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Eva Stratt died on a Saturday.
There was some irony to it, she thought; that she would not live to see the sun rise on God’s day of rest, that someone like her would never be given that reprieve.
For all the time she had bought the world with her sacrifices, she could not last against the war raging within her aging body, against her own rapidly mutating cells. It took her quickly, with just enough time to get her affairs in order, to ensure her work would be continued. The fates had never been kind to Eva, but she counted this as a small blessing all the same.
She had asked that her ashes be spread in her hometown in East Germany, so that when all that remained of her were carbon atoms, they could rest on the ground upon which new life finally blossomed under the warmth of their returning sun.
Eva had watched her planet die for twenty-six years, but she had never lost faith in the mission, in her crew. She had known in her heart that the probes would return bearing their deliverance. And she was able to pass knowing that humanity whom she loved so deeply would persist; that their sins and grief and hate and love could be lifted from upon her shoulders and placed gently into the cradle of their warming planet to come alive once more.
…
She was aware of the passing of time, but not more than that. It was not a blackness, because for there to be dark there must be an absence of light, and Eva strongly felt that there was neither in this place-beyond-the-stars. She was at peace, and she felt no hurry.
All her life, she had chosen to believe in something larger than herself, and though she did not know what God would be, she felt Him here, and she felt His forgiveness, for which she had begged and never believed she deserved. She felt it given freely and drank it in and let it fill her and let it wash away the choices and the burdens and the terrible things she had done until what remained were only scars on once-aching flesh; a reminder, but no longer a prison.
Thank you.
…
Slowly, gently, she became aware of the presence of another. It wished to communicate. It felt benevolent, and she was not afraid. She let it in. Let him in.
“Hey, Stratt.”
She did not know how she heard his voice in this place with no sound, how she saw his smile in this place with no light. She was nothing until she was something again. She drew in a breath.
“…Grace?”
…
They were on the carrier deck at sunset, and it was beautiful. The sky was a canvas of her favourite hues, and the sun shone more warmly than she remembered. She turned to the man next to her, and felt those old emotions, the guilt and the pain and the longing, settle into her bones in waves, blanketed by a sense of calm that seemed to emanate from every atom of the air they breathed.
Slowly, after what seemed like a lifetime, Eva turned to the man next to her.
“I knew you would succeed. I am so proud of you. And I am so sorry.”
He was silent for a while, but not angry. The smile that only existed in her memory for so many years warmed his face, lovely as the sun in the sky. God, she had missed it.
“I know.”
Grace was older than she remembered, though not as old as she; and held himself with a certainty, a sureness, that he did not possess when he left. When she sent him away.
He stared wide-eyed at the sea; at the way the light danced on the waves. “I missed Earth.”
So simple, so gentle, and something in her aches.
“You saved it.”
“So, it worked?”
“It worked.”
“I mean, I knew that. Rocky told me that Sol had returned to full brightness. But… it’s good to hear it from you.”
She gazed at him wonderingly. Must have let her puzzlement show, because he grinned that same old grin. As though there hadn’t been decades and a hundred trillion miles between them.
“It’s a long story.” He paused thoughtfully. Stayed silent for a while. His smile faded, and Eva’s chest hurt. “How many?”
She knew what he meant. “Many,” she answered softly. “Too many.”
Grace looked at the ground, then back up at her, sunlight glinting off the tears in his eyes. “We did our best, didn’t we?”
Eva breathed out shakily. “Yes. Yes, we did.”
They stand side by side, looking out at the water. It is so familiar, and so heartbreakingly easy. A million things are said in the drawn-out silence, in breaths and heartbeats.
“God, Ryland, you were all alone out there.” The words threaten to choke her as they come rushing out. “I am so, so-”
“I wasn’t alone.” He held her gaze, pinning her in place with the intensity in his blue eyes. “I went back with Rocky. To his planet. God, Eva, there are so many things I need to tell you.”
She felt the warmth of the first tears as they spilled over, ran down her cheeks. “Oh, Grace.”
“I waited for you, you know.” His voice was heavy, laced with years of things left unsaid. “I don’t know why. Or… I guess I do.” He sighed and wiped away a tear of his own. “I don’t know how I knew, but… I waited. And eventually, you came.”
Gold turned to sparkling orange on the sea.
“… Thank you. For believing that I would.”
“I never stopped caring for you.”
“Nor I you, Grace.”
…
“Was there ever any lifetime in which you made it easy on me? To ask of you what I did?”
“No.” There was a trace of shame in his answer, something harder, too. He looked away. “Was there any lifetime where you didn’t make the same choice?”
“… No.”
He nodded, like he already knew. Grace leaned on the railing, casually, and the motion was so familiar it made Eva dizzy.
“Did you ever wonder what might have been, if not for…” He gestured broadly, at the sky, the ocean, the blazing orange of the sun as it kissed the horizon. “All of it?”
“Every day,” she admitted quietly. It felt like making peace, finally, with a truth she’d tried to bury for so long beneath layers of flesh and ice.
“I found a beautiful life,” he said, and she can hear the love in his voice, the same tone she remembered from when he’d talk about his children, whom he’d loved so much. The force with which the emotion hit her in the chest caught her by surprise, and she steadied herself with a hand on the rail, gripped it until her knuckles went white.
“I’m so glad. You deserved it. You deserved so much better.”
“Actually… I think I ended up exactly where I needed to be. It took me a long time to realise that. But I wouldn’t give my life with Rocky, with Adrian, our family… I wouldn’t change what happened. Maybe once, I would’ve. But I found my place. I found home.”
“Amongst the stars,” Eva said quietly. Grace smiled.
“Yeah.”
“Where do we go from here?”
“I don’t know. I think… I think we get to choose. There is so much I want to share with you, Stratt.”
She looked up, her lip trembling. “I missed you,” she said, softer than a whisper. “I never thought I’d get to see you again.”
Grace met her eyes, and there was so much warmth in them, so much more than she ever deserved. There’s that familiar crinkle by his eyes too, the lines made deeper by the years passed. “Old age made you soft.”
The laughter bubbled up in her chest and her smile finally reached her eyes, her heart aglow. “Damn you, Grace, it didn’t make you any funnier.” There’s no bite to her words. Just the easy banter of old friends. (Whatever they were to each other. She was never truly sure.)
…
“Don’t you want to wait?”
“I don’t know if wherever we are now is a matter of belief, or choice, but I know that Eridians have a different understanding of… all of this than we do. And Rocky still has a long life ahead of him.” Grace shrugged, looked up at the sky, seemed to gaze past the clouds that cover it, toward the stars. “I’ll always love him, and I’ll always carry him with me. Just like he will, for me. I just hate that I had to leave him so soon.”
“There is never enough time with the ones you love the most.”
He drags his fist over his arm in a gesture Eva recognises from the videos he sent back to her, his eyes brimming with emotion. She finds herself mirroring him, sending a silent thank you to the alien from the distant world that Grace called home.
…
“I’m ready,” Eva says softly.
Grace reaches out and offers her his hand. She looks one last time at the setting sun and places her hand in his, where it belongs. She has waited such a long time to touch him.
“Come on then,” the astronaut smiles, and hand in hand they walk. They don’t know where they will go next, but they know they will be together, and that is enough.