Archive of Our Own

Two days after their first contact—and more importantly, their first words—Grace sets up his thinking machine to speak.

Rocky does not need the assistance of a machine for Grace’s language. It is ugly and harsh to listen to, but it’s relatively simple to learn. That, and, well—Rocky was alone for a very, very long time before he met Grace. He maybe hangs on to each word a little more than strictly necessary. Grace only needs to tell him each word once for Rocky to know it forever.

Grace, though… 

Well, he’s lucky Rocky is patient. Let’s leave it at that.

The voice is necessary if they want to make any progress. They’re just not functional when Grace has to stop and look at the thinking machine—laptop—every time Rocky speaks. It’s frustrating for both of them. 

(Rocky also doesn’t quite understand yet how the laptop is helping Grace, since it’s essentially a flat surface attached to a flat array of buttons, and nothing changes when he hits the buttons. Somehow Grace can glean information from it. But Rocky has no idea how. It’s infuriating.) 

So, to help them both not lose their minds, Grace sets up the laptop to start talking.

According to Grace, the voice that translates for Rocky is not quite human. It’s apparently more of a “robot voice.” Rocky has no frame of reference for other human voices (or “robot” voices, whatever those are), so it’s all the same to him. Grace seems to like it, though, his face stretching into what Rocky now recognizes as a happy expression, so it’s good enough for him.

The voice is helpful. It’s necessary. It’s just not…perfect.

“No, Grace. Rocky not a navigator. Ship has locations pre-programmed in. It sends out signals to nearby planetary masses and uses signals that bounce back to calculate relative position. That’s how Rocky found your ship, too! New object in space!”

With a slight delay, the laptop says No, Grace. Rocky not—ship has—in. Send out—planet mass and uses—back to calculate—position. Is how Rocky found ship. New object space.

It’s…not great.

“Wait, wait,” Grace says, walking over to the laptop, walking away from the model of Tau Ceti’s system. Ugh. They’d finally been making some progress on a plan to investigate the astrophage line. Grace leans over the buttons and looks at him. “That sounded like a lot of new words.”

Rocky wants to let it go—how often is he going to need the word “navigator,” anyway—but he and Grace had both agreed to do the grunt work now and expand their vocabulary as much as possible as early as possible. And he does like having more words to talk to Grace with. 

He just wishes it was faster. 

“New word. ‘Navigator.’”

“Definition?”

Rocky holds up one of his hands, clicking his fingers together as he thinks. This is the hard part so far—numbers are easy, but putting together words like this is just not his thing. “Person who tells ship where to go.”

He’s pretty sure they have all of those words in the laptop, and Rocky said them slowly, but it’s still a relief to hear Person who tells ship where to go.

Grace says, “Nævəˌɡeɪtər!”

Rocky chirps excitedly. “Yes yes yes!”

Yes yes yes.

Grace’s face moves in that happy way again. He presses a sequence of buttons, then points at Rocky, who repeats the word on cue. Grace hits a different sequence of buttons, then points at Rocky again, who, for the third time, says, “navigator,” and a second later the laptop says navigator in English.

The process takes them 57 seconds in total. Their historical average is 93 seconds, but that includes a handful of disastrous instances where Grace was still learning and Rocky had to repeat words over twelve times before they were successfully entered. 

(It was exactly as annoying as it sounds.)

“Next?” Grace says.

With only slight difficulty, Rocky manages to get Grace to add “location,” “signal,” and “reflect,” and with all of those, Grace asks him to repeat his sentence from five minutes ago.

Rocky taps the claws of one hand together, thinking back to what the computer had repeated the first time. This time, carefully considering what words he has access to, he says, “Rocky not navigator. Ship sends signals, listens for reflect—” Crap, they didn’t do reflections, “—then calculates location. Is how I found your ship.”

Rocky not navigator. Ship sends signal, listens for reflect, then calculates location. Is how I found you ship.”

Clunky, but passable. He’s starting to figure out that if he pronounces his words very clearly, and uses the inflection normally reserved for very young hatchlings, he gets better results with both Grace and the laptop. Even if it sounds ridiculous to Eridian ears. If any of his crewmates heard him talking like that, they’d tease him relentlessly, but luckily for Rocky, the only person around is Grace. 

“Oh! Like your sonar!” Grace exclaims immediately.

Rocky excitedly spins in a circle. He really, really likes Grace.

“Yes! Sonar!”

Yes, sonar.

“And it uses that to calculate your position in riˈleɪʃən to everything else?”

“Yes yes yes!” He’s pretty sure that missing word is something like “relation.”

Yes yes yes!

Grace makes a strange noise—a harsher exhale than normal, just short of being a vocalization. Almost a laugh, maybe? He shakes his head back and forth slightly. “That’s crazy. You guys are crazy, you know that?”

“Humans put on suits and go out in space. Humans crazy ones.”

Human put on—go out in space. Human crazy one.

It’s not quite right, but Grace laughs anyway and they “spacesuit” to the system.

“Yeah, yeah, pal. I know you’re not a fan of space walks.”

“Humans crazy,” Rocky says again. It’s important that Grace knows it.

Human crazy.

“Probably. But you’re stuck with me.” Grace goes back to the model Rocky made of the Tau Ceti star system. Finally! Graces claps his hands together. “Now, back to business.”

Rocky taps his claws together in response. Finally, finally, finally! “Yes. Rocky Grace do big big big science.”

Yes. Rocky Grace do big big big science.

Grace grins. They get to work.

—

Grace keeps doing something weird. Well, weird to Rocky, at least.

It starts when pulls in a larger-than-normal amount of air into the organs in his chest. This in itself is not all that abnormal, as the amount of air he pulls in with each breath can vary, but at the beginning of this particular process it’s always a large amount. Next, an organ—or maybe a muscle? Impossible to tell. Human bodies are awful—below his air organs flexes and stretches in response. All three muscles hold for a moment, then Grace opens his mouth wide and the air comes back out. It is not a normal facet of human breathing—in fact, it seems to cause Grace some kind of discomfort, as it is usually followed by a hand moving over his face or a sharp, short head shake. 

It’s disturbing. Rocky does not like it. He wants to ask about it, but Grace seems to be steadfastly ignoring it, and he doesn’t want to be rude. Grace seems willing to discuss most facets of his biology—downright eager, sometimes—but Rocky doesn’t want to find the line he’s not willing to cross.

But the instances are growing in frequency; there have been four of these breath-interruption incidents in the past seventeen Earth minutes alone. When a fifth one occurs, Rocky finally decides to say something.

“What Grace doing?”

The laptop says, What Grace doing, question?

Grace looks up from frowning at the Tau Ceti model. “What?”

Rocky has learned that sometimes Grace says “what” if he doesn’t understand the question on a basic language level, but sometimes he says “what” if he understands the meaning of the question, but doesn’t understand why it was asked. The word can also be both an exclamation and a noun. Grace uses it a lot.

Rocky repeats his question.

“Doing what?” Grace asks, then ten seconds later does it again.

“That.” Rocky points at him. “What are you doing?”

That. What Grace doing, question?

Grace tilts his head, still confused, then perks back up. A realization. “Oh, wait. You mean this?”

He stretches his arms out and does a mimicry of the breath-interruption. 

“Yes.”

Yes.

“That’s called a jɔn. It happens to humans when we’re taɪərd.”

“New word,” Rocky says as he commits the first word to memory.

“Taɪərd?” Grace asks. Rocky chirps affirmatively. To his delight, Grace seems to understand, even though the laptop doesn’t translate it. “It’s how humans feel when they need to slip.”

“New word,” Rocky says again. They do this a lot. This time, though, he’s excited—anything to do with human biology is fascinating.

“Slip is when we do this,” Grace says.

Then he leans his top half onto the table on his side of the tunnel and stops moving.

“Grace?” Rocky says, tapping at the wall between them. 

Grace, question?

Grace doesn’t move. 

No. No no no. Should Rocky have asked sooner? Was the jɔn thing a symptom of something worse? A million thoughts all go through Rocky’s mind at once, and none of them are good. He can’t lose Grace; he just got him!

Grace is still breathing, at least. Rocky can see his chest expanding and his heart beating. But what if it stops? What if there’s something wrong? What if he’s sick like everyone else?

What if he leaves Rocky alone? Again?

“Grace?” Rocky nearly screams. He slams a claw into the wall, hard. “GRACE!”

Grace, question? Grace.

“Hold on,” Grace says, muffled from the way his mouth is pressed into the table. Then, suddenly, he straightens up again, stretching his arms out. “We do that for about 29,000 seconds or so, then we get up for the day.”

Oh.

Sleep.

Grace is talking about sleep.

He’s not dying.

With slightly embarrassed tones, Rocky finally says, “We call this ‘sleep.’”

Eridians call this.

Grace walks over to the laptop and they add the word.

“Grace needs to sleep?” Rocky asks afterward.

Grace need sleep, question?

“Yup,” Grace confirms. “I need to sleep for about eight of every twenty-four hours.”

Rocky’s anxiety is abruptly replaced by confusion. What did Grace just say?

Surely they’re having some kind of translation issue. Or maybe Grace is worse at math than Rocky originally thought. He asks Grace to confirm the numbers, and to his horror, Grace reaffirms that he sleeps for roughly eight hours out of every twenty-four.

“I should, at least. It’s hard sometimes on a ship.”

Rocky’s barely listening. Grace sleeps for a third of his life?

It can’t be true. Rocky does the math quickly; they’ve been in contact for about fifty-two Earth hours, and Grace hasn’t slept, to his knowledge. Maybe Grace just said the wrong thing. That’s over double the timeframe Grace described; maybe Rocky was wrong, and what Grace is talking about isn’t actually sleep? Rocky’s been able to observe Grace more or less the entire time, even when he was in his ship, like when he went back in for several hours and came back late—

Wait a minute. 

Grace had left the tunnel and been gone for nearly 35,000 seconds. He had spent the majority of that time with his body in a horizontal position on a large shelf in his ship. He’d barely moved, but he had still clearly been breathing and shifting. Rocky had seen this movement and assumed it was resting, not sleep.

But maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe human sleep looked…different. Had that period of time actually been Grace sleeping? More importantly, had Grace been sleeping without Rocky watching? 

On purpose?

“Grace went to sleep in ship?” Rocky asks, slowly.

The laptop says, incorrectly, Grace sleep in ship, question?

“Yeah,” Grace says before Rocky can correct it. “Yeah, I probably should head back in. It’s late for me.” He stands and stretches his top limbs. He glances down at the device attached to one of them that tells time. “I’ll go sleep real quick, and I’ll be back in about—”

Un-fucking-believeable. Grace had slept alone. And hadn’t even told Rocky! It is absolutely not happening again.

“NO,” Rocky says without thinking. He says it louder than he meant to and Grace winces.

No.

“No, what?”

No less forceful, but a little more considerate of Grace’s ears, Rocky says, “GRACE SLEEP HERE.”

Grace sleep here, the laptop happily chirps.

They need to get tones in that thing as soon as fucking possible.

“Uh,” Grace tilts his head. “What?”

That dumb word again. Rocky stomps an arm and repeats, “GRACE SLEEP HERE.”

Grace sleep here.

Grace pauses for a long time. Eventually he says, “Why?”

Rocky has never heard a dumber question in his life. And Grace asks a lot of dumb questions.

“Why? What does Grace mean why? Why in the world—galaxy—universe, whatever—would Grace not sleep here? Do you think Rocky can’t watch over Grace? Do you think Rocky wouldn’t protect Grace with Rocky's life? Stupid stupid stupid human with stupid stupid stupid idea to sleep away from Rocky where anything could happen—”

The laptop struggles to keep up; it pitifully spits out Why—world—sleep—watch—Grace—stupid stupid stupid—sleep.

“Whoa, whoa!” Grace says, putting his hands up. “Rocky, slow down! I don’t understand.”

Rocky has to force himself to be still. He wants to keep stomping around, but it’s critical that he gets Grace to understand him. He can’t accomplish that if he’s freaking out. Not that he’s freaking out or anything.

But if Grace goes into his ship to sleep without him watching, he’s going to blow up this tunnel with them both in it.

(Okay, no he won’t. But he’ll think about it.)

“Rocky?”

Right. Grace is waiting for him to try again. 

Rocky digs for the words they have. He can’t wait until Grace understands full Eridian. “Grace sleep here. In tunnel.”

Grace sleep here. In tunnel.

“You want me to sleep here?” Grace repeats. “For…what? So you can watch?” He tilts his head. “Like a science thing?”

“Yes, want to watch. But not science thing,” Rocky says. He is vaguely curious to watch Grace sleep up close, but it’s far from his main motivation. Obviously. Everyone knows that watching sleep is critical to—

Rocky mentally smacks himself. Every Eridian knows you watch sleep.

Grace is not Eridian.

“Humans…do not watch sleep?”

Yes, want to watch. No science thing. Human no watch sleep, question?

“Uh, no. Humans do not watch sleep.” Grace shakes his head a bit. “That would be—do Eridians do that?”

For a long moment, Rocky has no words.

Humans just…what? Sleep alone? All the time? That can’t be possible. Grace injured himself earlier by walking into the side of a table. Something that fragile while awake couldn’t possibly survive any kind of danger while asleep. The humans would have died out eons ago. 

Grace is waiting for an answer. Rocky says, “Eridians watch. Not safe. Have to watch sleep.”

Eridians watch. Not safe. Must watch sleep.

It’s not exactly true in the modern era—not much happens to Eridians nowadays if they choose to sleep alone. There aren’t exactly wild predators running around in people’s homes. But Rocky can’t imagine anyone ever making such a choice willingly. He still remembers the first time he had to sleep alone on his ship after he finally admitted his last crewmate was not going to wake up. 

That had been a long, long night.

Grace does another one of his yawns. “Okay, look, we can talk about it when I come back. For now, I’m gonna—”

“No no no!” Rocky exclaims when Grace turns to leave. He panic-stomps again. “Bad bad bad! Have to watch Grace sleep!”

No no no bad bad bad. Must watch Grace sleep.

Rocky’s terrified that Grace isn’t going to understand. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do for 29,000 seconds if he has to spend them alone, knowing Grace is intentionally sleeping out of view. He practically bounces off the xenonite walls in his scrambling. He doesn’t have the words between them to explain any of it to this foreign, squishy, stupid being. 

He makes a high-pitched, wailing tone instead, something any Eridian would recognize as please help me. 

Somehow, it works. Grace comes closer to the wall, slowly, with his hands held up between them. Rocky has no idea what the gesture means. Grace isn’t leaving; that’s what matters.

“Calm down,” Grace is saying. How long has he been talking? “Rocky, pal. Can you calm down for a second?”

Rocky forces himself to be still again. His claws still tap together, but he stops running around, at least.

“Okay. I’m getting that this sleep thing is…important, on Erid.”

Please understand, Grace. “Yes yes yes.”

Yes yes yes.

Grace’s mouth contorts in a way Rocky can’t read. Why can’t he just use tones? “Eridians watch sleep.”

Rocky taps the ground firmly. “Eridians watch sleep.”

Eridians watch sleep.

Grace pushes a long breath out of his mouth. It’s disgusting. 

Then, finally, he says, “Okay. Wait here. I’ll be back in five minutes. Okay?”

Five minutes. Too short for sleep. Rocky watches him go, anxiously tapping at the wall. Grace goes back into his ship, does something in a small room for about two minutes, then comes back into the tunnel with a strange assortment of things—a large, flimsy rectangle that he throws onto the ground, a smaller, equally-flimsy rectangle he throws on top, and a thin sheet of material that Grace puts on top of himself as he rests his body on the rectangles. 

Rocky realizes it’s where he intends to sleep and makes Grace move it closer to the wall. He does, albeit with some grumbling.

Eventually, they settle. Grace gives him the word for “bed,” then, for the first time in an eternity, Rocky is able to watch a friend sleep.

—

Rocky thought being able to watch his friend sleep would give him the relief he’d been looking for, but it doesn’t.

No, instead the crushing, overwhelming wave of it comes when he senses the systems in Grace’s body stirring, and Rocky’s mind finally realizes he’s been watching over the sleep of someone who was actually going to wake back up.

—

“Grace,” Rocky says. He rolls his weight around in his new ball. “Graaace. Not going to stick like that. Rocky hasn’t given you the compound.”

The laptop, perched precariously on the edge of Grace’s bunk, says Grace. Grace. Not going to—like that. Rocky no give you.

Grace says, somewhat strained, “What?”

Rocky runs through their previous conversations and, shit, they’ve never entered the words “stick” or “compound” or “adhesive” into the laptop. He could use “attach,” maybe?

“Rocky, this thing isn’t staying,” Grace says. He’s holding a large piece of xenonite, trying to adhere it to a piece they stuck perpendicular to the floor of the dormitory to form the beginnings of a wall. But the piece he’s holding doesn’t have the adhesive compound on it, Grace picked it up too early, and Rocky doesn’t have the words “adhesive” or “compound” or “put it down you fucking idiot it’s not going to stick.” 

“Rocky,” Grace says again.

“Thinking,” Rocky says. “Hard to do with Grace talking.”

Thinking. Hard with Grace talking.

With a huff, Grace sets the piece down on the floor with a clunk and waits.

“Xenonite will not stay without—” Rocky tries. The laptop doesn’t have “adhesive,” and he decides it’s worth it to have Grace stop and add it in. They’re going to need it to build Rocky a space to live. “Need word.”

Xenonite will not stay without. Need word.

Grace nods and goes to the laptop. “Hit me.”

One of his colloquialisms that had appalled Rocky the first time. (Why would I hurt Grace, question?) Rocky taps two claws together. “Word for thing to make two things stay together.”

Word for thing to make two things stay together. 

(After much effort, they finally got the laptop to recognize the Eridian tonal modulator for plurals. Rocky’s world expanded so beautifully that day.)

Grace says, “Screw?”

A word they’ve had for two weeks? Rocky could roll his non-existent eyes. “Know screw. Rocky would make screw if Rocky needed word for screw. Rocky did make screw to get word for screw.”

Know screw. Rocky would have made screw if Rocky needed word for screw. Rocky did make screw to get word for scr—

“Okay, okay! Not a screw.” Grace holds up his hands. “What is it, then?”

Rocky thinks. “Not object. Fluid.”

Not object. Fluid.

Grace thinks, then snaps his fingers. “Glu.”

It’s not a word Rocky’s heard before. He hopes it’s right. “Yes yes.”

Yes yes.

Grace leans over and hits a few keys, then points at Rocky. On cue, Rocky says “adhesive” again, Grace hits a few more keys, and the laptop says glue.

“Okay, what about glue?” Grace asks.

“Xenonite no have adhesive,” Rocky answers, pointing at the piece Grace had been holding.

Xenonite no have glue.

Grace looks at the xenonite, then back up at Rocky, then does that two more times.  “Well, that’s just not gonna work, now, is it.”

“Correct. Will not work. Grace bad engineer.”

Correct. Will not work. Grace bad engineer.

Rocky laughs as Grace huffs at him. They’ll probably have to add some new construction-specific words if they want to get this done in the next six hundred years. They can do it later, though; they’ve been doing this for a while and he can tell Grace is getting tired. In fact, it’s actually been—

Crap. In the excitement of moving Rocky into the Hail Mary, they’d lost track of the time.

“Grace.” Rocky taps his ball. “Need sleep.”

Grace. Need sleep.

“What? You need to go to sleep right now?”

Rocky shakes irritably. As if he would ever schedule his sleep for this inconvenient of a time. “Not Rocky. Grace need sleep.”

Not Rocky. Grace need sleep.

Grace waves it off. “I’m fine, pal.”

Rocky is no longer fooled by Grace’s platitudes. If he goes more than eighteen hours without sleep, he gets “grumpy,” which is another word for “uncooperative and annoying.” As it stands now, it’s been almost twenty-one hours. It’s probably why Grace didn’t notice the lack of adhesive.

“Grace not fine. Grace need sleep or Grace gets stupid.”

Grace not fine. Grace needs sleep or Grace stupid.

“Hey.” Grace puts his hands on the bones that jut out above the joints of his legs. Hip bones. “Rude. I’m fine for a little longer. Where’s the glue?”

“Correction—Grace is already stupid. Go to sleep now. Rocky watch.”

Correction—Grace already stupid. Go sleep now, command. Rocky watch.

Grace smushes a hand over his face. It moves the skin around in a way that makes Rocky vaguely uncomfortable. Most of Grace’s body makes him vaguely uncomfortable. “Fine, I’ll go to sleep soon. But shouldn’t we get some of this done, at least? We’re already halfway through.”

They really aren’t. They still have to put adhesive on the rest of the pieces, put them all in place, and cure them after so they can hold his Eridian atmosphere. Rocky would have had all of this done hours ago if he wasn’t stuck in a ball. Grace is slow and will only get slower if he doesn’t go to sleep. 

What a team they make.

It should be frustrating—sometimes it is—but the novelty of having someone else around to frustrate him has yet to wear off. He’s tempted to say yes and let them keep working.

He really does want to be able to get out of the ball. 

“Fine. Can work on it little more, then Grace go sleep.”

Fine. Can work on it—more, then Grace go sleep.

“Perfect.” Grace claps his hands together. “Now…” He swivels his head around, looking at the various bags and containers Rocky has dragged onto his ship. “Where’s the glue?”

Rocky doesn’t even have to use the laptop for this one; he points an arm to the adhesive container sitting a few feet away from Grace’s foot. He directed Grace to set it there, within reach, about an hour ago. Surely he’ll remember that he did that.

Grace walks right by it and picks up a container of unmixed xenonite compound. “This?”

Rocky wishes he could sigh. He settles for letting his hand drop dramatically to the bottom of his ball.

It’s going to be a long night.

—

Being aboard the Hail Mary is interesting.

They have a plan: go to the Tau Ceti Petrova Line, get a sample, see what’s going on, use it to save their worlds. Do what they were sent here to do in the first place.

The Hail Mary will take about eleven Earth days to get where they need to go. Rocky is fine with this—he has literal years’ worth of projects and machines to ponder now that he’s explored Grace’s magical human lab. He’ll be busy for his entire journey back to Erid at this rate.

Grace, though, seems to struggle with having so much “downtime.”

Sometimes he’s fine, content to sit next to Rocky as they both work on one project or another, but sometimes it’s like he’s seconds away from throwing himself out of the Mary’s airlock just to have something to do. Rocky has never seen anything like it. Eridians are constantly working on something—they don’t even have a word that serves as an exact translation for the “boredom” Grace is afflicted with. An Eridian who finds themselves with that kind of restlessness is usually recommended therapy. To learn that it affects humans so frequently is…concerning.

There is no long-term solution for Grace’s boredom until they get to Tau Ceti and can work on the astrophage problem again. There is, luckily, a short-term solution that works out well for both of them: conversation.

In close quarters, they talk about anything and everything. Grace tells him of Earth, of sprawling plants and huge animals and wide open skies. He talks of his old students, describes the small artworks on the Mary and how they both comfort and sadden him. He retells his old theories of water-less life forms, and some scientific meeting he got “kicked out” of for his views.

In return, Rocky asks a million and one questions. What is an ‘apartment’? Why did you call another scientist a “waste of carbon”? What is the purpose of keeping the children’s artwork if it’s objectively bad?

The further they get in their journey, the more “downtime” they get, and the more they fill it with conversation that just…meanders. Talk of everything and nothing all at once. 

It’s so different from Eridian communication. Eridians are direct, efficient. It’s not less personal than the conversations Rocky is accustomed to—he still grieves deeply for his mate and friends back home, would give anything to speak to them again—but there is something to the wandering topics they cover that make Rocky feel as though he has never known another being as well as he is coming to know Grace.

The closeness thrills and terrifies him. He can feel himself growing attached more quickly than he anticipated, and in the back of his mind he knows that it’s all temporary. One day, he’ll have to leave Grace behind.

For now, he lets himself just relish in it. He spent nearly fifty Earth years alone; he is allowed to have a friend. 

A friend who is very, very bad at Eridian.

The language barrier continues to be a problem. Grace does work to learn Eridian as much as he can, but it’s still difficult for him to go without the laptop for anything outside of basic conversation. Rocky still uses hatchling-speak all the time. Improvements are slow. They’ve come far, but it still feels like they’re nowhere close to going far enough.

Part of Rocky aches to talk to another Eridian again. To communicate with someone who doesn’t need hatchling-speak. To be heard by someone who can recognize his tones. To be fully understood in what he says. 

He has these thoughts, sometimes, and feels immediately guilty for them. Because Grace is already doing so much for him—he’s helping Rocky save his entire planet. How could it not be enough? How could Rocky ask more of him?

He can’t, is the answer. And in truth, most of the time, it’s fine. He still likes talking to Grace no matter what words he has to use. Their growing relationship is something that rises above any communication mishaps.

Rocky does not bring the issue up with Grace—he knows Grace is trying, and he knows they will soon be busy with astrophage, then they will figure out how to fix the astrophage problem, and then they will part ways. Grace’s need for Eridian is temporary, no matter what Rocky longs for. (He also gets the sense Grace would be embarrassed if he knew how much things were being dumbed down for him.)

So he watches Grace set up the laptop, day after day, and says nothing. 

—

“Sometimes Rocky wonders if Grace’s human ears can even distinguish the tones Eridians use. There are times when it feels like Grace is hearing what Rocky says—all of it—and times when it feels like Grace forgets his own name.”

Rocky speaks quietly, just under the threshold that disturbs Grace when he sleeps. It had taken some time to get used to the idea that he could disturb Grace when he sleeps; you could throw a sleeping Eridian down a flight of stairs and they’d be none the wiser. The second night that Grace slept in the tunnel, Rocky hammered at a xenonite project a little too hard and Grace, understandably, woke up and was slightly annoyed with him. The next night Rocky sat mostly in silence, fearful of repeating the incident, but since then Grace has explained that softer noises are okay. They had a couple more wake-ups, but now Rocky’s familiar with what sounds will or will not disturb him. 

Sometimes Grace’s sleep is fitful even when Rocky is silent. He tosses and turns in his bunk, muttering nonsense. It had been alarming the first time—Rocky panicked, thinking Grace was in pain, and woke him up.

“New word,” Grace said after, still breathing strangely. “Nightmare.”

The nightmares aren’t constant, but they occur often enough that Rocky gets used to them, even if he doesn’t like them. (He really, really doesn’t like them; seeing Grace in pain is torture.) He doesn’t wake Grace up, having been told to just let him sleep through it, but one night he can’t help it and tries talking to him. Nothing of consequence; just the soft songs Eridians tend to sing to distressed children. 

Then, almost magically, Grace calms without waking up. Rocky thinks it’s a fluke at first, coincidence. But he tries it again the next time, and the next, and each time, it works. Something about Rocky’s singing works.

So now, while Grace sleeps, Rocky talks. 

“Rocky knows Grace is trying, at least,” he continues. If his nighttime monologues also let him vent his frustrations and speak like an adult, who’s going to know? “Rocky doesn’t hold any of it against Grace. If anything, it sounds like Grace is doing an incredible job with the fucking awful memories humans have. Still, though, sometimes Rocky just wishes Grace could understand, fully, without a machine.” Grace suddenly shifts and rolls over. Rocky waits until he settles before speaking again. “Don’t worry, Grace. Rocky knows we’ll get there. We have time.”

From his bunk, Grace’s only answer is a snore.

—

“Grace thought the message was a what?”

Grace thought message was what, question?

“A bɑm,” Grace says lazily. He’s laying on his back, socked feet up against Rocky’s wall. The laptop sits open on his stomach. He had been working on something in the lab, but twenty minutes ago he gave up on it in favor of “hanging out” with Rocky.

“Need word,” Rocky says, flapping a free hand in his direction. Unlike Grace, he’s still tinkering with a project of his own. Two of his hands are weaving a thinner panel of xenonite for his ball. He’s not entirely sure yet if it will work how he hopes.

Need word.

“Like…” Grace holds his hands up above his face, fists together, then makes a loud, breathy noise with his mouth and pulls them apart dramatically, fingers spreading wide. “Like that. Device that causes that.”

It’s a terrible explanation, but Rocky somehow understands him perfectly. 

His hands stop moving.

“Grace thought Rocky was going to send a bomb to ship?!” he yells, tones screaming astonishment-horror-shock.

Grace thought Rocky was going to send—to ship, question?

Grace winces at the shrill tone of Rocky’s words. Good.

“I didn’t know you yet!” he says defensively, sticking his arms in the air. “I know now that you wouldn’t do that. But how was I supposed to know when all I could see was a giant ship outside the window?”

“Maybe if humans build bigger ship, Grace not squishy and afraid. And stupid.”

Maybe if humans build bigger ship then Grace not squishy and scared. And stupid.

“Hey. It worked out in the end, didn’t it?”

Rocky hums, ignoring him. A bomb. A bomb!

Grace asks, a second later, “Do you guys have a word for that? A bɑm?”

Begrudgingly, Rocky says, “Bomb.”

Grace hits the keys on the laptop. He doesn’t even have to look to do it, at this point. When he’s done, Rocky says “bomb” again, just as annoyed.

Bomb.

Stupid word. Stupid Grace.

Stupid stupid stupid.

—

One day on the way to Tau Ceti, Rocky wakes up alone.

He generally sleeps in the lab, since Grace spends the most time there. It’s worked out for them so far. In such a confined space, constant vigilance during his sleep is admittedly not necessary, but Grace usually makes the effort to be there when Rocky wakes up, out of respect for their favorite social concept: cultural norms. (And, of course, Rocky watches over him in return.)

But this time he’s alone. It’s quiet in the lab. He goes through his normal wake-up routine; he stretches all of his limbs out fully and rotates the joints to ease any residual stiffness. Grace, for some reason, likes announcing that Rocky is doing a “big stretch.” It’s asinine, but Rocky has come to expect it, if not secretly enjoy it. But this time there is nothing but silence.

Rocky does a few taps and “looks around” for Grace, to use one of his favorite human terms. He suspects Grace is either sleeping or in the bathroom. To his surprise, it’s neither; he finds him in the dormitory standing in front of Armando. 

That’s…strange. Grace usually avoids the robot if he can help it. Something about a fear of needles. Rocky would probably fear them, too, if his outer layer was so flimsy. 

Rocky notices something else in his scans: on one of the lab tables, there’s a small array of tools laying about, and a hunk of metal that Rocky recognizes as the one Grace has been keeping locked away in a drawer in the dormitory. He doesn’t know what it is, and Grace hasn’t ever shown it to him outright, so he has politely not asked. Another cultural nicety—they both pretend Rocky can’t see the innards of the Mary (and of Grace himself) at all times. 

Maybe now he’ll get his chance to pry. He’s not above guilt-tripping Grace for missing his awakening to get something.

Then he sees that on the table, on the stool nearby, and even on the floor, are beads of…liquid? 

He taps again and confirms it—there are fat drops of something all over the place. Thicker than water, almost like some of the fluids that come out of Grace’s mouth and nose from time to time. 

It’s gross. 

Why is Grace so gross? He likes to make such a fuss that he’s not a walking sack of gross wet meat, and then he goes and leaks all over the place. Oh, Rocky is so going to tease him for this later.

He stands and looks for anything else amiss. The room is relatively clean, but the drops continue in a sloppy line towards the dormitory. There’s one every ten inches or so.

Ew.

What in the world had Grace gotten up to? 

“Grace?” he calls out. The laptop sits abandoned on one of the lab tables, so no translation plays. Grace knows his name, though. He must just be too far away to hear it. (Ugh, human sound perception). So Rocky scuttles off to the dormitory, where Grace is still with the robot. 

When Rocky’s only a few feet behind Grace—who does not see him come in, engrossed in whatever Armando is doing, which makes Rocky’s curiosity spike—he says, again, “Grace.”

Grace whips around in a panic, screeching something that sounds like holy-freaking-ninja-spider-man. He jerks away from Armando and the robot reaches to grab onto one of his hands and pull it back.

“What doing?” Rocky asks, trying to enunciate as best he can.

“Shoot,” Grace says, and there’s something strange in his voice. It wavers more than normal. “Sorry, pal. I meant to be there when you woke up, but I—well, I hurt my—”

“Hurt?” Rocky’s blood goes cold. He skitters around on his side of the barrier, immediately trying to get a better view. “Hurt? What happened?”

He notices, then, that there’s more of the fluid on the floor in here; the trail of drops from the lab leads to where Grace is standing, and there’s a small puddle of it underneath Armando. He thought the fluid had just been something gross Grace had leaked or spilled, but now he realizes what he’s seeing is likely the bodily fluid he has heard the most about but not actually seen for himself.

It’s blood.

“Grace. Fluid on floor. Fluid from Grace?” Rocky demands, voice rising.

“Uh—” Grace blinks a couple times, processing. Translating, Rocky realizes, to his chagrin. “Oh, on the floor. The—liquid?”

“Yes,” Rocky says impatiently.

“It’s blood,” Grace confirms. “It’s what…leaks out when my skin gets pʌŋkʧərd or broken.” Grace takes a large breath, then, the kind he takes to calm himself. The warble in his voice must be from nerves. How bad is this injury? “Sorry, I know the fluid stuff is gross. I’ll clean it up. Armando just has to patch up my hand and then—”

“Grace,” Rocky says, abruptly not giving a fuck about how gross it is, “what happened?”

Grace is silent for a long time. The only sound in the room is the soft mechanical whirring coming from Armando as it wraps a piece of meshy cloth around Grace’s hand. A bandage, maybe? He’ll have to ask what Grace’s word for it is. 

Finally, Grace quietly says, “Promise you won’t be mad?”

And, well, doesn’t that just send a cold chill down Rocky’s carapace. Regardless, he needs to know. 

“Rocky will not be mad,” he says as clearly as he can.

“Okay.” Grace glances at his hand, briefly, then quickly back to Rocky. “You know those figures you made me, when we first met?”

“Yes,” Rocky says, because obviously he does; he made them. Tiny models of Grace and both of their ships. He’s made many others since then. Grace calls them puppets. He suddenly gets a horrible thought. “Grace hurt self on puppets?”

Had he somehow left a sharp edge on one of them? Had Grace injured his skin with one? Is that what caused this? Had Rocky hurt him? He tried to make them safe—

“No, no,” Grace says quickly. “I was—” he rubs his free hand through his hair. He opens and closes his mouth a few times, thinking, but doesn’t say more.

Rocky loses his patience and stomps an arm on the ground. “Tell Rocky what happened.”

Grace deflates.

“I was trying to make one. A model. For you,” he says in a rush. “I was trying to use the metal sculpting tools I have to make something better than a ramen ship, something you could take with you that wouldn’t burn up in your air. I tried to print something, but it wasn’t quite right.” He takes a breath. “So I tried doing it by hand, but I’m bad at it, and when I was trying to bend a part of it my hand slipped and I…cut myself a bit.”

When Rocky doesn’t say anything, Grace keeps going. “I meant to be there when you woke up, and I’m sorry. I know it’s important to you, and—”

“Grace hurt self making gift for Rocky?” Rocky cuts him off.

There’s a pause as Grace tries to translate. “Hurt myself with…gift?” he tries.

Rocky human-nods. Grace says, “Yeah, I hurt myself making a gift. I’m mostly just mad I missed you waking up. And that I ruined the surprise. Sorry.”

Rocky is silent for long enough that eventually Grace tentatively says, “Rocky?”

And then Rocky’s patience snaps like a twig.

“Of all the stupid things to do—” Rocky makes a frustrated noise and darts back and forth behind the barrier. “Why would Rocky want a gift where Grace could hurt himself making it? Rocky doesn’t even need a gift! Grace is already helping more than anyone ever could, working with Rocky to stop astrophage and save our worlds—why in the world would Rocky need anything else from Grace, stupid stupid stupid human?”

“Uh.” Grace has gone a little wide-eyed. “Rocky, slow down—”

“Rocky will do no such fucking thing!” Rocky screams, pitch rising. “Of all the stupid, ridiculous, insane things to try and do in secret—Rocky has seen Grace hurt himself trying to walk around Grace’s own ship,” he accuses. “What if Grace had gotten truly hurt? What then, Grace? What would Rocky have done if Grace got seriously hurt or died while Rocky was asleep?!”

“Rocky!” Grace shouts, and Rocky finally stops, waving frustrated arms in the air with one final distressed scream. 

At that moment, Armando finishes his work on Grace’s hand and releases it. Immediately Grace steps away from its arms and closer to Rocky. “Look, just—hold on a second, okay?” He holds his injured hand loosely to his chest, holds up his good one in a wait here gesture, then leaves the room.

Rocky does not wait here and instead follows him right up to the lab. Grace realizes and sighs, but doesn’t say anything. He goes to the table and turns on the laptop, watching as it hums and boots up. As they wait, Grace settles on the floor in front of the xenonite barrier as Rocky paces around on the other side.

“Okay,” Grace says when it’s finally ready. He gestures to Rocky. “Go ahead.”

There are a lot of things Rocky wants to say, but he starts with, “Grace stupid.”

Grace stupid.

Grace makes a sound that isn’t quite a laugh. “I know. I’m sorry I missed you waking up, pal.”

“Don’t care about sleep. Care that Grace tried to do something for Rocky that hurt self doing. Rocky doesn’t need gift. Grace already saving worlds; don’t know why Grace think Rocky want more,” Rocky says. It’s taking a lot of effort to speak slowly.

Rocky not care about sleep. Care that Grace try to do something for Rocky that hurt self doing. Rocky not need gift. Grace already saving worlds—Rocky not know why Grace thinking Rocky want more.

The translation plays, and Rocky only feels his frustration build. He knows enough English now to know that it’s understandable, but it’s not right. Not to mention it doesn’t capture his tones of anger-concern-exasperation. Maybe if the program was better, or if he was better at using it on his end, he could make Grace understand it all. Because if Grace understood him, really understood him, he never would have done something like this. He would have heard his tones and knew that everything Rocky needed had already been given.

He suddenly feels he is further from Grace than he’s ever been.

Grace, for his part, looks like he might start the horrifically-wet process of crying. He sniffs. “You’ve just done so much for me, I guess. I wanted to do something back. But if you don’t want anything, I won’t. I just—you mean a lot to me, Rock. I wanted something for you to remember me by.”

As if Rocky could ever, ever forget Grace? 

The words temper some of his anger. Even if the gift was stupid, the intentions behind it are something Rocky understands. The idea of Grace being hurt is just so upsetting that it’s hard to care about anything else.

He realizes then that he’s forgotten something very important.

“Grace hurts?”

Grace hurt, question?

“What?” Grace sniffs.

Rocky repeats his question. Grace, looking even more confused, says, “You mean, did I hurt my hand? Is that what you’re asking?”

Rocky drums his fingers together, thinking. “Grace hurt now? Grace in pain?”

Grace hurt now, question? Grace in pain, question?

“Oh!” Grace seems to perk up at understanding the question. “No. Well, not really. It really wasn’t that bad. I’m more just sad that I have to use my left hand now.”

Rocky tilts his body in question. He knows Grace’s “left and right” concept, but he doesn’t know how it’s relevant at this moment. “Left hand?”

Left hand, question?

“Yeah—didn’t we go over this? Humans use a directional system based on the way we’re facing. This is my left hand—” he waves his good one, “—and this is my right hand.” He waves the other.

“Rocky know that. Why left hand bad? Is fine.”

Rocky know. Why left hand bad? Is fine.

“I’m right-hand dɑmənənt,” Grace says.

Rocky has no idea what that means. “Need word.”

Need word.

Grace suddenly makes a face. “Oh boy. You’re not gonna like this one.”

Rocky perks up slightly. Grace is using the tone he uses when he has to tell Rocky something he knows he’ll get teased for.

“So, here’s the thing,” Grace says, rubbing a hand over his face. “You know how I’ve only got two hands?” 

Rocky does know, obviously. He human-nods.

“Well, I’ve got some news about ol’ Lefty here.”

—

“Grace shouldn’t have done that,” Rocky says that night.

Grace does not answer; he sleeps with his right hand—his injured hand, his dominant hand— curled loosely on his stomach. 

After explaining the horror that is hand dominance to Rocky—What do you mean only ONE of your TWO HANDS actually works, question?!—and bashfully mopping up the blood off the floor with a rag, Grace declared it time to go to bed.

Rocky spends the first hour of Grace’s sleep obsessively cataloguing every facet of the injury. Seeing it up close both horrifies and intrigues him—he’s never seen anything other than a bruise on Grace before now. He never wants to see Grace’s blood again. He is going to make sure he never sees it ever again. The first part of the solution is already half-formed in his hands.

“It’s obvious why it happened, anyway, looking at Grace’s tools. If that’s what humanity sends on their planet-saving mission, Rocky can’t imagine how they managed to build an entire ship.” Rocky’s hands pause in their movements. “Rocky guesses this also explains why Rocky couldn’t tell what you were building. Grace might as well have been using stupid flimsy fingernails to carve metals.”

He shudders at the idea. He is not a fan of fingernails. Why do they grow all the time?

“Whatever. It doesn’t matter now. Rocky will fix it. Rocky will fix everything, Grace. Just wait.”

—

In the morning, a set of xenonite metalworking tools sit in the airlock that separates their areas. They are large enough for human hands, and neatly symmetrical, so they can be used by either one.

Five days later, after working under careful Eridian supervision—and grumbling often about surprises being ruined—Grace finishes a metal model of the Blip-A and bashfully slides it through Rocky’s airlock. It is somewhat elementary, with bumpy, jagged edges. Rocky places it carefully on a shelf near his spot above Grace’s bed, where he can make sure it is properly displayed. It deserves a good space; it is, after all, the most valuable thing he currently owns.

—

“You’ve been holding out on me!”

Rocky wants to roll his non-existent eyes. It seems very satisfying when Grace does it. “Have not been ‘holding out.’”

Have not been holding out.

“You have a mate!” Grace exclaims. “And you never told me!”

“Yes,” Rocky says. “Rocky has mate.”

Yes. Rocky has mate.

Grace seems delighted. “What’s their name?”

Rocky says his mate’s name, imbuing it with as many love-cherish-desire tones he can manage. Enough to be improper, if not borderline obscene. He tends to overdo it around Grace, in hopes that maybe he’ll pick up something.

“Wow,” Grace says, wrapping an arm around one of his knees. 

Around them, the screens of the Don’t-Go-Crazy room display a foggy sky. Rocky’s camera display shows a mostly-blank screen. He doesn’t know why Grace likes the fog so much; it seems boring. The speakers, though, play a soft rain noise that makes Rocky shiver. It’s nice.

Grace says, “Do you miss them?”

Rocky deflates slightly. If Grace had heard the tones, he’d know the answer. To use one of Grace’s colloquialisms, it knocks the wind out of his sails a bit. Not too much, though; he’s always glad to talk of his mate. “Yes. Miss them much much much.”

Yes. Miss them much much much.

“How long have you guys been together?”

Rocky does the math. “One hundred and eighty-six years, on Earth.”

One hundred eighty-six Earth years.

“Honeymoon phase,” Grace muses. Rocky has no idea what that means. He’s about to ask for a translation when Grace makes a long, low whistle. “That’s a long time.”

Rocky chirps affirmatively. It is a long time, even by Eridian standards. Every single moment of it is precious to him. With as much sadness-hope-love as he can muster, he admits, “It’s not enough.”

Is not enough.

Grace nods. “Not enough.”

This, at least, he seems to understand.

—

Rocky thinks about the conversation for a long time after.

It was not quite the reaction he would have expected. Grace tends to become…wetter when he experiences a high range of emotion, or—unexpectedly—when Rocky experiences the same. It feels strangely hollow that he did not do so when Rocky showed perhaps the most emotion he ever has. 

And sure, Grace clearly understands the words, understands that Rocky cares for his mate, but it’s not enough. Here Rocky is, trying to show Grace the depth of everything he feels, and he’s coming up short.

He wishes Grace understood him fully. He wishes for a lot of things from Grace. Nothing he could ever voice; it is ridiculous to ask anything more than what Grace is already giving him and Erid.

In the safety of his own mind, though, he can admit it. 

Is not enough.

—

“Adrian is even smarter than Rocky. They were critical to this mission and how quickly it ‘got off the ground,’ to use one of Grace’s phrases.” Rocky sighs wistfully. “There is something to be said for watching someone do what they were meant to do. Adrian was meant to get Erid into the stars. Rocky wonders if Adrian felt the same, knowing Rocky wanted to be on the ship.”

Grace sighs in his sleep, almost like an answer.

“It didn’t make it any easier to leave Adrian, even if Rocky knew Adrian understood. Rocky wondered every day if it was the right choice. So many things could—did—go wrong.”

Rocky stops working for a moment, tilting his body toward Grace. He’s become so accustomed to it that he does it even when Grace is dead to the world. “What was it like for Grace? To leave friends and family behind?”

It’s a question Rocky has been hesitant to ask. Grace seems cagey about his last few years on Earth; anytime Rocky brings it up, he’s quick to pivot to talking of his students or turning the questions back on Rocky. 

Rocky supposes it doesn’t really matter how Grace ended up here. It’s something they have in common—they were both scared, but both brave enough to go anyway.

“Rocky is sure it was hard,” Rocky says to his sleeping form. “But Rocky knows Grace was brave. And Erid thanks you for it.”

—

“These are triz. Big big big plants,” Grace says.

Rocky points his camera toward the screens. His display shows a structure that flows upwards and splits into several branching limbs. At the end of those is a mess of…appendages?

“Leaves,” Grace says when he asks. “Different from the verb. Singular is lif.”

Rocky has no word for this, so he picks a random sound and they add it to the laptop’s program.

Grace explains Earth plants in detail. They are able to convert energy from Sol into food and somehow change carbon dioxide into oxygen. This process is critical, Grace says, to all life on Earth. 

He also apparently finds them quite pretty.

“Like these—they’re called rɛˌdwʊdz. They’re some of the largest plants Earth’s got. They’re technically mɛɡəfɔnə, actually—that’s what we call the plant and animal life from a different era, when everything was, well, mɛɡə—and they probably should have died out or been replaced with something smaller, but the San Francisco area just has so much water in the air that they’ve been able to hang on to their ʤaɪənt size. I’m telling you, Rock, these guys are bigger than my ship.”

Rocky tries to imagine a plant that large. Even with the image in front of him, he still fails. He doesn’t want Grace to know he’s so impressed, though. “Mary not very big.”

Mary not very big.

Grace huffs. “Size isn’t everything, Rock. We’ve been over this.”

Rocky laughs. “Grace tiny. Ship tiny. Plant big.”

Grace tiny. Ship tiny. Plant big.

“I’m taller than you!”

Rocky just laughs at him. In revenge, Grace lunges and drapes himself over Rocky’s ball, limbs so long that there’s suddenly GraceGraceGrace everywhere Rocky looks. He squeals in mock horror.

“Disgust! Disgust! Disgust! Too much Grace!”

Disgust disgust disgust. Too much Grace.

“Oh, that’s gross?” Grace asks. He shrugs, and Rocky’s whole ball moves with it. “Just say humans are a bigger, better life form and I’ll let you go.”

Rocky cowers back. “Never.”

Never.

“You asked for this, pal,” is all the warning he gets before Grace presses his mouth against the side of Rocky’s ball.

It makes a wet, smacking sound and leaves a smudge of spit on the xenonite.

Rocky has, all things considered, a very normal reaction.

“GROSS GROSS GROSS WHY IS GRACE DISGUSTING GRACE LEAKS ON MY BALL GRACE IS HORRIBLE GRACE IS EVIL EVIL EVIL—”

He hits such a pitch that the laptop makes one sad, confused beep and doesn’t even try to translate. Rocky bounces around the ball in disgust, smacking against the walls dramatically before the collapses upside-down and lets his legs splay out like he’s dead. 

Grace cackles; he laughs so hard that he falls off Rocky’s ball and curls up on the floor, clutching his stomach. It takes him two full human minutes to recover, and even then he stays laying down.

“Rocky,” he says, poking the ball. He’s still smiling. “I know you’re not sleeping.”

“Correct. Not sleeping. Dead.”

Correct. Not sleeping. Dead, the laptop repeats helpfully.

Grace snorts, rolling onto his back. He taps the back of his knuckles against the ball. “Sure, pal.”

“Grace do horrible leak on Rocky ball. Kill Rocky.”

Grace do horrible leak on Rocky ball. Kill Rocky.

“It wasn’t that bad. I didn’t even use my tongue.”

Rocky says, “What.”

What.

“Haven’t I told you about kɪsɪŋ before?” Grace pushes himself up on an elbow. “Human thing. It’s əˈfɛkʃənət. A thing you do to friends, partners, that sort of thing, to show that you care. It feels nice.”

“Not nice. Disgust.”

Not nice. Disgust.

“Cultural,” Grace says airily.

Rocky considers this. If he tried to “kiss” another Eridian like Grace just did, they’d put him in jail. But if they’re sharing… “Eridians have similar. Small gesture for affection.”

Eridians have similar. Small gesture for.

They pause briefly to add the words “affection” and “kiss,” then Grace says, “What do Eridians do?”

Rocky gestures to his arm that has a small row of grooves shaved into it. He drags another arm across it, in what is normally the Eridian gesture for departing. “Other Eridian touch here. For affection.”

Other Eridian touch here. For affection.

“That’s kind of similar to what humans do—we’ll stroke or touch someone else’s skin with our hands. I’m guessing the vibrations of that—” he nods at Rocky’s arm, “—feels pretty nice for Eridians.”

Rocky hums in agreement. It does feel nice. It’s nicer, though, when it’s Adrian, or anyone who isn’t himself. That’s one of the things Rocky misses most—the mundane gestures he clearly took for granted. Touch does not bring the physiological benefits that it does for humans, as Grace has explained before, but it’s still a comfort. Humans, apparently, need physical touch the way that Eridians need each other’s voices. They both get a little loopy if they go too long without it. Like Rocky had done on the Blip-A, singing as loud as he could to try and trick his mind into thinking the echoes were someone else.

He considers, suddenly, that maybe Grace “kissing” him is the same. Grace is trying to give him affection and self-soothe at the same time. Maybe he was a little too harsh before. His arms stop moving.

“Grace.”

Grace.

Grace has laid back down, one arm folded under his head. “Rocky.”

“Do kiss again.”

Do kiss again.

Grace looks at him, eyebrow raised. “What was that?”

“Do affection.”

Do affection.

“You—you want me to kiss you again?” At this, Grace sits up fully. “Am I hearing that correctly?”

Rocky human-nods. Grace still looks apprehensive, though. Understandable, considering it nearly killed Rocky the first time. 

He adds, “For science.”

Grace laughs. “Okay, pal, for science.”

He leans in and hesitates for a moment with his face inches away from the xenonite. When Rocky doesn’t pull away or squirm, he closes the gap and presses another kiss into the surface. It echoes just as horribly as last time, but with context it’s not so hard to endure.

It could, with some desensitization, even be nice.

“Got all that?” Grace asks after.

Rocky taps his fingers together, thinking.

“One more. For science.”

—

“Adrian would like you.”

Rocky’s been thinking about Adrian more, now that Grace knows about them. 

“Any Eridian would love Grace, for what Grace is doing for Erid, but Adrian would like Grace outside of that. They would like Grace’s brain, Grace’s kindness, Grace’s bravery. Rocky wishes the two of you could meet.”

Rocky has to pause, then, suddenly overcome with an emotion he cannot name. His hands falter where they hover above his workbench. 

Grace and Adrian will never meet. He knew this, objectively, but it’s almost unbearable to consider closely. It fills him with a hollow ache that threatens to collapse him.

But now is not the time. 

His hands resume work on their project. They had gone through dozens of Earth’s plants today. Grace was eager to explain each one in detail, to pull up image after image of leaves, petals, tree trunks, vines, flowers. Rocky is no biologist, so most of the science was lost on him—he’ll just regurgitate everything for the Eridian biologists to decipher later—but as an engineer he found himself appreciating the structures. 

Now he weaves xenonite into something resembling a daffodil. Grace mentioned missing these flowers in particular. Rocky doesn’t know what’s special about them, but he’s got nothing but time while Grace sleeps.

Nothing but time. 

How much time does he have, really, before this ends?

Rocky observes the air moving in Grace’s lungs, his hair spread across the pillow, the hand—now mostly healed—hanging off the edge of the bunk. How has this squishy, leaky, revolting creature become such a key facet of his life? 

More importantly—how is he going to survive it when they inevitably have to part ways? The idea of it feels like removing a limb.

“It will have to be enough,” Rocky says eventually, “to know that Rocky will return to Erid someday and tell the Eridians about Grace.”

It’s a lie, told in the dark to no one but himself. But maybe, if he tells it to himself enough times, he can make it true. His can make his memories of Grace be enough. He will go home, speak of Grace, and Erid will cherish a being they will never meet. Adrian, too, will love Grace through Rocky’s words alone. He will make sure of it.

For now, he decides, he won’t dwell on it. They have more important things to do. Worlds to save. For now, he will simply record everything he can about Grace so he can relay it later to Erid. To Adrian.

Yes, he thinks, warping xenonite into a petal. It will have to be enough.

—

His fondness for Grace morphs into love the day they discover life on Adrian. 

Somewhere between them getting the sample, seeing the cells on the slide, and freaking out about Adrian’s potential predator, Rocky looks at Grace’s happy face and realizes he loves him.

It’s not a particularly groundbreaking realization. It was the only possible outcome. There is no one else he would want to save his world with. There is very little about Grace that is not worth loving. 

Instead it’s like something settling down in his mind, shifting into its rightful place. Things are the way they were always meant to be. 

He loves Grace. How could he not?

“Grace,” he says, nearly vibrating with excitement-passion-love, “Can find the predator. Can save Erid and Earth.”

Grace. Can find predator. Can save Erid and Earth.

Grace grins wider than Rocky’s ever seen before. “Grace Rocky save stars, pal. It’s real.”

Very real indeed.

—

“I lied before. I don’t actually want to save the world. Can we quit?”

Rocky throws a chain link at the barrier with a very satisfying clunk.

Grace, who was leaning with his back against the barrier, jumps about a foot in the air. “Jesus Christmas—Rocky!” he shouts. He jabs a finger in Rocky’s direction. “Rude.”

Rocky chitters with laughter. “Grace deserved. Keep making chain.”

Grace deserved. Keep making chain.

Grace groans loudly, flopping back into his spot. Rocky pauses briefly in his chain-making to appreciate the way the sound moves through his chest. Now that he doesn’t think Grace’s body is gross—well, not completely, anyway—he likes observing it. 

“This is horrible. How are you not bored?” Grace asks, rolling his head against the wall towards Rocky. “Even Eridians must get bored sometimes.”

“Is rare. Have longer attention spans than tiny human brains.”

Is rare. Have longer attention spans than small human brains.

Grace didn’t believe Rocky the first time they spoke about it, but it’s true; Eridians almost never run out of things to do. If he’s not actively doing something—and he almost always is—Rocky is almost certainly planning out something else. It’s how all Eridians are. Rocky can, at any point in time, balance two or even three tasks simultaneously with ease. (Grace, meanwhile, tends to think it’s impressive when Rocky can hold a conversation and do something with his hands at the same time. It’s very sweet.)

It’s why “boredom” took them so long to translate. The connotations in each culture are starkly different; for Eridians, boredom is a chronic, concerning issue, but for humans it’s akin to an emotion they feel at the same frequency as any other. 

“Have you been bored before, then?” Grace asks, ignoring the jab at his human brain.

Rocky suddenly finds his chain links very interesting. 

“Rocky?” Grace says when he doesn’t answer. 

He considers just not answering, forcing them to change the subject, but he has Grace’s full attention and Grace is unlikely to let it go. Or, worse, he’ll get upset that Rocky won’t answer, and he’ll pout. And Rocky will break if Grace pouts at him. 

So Rocky begrudgingly says, “Yes.”

Yes.

“Really?” Grace turns around to look at him. “You’ve been giving me so much crap!”

“Rocky boredom took longer than five Earth minutes to show up.”

Rocky boredom took longer than five Earth minutes to show up.

“Nuh-uh, you don’t get out of this one. What happened? Was it just the absolute worst Eridian project ever conceived? Did they have you adding one-plus-one a million times over?”

Rocky chooses to not dig into how utterly fucking stupid that idea is. “No.”

No.

Grace raises his eyebrows, waiting, but Rocky doesn’t elaborate. He taps his knuckles on the barrier. “C’mon. Tell me.”

Rocky doesn’t want to. Despite Grace’s complaints, they’ve both been in such good spirits lately, and he doesn’t want to ruin it. “Not important.”

Not important.

“Ro-cky,” Grace sings. He leans forward until his forehead thunks against the xenonite. “Tell me.”

Then he pouts.

To borrow one of Grace’s favored terms: gosh darn it.

“Fine, will tell. But Grace not allowed to freak out,” he adds quickly.

Fine, will tell. But Grace not allowed to freak out.

“Why would I freak out?” Grace frowns.

Rocky points a claw at him. “Grace always freak out.”

Grace always freak out.

“I do not!” Grace says immediately, throwing his hands up. “Well, okay. Maybe I have, like, a couple times, but—”

“Grace freak out when Rocky show up in ball, Grace freak out when Rocky make camera, Grace think Rocky message is BOMB—”

Grace freak out when Rocky show up in ball, Grace freak out when Rocky make camera, Grace think Rocky message is bomb—

“Hey! All of those were isolated incidents!”

“Isolated incidents supposed to be isolated,” Rocky points out. “Grace have many.”

Isolated incidents supposed to be isolated. Grace have many.

Grace gives him another groan. “Okay, okay. I won’t freak out. Even though telling me not to freak out is making me want to freak out a little.”

“Grace.” Rocky says with a lot of exasperation-tired-enamored.

Grace.

Grace shuts his mouth. He holds up his hands in surrender, then gestures for Rocky to speak. Rocky is secretly a little thrilled that he can interpret everything so easily. 

Rocky holds up a single finger. “Rocky only ‘bored’ once.”

Rocky only bored once.

“Once ever?”

“Once ever,” Rocky confirms. “On Blip-A.”

Once ever. On Blip-A.

Grace opens his mouth like he’s going to ask another question, then it clicks shut as he puts the pieces together. As he remembers how long Rocky was alone.

After a long moment, Grace says, “Oh.”

They let it hang there, neither finishing the thought. They don’t have to; they know. 

There is only so long that your own voice can entertain you.

“Was long time ago,” Rocky says. “Not bored anymore. Find Grace, find Mary, find Taumoeba. Have enough human science to think about forever. Long long long time.”

Was long time ago. Not bored now. Find Grace, find Mary, find Taumoeba. Have enough human science to think about forever. Long long long time. 

“Right,” Grace says. His voice is tinged with the thick quality it gets when he’s going to cry but doesn’t want to. He pulls his legs in and wraps his arms tightly around his knees.

“Grace. Is okay. Not bored anymore,” Rocky repeats.

Grace. Is okay. Not bored anymore.

“I know, I know.” Grace sniffs and scrubs a hand across his face. “It’s fine.”

They’re silent for a while, Grace trying not to cry and Rocky waiting to see if he’ll fail or succeed. Then, suddenly, Grace sniffs a final time and unfolds his limbs with purpose. He leans over to one side and drags a container of loose chain links over to his lap. He looks down at it and claps his hands together, falsely optimistic. “Chain time?”

Rocky is tempted to let him change the subject. But he knows that look on Grace’s face—Grace will think about it and spiral later. Probably when Rocky sleeps. He doesn’t want that. 

There is also something he’s been meaning to say, but not known how, and this seems like as good an opportunity as any.

“Grace. Listen.” He puts as much authority into the words as he can.

Grace’s head lifts immediately. He looks…hopeful? “Yeah?”

Rocky considers his words carefully. He has to get this right. The English words come easier to him now, but it’s what’s underneath that matters more. The things that Grace always seems to miss.

“Was bored before,” he starts. Sadness-patience-love. “When crew died, was alone, and it was so quiet. Rocky did not know what to do. Was…sad.”

Was bored before. When crew died, was alone, and it was quiet quiet quiet. Rocky did not know what to do. Was sad.

To his relief, Grace does not interrupt.

“But Rocky found Grace. And now Rocky and Grace are here, and going to save stars. Would do all of it again, every quiet second, if Rocky knew that eventually would end up here. Do not be sad. Rocky happier than ever before. Because of Grace.”

But Rocky found Grace. And now Rocky and Grace are here, and going to save stars. Would do it all again, each quiet second, if Rocky knew that would end up here. Do not be sad, command. Rocky happier than ever before. Because of Grace.

For a long moment, Grace is silent. Rocky fights the urge to nervously tilt his weight back and forth. He forces himself to wait.

A breath suddenly forces itself out of Grace’s lungs, harsh and broken and wet. Moisture leaks from his eyes down the planes of his face. He brings his hands up to scrub roughly at the tear tracks. Through his tears, he manages to warble, “Crap, sorry.”

“Grace…upset?” Rocky asks cautiously.

Grace upset, question?

“No!” Grace says immediately. “God, no. I just—I’m sorry you had to go through all of that. I wish you weren’t alone for so long.”

Even though he knows Grace cries at all sorts of things, it’s still painful to know Rocky’s the cause. He tries to get things back on track. “Grace promise not freak out. Grace lie.”

Grace promise not freak out. Grace lie.

It works; Grace chokes out a laugh. He sits up and forces himself to breathe deeply. He wipes at his face a final time. “You’re right, you’re right. Okay. Not freaking out. But can I say one thing?”

Rocky nods.

Grace takes a deep breath.

“I would do it all again, too. All of it. Earth’s problems, my problems, all of it. You’re my best friend, Rock. I’d take all the bad if it meant I got to be here with you.”

It makes something swell inside Rocky, like a rush of steam or a layered harmony. To know that Grace, too, cherishes this just as much as he does.

They’re going to save their worlds, and they’re going to do it together.

—

When it comes down to it, there is nothing Rocky would not give Grace. He would give him a limb, his ship, another fifty years of his life. Anything.

In the end, two million kilograms of astrophage and a handful of years isn’t much of a sacrifice at all.

—

They never should have gone fishing.

Rocky watches helplessly as Grace is struck by debris on the hull of the ship, as he nearly falls to his death, as he barely manages to crawl back inside. All he can do is scream Grace’s name and panic. 

When he realizes Grace has made it inside safely, he almost collapses in relief. Grace scrambles back into his chair and Rocky thinks the worst is over, that they can fly out and it will all be over. He’s already planning what he’ll say to Grace when he sleeps.

Then the ship begins to spin. Faster, faster, faster. Grace strains in his chair, reaching for the switch to release the astrophage tank and slow them down. He gets one successfully, and the resulting kickback is horrible. 

Grace’s soft face crashes into Mary’s control panel, and his beloved human goes slack.

For a moment he can’t tell if Grace is even breathing; the Mary is making so much noise that he almost can’t pick out the sound. But then, with a wave of relief that nearly sends him crumpling to the ground, he hears the faint wheeze. 

But Grace isn’t waking up. He can’t jettison the fuel tank. The ship is still spinning, and the pressure of the artificial gravity is going to crush Grace’s organs. It already is. And if Rocky does nothing, Grace is going to be another in a long line of crewmates, of friends, that he has failed.

He could not save his Blip-A crewmates. But he can save Grace.

He’s smashing the panel of his ball before he even realizes what he’s doing. He screams Grace’s name, over and over, begging him to wake up, to stay alive, and then the panel finally bursts free with a shriek of compressed air, ammonia, and heat.

The pain of Grace’s atmosphere is indescribable. 

Oxygen is not something Eridians have much experience with. Why would they? It’s dangerous on Erid. It’s usually not worth it to experiment with its pure form. It’s something carefully controlled and monitored, only used in small doses to maintain safety protocols. It was something Rocky mostly heard about from people who worked in other scientific fields. Even colloquially, though, it’s known that oxygen is bad for Eridians. A well-known, if not a bit uncommon, danger to avoid.

Now Rocky understands why.

The air hits him and he screams, voice rocketing into pitches Grace’s ears can’t even perceive. There’s a second where all he can do is writhe and feel it as his skin starts to burn. He doesn’t know how he forces himself to move. He just knows he has to.

With shaking fingers, he manages to jettison the fuel tank and re-engage the centrifuge. Immediately, he can feel the effects of the gravity lessening. Satisfied that it’s working, he stumbles over to Grace and heaves his chair back.

Grace is still not moving. He slumps in his chair like a puppet—not one of Rocky’s, but one in the human style, soft figures that dangle from strings. Grace showed him once. It’s as if all of his strings have been abruptly cut. 

It takes effort, but Rocky gets the buckles of the chair undone and begins to drag Grace down to the dormitory, where Armando can fix him. (Please, please, be able to fix him.) He tries to listen to Grace’s body as he goes, but the sound of Rocky’s own flesh burning is making it hard to perceive anything but very basic details. He thinks some of the bones under Grace’s face are broken. 

The journey is awful. Rocky’s pain does not fade, but seems to hit a plateau of agony that makes it easier to focus. He forces his legs to move until finally, finally, he sees Armando and gets Grace within the robot’s reach. There’s a strange, sticky sensation as Rocky’s claw peels off of Grace’s arm, something that manages to cut through this level of pain.

Rocky can’t think about it. He can’t think about anything. How long has he been in Grace’s oxygenated air? Two minutes? Three? It’s hard to tell how much damage has been done; it’s all a blur of pain and heat and a strange crackling sensation in his body that scares him. Rocky doesn’t know how long an Eridian can survive like this, but it doesn’t feel like he’ll make it much longer.

So he watches Armando grab onto Grace and leaves. He can barely drag himself down the hallway. He just has to hope Grace lives.

Then, miraculously, Grace wakes up.

It’s brief. He groans, reaches for Rocky. Says something that sounds vaguely like his name. It lasts all of ten seconds before Armando gives him something that knocks him out again. 

The sound that comes out of Rocky is involuntary. A wave of relief-love-agony. Grace will live. He’s sure of it. 

Whether or not Rocky will, though. That’s not as certain.

He somehow gets to the airlock in the xenonite barriers in the lab. He’s not really aware of his motions, but he manages to get it open and drag himself inside. There’s a bit of relief as his own atmosphere circulates, but he can tell he is very, very hurt. The kind of hurt Eridians do not wake up from. For a few moments, he just rests in a heap on the floor, wondering if these moments of lucidity will be his last.

If this is it, he has to make them worth it.

The laptop is open on one of the lab tables. Speaking will be difficult. It will hurt. But he has to try.  The laptop does not record his audio, but it will leave a translation for Grace to read later. It’s all Rocky has left.

“Grace,” he starts. His voice is too high, pitched by damaged vocal chords, but he hopes it will work. “Know that Rocky meant it. Rocky meant every word. Even with this, Rocky would do it all again, for Grace. If Rocky does not wake up, know that Grace is loved. Grace is Earth’s bravest hero and Rocky’s. Rocky knows Grace can do this. Grace will do what needs to be done and will do it as best he can. Rocky loves loves loves Grace.” He shudders, and his voice comes out lower when he speaks again. “Save Earth. Save Erid.”

Rocky’s perception swims. He can feel sleep coming on like a tidal wave. He hopes he will wake up. He does not think he will.

The laptop says, Save Earth. Save Erid. and nothing else.

Rocky’s world goes silent.

—

He wakes up. Somehow.

Grace nearly injures himself, he hugs the xenonite ball so hard. Rocky presses himself into the embrace of his arms as much as he’s able. His body hurts. He doesn’t know if it will ever be the same. It doesn’t matter now; he is just pathetically grateful that they are both alive. His last moments before sleep echo in his mind; he wants to relay them to Grace, but there is something more critical to discuss.

“Did we find the predator?” he asks.

Did we find the predator, question?

Grace just grins.

—

“Friend Grace,” Rocky calls.

Grace appears a second later—well, he was always perceivable to Rocky, but he sticks his head out of the bathroom stall to look at him. “Wha’zzhat?” he asks, muffled by a toothbrush.

“Friend Grace,” Rocky says again. “Brush teeth faster. Need to check Taumoeba.”

Grace spits in the sink. Disgusting. “They’re fine. Hold your horses.”

Taumoeba can’t handle nitrogen. Grace learned that the hard way when Rocky was asleep. Slowly, while Rocky slept, Grace worked at increasing its tolerance. Now he uses special breeder tanks Rocky fashioned out of xenonite. It’s tedious, but not difficult work. It’s mostly a waiting game; checking once a day to see which batches survived and which succumbed to the deadly gas.

“Don’t have horses to hold. Just Friend Grace to wait for.”

“Ha-ha.” Grace walks into the room and pulls a random shirt from the ground to wiggle over his head. He does it a little lopsided; he’s still favoring his left arm. “What was that you said?”

Rocky tilts his body in question. “What, question?”

“My name. Did it sound different? Or am I losing it?”

Rocky perks up. “Friend Grace noticed!”

“Wha—how long has it been?!” Grace demands. “How long have I not noticed?”

“Since woke up from long sleep.” That’s their fun little name for Rocky’s coma. “Closer now after death experience. Call Grace ‘Friend Grace’ now.”

The word “friend” is more casual on Earth, Rocky knows, but it’s a big deal to an Eridian. You only give a modifier to a name in cases where you expect to maintain a relationship for a very long time. He’s essentially telling Grace he wants to be close for life.

Probably could have done it a while ago. But there’s no time like the present.

“You changed my name?” 

Rocky preens. “Yes.”

Grace scrubs a hand over his face. “Sure. Okay. Makes sense,” he mutters. “What’s it mean?”

“Friend Grace,” Rocky repeats. Then, because the modifier and the noun are different words, he explains: “Means Grace is cherished friend to Rocky. Translates in English to ‘friend Grace.’ Loved loved loved.”

Grace says, “Oh,” and goes quiet.

Rocky sways back and forth anxiously. Grace doesn’t say anything. 

“Grace…not like, question?”

“No! No, Grace like.” He gives Rocky an eager thumbs-down. “Just, uh…”

Rocky waits.

“Should I do it back? ‘Friend Rocky’?”

“Can call Friend Rocky,” Rocky says, trying to be chill about it. “Means friend Grace cares about Rocky much much much.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever cared about anyone as much as I care about you,” Grace says. He does another thumbs-down. “Friend Rocky it is.”

Rocky erupts with a delighted noise. Grace laughs and covers his ears as Rocky skitters around in his ball so fast that it hurts his joints. He doesn’t care.

“Friend Grace! Friend Rocky! Friend friend friend!” he sings.

“Jesus Christmas, Rocky, easy! I haven’t had my coffee yet. Spare my eardrums.”

“Not Rocky fault Friend Grace has fragile ears. Excited. Friend Grace Friend Rocky!” He does the jazz hands Grace likes. “Amaze amaze amaze!”

Grace laughs. “Yeah, yeah, I’m squishy. You like me anyway.”

Rocky pauses, as if considering. He holds a hand up to his “chin.” “Would like Friend Grace better if not squishy.” 

Grace rolls his eyes. “You can go check on the Taumoeba yourself. With your perfect eyeballs. Oh, wait a minute.”

Rocky rolls his ball straight into Grace’s stupid toes.

“Ow! You little—”

He swipes at the ball, but Rocky’s already gone, chittering with laughter as he sprints down the hall.

—

Time begins to fly by. 

Rocky heals. He watches the tears in Grace’s skin scab over and eventually close. There is still evidence of what happened to them—Grace’s arm bears a permanent impression of Rocky’s claw, and there are ashy bits of Rocky’s carapace smeared into the floor that Grace can’t get clean—but they are, somehow, fine.

Yet Rocky feels like the walls are threatening to cave in and crush him, because with every successful iteration of Taumoeba, they inch closer and closer to parting ways. He should be elated, should be desperate to return home to Erid and Adrian, but all he can think about is the dread of never seeing Grace again.

Rocky mentioned, once, visiting Grace on his planet after they went home and saved their stars. A long journey, but not impossible, especially with their peoples’ shared knowledge of astrophage and its fuel efficiencies. If their worlds could both send a ship to Tau Ceti, it wouldn’t be a huge leap to think they could send a ship to each other’s planets.

It would be possible, if not for one rather glaring problem.

Grace won’t live that long.

He was not even born when Rocky’s ship first arrived in the Tau Ceti system. He is unimaginably young. Eridians his age are in their first phase of schooling, if they’re even declared developed enough for school at all. Rocky nearly fell over laughing when Grace told him. 

Then Grace told him how long humans live, and Rocky wasn’t laughing anymore. 

Grace has a maximum of about sixty Earth years left. The same amount of time Rocky spent getting his specialized education in engineering. That is the most he can ever hope for. Realistically, his time in space will shorten that window. 

It will take them both years to get back home—Rocky slightly longer than originally planned, when he gives his astrophage to Grace—and years more for the Eridians to craft a ship capable of reaching Earth. Then all the years it would take to make the journey.

It just won’t work. The numbers paint a grim picture. When Rocky leaves Grace, it will be forever. He could visit Earth, if he wanted, but it would not be an Earth that Grace is walking upon. Knowing that makes the idea much less appealing.

He thinks about their dwindling time often. Does Grace feel the same way? Does the idea of leaving Rocky weigh on him? Or is he just excited to go home? Rocky has no idea; they’ve seemingly formed a wordless, mutual agreement to not discuss their impending separation.

Taumoeba evolves slowly. They still have a few weeks to go, at minimum.

To an Eridian, it might as well be a handful of minutes.

—

“Hey. Friend Rocky.”

Rocky doesn’t stop what he’s doing, but tilts his body toward Grace a bit. Human nicety. “Friend Grace.”

Friend Grace.

Grace takes a long time to speak again. For once, he is not looking at Rocky; it’s late, and all the lights are off. He should be asleep, but he’s not. Ever since the fishing incident, Grace has been staying awake for longer and longer in the dark, unable to relax enough to sleep. He gets testy when Rocky tries to bring it up in the morning. 

Eventually, Grace says, “Can I ask you something dumb?”

“Most Friend Grace’s questions dumb dumb dumb.”

Most Friend Grace questions dumb dumb dumb.

Usually when Rocky insults him, Grace laughs, so the seriousness of his tone takes Rocky a bit off-guard. “Just hear me out on this one.”

Rocky gently puts down his project. “Listening.”

Listening.

“There was a—joke, I guess. Back home. Kind of.”

“Okay.”

Okay.

“Or maybe a trend? I don’t know what to call it. Let’s go back to just calling it a question,” Grace babbles.

“Friend Grace. Spit out.”

Friend Grace. Spit out, command.

Grace blows a raspberry at him. He showed Rocky what a raspberry was, once. It’s a fruit. It only made the expression more confusing. “It goes like this: would you still like me if I was a wɜrm?”

What.

“What?”

What, question?

“Okay, maybe not a wɜrm, since you barely tolerate how squishy and wet I am as it is. But maybe just—would you still like me if I was different? If I changed somehow?”

There’s a long pause.

Rocky says, “What is ‘worm’?”

What is—question?

“A wɜrm?” Grace guesses. “It’s like if spaghetti came to life. Animal. Tubular, wet, maybe six inches long and a centimeter thick. It eats dirt.”

How does Earth keep getting worse?

“Why would Friend Grace be worm?”

Why would Friend Grace be—question?

“I’m not looking to turn into one. It’s just the idea behind the question. What if I was even squishier? Would you still want to hang out?”

Grace is talking in circles around it, but Rocky thinks he understands the question. It’s still stupid, since worms sound disgusting, but if he ignores that, it’s essentially asking if Rocky would love Grace if he were…worse than he is now. 

That answer is easy.

“Rocky would love Friend Grace even if Friend Grace was worm,” he says eventually.

Rocky love Friend Grace even if Friend Grace was—statement.

Grace grins. “Thanks, pal.”

“Though Friend Grace already disgust. Hard to imagine worse.”

Though Friend Grace already disgust. Hard to imagine worse.

“Wha—hey! I thought we got over that!”

“Never.”

Never.

“Hey,” Grace says. “Remember when I showed you fish? I could be so much worse. That eel almost made you barf.”

Rocky does remember the eel. He never wants to remember the eel ever again.

“Rocky would not love Friend Grace if Friend Grace was eel.”

Rocky not love Friend Grace if Friend Grace eel.

Grace puts his hands over his face and groans. 

—

They do it. For real.

Taumoeba-85 is real, and it is going to save their stars. It feels surreal to think about it for too long. One day, they’re still just drifting along, waiting, and the next, Grace looks at the slide and suddenly they have a sample of the organism that will change history. 

It’s actually done. They are going to save their planets. They’ve done it.

Naturally, they decide to celebrate.

Rocky puts on his best attire, garments that shimmer and sparkle with sound. He wishes Grace had given him more warning on the party; he would have made something for Grace to wear, too. Instead, Grace fashions a conical “party hat” out of paper for himself and makes one for Rocky as well, taping it to the top of his ball. (Rocky wants to keep it forever, but the flimsy paper would turn to ash in his atmosphere.)

They’re watching simulated fireworks when Grace gives him the small woven ball. 

“It’s Earth,” he says. “So you don’t forget me.”

There are a thousand things Rocky wants to say to that statement. I would have to be dead. You saved me and my people. I have never met anyone like you and I never will again. You have changed me, forever.

“Rocky cannot forget,” he says in the end.

Rocky cannot forget.

The ball is lumpy and soft in his claws. He fears ripping it accidentally. It’s the most precious thing he owns now.

Grace holds up a spare laptop. “And, for the Savior of the Universe, your very own container of all Earth knowledge.”

Okay. Maybe second-most precious. But it’s up there.

“Rocky didn’t get Grace anything,” Rocky admits. It hurts to say out loud. Any Eridian would be ashamed of such a thing. Rocky wants to crawl into the floor and die. Why didn’t he have time to make a gift?!

Rocky did not get Grace anything.

“You got me everything,” Grace says anyway.

Rocky preens at the praise. He can’t help it.

“But…you know…”

Rocky tilts his carapace. Yes?

Grace shrugs, feigning nonchalance. “It would be really, really cool to see your ship.”

—

The suit takes two days of near-constant work to build, but every single second is worth it for the look on Grace’s face when he sets foot on the Blip-A. Rocky bounces around, wanting to show him everything all at once, and laughs when Grace can’t keep up.

It is the first time in a very long time that someone other than Rocky has made any noise in the Blip-A. He commits every single sound to memory, from the chime of Grace’s laugh to the clinks and bumps of his boots on the xenonite. Rocky will need them, when he is on his journey alone.

—

“I guess this is it, pal.”

He may as well put all of Rocky’s organs on the ground and stomp them into mush.

Grace is putting on a “brave face,” as he calls it, but Rocky can hear the way his breathing hitches with the tell-tale signs of emotional distress. For once, he will not comment on it. He is probably even more of a wreck than Grace is right now.

“Yes.”

Yes, says the laptop at Grace’s hip. Even now, they still have to use it. He never really got around to teaching Grace proper Eridian; a shame, but it’s too late now. If any Eridian ever goes to Earth, he’ll tell them to send a translator first.

Rocky’s own laptop sits safely in the containment chamber he built on the Blip-A. He’s excited to start exploring everything it holds. Now that Grace has explained the English alphabet and the Internet, the possibilities are endless. 

He will start learning all about human culture just as soon as he picks his hearts up off the floor.

Grace, too, looks like he’s about to burst into tears. Luckily, Rocky came prepared.

“Friend Grace is best human Rocky has ever met.”

Friend Grace is best human Rocky has ever met.

It works; Grace laughs.

“Is joke!” Rocky says proudly. He’s been practicing.

Is joke.

“I know, pal. It’s a good one.” He sobers a bit. “You’re the best Eridian I’ve ever met, too. The very best, Friend Rocky.”

Rocky says, “Friend Grace is best human, too.”

Friend Grace best human, too, statement.

Grace nods then, seemingly pulling himself together. “Right. Okay.” He takes a deep breath. “This is it. For sure this time.”

If Rocky lets him, Grace will stall forever and they’ll die here, two idiots in a tunnel unable to leave each other. Rocky would happily spend the rest of his days doing that, but it’s probably not fair to Earth or Erid. So, dutifully, he says, “Good-bye, Friend Grace.”

Good-bye Friend Grace.

“Good-bye, Friend Rocky.” Grace waves, and Rocky returns the gesture. “How do Eridians say good-bye?”

Rocky demonstrates the gesture; Grace copies him. It’s only the rustle of fabric on his end, but it’s beautiful nonetheless. Grace lets his hands fall back to his sides and finally turns to walk back to the Mary.

Halfway there, he turns back to Rocky and starts to dance. 

The very first communication they ever had face-to-face. (Well, face-to-carapace.) Rocky’s hearts ache and sing in equal measure as he returns the gesture. It’s fitting to end here, right where they started. He just wishes it didn’t have to end at all.

Eventually, they slow in their dance, and then they stop. 

Grace gives one final wave, turns once more, and leaves.

Rocky returns to the Blip-A. He waits until Grace has successfully removed the tunnel from the side of the Hail Mary, then watches as the ship fires up the thrusters and turns to head for Earth. Every second he delays further is a second he must spend alone, so as soon as the Hail Mary is out of the Blip-A’s thruster range, he turns on the navigation and sets the course for Erid.

It is going to be a long, quiet journey. It will be hard for Rocky. It will be hard, too, for Grace; it brings a strange comfort to know that they will be together in their loneliness, since it’s all they’ll have left. At least it’s something.

It will be long, it will be quiet, and it will be six years slower. 

But finally, finally, Rocky is going home.

—

The first days alone are hard. Rocky does his best to stay as busy as he can.

Now that he knows of radiation and its effects, he has rigged all of the ship’s controls to be remotely operated from his workshop, shielded by astrophage tanks. It means he’s stuck there for the foreseeable future, but he figures he’ll adjust to it eventually. In the meantime, he works to improve the area—new shelves, new wall designs, new everything. If it’s something he can spend any amount of time on, it’s getting a redo.

The one thing he won’t touch is the structure for housing and operating his Earth gifts, the most important of them being the laptop. He doesn’t want to risk harming it. After looking at the batteries and power structure, Rocky rigged up a tiny astrophage-fueled power source that should keep the laptop going for decades. He shouldn’t have to open the container at all. But if that fails, Grace gave him a backup laptop, too, in a different box. 

The laptop fills a lot of his time—he is a large fan of Star Trek, now, and there are so many episodes to consume—but it doesn’t quite dull the ache of isolation that settles over him. Some days the journey seems bearable, like it’ll be over before he knows it, and other days he struggles to not turn the whole ship around and go with Grace to Earth so he doesn’t have to be alone for another second.

He lets his memories of Erid propel him forward. Adrian, his friends, his family, his home. What will it feel like, to set foot in his home again? Will Adrian have changed the structure? How far will the Eridians have come in their knowledge of the stars, of astrophage, of everything? It will be different, he knows, but he is so desperate to learn just how much. 

The moments that aren’t spent thinking of Erid are spent thinking of Grace. He really, really misses Grace. 

Rocky will get through it. There’s no other option. He just wishes it didn’t suck so bad.

It will have to be enough to know he has something to look forward to. Each day is one closer to Erid, after all.

Rocky has almost started to believe it when the Blip-A sputters, coughs, and grinds to a halt.

—

He can’t fix it.

He tries everything. More layers of xenonite around the breeder tanks. Moving them to a separate room. Adding more layers of protection on the tanks. Nothing works. The Taumoeba always escapes.

Taumoeba moves fast. Rocky has to move faster if he wants to live. 

He does everything at the speed of panic. Does not sleep, does not eat, does nothing but work as quickly as he can. Several times, he slips up and injures himself or breaks a tool. It doesn’t matter. He keeps going and going and going.

It is not enough. In a matter of days, his astrophage becomes Taumoeba sludge. He has no fuel. His life systems will support him for a while, but not long enough. As Grace would say, he is dead in the water. He tries not to think about Grace. He tries not to think about anyone.

Rocky is, once more, alone and drifting amongst the stars.

—

Two thoughts dominate Rocky’s every waking moment.

The first is that Erid is going to die.

Not just that Erid is going to die—Erid is going to die and it will be his fault because he couldn’t fix the leak. 

Maybe if he’d been faster. Maybe if he’d caught the leak earlier. Maybe if he’d made breeder tanks that don’t leak. Maybe if he hadn’t given his extra astrophage to Grace. Maybe he would have had more time. Maybe, maybe, maybe. An endless parade of what-ifs.

The second is that he has no idea what is happening to Grace.

Has the same thing happened to him? Has his astrophage been ruined? 

Grace is smart. Despite all the times he told him otherwise, Rocky believes this wholeheartedly. More importantly, Grace understands cells and biology in ways Rocky doesn’t. There is a chance that he was able to figure out what went wrong. That’s Rocky’s best guess, at this point—the problem is something that’s simply outside of his scope of knowledge. For him, it’s unsolvable. But that might not be the case for Grace. 

The problem, though, is that Grace is not an engineer. Even if he finds what’s wrong, he might not have the means to fix it without Rocky’s tools. He might be standing on the Hail Mary, hands in his hair, watching as a problem he knows the solution to, but does not have the means to solve, eats him alive. They always joked that there was nothing they couldn’t do when they worked together. But now that they’re alone? When they’re each only one-half of the perfect team?

By separating, they may have doomed both their worlds to a slow, cold death.

He will never know if Grace made it home. He doesn’t even know if Grace is still alive. Grace could be dead already. Maybe he has been for days. 

Rocky will never know.

—

For nearly fifty human days—how he keeps time, now, even with no humans around—Rocky does nothing but sit in silence. There is nothing else to do. He hopes that Erid has the foresight to send a second ship someday, one that can scavenge the Blip-A and find Taumoeba. Maybe they’ll have better luck than he did.

Then, on his forty-seventh day of isolation, he hears the knocking.

—

Grace came back for him.

Grace came back for him. 

Erid and Rocky are going to live.

The way Grace talks about it, late on that first night when they have finally gotten Rocky back on the Mary and he crawls, exhausted, into his bunk, he says there was no other option. For one, it would doom Erid. But for two—

“I couldn’t leave you. It just—it wasn’t an option.”

Rocky, on his end, is so grateful he feels like he could explode with it. Somehow, despite everything that he has suffered, Rocky has gotten everything he has ever wanted.

He gets to go back to Erid, and he gets to keep Grace. 

As Grace would say, he is getting the best of both worlds.

It will still be hard—the journey is long, and Grace has told him that stretching out his human food supply will be a challenge—but anything feels surmountable so long as Rocky and Grace are together. They’re smart. They’ll figure something out. The bigger problem, to Rocky, will be figuring out how Grace will survive after they get to Erid. 

The Eridians will have to build something for him—a habitat of some kind that they can pump oxygen and nitrogen into and keep nice and freezing for him. There’s no doubt that the Eridians will take on the challenge with the speed of overeager hatchlings, but Rocky knows that spending even an extra handful of months on the Mary with a planet within reach would be excruciating for Grace. For both of them—Rocky does not want to leave Grace ever again. 

He resolves, then, as he watches Grace sleep fitfully in his bunk, that he will do everything in his power to make the process as fast as possible. He cannot design everything himself—much of the work falls outside of his field—but he is well and truly familiar now with what it takes to keep a human alive. With several years of journey ahead of them, he suspects he’ll get quite far in his designs. 

There is one more issue that will need to be considered. Assuming he survives—and he will survive—Grace is going to meet more Eridians. Many, many, many more Eridians. 

More importantly, Grace is going to meet Eridians that do not speak the clunky pidgin version of Eridian that Rocky has been using to communicate with Grace for almost a year.

Grace is going to have to learn proper Eridian, once and for all. Tones, gestures, grammar, all of it. Knowing how long it’s taken him to get this far in his language abilities, they’ll have to start sooner rather than later. 

Next to him, Grace makes a snuffling noise in his sleep and rolls over to face Rocky. His mouth is slightly open, and after a few moments a string of drool begins to seep onto his pillow. Rocky has never been so enamored by another creature in his entire life. He will do everything to prepare Grace for Erid.

And he knows just where to start.

—

“No.”

Grace frowns at him over his mug of coffee. His free hand freezes, halfway extended from his body. The laptop sits untouched in front of him. “What?”

“No laptop.”

Grace blinks a few times. He only woke up about ten minutes ago. There’s still at least twenty minutes to go before he stops being stupid. 

Slowly, his hand falls back to his lap. “Okay. Why?”

“Friend Grace has to learn Eridian,” Rocky says, then braces for impact as he adds, “Real Eridian.”

“I do know Eridian,” Grace says, frown deepening. Understandably, he looks confused. “...don’t I?”

Rocky sways side-to-side. This is the moment he’d been dreading. “Grace knows…some Eridian.”

“Some Eridian,” Grace repeats. “What does that mean?”

“Eridian Rocky uses for Friend Grace is, technically, Eridian used for hatchlings,” Rocky finally admits.

There’s a moment of silence while Grace’s sleepy brain translates, then he sets down his mug. “So, you’re saying—” he makes a sort of bewildered, waving hand gesture, “—you’ve been using, what, Eridian baby talk for me?”

Rocky nods.

Grace says, “Like, the whole time?”

Rocky nods again.

Grace looks at him for a long, long time. 

“Why in the world would you do that?!” he explodes.

“Because big science more important!” Rocky exclaims, throwing his hands up. “Could do science with ‘hatchling talk’ so didn’t matter to Rocky,” he says. “But now Friend Grace will meet other Eridians. Don’t want to…make bad impression.”

“Wait. Are you still using it right now?”

Rocky goes very still. “...No.”

“Oh my god! You are!” Grace groans. “You’ve been talking dumb to me the whole time!” He covers his face with his hands, pushing his glasses into his hair. “Oh, god, I’m the dumbest alien alive. I speak baby Eridian. And I didn’t even notice!”

“Grace not dumb,” Rocky says fiercely. “Grace save Earth and Erid and Rocky. Grace not dumb.”

Grace peeks out from behind his fingers, then lowers his hands. “Why didn’t you tell me before? And don’t give me the science excuse—we had a ton of time in between all that where you could have told me and made me learn.”

“Considered,” Rocky says.

“Considered,” Grace repeats flatly. He grabs his coffee and downs half of it, muttering something that sounds like “too early for this” into his mug. “You ‘considered.’”

Rocky tilts his weight back and forth for a minute before he gives up and deflates. “Fine. Started with hatchling talk, did hatchling talk for long time, then did not know how to bring up. Didn’t want Friend Grace to be—embarrassed.”

“You spoke a dumbed-down version of Eridian, for months, to spare my feelings?” Grace demands.

“Is okay! Rocky still communicate fine!” Rocky insists.

Grace sets his mug down again with a clink of ceramic on metal. He puts his hands on his hips, then on the table, then over his face, then back to his hips. Rocky watches him the whole time, anxiously tapping his claws. Is Grace mad at him? At himself? Is he going to threaten to jump out of the airlock again?

Grace reaches out, picks up the laptop, the unceremoniously drops it into a drawer.

“Fine isn’t good enough.” He slams the drawer shut. “We’re fixing this.”

—

At Grace’s steadfast insistence, Rocky begins to speak to him in fluent Eridian only. 

Sometimes it slows them down. Word order in particular trips Grace up consistently, which frustrates him. But if he catches Rocky “dumbing something down” for him, he gets outright upset, which is worse. So Rocky stops.

An unexpected side effect is that Rocky learns new English words—Grace explains the parts of speech and syntax of English more thoroughly than before so Rocky can better explain how they apply to Eridian. Not everything lines up perfectly, and it’s a more technical view of his language than Rocky has ever had, but it’s interesting, if not occasionally a little repetitive. 

They spend a lot of time on Eridian lessons. A lot. There’s little else to do. Grace continues to cultivate Taumoeba, knowing he’ll eventually have to eat it—something unappealing to both of them—but it’s a mindless task that only takes him a handful of minutes each day. They spend the rest of their time studying Eridian language, watching Earth media, or watching the other sleep. 

It’s both slower and faster than Rocky expected, but it happens. Grace learns.

—

“...Sad?”

Rocky shakes his carapace and repeats the tone. There’s no words—just a long, sustained sound that he holds for about ten seconds.

Grace’s eyebrows draw together. He mutters a couple words of nonsense to himself, then says tentatively, “Angry?”

“Yes!” Rocky exclaims, spinning in an excited circle. In the same false tone, he says, “Angry angry angry!” 

Grace blows a raspberry. “Probably should have gotten that one faster, considering how many times I’ve been on the receiving end of it.”

“Probably,” Rocky agrees. “But you got it!”

Grace laughs, but he’s proud of himself, Rocky can tell. He leans forward, resting his arms in his lap. “Gimme another one.”

—

Six months later, Grace is proficient enough that their formal “school sessions” of Eridian come to an end. He understands almost everything Rocky says, tones and all, and it’s a nice feeling.

Rocky, as a joke, makes Grace a thin xenonite certificate that announces he has passed “Eridian 101” with flying colors. He expects Grace to laugh, but instead he immediately affixes it to his dormitory wall, proclaiming it his new prized possession.

The laptop sits in the drawer in the lab, long abandoned. They haven’t used it in months. 

—

One day, Grace says, “You use the same tone for my name and Adrian’s.”

It takes Rocky by surprise. They’re watching a movie in the dormitory, Grace lounging in his bunk and Rocky curled up on the xenonite above. When Harry Met Sally, at Grace’s request. Rocky thought maybe Grace would end up falling asleep before it ended; they’d been sitting in comfortable silence for almost an hour. But clearly that is not the case now.

“Rocky does,” Rocky says slowly. 

Grace normally looks at him when they speak; now his gaze is pointedly fixed on the screen. “Adrian’s your mate.”

It’s not quite a question.

“Yes,” Rocky answers anyway.

Grace nods, more to himself than to Rocky. He’s quiet for a long time. Rocky’s not sure why this is coming up now—Grace knows Eridian tones. He has for months. How long has he been holding on to it?

“Does that mean—” Grace stops. “Does that mean you see us in the same way? Me and Adrian?”

Rocky says, “Yes.”

Grace’s gaze snaps to him. He swallows. “Really?”

“Yes,” Rocky says again.

“Even though—even though you’re with Adrian? And you still love them?”

Rocky hums. “Adrian has been my mate for a long, long time. Rocky loves them more than anything. Rocky can’t wait for the two of you to meet.” Almost mindlessly, Grace reaches out and presses a hand to the barrier; Rocky does the same on his side. “Friend Grace is the greatest friend Rocky has ever had. Friend Grace saved our planets and saved me. Several times over. Rocky loves him, too.”

Grace looks at him for a long time. “Like a mate.”

Rocky hesitates. “If Friend Grace does not want—”

“Just answer the question, Rocky,” Grace interrupts.

“Yes,” Rocky says immediately. “Like a mate.”

Grace goes quiet. 

Rocky has known how he’s felt for a long time now, but it has never mattered if Grace knew. He wanted Grace to know, of course, but he knows humans are finicky. Fragile. Especially his human. There was always a chance it would make Grace pull away, and it hadn’t been a chance he’d wanted to take. And it’s not like he isn’t happy with anything Grace is willing to give.

Now, though, he feels like all of his hearts are caught in his throat. The silence is killing him.

“Friend Grace does not have to change anything,” Rocky says quietly. “Rocky will love Friend Grace no matter what.”

“But if—if I do want it? To be…mates?” Grace asks tentatively.

“Rocky would like that,” he says immediately, trying and failing to play it cool. “But Rocky knows Friend Grace is human. It’s…different.”

“I’ve always been different.” Grace shrugs. His fingers drum against the xenonite, against Rocky’s hand. “What does it mean? To be mates on Erid.”

“Being mates can mean anything,” Rocky says. “For Adrian and Rocky, it means living together. Speaking, learning, working together. Mating. Offspring, one day. Adrian is a partner for life. There is a lot of love.” 

When Grace doesn’t answer, Rocky keeps going. “Rocky and Friend Grace are already sort of the same. Live together. Work together.” After a moment, he adds, “Love each other.”

“We’re basically already mates, is what you’re saying,” Grace accuses, but he’s smiling.

“Not in name!” Rocky says defensively. “Rocky wouldn’t do that without asking. It’s very rude.”

“But in all other ways…”

“Well. Maybe,” Rocky admits, curling his legs in a bit more.

Grace laughs. “I knew it.”

Rocky perks up. “Knew it and…it was okay?”

Grace takes a big breath. “Do you remember when I told you about the ‘mates’ I had, back on Earth?” Rocky chirps that yes, of course he does. “I might have buried the lead a little. Any attempts I had at mating on Earth were pretty bad. For some reason or another, I couldn’t get anything to…fit. It was like everyone else knew what they wanted, knew what they were supposed to want, and I just—I couldn’t figure it out. Even friendships, sometimes, were hard. It was always just easier to be alone.”

Rocky waits.

“But—I don’t know. I met you, an alien halfway across the galaxy, made of rocks, and suddenly it’s like I get it. You’re like everything rolled up into one. Friend, family, and—” he cuts himself off, rubs a hand over his face. “You’re everything, Rocky.”

Finally, finally, he looks up at Rocky. There are tears in his eyes, just shy of trailing down his face. “If—if you want—if you’d have me—”

“Yes. Yes. Yes. Rocky wants.”

Grace laughs, more wetly this time. “Really?”

“Yes!” Rocky shrieks. He gets up in a rush, nearly falling right back down. “Friend Grace and Rocky mates? For real?”

“Yeah,” Grace breathes. “For real.”

Rocky shrieks again and he’s gone. He excitedly throws his body all over the place while Grace laughs behind him. 

Then, suddenly, he skids to a stop. A million thoughts hit his mind all at once.

He has to make a mate gift. He has to make Grace some Eridian jewelry. He has to make Grace a model of his home, a symbolic invite to his and Adrian’s home. He has to explain that Adrian will technically be a mate, too. He has to finish the suit he’s been working on, the one that will let him give Grace a real hug.

“Rocky?” Grace asks. “You alright?”

There is suddenly so much to do.

“Rocky is good good good. So good.”

Grace grins. “Me too.”

Rocky nearly jumps for joy. “Happy that Mate Grace is happy.”

Grace blinks. Translating, Rocky realizes. It’s been a while since they’ve had a word he didn’t know. This one is worth teaching.

Just as he’s about to, Grace says, “I’m happy Mate Rocky is happy, too.”

Rocky feels he could faint. He feels he could sprint for hours. He feels everything he has ever felt, six-fold. Rocky’s world has never been so bright.

But more than anything else, he feels understood.

It’s a beautiful feeling.