Chapter Text
9.8 light years left to destination: 40 Eridani A b
“It’s official, Rock!” I shake the empty cup as I pass by the Xenonite barrier separating us in the lab. “Spicy barbecue takes the lead on the tier list. We can stop arguing now!”
“Disgust, disgust, disgust! Grace can’t keep disgusting eating to himself, statement,” he protests, but his hands don’t slow down for a second on whatever he’s currently building. Looks like a surprisingly intricate diorama of a cityscape from my side of the barrier, which doesn’t even phase me — we were on our fourth re-watch of Godzilla last night, by his majesty’s request, of course. I’m half expecting him to start stomping around the thing any moment now like he’s some sort of long lost cousin of Stitch’s from a couple stars over.
I open the disposal chute and throw the single-use paper down with a wistful sigh. There it goes… my last cup of spicy goopy goodness.
It was bound to happen at the rate I go through the stash, but it’s still sad to see it happen. The tower of instant noodles in general is significantly smaller than it was when I woke up how-long-ago and found the food in my misplaced grief-induced hysteria.
The numbers come to me faster than I can think if I should be calculating this in the first place. The Hail Mary was stocked for three human beings in a (relative to our side) 5-year-long trip, consisting of 1) coma slurry; 2) dehydrated tubes and, in a much smaller quantity, 3) solid non-perishables. From just batting my eyes at our stock, Stratt made sure to give us a comfortable margin of error, considering The Hail Mary’s size and engines (more food means more weight, which means more fuel, which means less speed, etc.). She probably wanted to make sure we had enough to last however long it would take for us to find a solution, and then just a bit more to afford us a celebration at the end of the road — before, you know…
I look at the replica of Mary made of a block of noodles poorly glued together. I’ve taped it on display on one of the lab shelves, and it’s held together well enough for how bad my crafting skills are. I look back at Rocky, so involved in his project he doesn’t even realise he's humming a melody under his breath, and this warmth spreads in my chest like a stream.
‘The day I get the craving to boil such a sentimental piece… That’s when I’ll know,’ my mind decides for us all in a fraction of a second.
Whoa. I shake my head before I plop down on my chair and slide to lean right against the xenonite barrier. No more of that line of thought, please, not anytime soon. Thankfully I have some A-quality desistraction just a few inches away to bother.
“What’chu making there, bud?” I ask.
He rotates the entire thing to face me with a chirp, and I’m immediately touched by how fast he is to accommodate for my direct-field-of-vision only eyes.
Oh, and leaky. Let’s not forget leaky, because I am definitely tearing up when I realise what the dioarama is depicting.
It’s Erid. It has to be — not only are the buildings that distinctive, angular shape only Xenonite can provide a structure as big (if not bigger) as the Blip A, but the streets are full of tiny little Eridian miniatures leading their lives in tiny little Eridland. There’s markets, parks, storefronts and apartment complexes stacked on top of each other everywhere I look. Place a mom-and-pops restaurant in a questionable alleyway and a bunch of L.E.D street lamps scattered about and you’d have something indistinguishable from any metropolis on Earth.
"Rocky make 🎶🎵🎶🎶 replica to scale for puppet show!” He exclaims, jazz-hands gallore. “Grace smart for science sometimes, but very very stupid to Erid customs. Rocky teach Grace how to navigate life in 🎶🎵🎶🎶 so Grace doesn’t make a fool of himself.”
I honestly just nod along to his usual ‘dumb grace (endearing)’ routine because there’s a big lump in my throat, and it’s not the foot I’ve preentively eaten for when I inevitably commit a faux-pas while in polite Eridian company — oh no, it’s so much worse.
One of the buildings is intentionally intersected by a cut to show some of the floor plan inside one of the apartments. I’d be fascinated by the layout and full of questions of what each room is intended for, but all I can focus on is the trio of figurines sitting by what I can only describe as a conversation pit.
Two Eridians, one slightly bigger than the other, clasping their three-pronged claws — holding hands — right over… Right over the lap of a tiny, cross-legged human being.
The ramen dinner, the apartment, the affection — it instantly reminds me of my last night in my single-bedroom apartment in San Francisco. You know, the one I never got to say goodbye to since being forcefully ejected into space for the sake of everyone on Earth? Yeah. Don’t get me wrong, despite what Stratt told herself so she was able to, well — I loved that place. The heating only worked half the time, and the neighbours were into post-modern punk rock, but… It was my little corner of Earth, where I graded papers late at night, and hung up my students’ drawings on the wall.
But here we are. Rocky has made a diorama of his place in Erid, his (surprisingly) spacious apartment in one of their metropolis, the home he shared with his mate Adrien, and all I can do is cry my eyes out that he wants me so involved in his life in Erid from now on that he completely forgot — or knowing him, downright ignored — how deathly such a comforting scenario would be on my fragile human body.
It’s beautiful. I want to reach out and touch it, make it even more real in our make-believe ammonia-oxygen atmosphere, but the xenonite wall blocks me.
“Lesson number one: Grace need to keep leakyness controlled. Very very uncomfortable for average Eridian.” He makes his equivalent to a ‘tsk tsk’ at the end, but we’ve been together long enough I can hear the softness of his tone throughout.
“As long as I’m not making you uncomfortable, buddy. I don’t know if I can promise anything.”
“Make Rocky uncomfortable, statement. But Rocky used to it.” He chirps a laugh.
I look and look at the diorama, my forehead resting against the transparent wall, and Rocky leaves me to my silent contemplation so he can keep working on it. I can’t keep my eyes off of that conversation pit, more specifically to Adrien.
Rocky is always happy to share his thoughts on Adrien: how much he loves them, how much he misses their mate, how smart and confident and capable they are — so much so that I can almost picture myself sharing a drink with the other Eridian in my head. But for all the words Rocky complains my limited human vocabulary doesn’t have to describe Adrien’s beauty and poise, he’s been suspiciously secretive about how the both of them got so head-over- heels for each other.
“Hey, Rocks?”
“Yes, Grace. Question.”
“How did you and Adrien meet again?”
Rocky pauses, which is totally common for a creature that can hold three different trains of thought at the same time. His free claw opens and closes in that way that tells me he is in deep discussion with himself. It only lasts a second, though, and he slowly turns his carapace to ‘face’ me.
“Rocky not sure he can tell that story to Grace.”
I swear I hear a whine come out of him... I lightly bump my head against the xenonite, and the pieces of my heart scatter on the floor with it. You've done it now, Grace, bringing up the mate Rocky still loves so much who he doesn’t even know if they still love him back after so long apart. Of course that’d be a sore spot for him.
“Dang it, buddy, I’m sorry. I was just so excited about finally meeting Adrien that I —”
“Adrien and Rocky go to same 🎵🎶🎶🎵🎵,” he cuts me off, quick on his feet again as he takes the interlocked Eridians, separating them for the start of the incoming puppet show. “Need word! Specialized education institution for adult Eridians.”
Oh. I adjust my glasses so they sit on my face instead of swinging from my left ear. Weird 180 turn, but I’ll take it.
“College.” I smile, getting comfortable on my spinning chair. “You met Adrien in college.”
