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Something is wrong with Grace.
He’s curled up in a nest of blankets next to the xenonite barrier, and he’s…twitching? Jerking around. Making weird little noises.
It’s weird that Grace moves around at all when he sleeps. He lies down in one position but then rolls around, kicks his legs about, shifts on his mattress or the floor. Grace says it’s nothing to worry about; it’s just him trying to get comfortable so he can sleep better. Rocky is glad that Grace is not so vulnerable when he sleeps, but it’s strange. Rocky’s still trying to get used to it.
He came to terms with it pretty quickly, at least. They’ve only been watching each other sleep for a little while, but Rocky has accepted that it’s a Weird Alien Thing. So Grace rolls over in his sleep sometimes. That’s okay. He’s not in danger.
But what Grace is doing right now is more than that. Rocky can hear the brush of his pants against the ground, the scrape of his skin on the Xenonite barrier between them. More than that, Rocky can hear the pounding of his heart and the panting of his breath. He’s not just shifting around because he’s trying to get comfortable. Something is wrong with him.
Is he dying? Rocky doesn’t know what it looks like when humans die. Grace can’t be dying. Rocky needs Grace to be alive. Otherwise, they’ll both be alone and their planets will die. Rocky can’t be alone again. He can’t do it.
Rocky calls out his name, listening to the response from the translator. But there’s no response from Grace.
That’s not good. Grace usually wakes up quickly when Rocky calls his name. Grace describes himself as a “light sleeper”, whatever that means.
Rocky tries again, and this time, Grace jerks, foot hitting the xenonite between them. He’s curled up tight. Is he in pain? Did he get hurt somehow? Maybe in all of the moving he does while sleeping, he hurt himself. He must be hurt, Rocky decides. Either that, or he’s ill. Do humans get sick? They must. Rocky had never thought to ask before, but now he really wishes he had.
Grace makes a noise, but it’s not the kind of noise he makes when he’s speaking. It’s one of those weird, wordless sounds he makes sometimes, like when he stubs his toe. He’s in pain. He must be. There’s no other reason why he would be making pain sounds.
But he’s still asleep. Rocky doesn’t understand how he can be asleep when he’s moving around and making this much noise. Rocky’s got to wake him up.
He crowds against the barrier, as close to Grace as he can get, and frantically taps his arms against the xenonite. He keeps saying Grace’s name, the translator picking it up and spitting it out in a way Grace can understand. Grace curls up tighter. Rocky swears he can hear the sounds of his bones straining, but that’s ridiculous. Right? Sometimes he hears Grace’s bones grind together, but this is a different sound.
“Rocky…” Grace mutters, and Rocky jumps. He must be waking up!
“Grace? Grace? Is Grace okay, question?”
Grace says Rocky’s name again, but he sounds…distressed. He makes another pain sound. His leg bumps against the barrier again.
“Grace?” Rocky says again. “Why Grace say Rocky, question?”
He must need Rocky’s help. Because he’s hurt. But Rocky can’t help him. He can’t even go get the robot Grace calls Armando. Something is really wrong with Grace and Rocky can’t help him. It reminds him of watching his crewmates waste away, unable to understand what was wrong with them. He remembers when they went to sleep and never woke up again. Rocky hates feeling helpless, hates watching the people he cares about suffer. Grace is suffering somehow, and Rocky can’t help him. Can’t wake him up, can’t hold him.
Grace has to wake up. Grace is Rocky’s friend. He needs Grace. He can’t be all alone again.
But Rocky doesn’t know what else to do, so he just keeps banging against the xenonite and calling Grace’s name. He can’t go through the barrier, no matter how much he wants to. His only hope is to wake him up. Grace continues to writhe around and make pain noises until—
“Rocky, don’t—” Rocky is wondering what he’s not supposed to do when Grace rears up into a sitting position, heart pounding and chest heaving. Is he awake now? He must be awake. He’s looking around wildly, making more of those distressed noises that Rocky has decided he absolutely hates.
“Grace okay, question?” Rocky asks. “Is Grace hurt?”
Grace whirls around to look at him. He moves so quickly toward the xenonite barrier that he topples over and nearly smashes his face into it. He manages to catch himself at the last second, holding himself up on shaking arms. “Rocky?” he says. “Rocky, you’re okay.”
“Rocky okay,” Rocky agrees. “Is Grace okay?”
Grace lets out a big, heaving breath and practically melts into the ground. He curls on his side, looking at Rocky through the barrier like he can’t believe he’s here. Rocky realizes that Grace’s face is leaking.
“Grace okay,” Grace mumbles. He squeezes his eyes shut and wipes at his cheeks. “Sorry. If I scared you.”
If. If he scared him. Rocky hasn’t been that scared since he met Grace. He’s never been so certain he was about to lose the only other person he has left. And he’s still not sure that something isn’t really wrong with Grace.
“Grace hurt, question?”
“No, no, I’m not, not hurt,” Grace says. “I had a nightmare.”
A what? Rocky’s never heard that one before. Is that some kind of illness? Grace said he had one, so he doesn’t anymore? Where did it go? Maybe Grace is hurt and he doesn’t know it. “Rocky need new word?”
“Oh,” Grace says. He sounds very tired. “Yeah. Nightmare. It’s a, a bad dream.”
That doesn’t mean anything to Rocky either. He’s about to say as much when Grace adds, “Oh. You probably don’t have those.”
“Human sleep thing, question?”
“Yeah,” Grace says. “Yeah, it’s a human sleep thing. When humans sleep, the neurons in our brains keep firing. Sometimes, we…imagine things, in our sleep. Often, it’s our brain’s way of processing things that happened to us, so sometimes our dreams are stressful or happy or whatever we’ve been feeling recently. Usually they don’t make any sense. A lot of people don’t even remember them.”
That’s…horrifying. Everything Rocky learns about human sleep is strange and unnerving. So Grace not only moves around and talks when he sleeps, but he’s also still thinking? When does he ever rest? No wonder Grace looks so tired all of the time. He’s stressed out in his sleep. “Humans do on purpose?”
“No, no, it just…happens,” Grace says. “It’s not anything to worry about, Rock. None of it is real. Usually dreams are actually kinda funny. Once I dreamt that I had to teach biology to a classroom full of locusts.”
Rocky hums. That doesn’t sound very funny to him. And what just happened definitely wasn’t funny. “But sometimes are bad?”
Grace heaves a deep sigh. He rubs at his eyes again, sitting up. He leans back against the xenonite and says, “Yeah. Yeah, sometimes, they’re bad.”
“Like now.”
“Yeah. Like now.” Grace puts his head in his hands, grinding his palms into his eyes.
Rocky could leave it at that. He probably doesn’t want to know what Grace was imagining just now. It’s probably going to hurt. But Grace still isn’t okay. It’s not hard to tell. His breathing still sounds wrong, and his eyes are still leaking. Grace will feel better if he talks about it, Rocky decides.
“What Grace imagine, question?”
Grace sighs again. Rocky’s not sure what he’s looking at, but he’s definitely not looking at Rocky. He can hear the sound of Grace fidgeting with his pant legs, and it worries him.
“Sound like Grace was hurt,” Rocky says, once it becomes apparent that Grace isn’t going to answer without further prompting. He doesn’t like the thought. Imagining Grace hurt, in pain—no, Rocky shouldn’t think about that. He’s trying to help Grace right now.
“I wasn’t…wasn’t hurt,” Grace says. “I dreamt that something was wrong with the ship. I couldn’t figure out the problem and I couldn’t find you. I kept calling for you and you weren’t there…”
Rocky remembers Grace saying his name, sounding distressed. He thought he was searching for Rocky, and Rocky wasn’t answering. Rocky knows that Grace was just imagining it, that it was a weird alien brain thing, but it hurts to think that he would ever not come when Grace calls. It hurts to know that Grace imagined that. For just a little while, Grace lived in a reality where Rocky wasn’t there.
“You’d gone outside of the ship because something was wrong with it and I couldn’t get to you. You were…” Grace’s breath hitches. Rocky waits to see if he will start leaking again. He wishes he could touch Grace, even just for a moment. “You were gone.”
Oh. Rocky gets it now. “Grace scared, not hurt.”
“Yeah.” Grace sighs a third time. “But I’m okay now. It wasn’t real. You’re here, I’m fine, we’re both fine. I’m sorry for scaring you.”
“Rocky thought Grace dying,” Rocky says, slightly accusingly. “Grace wouldn’t wake up.”
Grace knocks his head back against the barrier between them. Rocky wishes now more than ever that he could curl up on Grace’s chest. Grace looks like he needs it. His mate always feels better when they cuddle up to each other. He imagines humans probably work similarly.
“I’m sorry,” Grace says again. “I should’ve explained it before.”
“Is okay,” Rocky says. But then a thought strikes him— “Will happen again?”
For a moment, Grace is silent. Rocky shifts, trying to get a better look at him. He knows that Grace doesn’t like it when he points the transmitter at him, but right now, he needs to know what he’s doing. And right now, Grace is staring at the ceiling, eyes leaking, shivering occasionally.
“Probably,” Grace says. He rubs his hands down his face. Rocky hears the sound on his skin.
“When?” Rocky asks. Maybe these things happen on a schedule? Maybe Grace knows it’s going to happen before he goes to sleep? Rocky would like warning next time so he doesn’t worry that Grace is about to die.
“I don’t know, buddy,” Grace says. “They happen…when they happen. Sorry.”
Rocky sags a little. He can’t imagine ever watching Grace go through that again. He doesn’t want to hear those noises ever again. “Rocky will watch Grace sleep extra.”
“You don’t need to do that, Rock,” Grace says. “Nothing you can really do, anyway.”
No, that’s not true. Rocky will have to find a way to fix it. “Rocky will wake Grace when Grace have bad sleep,” Rocky declares.
Grace laughs, more watery than usual. “Thanks, buddy.” He sounds exhausted. Rocky swears he can hear Grace’s hands shaking. Normally, his sleep cycles lasts six to eight hours, in Rocky’s experience. It’s only been three or four since Grace laid down. Rocky finds Grace’s sleep cycles to be rather tedious, but Grace definitely needs more sleep.
“Grace sleep more now, question?” Rocky suggests.
He thinks Grace flinches, but he’s not sure that’s what that noise was.
“Not now,” Grace says. “Don’t think I could sleep if I tried.”
Rocky grumbles a little. “Grace need sleep.”
“I know, buddy, I know,” says Grace. “I just…just give me a while, okay?”
He knocks his hand against the xenonite barrier between them. Rocky responds by tapping one of his claws against the spot where Grace rests his hand. Then Grace gets up and heads to one of the workbenches, gait a little wobbly and uneven. Rocky listens to his footsteps fade. He shakes himself a bit, telling himself that Grace is fine. Grace is not dying. Grace is just a weird alien who has weird alien things happen sometimes and it is not life threatening.
But despite his attempts Rocky can’t stop hearing Grace’s distressed noises. The sound is echoing around in his mind even as Grace sits in the lab, alive and well. He’s puttering around, doing something or another, humming under his breath. He’s fine. He is not dying.
Rocky shivers a little. He moves toward Grace’s lab bench. “Grace is okay,” he says.
Grace glances at him and sighs yet again. His hands are still trembling. “Yeah, buddy. I’m okay.”
But it might happen again. Rocky might have to watch Grace suffer again. No, Rocky will have to watch Rocky suffer again. But next time Rocky will know what’s happening. He’ll just wake Grace up better. No matter what, Rocky will fix it.