Chapter Text
“What’s your problem with Stratt?”
Ryland looks up at Shapiro from where he’s reviewing the lab’s most recent expense report. Funding is practically infinite, but he apparently still needs to sign off on all their purchases. Evidently, there is some red tape that even the Petrova Taskforce can’t avoid.
“I don’t have a problem with Stratt,” Ryland says. Shapiro frowns at him.
“You’re constantly arguing with her,” she says.
“We don’t argue constantly.” Ryland glances between Shapiro and DuBois, who have been silently working across from him for the better part of an hour, wading through the most recent pre-prints Ryland and his team have slapped together. Their research is so rushed these days that every paper written, while useful to maintain communication among scientists, will take at least double the amount of time to get through review. They’ve taken to holding off on peer review altogether until after launch, shuttling half-baked manuscripts back and forth between labs as needed.
“You kind of do,” DuBois says, leaning forward in his chair to rest his crossed arms on the table. Ryland stares at the two of them, both with analytical gazes trained right on him. He feels a bead of sweat form at the base of his neck and trickle down his spine.
“Does everyone think we hate each other?” he asks.
Shapiro responds, “Don’t you?”
Ryland doesn’t have an answer for that, too thrown off by the ridiculousness of the whole thing. He lets the topic drop, Shapiro and DuBois thankfully taking the hint and refraining from bringing it up again. At least for a week or so.
The second time somebody confronts him about it, it’s Shapiro and Ilyukhina right after one of the tests for the new EVA suit designs. Ryland has just climbed out of his when Ilyukhina, who doffed her suit with an impressive speed, pounces.
“Do you have some kind of history with Stratt?”
Ryland turns to her, trying to smooth his hair down from where it’s sticking up at odd angles. Ilyukhina, of course, looks entirely unruffled. “What?”
“I was wondering why you two seem to have so much… tension.” She shrugs.
“You’re not exactly known in the scientific community for being agreeable,” Shapiro chimes in as she straightens her ponytail.
“Hey,” Ryland protests weakly, thought to be fair, she’s right.
“Don’t worry, Dr. Grace, we adore you,” Ilyukhina says, reaching up to pat him on the head.
“Uh-huh,” he replies. “Why do you think Stratt and I are on bad terms?”
Ilyukhina’s grin fades to make room for confusion. “You are always fighting,” she says. “And she is always shooing you away. Why else would she ask you to babysit us all the time?”
Ryland knows the real answer is that Eva doesn’t trust anyone worth a darn, and wants her own eyes on every aspect of the project at all times to ensure everything is running smoothly. Unfortunately, she’s not actually omniscient, so it’s impossible for her to be present for everything. Ryland, as the only other pair of eyes she trusts anywhere near as much as her own, ends up delegated to all the things she doesn’t have time for.
It’s annoying, because he’s trying to run a lab here, but she is technically the boss. Besides, they’re all doing the best they can right now, and Ryland is admittedly similarly mistrustful of anyone that isn’t him or Eva when it comes to the project. One mistake, and they’re all up the creek.
He takes too long trying to come up with an excuse that doesn’t sound quite so condescending. Ilyukhina pats him on the shoulder with a bright burst of laughter and says, “It’s okay! You’ll charm her eventually, Dr. Grace.”
Shapiro offers him a small smile. “Only if you stop questioning her every decision.”
Ilyukhina nods. “Yes. Telling women that they’re wrong all the time is not the way to go about charming them.” Ryland shakes his head at them, suppressing a chuckle.
“Right,” he says. “Well, I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks.”
“If you need a wingman, I am happy to help,” Ilyukhina continues. Ryland’s hand goes instinctively to the ring hanging from his neck, hidden beneath the folds of his sweater. He lets his hand lay flat against his chest, fighting back a grin.
Somehow, he gets the feeling he’s not going to need any help.
“You know our coworkers all think you hate me?”
Eva blinks, turning slowly toward the tiny mattress stuffed in the corner of her trailer. Ryland is perched near the headboard, where he’s been since he snuck in an hour ago. His glasses are hanging from one ear and he’s wearing an amused look on his face. He has his laptop open in front of him and a stack of papers strewn across the duvet.
“What?”
“Shapiro and Ilyukhina were asking me about it the other day. DuBois thinks so, too.”
Eva crosses her arms across her chest. “Why would they think that?”
“We argue too much. You’re always sending me off to oversee things.”
“Because I trust you. And we argue because you’re impossible.” She softens at the cute little snort Ryland lets out, and the way his head ticks to the side like a confused puppy.
“No, we argue because you always have to be right.”
Eva knows he’s baiting her, so she simply turns around and starts digging through her dresser again, ignoring him. He just laughs.
“You have to admit, it’s kind of funny,” he says, once she’s changed into a sleep shirt and climbed under the covers beside him, pushing his papers out of the way. He gathers them up and lets the stack drop to the floor. Eva frowns at the mess. “I’ll clean it up tomorrow,” he says, pushing the hair back from her forehead and smoothing out the lines forming between her brows with his thumb. She lets herself sink into the pillows, allows him to soothe her.
“It’s not funny,” she argues, though her voice is softened with exhaustion and his closeness. “They’re suspicious. If they find out—”
“They suspect that we hate each other’s guts,” Ryland says. “I don’t think we’re in any danger of being found out.” He shrugs. “And besides, is it so bad if we were?”
Eva’s eyes, which had fallen shut at the feeling of Ryland’s strong, soft fingers running across her scalp, snap back open. She pins him with a glare. “It’s a conflict of interest. It could undermine my authority if people knew. They’d suspect favoritism. The dynamics of the taskforce's power structure is fraught enough as it is.”
She knows she’s told him all of this before. When she’d first been appointed director, she’d told him in no uncertain terms that if he joined the project, it would be as her colleague and nothing more. He’d agreed, and in the years since, they’d kept the whole thing well under wraps. They’d never even so much as entertained the idea of telling anyone—besides Carl, who found out by accident and was sworn to secrecy—and it worked for them.
It was the end of the world. Eva knew that they all had to make sacrifices. This was a comparatively small price to pay, in her mind.
“I know,” Ryland says. He sounds sad. Eva sits up, dislodging his hand from her top of her head. She gets a good, long look at his face, catches the sorrow that he doesn’t hide from her in time.
“This has been bothering you.”
“I—No, not really.”
Ryland has never been a good liar, and Eva sees right through it. He deflates at her raised brow, averting his gaze.
“Maybe a bit, lately. But I know how important it is that we keep it a secret. I was only joking…”
Eva Stratt is a stubborn woman. It’s how she’s gotten as far as she has, how she’s been successful in her career, the reason she was appointed to lead the Petrova Taskforce. Most of the time, she considers it a strength.
Right now, as she watches sadness dance in Ryland’s eyes, his gaze trained on his never-still hands as he pulls at the threads of their duvet, she does not consider it a strength.
“Ryland…”
“It’s fine Eves,” he asserts, blinking away the emotion and offering her a smile. It falls flat, and she thinks that he knows it. “The project is more important, I know that. I just…”
He reaches out and takes one of her hands in both of his. His dark lashes sweep against his cheeks, his gaze trained downward at the space between them, the clasp of her hand in his. In the low light of the trailer, his hair mussed and bare chest speckled with summertime freckles, he’s unbearably stunning.
Eva aches to see him sad, but it’s a beautiful sight.
“I miss you,” he says, hardly more than a whisper. He meets her gaze again, and Eva feels her chest tighten at the sight of tears dampening the thin skin below his eyes. “I miss my wife.”
Eva reaches her free hand up to wipe away his tears, and he leans into the touch, ever pliant beneath her hands. He’s the only person in the world that she believes rivals her stubbornness, but when they’re together, they both grow soft and yielding. It was different when they met, both determined to prove the other wrong, but over the years they learned to find contentment in surrender.
“I’m sorry,” she says. She doesn’t know what else to say. The rest of the world has to come first. She knows this.
Knowing it doesn’t make it hurt less. It assuages some of the guilt, at least. That’s the only consolation she’ll get.
“C’mere,” Ryland mumbles, pulling her toward him with those soft, strong hands. She lets him gather her into his arms, burrowing into the warmth of his skin. He smells like the same generic soap that everyone on the project is issued, but his aftershave is still the same as it’s always been. She breathes it in, taking the familiar comfort and trying not to feel selfish for it.
“It’s only a few more months,” Ryland says, and he sounds to Eva like he’s trying to comfort himself as much as her. She feels his arms tighten around her, and fights back tears as they spring to her eyes.
They haven’t talked about it, what’s going to come after. Eva knows how things will likely go, and Ryland is too smart not to at least suspect. When she’d first been appointed, she’d considered, briefly, vanishing into the wind to run the taskforce, leaving Ryland behind to wonder why she left. She’d even contacted a lawyer to see how long it would be before she could send him divorce papers, from an ocean away. She’d known, even then, that everything she’d have to do would cost her her freedom. It was a small price to pay for billions of lives.
She didn’t want to put Ryland through that. He’d hold on to hope that one day she’d escape whatever prison she ended up in, and would be stuck waiting forever for a woman that would never come home.
She was selfish, in the end. Not only did she stay, but she dragged him down with her, pulled him onto the project to keep him close, even as their time ran out. He’s the best person for the job, which Eva believes is an unbiased assertion. She’d asked around, and every astrobiologist had sent her to the very same man, the one she returns home to every night.
She tells herself it’s what’s best for the project. And maybe it is. But she also knows it’s selfish of her, and that for all the lives she’s saving, Ryland Grace’s heart is not one of them.
“After launch,” Ryland says, and Eva braces herself for his hope, intoxicatingly sweet and dangerously contagious. “We can go somewhere, just the two of us. The Maldives, or Malta. Anywhere you want, I’ll take you.”
Eva reaches one hand up, runs the pad of her left pointer finger along the scar tissue arcing across Ryland’s chest. The grief lodged in her throat keeps her from responding, so Ryland keeps talking.
“We could go back to Italy. It could be like a second honeymoon. We can track down that gelato place you loved, go to as many museums as you want. You can tell me all about the Roman Empire, and I promise I will listen to at least twenty-five percent of it.”
That gets a laugh out of her, the sound coming out broken and wet against his chest. She blinks a few times, determined not to cry.
“We’ll be okay,” Ryland says, though it sounds more like a prayer than a statement of fact. “No matter what happens, we’re together.”
If Eva were a stronger woman, she’d correct him. She’d remind him that their story ends with the launch of the Hail Mary.
“I love you,” she says instead. Ryland kisses the top of her head, hooks a finger under her chin, a gentle request for eye contact. She’s never been very good at denying him anything.
He’s crying too, she finds when she looks up. He’s beautiful, and so sad, and Eva wants to scream at the whole world for taking this away from her.
“I love you,” he echoes. Eva tries to ignore that it feels like a goodbye.