Chapter Text
Ryland Grace is stirred from his rest by Rocky's computerized voice first.
"Grace," he says, "Grace, ship is shaking," and in his half-asleep, groggy state, Grace almost doesn't process his words.
"What was that?" He mumbles. "The ship's..."
Then he goes cold as the rumbling beneath him becomes apparent, then unbearably intense.
Quickly, he rises to his feet- at least, as quickly as he can with the intense shaking and rattling, tossing everything around. The ship had taken a beating during their fishing- enough that this could be dire. Suddenly, it's like Grace is all alone on the ship again, just discovering that the taumoeba can eat through xenonite with the Eridian who saved and changed his life on a ship made of xenonite. What's wrong with the ship? He rushes toward the control room, his hurry nearly throwing him to the ground multiple times. Low fuel? Critical damage? They're too far from anywhere they could get help to be saved.
(For just one day, he'd like to be free of the thought of Rocky dying slowly, painfully, alone and afraid in the vast emptiness of space.)
(But Rocky follows, because he usually does, and there's some comfort in that. Whatever's happening, they'll face it together.)
But by the time he makes it to the control room, the shaking is over, and Grace almost relaxes a bit. No low fuel. No critical damage. Just the warning of something foreign in the airlock.
Something foreign in the airlock that should have had no way of getting there.
Rocky struggles to make a sudden turn in direction as Grace heads toward the airlock to see. At least he's no longer practically bouncing from the shaking.
"Grace not tell Rocky where Grace going!" Rocky protests as he follows Grace-
And then they both stop in their tracks as the airlock comes into view.
Grace's hand weakly covers his mouth. All the dread and horror that had left him alone for just a second tackles him all over again.
The burned, bloodied, sore-covered remains of a corpse Grace can't even begin to identify have found their way into the airlock of the Hail Mary.
He can't even begin to find words. There's blood everywhere, and he can practically smell it through the glass, and what even is there to say? Something, someone died, in the airlock, and suddenly Grace wonders if they could've saved them.
"Strange. Like human, question?" Rocky asks, and Grace is shocked by how calm he is.
"It's a body!" Grace cries, more frantic than he intends. "I don't know if it's humanoid, I hardly think it matters right now!"
"Rocky think not dead," Rocky says. "Rocky really hope not dead."
"Why would it not be dead?"
"Making noise like Grace. But faster."
"What... noise?"
Rocky taps his ball rhythmically, and it takes Grace a second to realize what Rocky means. The rhythmic knocking that humans always make- Rocky is mimicking his heartbeat. That body in the airlock has a heart, and it's beating.
That body in the airlock is still alive.
"They need help," Grace says. "We need to help them. Now."
There's a moment where Simon almost feels at peace, a calm between the bright light and the waves of screaming adrenaline telling him he has to live; he has to live, because-
Because-
Because he just has to. This is not an execution. Not for him. No one is coming to save him. So he has to do something.
And yet, in those seconds between the sheer anger and fear keeping his heart pumping, something gentle calls to him.
(Has he done enough? Enough that he can breathe? Is the box where it needs to be? Can they rebuild?)
(Can they save themselves?)
After the light overwhelming his vision fades, Simon almost doesn't notice. He's practically delirious, caught in another world. His eyes dart over to his new surroundings, but he doesn't know what he's seeing. Figures of some kind. He knows that much. A tunnel, maybe. He attempts to reach out for it with an arm that's no longer there.
Is he hallucinating again?
One figure recoils, gagging like it's going to vomit. The smell of blood, something in his brain supplies. As if it's real. As if it's human.
Muffled discussion fills his ears. He's... almost human, one voice says. Or- or something like it. I don't know what I'm looking at.
Earth send other mission, question?
No, they wouldn't have. But that's so close to a human face.
If human, then something bad happen. Cause lots of bleeding. Grace only bleed when something bad happen.
No matter what, something bad must've happened.
Simon would laugh, maybe, if he had the strength.
Something bad indeed.
By the time Grace and the barely-conscious alien stumble to the hatch to the crew dormitory, they've created a steady trail of blood behind them, and Grace has realized an error in his plan- they have no way of getting him down the ladder. He looks at the alien, still drenched in what Grace can only assume is his own blood, but the alien doesn't look back at him. He's losing consciousness, Grace realizes, and they have little time to spare.
"Rocky!" He calls, and within a minute, Rocky has followed the trail of blood to join them- though not without slipping on it a few times. They'll have to clean off his ball to make sure he can move and-
Well, he can't really see, not the way that Grace does, but he's not sure if the blood would interfere with his echolocation, so they might as well get it cleaned up.
"I'm gonna turn off the centrifuge, okay? You try to keep our guest conscious, and once the gravity is gone, I'll come back and get him to Armando, and we can take it from there."
"How Rocky keep new alien conscious, question?"
"Just... keep talking to him, I guess? Try to get him to respond."
"What if not work, question?!"
"Then we take it from there."
Grace tries not to think about the possibility of having to release another dead body into space- this time with nothing to take with him- as he hurries to the control room to turn off the gravity.
Simon wakes up later- he doesn't know how much longer, and he quickly figures he never will- in a sterile white room. Free of the blood. Even his body is clean.
"Eye movement detected."
The robotic voice is grating, and suddenly, Simon is aware of the pain he's in. The burning, the rolling waves of nausea. The pounding in his head alone is more than he can stomach.
"Cognition assessment. What is two plus two?"
Simon can't find the strength to say anything before he finds himself rolling over and vomiting onto the ground. Dark, acidic blood spills from his lips and onto the ground, and without an arm- without an arm?- he damn near falls off the cot into it.
(So much for being free of the blood. He mentally apologizes to whoever will have to clean that up- including if that's himself.)
"Incorrect," the droning voice says. "What is two plus two?"
Simon gurgles something that's meant to be four, but between the heaving gasps for air, little comes out.
"Incorrect," the voice repeats. "What is two plus two?"
"Four," he finally chokes out with a groan. "Four. Fuck off."
He doesn't dare look down at his body, not yet.
Maybe part of him knows what he'll see.
He rolls back over onto his back, panting breaths forcing their way out of his mouth that has never felt more like an open wound before. He doesn't know where he is, and somehow that's only now dawning on him. He's not on AT-5, that's for sure; out the glass window, he can only see the ghosts of stars- no blood ocean, no land, no COI building.
The ghosts of those stars have haunted him. They're stars that died when he was young, the remains of what does not exist and has not since before he was taken prisoner. Since before Filament Station went down. And yet, he's never seen so many in one place. Most stars' light stopped during Simon's life.
He groans again. Lifts his hands up to cover his face.
Only one meets his skin, and it recoils immediately.
Something is very, very wrong with his body.
When Grace enters the room, he has to brace himself. He knows the state their guest is in, and if Armando is any indication, he's awake now.
That's a good thing- the man's ailments had seemed pretty dire, and if he's stable enough to be up and moving, that means he might be making progress- but it does mean that Grace will have to keep a poker face looking at him. He doesn't know if the man knows what's happened to him- what with the lost arm and all.
In fact, he doesn't know if the man knows what's happened at all.
He knocks on the hatch, just so the man knows someone is there.
The noise he hears on the other side tells him he scared him anyway.
"Body movement detected. For your safety, please stay on the medical platform."
The man slurs something that sounds vaguely like fuck off.
Grace opens the hatch and climbs in, preparing himself not to look at the extent of his injuries.
"Hey," he says when he reaches the floor, as friendly as he can for the fact that the man he's going to be facing is somewhere between a human Grace would expect to see on Earth and a fish of some kind. Maybe from a planet with mostly aquatic life. He can ask later, once they figure out how to communicate. For now, tone is the thing to focus on. A friendly, kind tone. Something that can make him feel safe. "How are you feeling? You-"
"Where are we?"
The man's eyes are wide, dark blood trailing across his chin and cheek. The question isn't angry, and it's not quite frantic, and yet Grace gets the sense that there is a correct answer and a correct time frame to give that answer.
Instead of doing that, he dumbly asks, "you know English?"
"Of course I- where are we?" The man demands, clearly deciding halfway through not to even entertain what must be a particularly stupid question in his mind. Is he from Earth? Earth wouldn't have sent out another mission. Not one that could get this far this quick. "We're not on AT-5, we're not anywhere I've ever been. "Where are we? Where did you take me and what are you going to do to me?"
And then, before Grace can answer,
"What happened to Jack?"
"Jack?" Grace repeats, setting aside the other questions that the man's own questions have raised.
"You're with the COI, right?" He's talking too fast for Grace to get in even a word, slurring and stumbling over his words. "Ava told me he was hospitalized. Radiation sickness. I don't know what you think of me, but I swear I didn't know the camera was an X-ray, okay, I never would've..."
"I don't know a Jack," Grace says, but he takes note of the mention of an Eva. (Slash Ava. He's not sure which, and now isn't the time to ask.) "I don't know what happened to him."
The man lets out a sharp breath, looking down at his remaining hand. "I didn't mean to do that," he repeats. "Of course that’s not good enough for you.”
"Look, I don't-"
"Fine. What about Ava? Did she make it back? Is she- is that how I ended up here? Is she alive?"
There it is again. Eva- Ava- Grace doesn't know which. But this person- clearly a human, because he's speaking English, and Grace can't imagine English could've formed independently on another planet- is talking about some important Eva. So he takes a stab at trying to understand a single thing about what's happening.
"Eva Stratt?"
"Y-yes- maybe? I don't know. She went in for me. I know it sounds crazy, but I have no fucking way of knowing if anything I heard down there was real. I don't give a shit what you think of me right now. Did she or did she not make it back alive?"
"That’s not-"
"I know you probably don't want to tell me anything, I get it, but-"
"Can I talk, please?"
"What?"
Grace is caught off guard by the man's anger. He hesitates, trying to figure out the right thing to say.
"I'm not with the COI. I don't know what that is. I don't know where you came from, but I don't think we're talking about the same Eva." He chuckles, despite himself. "Eva Stratt is back home. She never left. I can't imagine she's in any... unique amount of danger."
"Okay, great, there's two people in the universe named Ava. Big-" the man gestures frustratedly with his remaining arm, then winces at the movement, seemingly fighting the urge to vomit from pain (which would explain the blood streaked around his mouth). "Big fucking surprise. If you're not with the COI, then where the fuck am I? What station is this and what do you want?"
It doesn't go unnoticed the way that the man tenses like he's prepared to defend himself. Grace knows that if he were to attack, he'd be overpowered. He steps back, holding his hands up. He doesn't know if it'd be safe to tell him hey, I'm not going to hurt you, or if it'd be best to not call attention to it.
"We're not on a space station," Grace says. "We're on the Hail Mary. We don't want anything from you."
"You expect me to believe that?" The man practically spits. "If you're here to finish what the COI started, it's not happening. I earned my freedom! I don't know what happened to her, maybe she did die, but Ava went down there to rescue me so I could go free."
He stumbles backward slightly, eyes fluttering as his face contorts into an expression of pain again. His arm wraps around his stomach, but he doesn't make a move like he might throw up this time. He reaches back with the stump that remains of his other arm for the medical cot.
"Careful, you don't..."
When the man looks up at Grace again, his expression is one of defiant indignance.
"...Have a hand there," Grace finishes with a nervous smile.
"Fuck you," the man hisses weakly, and then he collapses.
When Simon wakes up a while later, he's on the cot again. The floor around him is clean. He weakly sits up, then stands. Part of him is surprised they didn't just kill him while he couldn't fight. It was a bad decision to make himself known as someone willing to resist when he's in this state. He doesn't know why he's still alive, unless they really want something out of him.
His stomach hurts badly, he knows that much. He stumbles slightly as he moves, clutching his abdomen with heaving breaths.
"Body movement detected," the robot drones again. "For your safety-"
"Shut the fuck up."
He would yell at the robot, if he had the strength, but he doesn't want anyone to know he's up and moving again just yet. He needs a method of defense. He needs a weapon, he needs a plan, he needs anything that's going to help him protect himself.
He pushes back the desire to find some way to look at himself, stamping out the hope to assess the damage. What he can see on his arm and torso is bad enough. Part of him isn't sure he could stomach seeing what's happened to his face.
It still feels like an open wound.
He forces himself forward.
"New alien is certainly human, question?" There's the other voice he heard before, above him. The one whose speech hardly made any sense.
"I guess so." There's a bit of resignation in the voice of the man he spoke to before. "I can't imagine any other way he'd know English."
"What happen to make..."
The second voice trails off, then starts again.
"New human not look like Grace. What happen, question?"
"I don't know. I don't think he'd tell me if he did know."
"Why, question?"
"He's, uh, certainly not the friendliest. I don't think he knows what's going on, and he doesn't seem to believe what I've told him."
"New human missing limb. Cellulose in cells. Extra teeth and ribs. Skin burned. Ribs broken. Something wrong."
"I know, Rocky. I'd like to help him too."
"Radiation sickness."
A moment of silence. Simon lifts his hand to his cheek and finds the sharp edge of fangs.
Then, the man says, sorrowfully, gently,
"Yeah. Radiation sickness."
Radiation sickness. Simon's not sure he's ever heard of anyone truly coming back from that. The pain in his stomach grows. It takes him a second to recognize the feeling as dread.
Of course, life has never taken a particular liking to him. His hand finds the remains of the scar on his neck. He really shouldn’t be surprised he’s going to die after all this.
"New human awake, if Grace not know."
Simon bristles, unsure of how the other person knew that. His eyes dart back and forth for anything he could use to defend himself. Nothing. He'll just have to use his remaining hand if it comes down to it.
There's a knock at the hatch in the ceiling again.
"We're not going to come in this time," the man says from the other side of the door. "I've been told you're still contaminated. Rocky wouldn't want me to risk getting sick."
"Correct," the other voice says. "Grace too important. Rocky not want Grace die."
Simon, of course, is expendable.
This reminds him, vaguely, of speaking to the COI through the submarine.
"Are you gonna tell me what you people want with me this time?"
He's not sure why he's humoring this, aside from that it's been so goddamn long since he's heard a voice that wasn't condemning him. And yet, he can't bring himself to believe it. Surely, this is going somewhere, and Simon isn't naive enough to believe that somehow, it could be anything but a deeply unsavory direction.
"I..." The man lets out a sort of stilted breath. "I'm not sure what you wanna hear, I'll be honest. Like I said..."
"Grace Rocky not want favor," the second voice chimes in. "Not want cause harm. Found new human in airlock. Grace say half-dead. New human needed help. Grace Rocky help."
"And who are you?" Simon asks.
"Rocky."
"Right," he sighs, almost impressed at his propensity for stupidity. "And I'm guessing the other one is Grace."
"Correct."
"What's your name?" The man who must be Grace asks.
Simon chuckles dryly. "That's a new one."
"I'm sorry?"
"Sixteen years of convict and suddenly people are interested in my name again. I suppose you're really not for the COI, huh?"
"No, we're not, I still don't know what that is."
"You're better off for it," he says, then, "I'm not buying that you just want to help, and I'm certainly not buying that you just found me in your airlock. If I tell you my name, will you tell me what's actually going on?"
"I..."
There's a moment's pause.
"I'll tell you everything we know."
Then another.
"...Simon."
"Simon?" Grace echoes.
"Simon," Simon repeats. "Now are you going to tell me what you know, or are you thinking you'll pull the rug out from under me?"
"Well..." Grace pauses. "Where do I begin?"
"Erid," Rocky suggests. "Headed to Erid."
"Right. We're headed to Erid now. And, uh, I don't know where you're from, but we can get you back there eventually- it'll just be some time."
"I'm not from anywhere I can go back to. I'll find my way somewhere eventually. That doesn't answer how you found me."
"You... well, you ended up in the airlock of our ship, covered in blood. I don't have the darnedest idea how."
"Also missing arm, and concussed, and ribs broken, and irradiated, and burned, and barely awake."
There's a second of a sort of musical noise, and then Rocky continues.
"-Lucky not comatose." When Simon hears the noise again, he realizes Rocky is making it. "-Lucky no brain damage."
"Well, I noticed the missing arm."
"Yeah, about that, sorry I was..." Grace chuckles nervously. "Not the most delicate before. I didn't want you trying to lean on a hand you didn't have and getting hurt."
"You not being delicate is the least of my problems right now," Simon says, rather confused as to why Grace would even bother to apologize. "You said I was contaminated?"
"There's still radioactive material in your body. Once I'm ready, I'll come in and, uh..."
"Potassium iodide," Rocky says.
"Yes. We've got some potassium iodide tablets on the ship for handling radiation exposure. I'll help you find those and you can take some."
"Just tell me what I'm looking for and I can take care of it myself."
"Potassium iodide," Rocky repeats, then makes the same noise. "-Bad at following directions."
"I'm not bad at-" He gestures frustratedly, then stands up. "Potassium iodide. Fine."
He's not bad at following directions, and he doesn't really know why he's particularly insulted by a stranger telling him he is. On the contrary, he's quite good at it.
(That was made sure of.)
"♫♪♬ rude."
Grace nods, though he feels bad about talking bad about him. Still yet to adjust, but Simon has settled into an antisocial sort of attitude. Rude is a good way of putting it.
He makes a mental note to add the name Simon to the computer.
"He's disoriented," Grace says, trying to give Simon as much, well, grace as possible. "Probably afraid, and confused. I would be too."
"Rocky Grace make clear that only want to help. Make clear that no need for fear."
Then,
"What 'fuck' means, question?"
Grace chokes on his breath for a second. Teacher instincts almost kick in, and he's halfway through opening his mouth to ask Rocky to watch his language before he stops.
"Uh, it's- it's a curse word. It's... when he said f you, if that's what you're thinking about, he was insulting me. Telling me... to get out of his face, or that he hates me, or something."
"Understand. Eridian have similar words. Rude, though."
"Yeah, it is rude," Grace mumbles. "But most adults on Earth do it anyway. I, uh, try to avoid it. It's best when you're a teacher anyway."
"When Grace found Rocky, Grace afraid and confused. But Grace still friendly anyway. Grace kind."
Grace nods.
"Grace Rocky not give up," Rocky continues. "Not abandon ♫♪♬. ♫♪♬ have nowhere to go. But ♫♪♬ not kind."
Grace nods again. Rocky moves closer, and Grace carefully, gently, rests his arm on the outside of his ball.
"Three and a half more years to Erid," Grace says. "Maybe Simon will warm up to us in that time."
"Rocky not understand 'warm up' in context."
"Ah. Like, uh... like, he might... start to like us more."
Rocky curls in on himself slightly, then says, "radiation could kill ♫♪♬ first."
And Grace doesn't say anything, because Rocky is right.
Part of him feels guilty for bringing Simon onto the ship at all, leaving Rocky once again helpless to potentially watch someone suffer and die from the same thing that killed the rest of his crew. But what else was there to do? Simon was alive. His heart was racing, his body twitching-
Grace felt almost lucky his EVA suit was already red- if it stained, there'd be little sign of it- but it didn't make it any less obvious how soaked the thing was getting with what he could only assume was the alien's blood. There was so much of it- an unreasonable amount, really. For a body proportionally so similar to Grace himself- and the alien really did look almost like a human- he couldn't imagine surviving that much blood loss.
But the alien sputtered, choking, twitching, and as Grace frantically called for him to give any indication he could hear them, he reached out just slightly. When Grace pulled him to his feet, he stumbled, sputtering and spitting up blood. Clearly, he was stronger than Grace expected.
"I've got you," Grace said, as confidently as he could as the alien gurgled and groaned incoherently, making sounds like cries of pain. "You're gonna be okay."
-There was nothing else they could've done. There was no leaving him to die in there, or worse, sending him off to die in space.
Grace reminds himself of that as he leans against Rocky slightly.
"Simon?"
There's Grace again. Simon sighs, stopping his wandering. "What do you want?"
"Did you find the potassium iodide?"
"Yep."
"Did you take the potassium iodide?"
"How stupid do you think I am?" Simon scoffs, and then realizes that it was, in fact, probably stupid to take the potassium iodide without clarifying the dosage beforehand.
"I don't think you're stupid at all," Grace says.
Silence.
"...Did you take the potassium iodide?"
"Yes."
It'd been more than a little difficult without any water, and the first attempt had nearly resulted in him vomiting again. But he had managed to choke down one of the tablets with some struggle.
"Good. It won't fix a lot of the radiation sickness, but it should stop your thyroid from absorbing any more radioactive material. We have something else that can help break down the stuff that's in your system already. After a couple of days, you should be good to leave the room.”
“Did you just come here to tell me that?”
“No, I wanted to know if you needed anything.”
Simon considers saying he needs him to fuck off, or insisting that he doesn’t need anything he can’t get himself. He’s not a child, after all, he’s thirty-six years old.
But he’s thirty-six years old on a new spaceship in an unfamiliar place with people he’s never met, so instead, he quietly says, “water.”
“I figured.”
The hatch opens, and Grace climbs down. With a bit of shuffling around, he eventually returns with a container of water.
“You need to drink slowly,” he says as he approaches cautiously, handing the container to Simon, but Simon doesn’t give a shit- not that Grace is approaching him like a threat, and certainly not that he’s supposed to drink slowly. He takes the cup and downs as much as he can.
It quickly comes back up, alongside more blood and the tablet, and Grace winces and moves back slightly.
He sighs, not angry, but certainly displeased with what just happened. "Okay, I don't know if you heard me, but first of all, it's bad news bears for basically the entire upper half of your digestive system to be puking repeatedly. Second of all, you need to actually be absorbing the water, and the potassium iodide. Third, it's a bit of a limited resource."
"Yes, I know! Obviously it's a limited resource! I-"
He's halfway through opening his mouth to ask again just how stupid Grace thinks he is when he stops.
"What the fuck does bad news bears mean?"
"Huh? Oh, uh... I did say that, didn't I?" Grace look at him exceedingly awkwardly. "It's- well, I don't exactly know where that one comes from, but it's something I would say to my students."
Simon's eyes widen slightly. His face softens, just a bit. "You're a teacher?"
"I was a teacher," Grace corrects. "It would've been nice to stay one. But I'm not going home, so..."
"Were you from Filament Station?" Simon asks, and he can't help the edge of guilt that creeps into his voice. Just his luck, his attempted savior would be one of the few who would want to have left him to die.
"No," Grace says. "I'm from Earth."
Simon's brow furrows. The moment of slight softness is gone.
"Don't fuck with me," he says. "I asked a simple question."
"What?"
If Simon were an idiot, he'd say Grace looks genuinely confused.
"Simple question," Simon repeats. "Were you from Filament Station, or were you not?"
"I'm not," Grace repeats. "I guess I'm really out of the loop, because I don't even know what Filament Station is-"
"Was," Simon corrects. "It's gone now."
"-But I'm really not understanding what I-"
"-Just like Earth."
The look of horror that crosses Grace's face is indescribable.