Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The Convict could remember nothing past the blood oozing around him.

It filtered through the gash in his ship – or maybe it was his own body – and sloshed around in its thickness. Enveloping him entirely until he forgot where he ended and the red began. Clogging his ears and nose for what he knew was the last time as it robbed him of his senses. Choking him of any of the thick, hot air in the vessel he might have been inhaling instead.

Did fresh air ever even exist? Or did he make that up?

Was he ever a human at all?

The Convict did not concern himself with thoughts such as these. He did not wonder if the ideas flooding his mind were his own or the thing he was swimming in. He did not fight the current as the vessel filled, and he would not fight its pull now.

It was more peaceful like this. The dark red faded to a sickly black and The Convict felt… warm.

He did not move.

He did not blink.

He did not breathe.

The Convict knew that even if his mind died, his body would live on in the sluggish, lazy intruder. For the first time in- …The Convict realised he could no longer place time.

Had it been hours? Days? Weeks? Months?

The Convict no longer cared for these boundaries. He was free.

For the first time in his fleeting memory, the Convict felt peace.

And then the SM-13 (how did The Convict remember that name?) jolted upwards. Or what The Convict might’ve assumed was upwards if he had any form of consciousness left within him.

If he could breathe, he might’ve groaned. Begged to die.

No. Please. Leave me alone, he might’ve said.

Starved of breath, however, The Convict was subject to whatever the SM-13 was being moved by. And he could not mind. The last of his feeble consciousness slipped away and blended with the blood surrounding him.

.

.

.

The first thing The Convict heard was a rhythmic clicking as he woke with a jolt.

Something cold and hard was gripping his face and, in a panic, he tugged it off him. It was small in his hand, just big enough to cover his mouth and nose and he examined the clear material suspiciously. It had a stretchy, elastic, strap leading from one side to another. As he looked down at the oval contraption, the words came to his mind.

Oxygen mask.

The Convict was not sure where the thought had come from, but he did remember they were vaguely medical. Searching for some kind of answer to the confusion and near-panic he was starting to feel bubble inside him, he cast his gaze around the room he was in.

The room was small and brightly lit by white fluorescence. Next to him was a contraption which held a screen with lines darting across it, piquing and dipping in a too-quick manner. The walls had cabinets leaned against them, all of the drawers closed. There were no windows.

The room was smaller than SM-13.

As if a tidal wave had hit him, a rush of memories flooded into his mind and he gasped aloud, clutching at his chest. A sharp pain tugged at the back of his hand and he winced and glanced down to see tubes connected to another medical contraption which was in his hand.

The Convict tugged them out without a second thought and began to cast his gaze around for an exit.

As he shifted in his bed (yes, that was what it was called), he suddenly became aware of a warm weight just below his knee, pinning him to the mattress.

The Convict looked down.

There was a man. Leaning on him.

The Convict froze, tensing his legs and jostling him as he did.

The man groaned quietly, but did not move.

The Convict stared.

The man did not move.

He was a dusty blonde, hair clipped short at the back, but messy on the top. A pair of glasses hung precariously off his nose and one ear, the free arm dangerously close to poking his eye out.

His eyes were closed. His nose was rounded at the tip, and led down to slightly parched, parted lips where soft huffs of breath were puffing from. He was wearing an itchy-looking  beige cardigan.

The Convict realised two things at that moment.

Firstly, he was definitely in another form of containment whilst they nursed him back to health before they sent him back to Death Row.

Secondly, he was being watched by the most incompetent prison guard in the universe.

At least things were looking up for him. All The Convict had to do was slowly shift from under his weight and be careful not to wake him and then he could slip away to the corner of the cell which had a door-

The door which, in that moment, flung open with a bang and a chorus of loud chirps, grinds and clicks.

The Convict and the guard simultaneously jolted off the bed. He shoved the still half-asleep guard, who groaned groggily, off him and darted away from the bed, crouching in the corner closest to him as he analysed the risk of attempting to run.

He hadn’t even been bound to the bed. What idiots were these guards?

He then realised exactly what was wrong with the guard that had just burst in and ruined any form of escape plan he could have formulated.

It was not human.

Its body was encased by a clear geometric cage that matched the shape of it. Made up of odd geometric rocks, the biggest one forming a body in the centre, leading out to arms which were made up of joints between similar rock formations, the thing that had burst through the door was erratically spurting clicks and whines and high-pitched chirps.

That, however, was not even the weirdest thing about these guards.

The sleepy guard began to reply to the weird-rock-thing. As if he could understand it.

“Yes, Rock, I know,” he was saying.

The Convict blinked. This was the first in-person voice he had heard in as long as he could remember. At least before-

He shook his head to clear the red from creeping any further into his field of vision. Now was not the time.

“Let’s just all calm down,” the sleepy guard was saying and The Convict snapped his attention to him once more.

Calm down? Yeah, right.

The Convict would absolutely not be following orders any time soon.

He backed away from the piercing blue gaze of the sleepy guard and jammed his shoulder into a metal tray. Glancing behind him, he grabbed a surgical blade and jutted it towards the guard.

As the sleepy guard froze, the weird-rock-thing began a chorus of loud, sharp trills.

“Woah, woah,” the sleepy guard held up his hands as if trying to calm a rabid dog and The Convict only bristled more. “Hang on, let’s just- hold on a second- let me just-”

Waving the blade around erratically, The Convict stood slowly, gaze trained sharply on the sleepy guard, watching every move.

“Can we just start over?” the sleepy guard said, accompanied by a click of agreement from the weird-rock-thing.

The Convict, though not a true criminal, had been through enough in the last chunk of his life that he would, without hesitation, kill both of the guards to escape. He had done it before (although accidentally), and he would do it again if it meant he could be free.

But something about this guard’s voice made him pause. He stopped swinging the blade, instead holding it out in front of him as a barrier. Not a threat.

“Okay- okay, good,” the sleepy guard said, voice lower. “I know you’re scared, and I’m sorry you woke up this way, but we’re trying to help you.”

The Convict stared at the sleepy guard.

Help him?

He had been sure if there wasn’t anything more alien than the weird-rock-thing, but the sleepy guard just proved that wrong.

“Can you talk? Do you speak English?” The sleepy guard still had his gaze trained wearily on him.

The Convict didn’t reply.

“Uh, okay,” the sleepy guard seemed to be thinking way too hard about this, especially since he must have a file on The Convict somewhere.

“You can just nod or shake your head,” the guard continued after a pause. “Okay, do you speak English?”

The Convict hesitated. Why hadn’t the guards checked his file?

After a moment, The Convict slowly nodded once.

The sleepy guard breathed a sigh of relief that huffed out in a near-laugh.

“Okay!” he said excitedly, then seemed to think better of himself and composed his expressions to something less abrasive. “Okay, can you speak at all?”

Again, The Convict paused. He nodded, still just once but slightly quicker this time.

The weird-rock-thing began another bout of clicking and chirping, almost excited in tone, but the sleepy guard hushed him.

“Uh, so,” the guard swallowed. “You’re on- this is planet Eridani, or Erid if that’s easier. We uh… we found your ship and…”

The guard gestured vaguely to the room.

“We didn’t think you’d actually make it, but here you are.”

The Convict stared at the sleepy guard. So, he wasn’t a guard? What was he then? A doctor? Where was this planet? How come he was still alive?

And more importantly, what the fuck?

The sleeping-guard-who-wasn’t-actually-a-guard stared at The Convict.

The Convict stared at the sleeping-guard-who-wasn’t-actually-a-guard.

“Oh, wait, where are my manners? I’m Grace, and this-” he gestured to the weird-rock-thing, “-is Rocky.”

The weird-rock-thing, Rocky, chirped at him.

The Convict could just stare.

“What’s your name?” Grace asked gently.

The Convict blinked, frowning. What was his name?

He could feel panic begin to re-emerge in his body and he clutched at his chest again, willing the oxygen into his lungs. The red crawled from the corners of his vision and soon he could no longer see the white room.

The Iron Lung.

Quiet Rapture.

Stars dead.

AT-5.

The words and memories began as faint echoes, but they increased in volume as they came to be more clear in The Convict’s mind.

SM-13.

Suicide mission.

C.O.I.

Falsely accused.

“Convict!”

Blood.

“Convict, come in!”

More blood.

“Can you hear me? Convict?!”

So. Much. Blood.

“Simon!”

A pair of gentle arms gripped him lightly and The Convict was moved to the bed. He sat down numbly, the room in its fluorescence coming back to him slowly.

“Hey, it’s okay, you’re okay.”

The voice of the guard – Grace – brought him back from his memories fully and The Convict realised he could breathe again.

“Simon,” his voice was raspy and alien to himself and he swallowed heavily. “My name is Simon.”

Chapter Text

“Rocky, there’s nothing out here, we should just go back.”

Grace sat with his legs up, spinning the chair of the control deck of Hail Mary II whilst Rocky was messing around with different controls on the deck, searching the nearby solar systems for any signs of life on the neighbouring planets.

“Grace need nice food, statement,” Rocky’s automated voice was an odd change from the chirps and clicks he was used to back on Erid.

The last three years had been peaceful; with Grace finding time amongst teaching the younger Eridians all he could on the topic of intergalactic science to learn their language, which had a unique set of sounds and intonations, and begin to have relatively complicated conversations without the need for the robotic translator.

The translator had been an extra bit of software built into Hail Mary II when they were originally constructing the ship at the start of Grace’s time on Erid. Neither Grace nor Rocky had expected him to pick up the language so quickly.

Hearing the robotic voice now was sending him back to when they first met. How scared they had both been, and how happy to have each other they were (after the original terror of becoming acquainted with an alien species).

“Adrian’s farm is okay as it is,” Grace pulled himself from his thoughts to watch Rocky bash at a button on the side control panel.

“Button broken, Grace,” Rocky’s voice filtered through a speaker on the deck closest to him. Another unique feature they spent way too much time developing; it was so Rocky could move without a computer attached to him; so his voice could be heard from whichever speaker was closest to him in the ship.

“Yeah, bud, maybe that’s because you’re beating it up,” Grace half-laughed and walked over to the panel to inspect it.

Rocky moved to the scanner instead, clearly over whatever task he had been so fixed on moments before. The button had been thoroughly knocked out of place, but wasn’t damaged, so Grace began attempting to click it back into shape.

“You know, I’m happy eating what we’ve got already,” Grace began, idly fiddling with the button. “Adrian did a good job at getting me set up, and now I’ve got my foods to pick from.”

“Grace. Statement.”

“I just think you’ve all been so accommodating to me, there’s no need to travel all the way out here, using up all the astrophage when we could be using it for something else-”

“Grace. Question.”

“-and risking a repeat of-”

“Grace. Exclamation.”

“-Sorry, not to bring that up, all I mean is…”

Grace trailed off as the rapid repetitive sound of the robot repeating his name became drowned out by the scale with which Rocky was chirping at him.

The button clicked back into place as Grace spun around to see Rocky jabbing one of his arms at the screen, which was flashing with a warning sign at a moon Rocky had focused the scanner on.

COLOSSAL LIFE FORM DETECTED

The text was, fittingly, in red. Grace didn’t remember programming the warnings to be red. Let alone state those words in that order.

“What the…”

“Moon, moon, moon!” Rocky’s robotic voice was now louder than the clicks from Rocky.

Grace grabbed the controls next to Rocky and zoomed into the moon. On the monitor, it was a deep red colour, and Grace got the awful thought that it looked like a moon made entirely of blood. Or at least with a sea of blood.

The monitor changed screens.

CLASSIFICATION: MOON

UNKNOWN BIOMASS DETECTED

UNKNOWN NUMBER OF LIFE FORMS DETECTED

LIFE FORM CLASSIFICATIONS: 2

Grace frowned as the last line updated.

LIFE FORM CLASSIFICATIONS: 3

And then again.

LIFE FORM CLASSIFICATIONS: 5

And again, and again until the number sat somewhere between 17 and 20, flicking up and down as the computer rushed to de-code whatever information the scanner was feeding it.

Grace reached to start zooming further into this moon, but the computer was apparently not done.

Another pop-up warning filled the screen.

ABNORMAL LIFE FORM DETECTED

SCANNING FOR INFORMATION

Grace frowned further.

“What is-”

LIFE FORM IDENTIFIED: HUMAN

STATUS: ALIVE

STABILITY: UNKNOWN

Grace’s heart dropped.

“Amaze, amaze, amaze!” Rocky’s robotic voice pulled him out of his stupor. “Grace find other human. Grace find mate, question.”

“I don’t know, Rocky,” Grace could only gawk at the screen.

Another human. So close to Erid.

How could that be possible? They were years away from Earth, even travelling with the astrophage as fuel.

Had they sent out another Project Hail Mary shortly after Grace’s departure from Earth? It couldn’t be possible, considering how long it had taken them to reproduce the astrophage safely.

So, how was there another human?

“Go find Grace mate, statement,” Rocky was excitedly smashing at keys on the driver’s panel, in between darting around the cabin in excited circles.

Grace blinked out of his amazement and rushed over to the pilot seat.

“Not a mate, Rocky,” Grace said idly, tugging his seatbelt over his shoulders. “Just another human.”

.

.

.

Every second of the sixteen minutes it took Hail Mary II to travel from where they had been to just outside the gravity for the unidentified moon had felt like a year to Grace.

While Rocky had been excitedly chatting about the potential for a new friend for Grace, Grace had been anxiously turning over all possible outcomes of the scenario.

STATUS: ALIVE

STABILITY: UNKNOWN

The computer read clearly. This person was alive, but they may not be stable enough to be recovered, let alone conscious.

It was hard not to get his hopes up as Rocky switched to the grab-hook on the base of the ship as they entered the moon’s atmosphere.

Following the sensors on the monitor, Grace piloted them as close to the surface of the sea as he could. Getting a closer look confirmed his original thoughts. The sea looked like blood.

In a more positive context, the sea could have just been stained by coloured metals from the sea floor, but Grace knew, from the sluggish consistency, that it was unmistakably blood.

“Rocky ready, statement. Grace ready, question,” Rocky’s robotic voice filtered through the speakers.

“Ready,” Grace knew his voice was shaky.

Rocky deployed the hook and, for a suspended minute, he thought it would never hit anything.

“Camera blocked, Grace,” Rocky complained and Grace nodded.

“Try to go based on the sounds from the cable,” Grace suggested, remembering Rocky’s echolocation.

A chirp of confirmation came from the control room at the back of the ship and Grace held his breath as Rocky slowly turned the levers on the panel, searching for something different on the bottom of the sea floor.

Then, Rocky jumped slightly and smashed the recall button for the cable. It clattered back up to the top and Grace craned his head out the small circular window to see what was attached.

A large wave broke the surface of the sea, quickly followed by a dark grey metal container. Grace sighed in frustration.

Great. Space trash.

He was about to tell Rocky to drop it when the computer began flashing red again.

WARNING: UNKNOWN BIOMASS DETECTED

Grace clicked through the useless warning pages until he stumbled on the diagnostics option, and he began to scan the metal container. Just before the computer could begin to display any information, a pop-up warning blared in the way.

WARNING: HIGH LEVELS OF RADIATION DETECTED

Grace closed the tab and re-ran the diagnostics. It began to de-code when the pop-up showed again.

WARNING: HIGH LEVELS OF RADIATION DETECTED

Tutting, Grace closed the tab and re-ran the diagnostics scan.

“What see Grace, question,” Rocky asked.

“Nothing so far, bud,” Grace said, idly watching the loading bar. “There’s too much radioactive interference."

Then, the diagnostics page began to fill out with information.

LIFE FORM DETECTED

SPECIES: HUMAN

STATUS: ALIVE

STABILITY: UNKNOWN

Grace was about to run further diagnostics on the container, but the warning shot up again.

WARNING: HIGH LEVELS OF RADIATION DETECTED

“Okay, Rock, here’s the plan,” Grace spoke. “We’re going back to Erid carrying this thing outside of the ship. Contact any architects there on the way and let them know we need a landing site that can take high levels of radiation. The person is alive, but probably highly irradiated. We’ll need medics, too.”

“How Grace land, question,” Rocky’s voice came through the speakers.

Bringing the ship up out of the moon’s atmosphere, away from its orbit and off back towards Erid, Grace sighed.

“We’ll see when we get there, Rock.”

.

.

.

The landing hadn’t been as smooth as Grace had intended, but he was in a rush, okay? Give him a break. The person inside the container was probably dying and he didn’t have time to mess around with how pretty the landing was supposed to be. 

Grace threw off his seatbelt and burst out of Hail Mary II, running towards the ship. He forgot all about the potential radiation poisoning and dangerous biomass, focusing solely on the fact that there was another human on the other side of the hull of that container.

Some of the Eridians had already made a crack in the hull, and they used a nearby suspended hook to search inside the container.

The container which, now open, was spilling blood and other thicker clumps of red onto the landing site. Luckily, the Eridians on site had the foresight to line the ground with xenonite to protect the ground from any biomass or radiation.

After a painful moment of fumbling the makeshift crane, and an excess of spillage of whatever gross mix of blood and other flesh onto the floor, Grace released his breath as it began resurfacing.

The crane lifted slowly, too slowly, and a body emerged from the container of blood.

Limp and soaked, the body of a man surfaced and was placed gingerly onto the xenonite floor.

Grace couldn’t see past the blood, but he was young-looking, not soft, but not elderly, with a mop of dark black hair stuck to his face and neck.

Forgetting all safety, Grace pushed the hair out of the way to reveal a face. It was probably a bad time to notice how pretty the face was; with thick eyebrows to match the hair, and stubble on the top of his lip and chin, running down his neck over the pop of his adam’s apple.

God it had been so long since he’d seen another person in the flesh. Pun not intended.

As if sensing his uselessness the man stirred, choking and vomiting up an unnatural amount of blood from his body before going still.

Grace would’ve rushed forwards if it weren’t for the cold xenonite arms that gripped his shoulders, holding him back as three other Eridians carried the man off to a medical bay nearby.

“Grace okay, question?” Rocky’s chirps were concerned.

Grace could only nod. Then he shook his head. Then he nodded again.

.

.

.

It had taken three days for the mystery man to recover consciousness, and Grace, once allowed in the bay, had not left once. Rocky had insisted on sending him home, but had resorted to watching him sleep in the bay instead, just in case the man woke up.

By the third day, Grace had lost most of his hope that the man would recover. Cleaned up, the man was awfully relaxed looking.

He’d lost an arm somewhere along the way, which had been bandaged well. His head had bandages around the gash on the side of it, and his other arm and two legs were covered in scattered bandages and plasters over the many lacerations he had suffered.

His chest was the worst. Grace had not flushed when he’d walked in on the shirtless man, feeling it was not okay to be interested in someone who wasn’t conscious. But he couldn’t help notice the lean muscle underneath his darkened skin. The man, despite being in bad shape, was in incredibly good shape.

Grace wondered what happened to him.

After a conversation explaining races back on Earth to Rocky, he’d headed to get Grace some food and drink.

He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but the last three days had been filled with such intense anticipation and anxiety about this new addition to their life on Erid, Grace hadn’t slept much at all.

Of course it had to be the one time he actually managed to sleep that this man chose to wake up.

.

.

.

Simon was quite possibly the most interesting person Grace had ever met. And he’d taught quite the oddballs in his time on Earth.

They started off small; introducing him to the new space. Grace felt a bit like he was treating him like a cat, but Rocky insisted they didn’t want to overwhelm him. Simon had spent who knows how long in the ship (based on the state of his vitals and malnourishment, too long), and they both knew he was jumpier than either of them had been when they’d met.

As Grace let Simon familiarise himself with the makeshift environment in the medical suite, he allowed himself to stand off to the side and relax for the first time in a couple of days.

Remembering the state of the moon they’d found his ship on, Grace couldn’t help but wonder how or why Simon had ended up at the bottom of a blood ocean in the first place. As far as Grace was aware, humans only populated one planet – Earth – so there was no reason for one to be as far away from home as that.

Grace ran through the possibilities in his mind. Maybe he was an independent space explorer who’d gotten into difficulty. Maybe he’d been exploring the moon, searching for god knows what, and misjudged the hull’s capacity for the ocean’s weight. Grace preferred that idea. Because the alternative…

Maybe Simon was another Project Hail Mary.

“Grace, Rocky did not find food, statement,” Rocky’s chirps broke into his train of thoughts.

“That’s okay, bud,” Grace turned half of his attention to the Eridian beside him, but his gaze was still trained on Simon, who was reaching out to feel the xenonite wall.

In all honesty, Simon didn’t seem entirely… there. It was as if his body was on Erid, but his mind was elsewhere.

Grace had seen it in his eyes back in the medical bay; when Simon had thrust the knife around, he had been present. His eyes were alight with fear, but he looked entirely focused on what was happening. And then…

Then Grace asked what his name was and it was like a switch had been flipped. Like one second he was there, with Grace, and the next he was gone. His eyes dulled and his face was hollowed out. As his breathing quickened, Grace knew what was happening and had wondered, for a moment, if Simon didn’t remember, or didn’t even have a name.

Grace had gently sat him on the bed, completely unsure if he was supposed to touch the man, to comfort him, or if that would make it worse. Instead, he focused on his breathing, slowing it down with verbal instructions that Simon had taken to well.

And then he’d calmed down and said his name and Grace had felt almost as relieved as when he realised Simon was awake.

Simon’s voice was raspy from lack of use and dehydration, but the tone was still present; a deep warmth to it; something inherently human. Grace hadn’t realised how much he’d missed hearing English from a human, not just a robot.

Watching Simon now, Grace sighed and leant against the xenonite wall behind him. He was deeply tired, so much so that he felt it in his bones. Years on Erid were different and Grace realised with a start that he didn’t actually remember how old he was.

He was 33 when he was sent to space, that was all he could remember. That must’ve made him 37 when they arrived on Erid. An Eridian year is 42 days long, give or take, so Grace could assume he was pushing 38. At the youngest.

Still, that was too young to start getting body aches. He knew he should rest, but he found himself too preoccupied by the new addition to Erid.

It might take a while to settle Simon into the medical suite, let alone get him set up temporarily at Grace’s house before the Eridians could help him build a new one. Maybe he should ask for their environment to be made bigger.

“Grace okay, question,” Rocky’s voice once again broke into his train of thought.

“I am,” Grace said.

Simon sat himself down on the xenonite floor, being careful to not bash any of his injuries. He seemed to sigh and contemplate something before he laid down fully, staring up at the temporary sky.

“I don’t know if he is, though.”

Chapter Text

“Take my bed, and I’ll sleep on the couch while we get the living situation sorted,” Grace was saying.

Simon couldn’t focus on anything except for the pot that was sitting on the windowsill of this man’s bedroom. Inside the pot was some soil, and from the soil a plant was growing.

A plant. Growing. Casually in Grace’s bedroom. On his windowsill. Like it was normal.

It hadn’t been the only plant, either. The ground outside his house was covered in patches of healthy-looking grass. There were bushes around the walls, too. Simon’s mind was going to combust.

So, he’d ended up on an alien planet not too far from AT-5, had been looked after by some rock-like aliens that were the supposed residents of this planet, and now he was being offered a house, food and even a bed. All for free.

These guys really had no idea who he was.

“You alright there?” Grace broke into his train of thoughts, startling him enough to turn around.

“You have plants?” he asked dumbly.

Grace laughed and made his way over to the windowsill, to check the soil of the closest one to him.

“We got some of these from the neighbouring planets. Rocky thought it would be nice for me,” Grace said, as if that explained how there were real plants just growing casually in his bedroom. “I suck at looking after them, though. This one is in desperate need of a water.”

Grace turned and grabbed a pot from the shelves next to the window, disappearing out of the room. The sound of a tap running came, followed by the pot filling, before Grace was back with a soft smile on his face.

He made his way over to the plants and began watering them.

“You just… have plants?” Simon was still baffled.

Grace frowned, slightly confused. “...yeah?”

Simon huffed a bit and crossed his arms over his chest. He felt stupid, but he was struggling to comprehend how Grace was so casual about this. The only plant left in the whole universe was supposed to be the Last Tree. That was what Eden stood for. There was just no way that this random guy had a whole house filled with plants unless he was a saint or something.

Or maybe Eden hadn’t known.

Or maybe Eden had lied.

Simon shook his head. Eden would never lie; it went against everything they stood for. They were supposed to be a beacon of hope for every citizen on Mars and Earth. That was why they had to shut down the O.I.C. That was why Simon had been aboard the ship that attacked the Filament Station. They couldn’t have lied. They must’ve just not known.

“Do you want to try?” Grace’s voice once again startled Simon from his thoughts.

He stared at the man, who was holding out the half-empty jug of water. He glanced between the jug and the plants. He went to reach for it, and then remembered the state of his arm. Or lack thereof.

“Uh,” he looked down at his one arm helplessly.

“Shoot, sorry, let me just- I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-” Grace immediately flushed and turned to go back to watering the plants.

“If I hold it, you can pour,” Simon said, attempting damage control on the awkwardness of the situation.

He’d lost most of his ability to communicate in the way real people do, or at least in the way he assumed they did. He hadn’t interacted with anyone other than the O.I.C. officers outside of the walls of Eden, and they hadn’t been particularly chatty. Inside Eden was the same; people preferred to talk about nothing at all when they worked, and Simon was used to the quiet.

Grace, on the other hand, seemed to be plenty keen to talk.

He paused before holding out the jug once more to Simon, angling his hand so the amputee could get a grip on it. Their fingers touched briefly and Simon realised how long it had been since that was even… and option.

He looked up to see Grace seem to be thinking the same, and there was a moment where they both just… stared. At each other. Another human. Real. In front of them.

Not through a screen.

And then Grace cleared his throat and they began the clumsy task of watering the plants together.

Simon didn’t know if he would ever grow used to not having his left arm. He was left-handed, or had been before it had been taken from him in the Iron Lung. Using his right was unfamiliar, and he felt odd every time he tried to reach for things and noticed his left art just… wasn’t there.

The thing was, Simon could feel it. His left arm. He knew where his fingers were, he could flex the ghost of them, and he would reach for things as if it was there. It was just as shocking each time to realise it was gone. It didn’t feel gone.

The only sign that it was truly gone from him was the persistent ache just below his shoulder, where the arm was once attached to him. The Eridians had clearly done good work on healing him, but even with whatever pain medication they’d put on the site, it still throbbed, hot and insistent.

When the water from the jug was finished, Simon took it from Grace and set it jankily down on the shelf where it had previously resided. If he couldn’t water the plants, he could damn well tidy up after himself.

He turned around to see Grace watching him with an odd expression on his face. Simon froze, unsure of what he was looking at, and wondering if Grace’s intentions for him might’ve changed. He realised he no longer carried any weapons on him, and cursed himself for leaving the surgical blade at the medical bay.

“Can I ask you something?” Grace said tentatively. “You don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to, I just want- Jeez, I’m not good at this, I’m sorry, it’s been a while since I’ve… Just… Yeah.”

Simon blinked at him, wondering what he could possibly be about to say. After a moment he knew was too long because of how Grace began to squirm, shifting from foot-to-foot, he nodded.

“What’s so important about the plants?”

Simon froze, staring at Grace. Did he not know? Had he spent so much time on planet Erid that he didn’t know about the state of the world? When did he get there? How does he not know about them?

Seeming to sense he’d hit a sore spot, Grace began to backtrack.

“Not that it’s an issue, I was just wondering because it seems like you’re… confused maybe? About them, you know. I have lots at home, and more at the greenhouse-”

“You have a greenhouse.”

Grace stopped mid-rant and stared at him.

“...yes?”

Simon couldn’t believe a word out of his mouth.

There couldn’t be real plants here. It didn’t make sense. It ruined everything. Everything he thought was true. How the world was. How it worked. Why Eden had to be so violent. Why Simon had to be so violent.

“I should get some sleep.”

Simon turned away and began casting his gaze around the room.

What were the rules of the place? He was so used to the friary at Eden and its house rules, and then he was alone in the Iron Lung and when he slept, though rarely, he remained fully clothed and kept his shoes on.

What would Grace want him to do here?

“Make yourself comfortable,” Grace said, and Simon was glad they were both ignoring the question he’d asked a moment before, but that statement was not helpful for his current predicament.

Simon stared helplessly at the bed.

“Oh, shoot, let me get you some comfier clothes,” Grace rushed over to a wardrobe in the corner of his room, opening the bottom drawer and rifling through sets of clothes. “I don’t know if I’ll have any in your size, but nights are colder here, so anything is better than nothing…”

Simon let Grace’s voice fade into background noise as he watched the man rifle through his clothes. He had so many, just in that drawer. Were there more in the other drawers? Hanging in the wardrobe?

“Here,” Grace was holding out a black t-shirt and a pair of dark blue trouser bottoms, with a simple pair of black boxers.

Simon took them from him and hesitantly laid them out on the bed (which took longer than he’d like due to the fact that he still only had one arm). The t-shirt had a graphic on it that had a white graphic box. Inside the box read, “Ah!” and underneath it the text read “the element of surprise”.

Simon snorted.

“Is that a science pun?”

Grace immediately flushed and went to grab the t-shirt, which Simon promptly grabbed and held out of his reach.

“...Maybe?” Grace said, not quite meeting his eye. “Listen, I’m a man of two things I take very seriously.”

“Science and shitty puns?” Simon quirked his eyebrow.

“Exactly,” Grace replied in a matter-of-fact tone. “Well, not the ‘shitty’ part.”

“Right,” Simon said, humour warming his chest.

The two men stared at each other for a beat too long. Grace was smiling at him. Simon felt his chest heat up. When was the last time he was happy?

The moment left just as quickly as it started when Grace once again cleared his throat.

“I’ll let you, uh- you know,” he gestured vaguely to the pyjamas. “Change.”

Simon nodded at him and Grace took his leave, closing the door behind him.

The loneliness of the SM-13 immediately flooded back to Simon’s mind and he took a shaky breath, willing himself to focus on the task at hand. The trousers would be easier to start with.

He peeled off the medical scrubs – a pair of simple blue-ish green light-fabric trousers – and immediately thanked The Light for whatever cleaning the Eridians had done for him while he was unconscious. Every spot of skin below his torso, including the back of his legs, was wiped clean of the fleshy blood mix he had grown so accustomed to being covered in.

There was a minute where he flushed, wondering if Grace had been subjected to cleaning him, but he pushed that thought away and began the difficult task of putting the boxers on.

After too much effort, he was clad in the boxers and too-soft trousers and he turned to the task of putting on Grace’s shitty science pun t-shirt. He sat on the bed, with the t-shirt next to him, and pulled his head through the biggest hole on the item. For a second, the darkness sent him straight back to the Iron Lung and he hastily shoved his head out of the other end, taking a breath to steady himself.

When he came back to the reality of Grace’s bedroom, he became aware of a dull throbbing re-ignited in the side of his head. Something warm trickled down his scalp and past his ear, but he ignored it in lieu of shoving his working arm through the hole in the t-shirt. Half done.

In his haste, however, he also re-opened one of the gashes on his forearm, feeling the scabbed skin split open, followed by that awful warm trickle of blood.

He screwed his eyes shut and focused on tugging the sad excuse of a left arm through the other arm hole. Having learnt from his last two mistakes, he took his time pulling the fabric over the remnants of his upper arm.

Luckily, his gentleness and the bandages served to protect it from re-opening and Simon took a minute to breathe after the effort.

He felt stupid. It was just changing; something he’d done for years, something that should be easy. Re-learning how to do basic daily activities such as dressing was almost more depressing than being a convict on a suicide mission in a metal box miles under a blood ocean.

Simon realised there was a mirror on the outside of the wardrobe he hadn’t spotted before, and he stood. Apprehensively, he stepped into the mirror’s reflection and stared at the man staring back at him.

Simon was taller than he remembered. His hair was overgrown, now down to his shoulders, and his beard (that was once a very well-maintained frame to his face, if he did say so himself) was scraggly and too-long.

His eyes were sunken into his head and they lacked any twinkle he had in Eden. His cheeks were hollowed and made his face appear harsh, where he used to hold soft fat.

His muscles were still lean (thank The Light), but he looked absolutely ridiculous in the pyjamas.

Simon had no time to hate them, though, because of how soft they were. He reached with his right hand to feel the t-shirt’s texture. It was cotton-soft from wear and Simon only knew one other texture as soft – he was wearing them on his lower half.

The pyjama trousers were even softer in their wear, and he couldn’t care for the moth-eaten holes around the cuffs of the legs because of how heavenly they felt on his sore legs.

A hot, wet sensation trickled down his scalp and into his ear, blocking the sound in his left side. It was then Simon noticed the crimson red on his arm, leaking lazily through the white bandages.

His breath caught and his grip tightened on the shirt fabric as he stared at his arm in the reflection.

His senses were gone.

He was floating in warm, sticky red.

The Iron Lung was groaning from the pressure, unable to keep the ocean out.

He heard nothing.

He saw nothing.

He was nothing.

And then-

“Simon?”

Grace’s voice pulled Simon, for the third time, from his thoughts and this time he felt relief. He turned to see Grace stood half-in the bedroom, hesitant.

“I’m sorry, I was just wondering if you were okay, I didn’t mean to interrupt anything- oh, fudge, you’re bleeding,” Grace was rambling, but Simon couldn’t find it in himself to look down at his arm.

He stood there like an idiot whilst Grace dashed to another room, washed his hands and returned with what Simon assumed was a medkit.

Grace approached him slowly and guided him to the bed, pushing him gently to sit.

“Let’s get you fixed up, yeah?” Grace was saying and Simon could only nod.

He watched as Grace gingerly removed the bandage from his arm, cleaning it with a wet towel before placing gauze over it, then wrapping it with a fresh bandage.

Simon stared down at his arm, then up at Grace and went to thank him, but his hands were too close to his face. He flinched back, staring at the other man as he stared at him.

“Sorry!” Grace said, quickly pulling his arms away. “It’s just- you’re also bleeding from…”

Grace gestured to Simon’s head. He took a breath and leaned back in before nodding once more.

Grace breathed a sigh mixed of relief and tension before returning his hands to working at the bandage on Simon’s head.

Simon watched Grace’s face carefully as he worked away.

Grace’s eyes were a piercing blue. There were gentle wrinkles on the corners of his eyes, from squinting or smiling, Simon couldn’t tell until he tracked his gaze further down his face, over the bridge of his nose to his mouth.

There were gentle smile lines around the outside of his mouth. His lips were slightly chapped, but you could barely notice it against the dirty blonde stubble on his upper lip and chin.

Grace’s lips were slightly parted in concentration and his breath fanned softly over Simon’s face as he sighed gently. Simon closed his eyes briefly at the contact before coming back to himself.

It was easy to fall into this man’s warmth. He was quite possibly the kindest person he’d met.

And Simon couldn’t trust that. Not yet, at least.

“There,” Grace said and Simon almost leaned in as the blonde pulled away, already missing his warmth.

Simon mentally cursed himself for his lack of suspicion.

He realised he needed to know how truthful this man really was and, in an act of impulse, he spoke.

“Take me to the greenhouse.”

Chapter Text

Grace was very glad he was walking in front of Simon, leading him.

It was unfair, honestly, how easily the man made every item of clothing he’d owned for years, and didn’t care for, look so good.

Simon’s arms and chest filled out the shirt he’s worn to bed most nights for years in a way that he could never hope to. Even the stupid blue trousers with their planet designs looked good around his waist, and down his legs.

Grace snapped himself out of his thoughts. He had to focus.

Just because a strange man showed up, covered in blood, and they were the only two humans for lightyears, didn’t mean Grace could go about feeling so drawn to him. He was clearly just not used to seeing another human being.

“Just up here,” Grace said, to ease the racing thoughts in his mind and bring himself back to the present. He refused to look behind him. “You okay to do these steps?”

“I’m not weak,” was the bristly reply and Grace flinched.

“Of course!” He quickly tried to come up with something to assure this man that he did not believe he was weak, he was merely concerned since he’d suffered such great injuries, but he knew the judgy silence that would follow his rambles, so he kept his mouth shut.

For once.

They began to trudge up the stairs, and Grace deliberately walked slower than he usually did. Simon didn’t seem to notice, and he was thoroughly puffed when they got to the top of the small hill, so Grace knew he’d been right.

Simon wasn’t weak, he knew. He was just exhausted.

“Just there,” Grace stopped just outside the small greenhouse’s doors. “Wanna go in?”

“Sorry,” Simon said, and Grace thought it sounded forced.

He frowned.

“What for?” Grace questioned.

Simon stared pointedly at the ground before jerking his head stiffly back at the steps up. It clicked in Grace’s mind and he laughed.

“Don’t worry about it.”

To put the man out of his misery, Grace pushed open the greenhouse doors and beckoned Simon inside. He glanced around to check nothing needed immediate attention before turning to watch Simon.

He stood in the doorway, eyes wide, mouth agape, just staring from plant to plant as if his brain wasn’t catching up to his eyes.

A tinge of confusion darted through Grace’s mind, but he remembered what happened the last two times he’d asked questions, so he just let Simon take the wonders of the greenhouse in.

It wasn’t particularly wonderful to Grace. Rover Cleveland Middle had a greenhouse twice the size, which he’d regularly take his kids to help out in, so he was used to the amount of greenery. That wasn’t to say he didn’t love the greenhouse on Erid, though.

Rocky had taken a look at some of the projections from Hail Mary I’s don’t-go-crazy room and explained to some of the architectural Eridians how to build what Grace wanted, and he’d been just as excited as Rocky to see it finished.

They’d spent the last three Eridian years stocking up on different plant samples and seeds from the neighbouring planets that had similar atmospheres to Earth’s, and Grace had learnt how to care for each new species of plant.

Simon stood in the doorway, still frozen in his awe.

“You can come in, you know,” Grace said, aiming for a teasing tone, but sounding too confused for his liking.

Immediately self-conscious, Simon took two steps inside and swung the doors shut behind him, his cheeks a bit pink.

“I’ve just never…” he trailed off as he looked at the plant closest to him. He reached his hand out hesitantly and glanced at Grace for guidance. “Can I…?”

“Oh, yeah,” Grace said. “Be gentle, but familiarise yourself all you like. Touch whatever you want, just not that one, in the corner. You’ll get rashes for a week.”

Simon looked at the corner of the greenhouse where the plant he pointed at was and frowned before turning back to the one in front of him. He reached out with his scarred hand and touched the leaf closest to him gently.

It bounced back from his touch and Simon recoiled a bit. He took a steadying breath and tried again. It was one leaf, and then another, as he slowly made his way to the stem. This plant had fine hairs on the stem, and Grace watched as Simon graced the pad of his index over them.

He withdrew his hand and looked up at Grace solemnly. Grace stared back.

“Where I come from, there’s none of this,” he said and Grace felt his chest twist.

A million questions raced across his mind, and Grace, not for lack of trying not to, just had to ask one.

“Can I ask you something?” He said tentatively.

“You just did,” was the response.

Grace blinked dumbly at Simon before huffing a laugh.

“Was that a joke?”

“Maybe,” a pause. “I don’t care if it was shit, you laughed.”

Grace could only laugh harder this time, holding his stomach. It had been too long since he’d heard human jokes. Rocky was funny, albeit unintentionally for the most part, but there was something so familiar about the way Simon spoke that drew him in.

He, despite his rough exterior, felt warm. Like home.

“You can ask,” Simon prompted in Grace’s silence.

“What did you eat?”

This caused a huff from Simon – a near-laugh that filled Grace with such light warmth that he could float away then and there.

“You could’ve asked anything,” he said, humour lighting his dark eyes.

“It’s a valid question!” Grace said defensively, causing a louder huff from the other man.

“To answer, canned shit.”

Grace frowned, puzzled. Shit wasn’t very nutritious.

Simon stared at him.

“Ask another question before your head blows up. I can see the steam coming out of your ears.”

Grace laughed again, though more embarrassed this time. Was he that readable?

Okay, who was he kidding? All the people back on Earth he’d interacted with always seemed to know what he was thinking before he even did himself. He just wasn’t used to this level of readability. Rocky and the other Eridians read tone of voice more than facial expressions when it came to communication.

This was different. And that same warmth of familiarity filled Grace’s chest.

“Like, actual shit?” Grace asked, earning him yet another huff.

“No, it just tasted like it,” Simon said.

“Oh,” Grace felt stupid. He wondered how he’d made it to Erid alive on the level of intelligence he actually had. He went to ask another question, but stopped himself.

Simon looked at him for a moment, before sighing.

“It was called the Last Tree,” he said. “We, Eden, were the keepers of it. It served as a beacon of hope for future life on Mars. And in the rest of the universe.”

“Wait- Mars?” Grace’s mind started ticking through all the possibilities this opened up. He had been gone for years. It made sense for the people back on Earth to search for alternative solutions while they waited for the results of his project.

He found that stung, though. The suicide trip. Everything. One of the things that kept him going was he knew he was the sole hope for humanity. That statement rang less true, now.

Simon nodded. “There were two main coalitions on Mars. Eden, which I was a member of, and the C.O.I. – Consolidation of Iron.”

Simon spat the name like it was a curse.

“Eden had the tree, though,” he seemed to be done talking about it.

But Grace couldn’t help himself.

“Did you ever see the tree?” he blurted.

Simon blinked and reached down to the gap where his left hand would’ve been. Seeming to realise its absence, he screwed his face up in what looked like pain.

“No.”

Grace didn’t know what to do with that information. It was possible, given the right technology, that they could grow a tree on Mars. But that was incredibly advanced. How long had he been asleep for?

“All the Children had a bracelet,” Simon said in Grace’s absence. “With a seed from it encased.”

Grace knew then, based on the flinch, Simon had lost it to the ocean. He sighed heavily.

“Talk about something else,” Simon ordered, and Grace was happy to comply. For the time being.

Casting his gaze around the greenhouse, he searched for something to talk about. The plants were relatively boring, but given Simon’s interest, he began to explain everything he could about them.

He walked around the greenhouse, explaining every plant, where he and Rocky had recovered it from, how many failures it took for Grace to learn to care for them, and which ones were his favourites. By the time they finished, Grace’s throat hurt from talking so much. He didn’t even speak this much when he ran his classes.

Grace took a much needed deep breath and stood awkwardly to the side. With Simon being the only thing in the room he could actually observe, he knew he was staring too much. Grace couldn’t really find it in himself to care, though.

Had he mentioned it had been years since he’d seen another human?

Simon caught his gaze and held it. The two stared at each other, the silence stretching comfortably.

Grace could see his own feelings of familiarity echoed in the expression on Simon’s face.

“Thank you,” Simon was the one to break the silence, but he held the gaze.

“For what?” Grace was starting to get lost in the pull between them, and he found he’d lost where they were in the conversation.

Simon shrugged.

“For showing me this,” he said, feigning a casual tone. “They clearly mean a lot to you.”

“I think you already mean more to me than them.”

Grace blinked at his own lack of a filter and immediately spluttered.

“I mean- just that you’re the first human I’ve seen in just under a decade and- I’m just grateful to show someone around- like- just- your company means a lot to me. Sorry, that’s weird, we just met. I just didn’t know if you’d ever wake up when we found you, and now- you’re awake and it’s like, what do I even do with that because…”

Grace trailed off as he realised Simon’s shoulders were shaking.

He’d messed up. He knew he should’ve shut up.

Grace went to attempt to amend for his mistake when Simon lifted his head and Grace realised he was laughing.

Appalled, Grace felt his face heat up impossibly more. This was quite possibly the most embarrassed he’d been in his life; apart from that one time he farted in front of his class and they were all in hysterics for twenty minutes.

Kids were easy to make laugh.

Simon was not.

Grace found himself staring as he watched the man all but giggle. His eyes scrunched up so he could barely see them, his lips parted in a grin that looked almost painful. His teeth glinted in the low light of the greenhouse.

As Simon quietened, Grace swallowed.

The eye-contact was back.

Simon was all serious now, though amusement still gleamed faintly in his eyes. His eyes darted between Grace’s and he took a too-loud breath in the quiet of the room.

“Can we-” Grace said at the same time-

“Could I-” Simon began.

They both began that awkward dance of “no, you first” that was so perfectly human. God, Grace missed this. Eventually, Simon won the battle and it was Grace’s chance to speak.

He felt stupid now.

“I was just going to-” he paused to collect himself. “We should hug, right? Like, that’s what people do. It just felt then that that was right, but I don’t want to overstep, or- or make you uncomfortable, and-”

“Grace,” Simon said his name in such a grounding way, a way that was so gentle and so firm at the same time, Grace just had to shut up for him.

“Yeah?”

“Just hug me.”

Grace didn’t know what he was expecting. Awkwardness. Disgust, maybe. He expected to be apologising for days, at the very least.

Instead, he got the warmest hug from Simon.

Grace wrapped his arms under Simon’s and found his head slotted perfectly above his chest, just below his head. At the same time, Simon brought his arm around Grace’s shoulders and smushed his cheek on top of Grace’s hair.

Both men grabbed onto each other in a way that spoke of years of hardship, years of loneliness, years of torture, and they stayed, gripping the other like they might disappear if either shifted even slightly.

After who knows how long, Simon spoke.

“Grace?”

“Mm,” Grace mumbled slightly.

“My leg is falling asleep,” Simon said.

“I’m falling asleep,” was all he could muster.

And then, as the reality of the situation hit him like a freight train, Grace stumbled backwards.

“We should probably get some sleep,” he said. “We’re both tired. I’ll show you around my spot in the morning.”

Simon nodded, the awkwardness back in his face, stiffness in his posture.

Grace led Simon down the hill in the same silence they’d walked up in, however he knew this one was different.

The Grace that walked up the hill a few hours before did not know the things that the current Grace knew.

That Grace didn’t know Simon was from Mars. That Grace didn’t know that when Simon laughed, he laughed silently. That Grace didn’t know Simon was just as warm as he made him feel. That Grace didn’t know Simon in the way he did now.

As Grace heard Simon shuffle through to his bedroom, he smiled an idiotic smile. One that stretched his face from ear to ear.

As Grace got comfortable on his couch, he smiled that idiotic smile.

As Grace fell asleep, he still had that idiotic smile splitting his face apart.

He might’ve even smiled in his sleep, but Grace couldn’t comment on that.

.

.

.

The morning held that awkward tension of getting used to change in the space he called home.

Simon seemed hesitant to make himself fully at home, and Grace kept bumping into the counters as he made breakfast. He wasn’t used to an extra body in his kitchen.

They didn’t speak much, and Grace was grateful. He was not a morning person, and often only spoke once he’d had at least one coffee.

Simon was content to be silent, however.

They ate in that silence, and Grace only spoke to direct him to the bathroom to freshen up before the day.

He was sat on the sofa, blankets strewn haphazardly across the back of it from where he hadn’t cleaned up from the night, when Simon emerged from the bathroom and shuffled into the living room.

“I was thinking we could start at the beach,” Grace said, idly putting his second coffee cup down.

Glancing up was his mistake.

Simon’s hair, still damp from the shower, hung in defined waves around his face, and flowing down to his shoulders. He looked refreshed and more alive than Grace had ever seen him before, and he forgot every train of thought he might’ve had, abandoning words to just stare.

He was wearing some of Grace’s bigger clothes; ones he might’ve worn in the winter if his artificial atmosphere could change. Slightly baggy blue-washed jeans with a tight-fitting black top. This one didn’t have a pun on it, and Grace didn’t remember ever having it.

Not that he ever wore anything other than a baggy joke t-shirt and his worn cardigan.

He was a man of routine, okay? It worked.

“Beach first,” Simon prompted.

“Yeah,” Grace shook his head and stood, downing the rest of the coffee in his hands and slipping on his shoes.

He opened the front door and stepped outside, with Simon close behind. He opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a set of familiar clicks and chirps.

“Grace found mate, statement.”