Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

I don’t know when it starts.

I’m working hard – I’m always working hard these days, trying to get enough words from Rocky into my spreadsheet so that we can progress to the ‘science’ stage of our communications. The program needs a bit of work, so I’ve gone back to the ship to read up on code, as well as get something to eat. I thought I might even take a nap – what Rocky doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right? – but the research is more interesting than I expected, and I end up buried in it, completely unaware of my surroundings.

At some point, I notice that the air is a little cooler than before. Really, that should tip me off – I’m in a controlled environment in space, temperatures aren’t just supposed to drop. But, lost in a rabbit hole, I manage to sort of…forget where I am. I simply do what any sensible person would and pull on an extra layer, shrugging my jacket over my t-shirt without breaking eye contact with my screen.

At some point, I become aware that I’m tired. I should have had a nap – Rocky will be expecting me back soon, and I’ll have to make a choice between disappointing him by being late or carrying on without enough sleep. My head nods a little. Perhaps I’ll just take a few winks. No need to head to bed. I only want a few moments.

I drop into a doze, still in my chair.

This, it turns out, is a mistake.

At first I think I’m dreaming, because it’s cold. I haven’t felt cold like it in…well, since I left Earth. I’m back in Antarctica, the white sky and the pending crack of ice. I’m…

I bolt upright, or try to. My body is stiff and clumsy, and the sudden movement makes my muscles cramp. My neck would probably have been sore from sleeping in the chair anyway – stupid decision, really – but it’s a lot worse than that. I think for a moment the tendons are going to snap.

‘What the…’

My breath fogs as I peer around. The air is beyond crisp and heading towards freezing. Surfaces shine, oddly glassy. For a moment, I look up, almost expecting snow to be trickling from above, but of course that’s ridiculous. There’s no climate in here.

Something has gone wrong with the temperature regulation, that’s for certain. Why hasn’t Mary warned me? Shouldn’t there be an alarm?

‘Mary, temperature check.’

‘Temperature is 22 degrees centigrade,’ the computer replies cheerfully.

Well that’s…blatantly incorrect.

‘Mary,’ I say again. ‘Temperature check.’

The computer repeats what it had just said with equal levels of optimism.

I try not to panic. If there was an issue with a hull, the ship would register it. In fact, if there was a problem with the hull bad enough to make this whole room cold, I’d have been sucked into the vacuum of space long before now. It’s probably a bug in the temperature controls somewhere. Bugs are fixable, right?

I don’t know the temperature, seeing as the computer won’t tell me it, but it’s far too low. Better get moving. I’m glad of my jacket, and as I peer around, I see a discarded sheet. I wrap it around myself.  I hurry over to the nearest screen and press a few buttons. They’re not as responsive as normal – probably not designed to work in low temperature – but at last it lights up.

I’m not bad with computers, but they’re not really my specialty either, so it takes me a while to work out which system has the issue. It should be simple to solve – I suppose that with only three of us to man the ship, any problems would have to be easy to fix. Basically, some weird code tick has told the ship it is overheating, and in response it’s cooling the interior down. That’s why Mary thinks that there’s no problem when I ask her. I breathe a sigh of relief – no getting pulled into the vast vacuum of space today! – and set about fixing the problem.

I get about halfway into it before I start finding it hard to concentrate. Things I know that I know, that would usually have come easily, refuse to settle in my brain – numbers fail to add themselves up, simple calculations turn around inside my head, come to nothing. And, on top of it all, my fingers keep stabbing the wrong keys.

‘Come on,’ I mutter, and am horrified to hear my own voice, slurred and confused – it comes out more like omm’nnn.  

I realize that I’ve made a mistake. I’d gone to fix the problem right away, like a good little scientist, but I should have warmed myself up first. I should at least have put on some more clothes.

Well. I can do that now. I have plenty of things, I just have to get some of them.

I turn around, take two steps, and fall over. The impact hurts, but more than that the floor is cold. I shudder as the chill leaches deeper into me. My head fuzzes.

Ah, I think. This is bad.

You know what they say about the frog that gets boiled in a pot if you do it slowly enough? Well, it turns out you can also freeze a frog the same way.

It’s me. I’m the frog.

Now that I’m lying down, I’m tired, really tired. How long is it since I slept properly? And yeah I just had a nap but that was only a few minutes, and…

You’re not tired, I tell myself, trying to put on the teacher-voice I’d use when the kids were acting out. You’re cold. You’re so cold that your body’s shutting down, and it’s making you sleepy. This is not good.

The thing is, it actually feels quite nice. I could do with a rest. It’s been a long few…years.

I shake myself. I need to get a suit. If it can protect me from outer space, it can protect me from this.

I push myself onto all fours. My vision’s blurry and my head feels really, really heavy. The suits are so far away…even if I could find one, I doubt I have the fine motor skills to pull it on. Perhaps I could put it over myself, but it wouldn’t make enough difference, not now, with the floor so cold.

I’m not shivering as much as I was before. In fact, I feel sort of warm. My fingers and toes are less numb, starting to tingle. That’s also bad, I tell myself. It feels good, but it’s bad. Bad bad bad.

Wait. 

Rocky.

I’m stupid, so, so stupid. My ship is cold, but Rocky’s ship is hot – the xenonite wall always radiates warmth. I don’t have to fix the Hail Mary just yet, seeing as it doesn’t look like it’s going to implode anytime soon. I need to warm myself up fast, and the wall will be the quickest way to do it.

Moving isn’t easy. I try to get to my feet, to bring less of myself into contact with the cold metal floor – not that the air’s much better – but my blood is sluggish, and my limbs don’t obey. Crawling it is, then. Luckily, I’m too aware of the danger I’m in to worry about dignity.

I edge forward, losing the sheet along the way. I let it go, too tired and clumsy to re-wind it. After a few paces, I regret it, because my bare skin starts to stick to the cold floor. I consider returning for the sheet, but a few paces is as good as a few miles right now. Instead, I try to pull my sleeves down to protect my hands, but my fingers might as well be fish sticks for all the good they do me. My whole body feels stiff and heavy, like I’m encased in stone. Is this what Rocky feels like all the time? Surely not. I’ve seen how quickly he moves.

I spy a notebook that must have fallen to the floor at some point – being the sole survivor on a spaceship means I don’t worry much about being tidy – and hook it towards me. I set my hands on it, a barrier between my palms and the horrible, skin-snagging floor, and use it to slide myself along. It’s not elegant, but it’ll do.

Cold whispers through my knees. My glasses fog every time I breathe, and at last, feeling them starting to stick behind my ears, I shake my head, sending them clattering off – though not before one of the metal arms takes a small piece of skin with it. I hope they’re not broken. I’ll need them later.

If there is a later.

Shaking my head was probably a mistake, because now I’m dizzy as well as cold, but I keep crawling. Just one more step, I keep telling myself. They’re not even really steps, just slides, a weird baby-crawl. A kid could manage this.

At last, I hit something.

The tunnel. I reach for it like a dying man – which, I suppose, I am. My hands are too numb for me to feel whether it’s icy as well. Getting over the thing is hard with my new, cold-heavy body, and I almost face-plant into the xenonite on the other side, but I don’t feel the pain. Shouldn’t I feel pain?

I fumble my way down the tunnel – I know it’s lit, but I’m having trouble seeing, and suspect my vision would be screwed even if I still had my glasses on. As I do, I become aware of a noise, a voice. Of course. I’d left my laptop down there, not wanting to go to the effort of dragging it back and forth when there was a perfectly good computer for research on the ship. The translation program is still running, and Rocky’s speaking to me.

‘Grace,’ he says. ‘Grace. Grace. Grace.’

‘I’m coming,’ I try to say, but it comes out as ‘mmmnng.’

Grace ship question? Rocky tell Grace ship wrong. Grace no answer.'

Of course. Rocky’s hearing is so sensitive – he probably noticed some change in the machinery well before I did. He’s been calling me all this time, trying to warn me, and I couldn’t hear. I just sat there until I was almost too cold to move.

Almost. But I’m moving now. I can’t tell if I’m getting any warmer, but I have a goal, and I plan to reach it.

My hand hits a dip in the ground and I lurch forward, rolling. The shock goes through me, but dully, frighteningly so. I groan. When I try to push myself back to all fours, my arm gives way. I lay in the tunnel for a breath or two, drifting. It’s not so bad, really. Not comfortable, but that doesn’t matter. I can’t really feel it.

‘Grace. Grace get up. Grace get up. Grace Grace Grace-grace-gracegracegracegrace…’

‘Shhhh,’ I mumble into the uneven ground. ‘Lemme sleep.’

‘Grace no sleep. Grace heart slow. If go slower, Grace get worse. Bad sleep now.’

He has a point, though I wish he didn’t. Kind of nice that he can hear my heartbeat, though. I never had a friend who could do that before.

‘Grace. Grace. Gracegracegrace-’

I wobble, drag my arm out from underneath me, shuffling forward once more. This doesn’t seem to reassure Rocky, because he keeps talking. I’m glad. Freezing cold, and with my eyes not focusing very well, I’m more following the sound of his voice than anything I can see. Is this what it’s like for Rocky all the time? Threads of sound reaching out into the world, rippling in a soft, lazy darkness?

At last, stumbling and weaving, like a fly that got too close to a zapper, I come up against warmth.

The barrier. I’m at the barrier.

I fall down next to it with a thud. Heat radiates, washing over me like a hot bath. I take a deep breath. My lungs expand without protest for the first time in minutes.

Warmth brings pain – after a few moments, feeling rushes back all at once, cramping my fingers and feet. I feel like someone has given my skin a good going over with a piece of sandpaper. Someone else is stabbing a needle between my forehead, making my eyes water. It's not very nice of them, and I really wish they'd stop. 

‘Grace come near,’ Rocky is saying. ‘Rocky is warm. Give warm to Grace.’

He wants me to move closer to the barrier. I’ve not hugged anyone in who knows how long and a part of me wants to do it, but I shake my head.

‘Too quick,’ I slur. ‘Shock.’

‘No understand. Need word.’

I shake my head. ‘Just…trust me. If I get warm too fast, I’ll die.’

Rocky doesn’t say anything. Not stupid human. Not inefficient human. I’m glad that my head is too heavy to turn. I don’t want to see.

I stay awake for as long as I can. Rocky keeps talking to me, but I float in and out, not able to do much apart from lay in the vague heat and hope it’s enough to warm me up, and not so much that my body decides to pack in. I hope it doesn’t. This would be a really stupid way to die. I’d never hear the end of it, if anyone ever found out. Not that they would.

With that not-so-comforting thought, and despite Rocky’s frantic voice coming from the laptop nearby, I drift off.

Chapter Text

I don’t think I’ve been asleep long, but it’s enough that I feel confused when I come to. Why is my bed so hard and lumpy? Why do I ache so much? Why…

Ah.

‘Grace wake question?’

‘Mff,’ I say eloquently.

‘Word question?’

‘S’not a word,’ I mumble. ‘How long…’

‘Grace asleep 6176 seconds.’

There’s something accusatory in Rocky’s tone, but I do my best to ignore it. I roll onto all fours. Everything hurts and I feel sick and thirsty, but I can feel the hard tunnel beneath my hands and my breath in my lungs – I’m alive. I crawl closer to the barrier and lean against it. The xenonite is hot, like a radiator. I groan happily.

‘Grace. Grace.’

‘M’fine. Just…warming up.’

There’s a scrabbling sound on the other side, and a moment later the temperature increases – Rocky, pressed close to the wall.

‘Rocky give warm.’

‘Thanks.’ If anything, Rocky is giving a little too much warm – my face is starting to tingle – but for now I just let it happen. ‘How’d you know I was cold anyway?’

‘Guess. Hear change in Grace ship machines. Hear Grace ask about temperature.’

‘From all the way back here?’ I reckoned that Rocky might have sensed the mechanisms on the Hail Mary, but my voice as well? ‘Amaze.’

Rocky makes a disapproving chord. ‘Not amaze. Grace usual heart 74 pulse per 60 seconds. Grace heart go to 55 pulse. Rocky warn Grace. Grace ignore.’

‘I couldn’t hear you.’ I tap my ear. ‘Inferior to yours, remember?’

Rocky says something that the translator doesn’t catch, but it doesn’t need to. It’s less I’m not angry just disappointed and more I’m angry and disappointed. Luckily for me, I’m still too high off the rush of endorphins that have flooded my brain upon realizing I’m both alive and no longer a human popsicle to feel upset.

I turn my face, warming my other cheek. ‘What’s my heart now?’

‘68 pulse.’         

A little slower than my usual, but not unsafe. ‘That’s fine. It’ll go back to normal soon.’

‘What wrong with Grace ship?’

‘Something’s broken in the computer. I tried to fix it, but I got too cold. I couldn’t think well enough to solve it.’

‘Why not come sooner?’

‘I didn’t realize how bad it was until it was too late.’ Saying it, I do feel a little ashamed, even through the fog of endorphins. ‘I was the frog.’

‘Need word.’

‘Later.’ I can’t get into frogs and pots right now. Even my teeth feel heavy in my mouth.

‘Good. Grace stay. Explain later.’

‘Sure.’ I glance at my laptop. Much as I’m tired, I should get to work. I don’t think the cold will damage the exterior of the ship, but I don’t want to risk it. It could still wreck the computer. Besides, I can’t stay in the tunnel forever. ‘I’ll see if I can find out what’s wrong from here.’

Which is what I should have done from the start, of course.

Ignoring the headache threatening in my temples, I drag the laptop towards me. It’s not easy to see the screen without my glasses – I have to squint and hold it close to my face – but after a bit of tinkering, I’m able to link to the ship’s systems and pick up on the problem I’d been working on before. This time, with the warmth of Rocky and the barrier at my back, the calculations come easily. I’m glad. It would have sucked to find out that I could no longer remember math, considering I’m supposed to be the science guy.

After a few minutes of tinkering, not to mention my headache going from threat to very much present, I manage to unsnarl the problem. Take that, computer code! Now all I have to do is go into the ship and throw a switch, and the system should right itself.

I start to get to my feet.

‘Grace question?’

‘I’ll be back in a moment.’

I expect Rocky to ask what I’m going to do, maybe even tell me to be careful. I don’t expect the noise that comes out of him – it’s like an alarm going off. I jerk away from the barrier, feeling the cooler air like a smack to the face.

‘What?’

‘Grace no go back.’ Rocky waves his arms. ‘Machine still broken. Grace ship cold. Grace heart go slow.’

I blink and…ah. I’m being stupid again. Rocky watched twenty-three of his crewmates die; watched them go still and stay still. Forever. And he’s just heard my heart get slower and slower…

If I’d not woken from my ill-timed nap when I had, I’d still be in there. Slumped on the desk, or on the floor. Heart still. Rocky shouting my name, with no-one to hear. At the time, crawling through the tunnel, I’d been too desperate to reach my destination to do much more than follow the sound of Rocky’s voice. Now, though, I recall the music he was making behind the translated words, high-pitched and frantic. Gracegracegracegracegrace.

Remembering it is worse than remembering the cold.

Rocky is talking so fast that the translator skips words, unable to keep up. ‘-stay here. Rocky build –– and go –– have been working –– take –– few days ––.’

‘Rocky-’

‘–– not alone –– wait, –– no danger if ––‘

‘Rocky!’

I say it too loud, but the jagged notes are starting to grind my head like a vice around my temples. He falls silent, and I immediately feel guilty. I take a breath.

‘I promise I can go back safely for a little bit. A few minutes won’t hurt me.’

Rocky makes a stubborn-sounding noise. I rub a hand over my face. A part of me knows that he can’t really stop me from going, but that wouldn’t be fair. I have to explain. I owe him that.

‘I fixed most of the problem here, but to finish it I need to go and press a switch. I promise that a short time will be okay. Human bodies retain heat for a little while before we start to get into danger.’

Rocky rumbles uncertainly.

‘Here.’ I hold out my wrist, pressing buttons on my watch. ‘I’m setting this for 300 seconds.’

Five minutes. Five minutes is fine, right? Anyone can survive something for five minutes. Except drowning. Or suffocation. Or a hundred other things, probably.

I clear my throat.

‘After 300 seconds, it’ll beep, and I’ll come back.’

‘Grace come back fast?’

‘Yes. You’ll hear the beep and know I’m on my way. I just need to throw a switch.’

‘Why propel switch question?’

‘That’s not…’ I sigh. Later. ‘Back soon.’

‘Wait.’

Rocky vanishes. He’s gone for a few minutes. I wait as instructed, less impatient than I might have expected. It’s nice by the barrier, and I’m not particularly looking forward to leaving it again.

At last, Rocky returns with a lump of xenonite, like one of the tubes we first used to exchange messages. He drops it into the drawer. I wait a few moments for it to cool enough for me to touch, then pull it out. I twist it to the right, as always, but nothing happens.

‘Not open.’ Rocky says. ‘Just is. Grace take. Keep Grace warm on ship.’

I look down at it. A feeling wells up in me, as if I want to cry. I tell myself it’s the headache.

‘Thank you.’ I tuck my t-shirt into my pants, then stuff the tube down my collar and button my jacket. The tube rests on my chest and stomach like a hot water bottle, albeit a rather hard one. ‘I’ll see you in a minute Rocky.’

‘Incorrect. 300 seconds.’             

I smile. I press my hand to the barrier once more, letting the almost-burn seep in, then pull my sleeves down over my hands – how easy, compared to last time! – and hurry along the passageway, into the Hail Mary.

I feel the chill even before I reach the end of the tunnel; there isn’t any climate, of course, but it still crashes over me like a freezing wind. I wince. Once again, I consider a suit, but it’ll probably take me longer to put on than it would to pull the switch. I can’t go over my five minutes. It wouldn’t be sensible, and besides, I promised Rocky. I’ve frightened him enough for one day.

If this doesn’t work, I’ll go back to the tunnel and warm up again for a few minutes. Then I can start thinking about Plan Bs.

I race to the computer and unfold my sleeves just long enough to type a few things and locate the button I need to press. My watch is digital, so I can’t hear it, but I sense it ticking down all the same. I hurry to the ladder and climb quickly, feeling the bite of the metal with every step. I scramble over the pilot’s seat – everything is covered in a light film of moisture, which makes me glad I haven’t left this any longer – and pull the switch.

An alarm sounds. The ship understands, at last, that it’s too cold, and begins to correct itself. I let out a sigh of relief, check my watch. One minute left.  

I hurry back down the ladder, almost slipping at the end – my fingers are going numb again, the sensation as familiar as it is unpleasant. My nose tingles, and I feel a little lightheaded. I hug my arms around my middle, pressing the tube closer to my core, and race back into the tunnel.

Rocky makes a happy trilling sound as I approach the barrier, legs waving.

‘Grace fix?’

‘Yeah.’ At least, I think so. I really hope I haven’t accidentally set off some sort of self-destruct sequence. That would be a terrible end to an already-bad day. ‘I just have to wait for it to warm up.’

I reach the barrier, panting, and hold my numb hands to the place where Rocky is, as if warming them at a hearth.

Later, I sit in the tunnel with a hot chocolate grasped between my palms. Coffee would have been fine, but I’m craving the sugar, and it’s doing a good job at kicking the pants off the headache that has dogged me since my near-miss at spending the rest of my much-shortened life as a block of ice. I even found my glasses, which are thankfully not broken, though I’m not wearing them. The metal arm against the small patch of torn skin is too sharp a reminder right now.

I could have had the drink in the ship – the Hail Mary is back to a temperature I can both survive and thrive in, acting as if nothing had ever gone wrong – but Rocky’s made it pretty clear that he wants me to stay close. He’s produced a second xenonite tube, and the two are in constant rotation, one out in the tunnel with me whilst the other warms in the drawer. I’ve got the current one under my feet, cozy through my socks.

And if I’m honest, I don’t really want to be alone right now either.

I take another sip of chocolate. It’s good, comforting. Too comforting perhaps – between that and the now-lack of excitement, I’m pretty tired.

‘Grace sleep question?’

Of course he’s ahead of me. I haven’t even yawned, but I suppose my heartbeat has slowed a little, getting ready for rest.

‘Yeah. If you don’t mind.’

‘Happy. Watch Grace sleep.’

I nod, drain the last of my hot chocolate and lay down. Rocky’s watched me sleep before, but there’s something different about it this time. It feels…not like I’m just getting used to it, or putting up with it. This time, I want it.

I transfer the tube from under my feet to my chest – it’s kind of like a hug – and curl up in the warmth of the barrier. I turn my face towards it, something I’ve avoided before. Rocky moves on the other side, blurry through the xenonite and my lack of glasses. It should be disconcerting, but it isn’t.

‘Hey Rocky?’

‘Yes question?’

‘Thanks for this.’ I wiggle the tube. ‘Good idea.’

‘Rocky have many good ideas.’

I laugh a little.

‘And…thanks for leading me to you. Back when…’ Gracegracegracegrace. I shiver, pull the tube closer. ‘You know. I’m sorry. Apology.’

Rocky pauses. Then... ‘Accept. Rocky here. Always here, if Grace need.’

I know I should say something to that, something profound, but I’m so tired. In the end, I just shuffle a bit nearer, let my eyes fall shut. There’ll be work to do tomorrow, plenty of it, but for now, I can rest.