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The world kept spinning, but not for Eva Stratt.
She had spent most of her time since the launch of the Hail Mary behind bars, her morally questionable and illegal decisions (all made in favour of a future for humanity, but apparently that doesn't wipe your slate clean in the eyes of the Justice System) had earned her a life sentence without possibility of parole, she probably would have starved or frozen to death with everyone else before spending any meaningful amount of time in prison anyway, what a cheerful thought.
She had managed to use some of the connections she obtained through the project to break out, being arrested and locked back up would be a concern if humanity wasn't collapsing under the impending ice age. Rationing food and keeping as many people alive as possible was currently the top priority, they could deal with Stratt later. Wars had already been fought over resources as she had predicted, crops were failing and livestock was dying, entire forests and fields were being buried under sheets of ice and snow as weather conditions and global temperatures grew more extreme.
Stratt wasn't the most empathetic or emotionally driven person; she rarely regretted her decisions and she valued logic and efficiency over what herself and others felt, but she just couldn't get him out of her head. She knew she did what she had to do, she ran the equations through her head repeatedly to remind herself of this, she just wanted him to leave her alone.
She had started to see him, even just for a few seconds in her peripheral vision - a dark shape in the corner that would disappear into her jacket that hung on a hook by the door as she acknowledged it; but was unmistakably him. She would hear his voice on the wind on the rare occasion she would go outside to gaze into the murky sky at the dimming sun, 'You're murdering me'.
She would press her earmuffs harder into the sides of her head with her gloved hands, she knew that nobody else could hear him.
At first, she ignored it - shrugged it off as her own guilt and paranoia, karma if you will, the consequences of her actions finally catching up to her. The more she ignored it, pretended he wasn't there, the worse it got. Stratt wasn't one to believe in ghosts, she was a woman of logic and science so when she ordered for Ryland Grace to be sedated and sent on a one-way trip into space against his will, she didn't really consider that he might not be too pleased with her from beyond the grave.
She was on standby for the return of The Beetles from the Hail Mary, but her hope was dying. She would sit at her desk for hours, waiting, waiting for someone to inform her that they had returned, that humanity had a chance for survival, she needed any confirmation that Grace was still out there somewhere - even though she knew what his fate entailed. She just hoped it wouldn't be as painful for him as it was for her.
Shortly after her escape from prison she had started experiencing night terrors, she would sit bolt upright in bed, heart racing and sweating profusely, scanning the room, the dread of catching a glimpse of him filling her with adrenaline; she wished his presence was a comforting one. Her view from the window of her office of him being chased and tackled to the ground replayed in her mind like a broken record. The memory triggered her fight or flight, her heart beating wildly in her chest like that of a small animal being brutally hunted, like how Grace likely felt before the sharp pain of the needle and the sudden calmness that overcame him. It was a thought she couldn't shake from her mind no matter how hard she tried. She buried her face into her hands and cried. She only hoped that cocktail of drugs they used to put him to sleep could wipe it all from his memory.
After the launch there had been a celebration of life for each astronaut, they wanted something more cheerful than a funeral, something to keep morale high in preparation for the unknowable next 30 years - but the absence of a burial hung heavy in the room. Stratt kept finding herself back at that celebration, surrounded by the scientists and leaders who had made the project possible, but the room felt empty without Grace, she felt sick. She didn't this way about Yáo and Ilyukhina, but then again - they had accepted their fates.
She was well aware of the resources she was taking up by being alive, she needed to stay alive for when (or if) The Beetles returned to Earth, but her hope and patience were running thin. She was forgetting his face but she didn't have the stomach to watch the video logs that may be uploaded to The Beetles, there was a real chance that he hadn't even survived the medically induced coma everyone on board the Hail Mary was put into on the way to Tau Ceti - even if he had survived there was a good chance that he had sustained some quite serious brain damage, she couldn't bear to see him like that, not her Grace.
She couldn't remember what the last thing she said to him was, she hoped that it wasn't anything too harsh - she had to push his and her own feelings aside and do what she could to secure a future for humanity and the entire planet; she could still see the fear in his eyes, the look of a man who was about to be sent to his death in a star system further away than any man made object had ever been, the look of a man she was murdering. It would haunt her forever.
Her room was cold, too cold, but that was something she was used to now. She was living on a ship somewhere in the ocean, she didn't care to keep track of where she was anymore, land was almost unrecognisable under the sheets of ice and was practically uninhabitable, just miles and miles of post-apocalyptic icy wasteland. Blowing up parts of Antarctica had bought more time, but not nearly enough. Intentionally inducing global warming had come with its own set of downsides, unsurprisingly. There wasn't even an accurate death toll anymore, those keeping track were probably long gone by now, too.
Stratt felt sick to her stomach and had to quickly roll out of bed and make her way to the bathroom- the stress and guilt was taking a toll on her physically. Her life was haunted - by a ghost or by a memory - and she just couldn't take it anymore. She had nothing left to lose.
She stumbled back to her bed and reached for the top drawer of her bedside table, rummaging through it until she found what she was searching for - a container of nondescript pills. She was ashamed at the thought that she had been subconsciously saving them for a situation like this, the cowards way out. Humanity needed her, she was still (secretly) the head of Project Hail Mary and if The Beetles ever returned she would be of importance, but she simply didn't have the will or the patience for that anymore. The scientists were smart, they would figure it out without her guidance.
She popped the cap off and poured some pills into her hand, she didn't actually remember where she had got them, they had a name she didn't recognise and couldn't even pronounce on the label but by the anticipatory relief she could feel deep down inside of her, she knew it would work. She was about to throw back the handful of pills when her eyes caught something in the corner of her room - something familiar.
She stopped what she was doing and let her eyes adjust to the darkness once again after being exposed to the harsh bathroom light. She tried to make out more details, although she already knew exactly who it was. She couldn't make out the expression on his face - she couldn't even make out a face on him, but his presence felt different this time. The air only felt heavy with her own grief, not his anger. She could feel his gaze, sorrowful and forgiving as she curled up on the bed and sobbed, the pills in her hand dropping to the floor and scattering.
After what felt like hours she was finally able to calm herself down enough to sit up, she rubbed the tears from her tired eyes. Her face felt all numb and swollen and her chest and ribs hurt from crying, but a strange sense of calmness and comfort washed over her. Maybe it was just catharsis, or her body trying to calm her down and get her to go back to bed before she could try anything else, but she could have sworn she felt a hand lightly rest on her back between her shoulder blades and she caught a faint, yet familiar trace of the smell that was uniquely Grace - a mixture of the floral detergent he used to wash his clothes and whatever chemicals and powders he had accidentally picked up while working in the lab. Before she could react, his smell and faint touch was gone.
Her vision was blurry with tears but she could no longer make out the shape of Grace in the corner of her room, there was no trace of him ever even being there. She let out a deep sigh and made her way back to the bathroom where the light was still on and had been the entire time, she spent a long time leaning on the sink, studying her face in the mirror and breathing deeply. She had nothing to remember Grace by, everything he owned had been packed up and sent to Tau Ceti with him and Stratt wasn't the type to keep photographs of people, especially from professional relationships, although what Stratt had with Grace was definitely more than just a professional relationship - she couldn't deny that now.
After a long while of thinking Stratt returned to her bed and tucked herself in, she was exhausted. She needed to see Grace's face one more time, hear his voice, even if that meant waiting years for The Beetles to return. She would supervise the mission as she always had and would ensure that when his work was done on the Hail Mary he would be remembered as a hero, if it was the last thing she did.