Chapter Text
Bright, blinding light. A blisteringly white LED is his entire world in that brief moment. Only his eyes manage to turn side to side in his head as his body dumbly pulls itself out of the coma. He twitches his fingers, curls his toes slowly, notices his breath groaning indecipherably from his mouth.
[What is 2+2?]
The room - strange, circular and hospital-esque - becomes noisy as he moans some more, tongue lolling uselessly as he whistles and mumbles. That monotonous voice asks the sum again and then again until he finally manages to make the word 'four' happen. As he shuffles around anxiously, trying to sit up, his bed sways like a hammock. The computer's voice registers his movement.
[What is your name?]
With a tremendous effort he sits up, groaning weakly for help- for anyone to come and help him. Panic begins to settle in, creeping into his ribcage like ice. His breathing ragged, he flings his arms around with the dual-purpose of swatting those horrifying looking robot arms away and geting some barings but tears out an IV drip with a sharp ripping sensation. Hot aching pain joins a feeling of warm, dripping blood and he cries out, holding his arm sadly. The robot arms waggle 'concernedly' as new voices and movement enter his ears. Someone moves above him, coming down a ladder and calling something he doesn't understand. Maybe he still can't hear. Another sharp pinch happens, this time in his neck, making him gasp and flinch away. But he can't turn to get off the bed. In fact, his brain dully comes to the realisation that he can hardly move at all. His increasingly heavy arms sink down beside his sluggish body, and he sighs slowly. Sedatives.
"Nnn.. no. Help," he mumbles weakly, but he's granted no mercy besides a woman's hands suddenly under his shoulders, laying him down carefully onto his bed as his eyes blink closed. The last thing he sees before his breath evens out is her soft brown hair and furrowed brows in her hazy expression.
When he stirs again he sits up with ease. He yawns, going through alllll the motions. Moving his tongue across his teeth, rubbing his eyes free of sleep and stretching. There's a small plaster over the needlehole in his arm.
[Movement detected. What is your name?]
He ignores the robot arms. It asks again. All of the... invasive tubes have been removed, so he's obviously been trusted to move around. But this time, he doesn't have to call out. The ... nurses?.. were sitting in the corner of the room, and come over in a hurry.
"Take it slowly," the man warns, standing beside the bed. He's a broad, older asian man with close cropped grey hair. He isn't in any sort of nurses getup. "You're only just out of the coma. It's going to take a while before you feel strong again."
"We were worried, you stayed asleep for long time!" The brown-haired nurse says this cheerfully in a thick accent, smiling with a warmth that's lost on him as he gives her a dumbfounded stare. Nothing about this... makes sense. The more he considers the idea, the less that the room seems like a quarantine, hell, there's even a hatch door at the top of that ladder. No normal quarantine has that.
"C- coma? I was in a coma? Where am I?"
The two glance share a glance.
"On the Hail Mary, in the crew compartment. Remember?" The man frowns sternly, pointing to something on his chest. It's a patch sewn into his yellow uniform, with the Hail Mary's spacecraft (how does he know that?) flying over rays of yellow thread sunshine. The man's blue name label reads... something in Chinese. He notices their crests are matching. He shrinks back from them uncomprehendingly. A stiffness hangs in the air.
[What is your name?] The robotic voice chimes in.
"Computer, stop the-" but she's interrupted. The room bursts with energy as he starts suddenly from his rocking bed, dragging the bedsheet with him to tie it hurriedly about himself. It slips awkwardly from his shoulders and tangles as he moves, tripping and stumbling up the ladder, but he hardly has embarrassment on his mind right now he needs to get out of here. The - his 'crewmates' - leave the bedside, their eyes following him. With patience and no shortage of humility they watch him climb it.
"Don't hurt yourself!" the man calls up, waiting presumably to catch him at the bottom as the woman grasps a rung once his own foot is clear. Climing up the ladder is a completely ridiculous effort; all of his muscles feel weak and sore and his clammy hands tremble with the effort of pulling himself up each painstaking rung. Knowing they're watching him pathetically climb it only makes his face burn hot as he wriggles up through the hatch.
"Wait, don't be scared! We will explain!"
They follow him through a science lab so brilliantly equipped it almost makes him pause to look around but he presses onwards. A light has caught his eye. A panel of glass. It's cold, and his breath fogs it as he presses up against it, sinking to his knees. It reflects his two crewmates standing behind him worriedly but he doesn't notice. He stares blankly and a vast emptiness returns the gesture.
They're really in space. The cold from the Hail Mary's window passes through him in one full-body shiver and pits in his stomach, taking up all the air in his chest. Breath begins to drag quickly against his sore throat and he cries out, managing to avert his eyes by putting his head into his trembling hands as tears drip down his nose.
"Grace..." Ilyukhina says, but he isn't being remotely graceful and pushes her comforting hand away from his shoulder. Yes, he remembers now. Mission Specialist Ilyukhina. She's a mechanical engineer. Fragments of memories that feel equally present return to him in such quick flashes they give him vertigo. He pants frantically and blinks tears from his vision as images swim in his mind. A conference room is littered with documents. A woman in dark grey. The Petrova line, highlighted with red pen. Bile rises in the back of his mouth. As he gags between breaths, he suddenly feels a solid point of contact.
Strong hands remove his head from his shaking hands and press his sweaty forehead against the crook of the man's shoulder. Yao takes one of his hands and holds him firmly without a hint of violence, keeping him in place as they kneel opposite each other.
"Take a deep breath, Dr.Grace," Commander Yao orders. "Calm yourself. You'll remember why you're here."
Grace takes in lungfuls of air desperately, but Yao's grip is firm, and the feeling of the man's pulse in his neck against his forehead is grounding. As the stars pass them by slowly his heart stops pounding and his stiffened muscles slowly relax. Yao releases his grip gently, watching as Ryland sits back, sniffing but wiping his face free of tears. Something more than scraps had come to him as he calmed down. The woman with the sombre expresion in a classroom perches briefly on one of the desks and points to a document in her hand - his PHD thesis. "Dr. Ryland Grace?" she asks, and introduces herself. The afternoon sunlight glints against his hanging model of the solar system as she coldly mentions the "- Petrova Task Force. I need you to come with me."
"We have been in comas for a very long time," Yao starts slowly, "and it seems to have affected your memory. I am-"
"I remember." Grace cuts him off hoarsely, and looks between them. "I remember bits and pieces..."
"So all is well, yes? Memory will recover soon!" Ilyukhina smiles, but he shakes his head.
"Why am I.. what are we even doing? I can't- I'm not an astronaut."
Grace draws his knees into his chest and the bedsheet tightly around him. Ilyukhina crouches beside him, putting a hand to his shoulder as Yao sighs through his nose.
"Our mission is for humanity, and you are a scientist. We will teach you the harder parts." Yao sounds confident in him... he thinks. The man's stern expression doesn't change much. In contrast, Ilyukhina sounds positively excited as she chimes in.
"We will have fun finding solution to astrophage problem, will be easy. But first..." She glances at Yao and chuckles slightly. "Some clothes."