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You hadn't expected to wake up.
Before they'd induced the coma, they'd told everyone to be prepared for it, to say goodbye to loved ones, to understand the risk. None of you were coming home, and there was no way for anyone to help you with as far out as you were going.
You had prepared. You'd worried, and thought about it, and grappled with your own mortality.
You'd volunteered for the mission after all, so you should have known what could happen.
You did, truly you did.
You had been ready, or at least you thought you were.
You still cried when you woke up.
Were they tears of relief, joy, or despair at the predicament you found yourself in?
You weren't sure.
Still the tears fell.
They kept coming. You cried for what felt like hours, for all you knew it could have been.
When they finally stopped, you wiped your eyes, they felt raw and puffy, and looked around. You were on one of the beds in the medical bay, the others were all empty.
That was a good sign right?
That meant there was a crew waiting for you, and you wouldn't be alone.
You slowly got up, the medical robot, it had a name you were sure of it, but you couldn't remember it for the life of you, Amos? Maybe Arnold, or Austin, none of those sounded right, but it offered one of several arms to assist you. You leaned on it, scanning the crisp white walls.
None of this stood out to you.
You felt that it should at least be familiar, but it wasn't. The ship was huge, and silent.
If there was a crew there should be some sort of sound, right?
If your assumption was correct, then why was it so quiet?
Was the ship really that big?
You took a deep breath, steeling yourself for whatever could be waiting for you. You climbed the ladder slowly, your muscles not wanting to cooperate with you.
You checked the first level you came to, no one was there, but there were things strewn all over the ground.
That was something, but it only added to the anxiety growing inside you.
You found him when you came to the lab, he was leaning over a table, examining a strange container, "Xenon is a gas.. This thing must be broken," he muttered to himself, tossing the scanner onto a table behind him. It landed heavily, and you wouldn’t be surprised if he'd managed to break it.
You didn’t recognize him.
You felt like he should be familiar, just as the interior of the ship should be.
You remembered the two science officers you trained with, Martin and Annie, but this man definitely wasn’t either of them. If there was a third science officer, then something terrible must have happened right before the launce, but why couldn’t you remember?
You remembered your training, and working toward the launch, but that was where it all stopped.
It wasn’t even hazy, it just wasn’t there at all, like someone had taken it away.
That meant you were going to have to talk to this man, and figure out who he was organically, which sounded terrifying. What if he was awful? What if the coma caused some sort of violent outbursts? He seemed calm, but looks could be deceiving.
You took a deep breath, and finished climbing up the ladder.
"Hello?" you greeted quietly.
The man screamed, and jumped when he heard your voice, "you're awake? You lived, oh my god, are you okay?"
You blinked, that was a lot all at once, "I'm okay, I think?"
Were you okay? That was a loaded question, you weren't actually sure. Physically you were, the robot, Alfredo, would've alerted if you weren't. Mentally though? That was where you weren't sure, you'd just woken up, and you couldn't even process all of it yet.
He nodded, fixing his glasses, "okay is good, we can work with okay, we can build from there."
You liked his seemingly hopeful attitude, "where's the rest of the crew? What did I miss? Do we have any solutions?" It was your turn to ask him a good number of rapid fire questions.
He seemed to deflate, " it's just.. Us. The others didn’t make it, I've been handling it as best as I can, I just met an alien.."
"An alien?" you interjected.
He shrugged, and nodded at the same time, "an alien, they seem friendly, at least I think so, they sent me.. This, but I haven't figured out what it is yet."
You both continued talking like this, you learned his name was Ryland Grace, and he wasn't sure why he was even in the mission. He didn’t remember volunteering, any training for the mission, nothing, he woke up and he was alone.
He was remembering things slowly, "I get flashes of things," he admitted, "like my classroom and my students, an experiment I did on the astrophage.. But none of it helps me understand how I got here."
That made your heart break for him.
He looked so lost when he told it all to you. It must have been even worse thinking that he'd be completely alone if you hadn't woken up.
Ryland seemed so grateful you were awake, sticking close to you when you were in the same spaces on the ship. You weren't a science officer, you were brought aboard to help with piloting, but you liked to listen and he seemed to like to talk.
Ryland Grace wasn't made to be alone. You could tell.
Humans were pack animals, and in the vastness of space it was hard to form bonds.
It was easy to be around him though, you were comfortable in his presence.
You had started lingering more. If he noticed you doing it, he didn't comment on it, and for that you were grateful.
How would you ever begin to explain that you didn't want to be alone either? That you weren't made for the vastness of space?
Ryland, of course, understood your feelings exactly.
Time passed, and the two of you slowly got closer, at least until Rocky came aboard.
Who was Rocky?
Rocky was the alien that had sent Ryland the capsule he had been working on when you had woken up, an Eridian. Rocky had seemed to have made the same journey that you both had, because his star was dying too. He appeared to be an engineer, or some sort of scientist, and he and Ryland instantly clicked, even if they bickered often.
You supposed it made sense, but you couldn't help but feel forgotten.
There weren't any other Eridians that survived besides Rocky, so there was no pilot for you to bond with, not that it would help the mood you were in.
You had thought you and Ryland were bonding, that there was something special between you.
You were clearly wrong.
That was alright, you could be alone.
That was what you kept telling yourself anyway.
You started withdrawing, avoiding Ryland and Rocky as much as you could.
It couldn't last, of course not, the space ship was only so big. There were a few places you could go to for respite though, one of those being the 'don't go crazy room'. Rocky and Grace rarely spent time in there, so it was one of your chosen hideaways.
The thing about hideaways though, is they could usually be found, and found you were, by none other than the man you were attempting to hide from.
"Hey-" the sudden appearance of Ryland Grace in your hiding spot startled you.
"Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you," he looked sheepish, you knew he hadn't meant to make you jump.
You shrugged, "it's alright, I just wasn't expecting company."
He nodded, "so does that mean you'll mind if a join you?"
You could tell him you did mind, that you'd much rather be alone, but there was also part of you that was tired of it, even though you had chosen to be alone. Rocky was now a part of your space adventure, and you couldn't hide from that forever. It wasn't his fault that you were.. jealous.
"You can stay," you replied after a moment of silence.
He settled in next to you, keeping a respectful distance between the two of you. You didn't want him to, you wanted him as close as possible, but you didn't say anything.
"So.." he started quietly, "did I do something to upset you?"
You were a bit surprised by his question, "you didn't do anything to upset me."
He hadn't, you had done all of this to yourself, it was just your luck to fall in love with the only other person on the Hail Mary.
"Then what happened?"
"What do you mean?"
"You disappeared."
"I didn't disappear, I'm right here, see?" you laughed quietly.
"You did disappear, you've been avoiding me, and I don't understand why," he repeated.
"Oh, no that wasn't you, it was just me," you replied vaguely.
He made a confused sound, apparently your answer wasn't satisfying enough.
"I.." you started, and then paused with a sigh, pulling your knees up to your chest, and wrapped your arms around them, "I was starting to feel out of place."
"Out of place?"
"I'm not a scientist," you explained, "I'm a pilot, and it's not like we need one of those right now. You and Rocky are solving the problem, and I didn’t want to get in the way."
Explaining it out loud was even more embarrassing than thinking about it.
"I need you," Ryland said quietly.
"What?"
"I need you," he repeated, "I want you around, I don't know what to do when you aren't around, Rocky keeps asking me when the last time I slept was because I keep forgetting what I'm doing because you aren't there to explain it to."
You uncurled yourself and scooted closer to him, your hand landing over top of his, "you need me?"
He nodded, "I thought I explained that pretty well."
"I need you too," you replied.
"You do?"
You nodded, "I didn't want to admit it, but I need you."
He seemed to be closer than he was before, "you need me?"
"I do."
The smile that lit up his face was brighter than any of the stars outside of the ship, it was nearly blinding, and contagious, you couldn't help but join him.
"Since you need me, you won't mind if I do this," you were confused, until Ryland leaned in, and pressed his lips to yours.
It was quick, and awkward, but it was still perfect to you, and when he pulled away you were giddy, "not at all, but I'll mind if you don’t do it again."
He laughed, and pressed several quick kisses to your lips before moving on to your cheeks and your forehead. It was like he was starved of affection, and couldn't help but touch you.
You basked in it, loving the closeness that came with it all.
"Grace mate, question?" came Rocky's voice from the doorway, there stood the Eridian in the doorway, "Grace tell Rocky, no mate, Rocky see Grace give.. Need word-"
"What word, Rock?" Grace sighed, voice full of fond annoyance.
Rocky explained and Grace offered the word 'affection', which Rocky accepted, with a small comment about how squishy humans are, and how strange their affection is, "and yours is better pal?"
"Yes! Eridian affection is beautiful," he stated, stomping one of his feet to emphasize his point.
You laughed as the pair bickered lightly back and forth, you took that opportunity to lean on Ryland, just relishing in your newfound ability to do so. Grace looked down at you with a small smile, he pressed a kiss to your forehead, just because he could.
Maybe your crew of three was just what you needed, because they needed you, and you needed them, you were just glad they were patient enough to make sure you knew it.