’s our signal.”

“I’m going to have to have a serious talk with Rocky about how important morning cuddles are to the mental stability of a human couple.”

He barks out a laugh as he stands up, and despite how much you don’t want to get up, you eventually follow suit. You do your daily ritual, moving in sync around the room as you get dressed, clean yourselves up, and prepare yourselves for a new day. You grab your wedding ring, one that Rocky had helped Grace design, from the little tray you kept on your bedside table. Next to that tray was a singular framed photo: the Polaroid from your time on the project’s research vessel.

You stop to look at it for a moment, a feeling of fondness swelling in your heart.

When you’re ready you open the door, greeted by a very impatient-looking Rocky. Behind him is a gorgeous landscape: rocky shores, crashing waves, and a cool, foggy atmosphere. Designed specifically for you both by the Eridians. It was one of the many gifts they had wanted to supply you with when you’d arrived with the Taumoeba to save their star.

Rocky taps one of his arms impatiently on the porch, “why take so long, question? Always take so much time every morning!”

You’d spent so much time speaking with him that neither you nor Ryland needed the computer to translate anymore.

“Some of us like to have a lazy morning every now and then, Rocky,” you retort.

“You want lazy morning every morning. Too much laziness, have work to do.”

You stick your tongue out at him.

Grace settles his arm on your waist after shutting the door. “C’mon now, play nice. Rock, is everything ready for class today?”

The conversation continues as you walk down the steps, taking your stroll across the beach. “Yes, system for sound installed and tested! Have excitement for class today, question?”

You were quite excited, but also nervous. Today you were going to be a special guest in Grace’s class, where you’d be giving a music lesson for the young Eridians. It was Ryland’s idea at first, part of his lesson on the speed of light and sound, then as soon as he began to think of sound waves he had the brilliant idea to have you give a live demonstration. You were certain it must have been something similar as to how he taught back on Earth.

“Oh, oh, Rocky have idea!”

“What’s up pal?”

Rocky stops in his tracks, using one limb to point at Grace and another to point at you. Then, he brings his arms together. “Together dance!”

You fluster, “huh?”

“Together dance for lesson of music! Is important to human species, yes, question?”

“Rocky, I’m not dancing in front of the students,” you argue, your face hot as you cross your arms stubbornly. You look at Grace, expecting him to back you up on the matter, only to feel betrayed by the look of consideration on his face.

His hands are in his cardigan as he shrugs his shoulders, “it might be a good idea.”

“You’re both impossible,” you groan, picking up the pace as you trudge along the beach. 

You weren’t actually mad, of course, you could never be that upset when it came to your trio. And as Grace chases after you, and as Rocky continues to offer his ideas, you can’t help but think that this is the way it was always supposed to be. This was the perfect ending.

Even if the journey had caused some pain, it was all worth it in the end.