Chapter Text
Simon rose out of the blood and found himself in heaven.
At least, he was pretty sure it was heaven. Where else could be so clean and white? Where else would an angel with kind eyes be looking at him so reverently, like he was a wonder to behold.
The halo behind his angel made their facial features unreadable, casting silvery golden light around their head. Simon was staring directly into the sun. It was a feeling he'd had described to him from stories of Earth and Mars but had never experienced himself. The angel’s eyes burned but Simon couldn't bring himself to tear his gaze away. He had no way of knowing exactly how long his world had been completely red and rust; the white and gold was a welcome sight.
What was moments ago felt like years ago. He had just been in the worst pain of his life, slamming against the walls of his iron prison as he swallowed mouthfuls of foul-tasting, coppery blood. Red veins climbing up his arm and digging into his flesh, skin bubbling and peeling off his body as his head spun and mind became singularly focused. One mission, one job, and then it'd be over and he'd be dead. It wasn't what he wanted, but at least he’d be done. The black box wrapped in the life jacket with the light blinking, visible to the COI ship floating who knows how many miles above him.
His hand had stuck to the pipes, he’d yanked it back, and that must have been when he died— because now he felt as if he'd fallen right into the gaze of this angel. There was a residual aching at the back of his head and in his left shoulder, but it would go away soon. Once his soul caught up to speed and realized he didn't have a body anymore. His soul didn't seem to want to get up to speed, though; the residual pain was no longer residual and had burst outward to grip his entire body and hold him down once more.
He jerked his head away from the angel and screwed his eyes shut, sucking in a quick breath of air so cold it burned his teeth. He didn't even have it in him to scream, only managing to punch out tiny puffs of air accompanied by agonized vocalizations. Damn it. I’m dead, aren’t I?! Dead people aren't supposed to feel pain, it's supposed to be over, I’m supposed to be done! I just want to fall asleep. I want to go to the grove. Simon felt as if his entire body had been filled with lead, keeping him pinned down where he laid.
He clenched his hands, then unclenched them at the feeling of another person's hand on his. He opened his fingers and wrapped them tight around the other hand, squeezing with all the strength he had left. He could feel the muscles and joints beneath soft skin, it felt so real. Simon traced his thumb along the inner wrist, and swore he could even feel a steady heartbeat. As he focused on the rhythm of what must be the angel's heart, he could feel the pain slowly ebbing away as something cold and pleasant rippled through him starting from his right inner elbow.
His eyes opened slowly, and he no longer felt like he was full of metal. Instead, he was made of feathers and he was floating peacefully along the surface of a babbling brook. The pretty sparkling blue ones he'd seen in the videos Eden used to play. This didn’t really look like heaven, but it certainly felt like it. What he wouldn't give to actually lay in one, with the sun warming his skin and the water tugging him gently downward. Maybe now that he was dead and in heaven, he could ask for one. Surely heaven had brooks and forests and mountains, and all the other natural things Simon had never experienced.
Simon had never been certain of the existence of heaven, or if an all-knowing God was watching over him. If there was, he'd been certain It had abandoned them and taken the stars and planets with It. But while he'd never expected to see heaven, he still had imagined what it could look like. There had been two warring images in his head, and where he was now didn't match either of them.
Heaven could be a palace in the clouds, he’d figured. With endless sun and sky to explore. There’d be divine pearly gates with gold locks to keep Evil out, and people in white robes with large white fluffy wings flying around. Or maybe it could look like Earth, how the Garden of Eden had been described to him. Green grass waving in the wind, flowers of every color under the rainbow with fat lazy bees bumping into them. Everyone walking around completely naked with only a leaf covering their genitals. In both versions, everyone would be singing.
Simon, however, was definitely in a room. There were clean, white, man-made walls made up of many square panels. He was laying on a bed which was not made of clouds or moss. No water, no sky that he could see. There was no music. His angel was not wearing white, nor was he naked. But the second Simon's eyes found the angel again he completely forgot to think about what he was wearing or what heaven was supposed to look like. The light from his angel’s halo had dimmed, and he could see his face clearer.
His eyes were large and round, the blue in his irises sparkling at him. He wore silver-rimmed glasses, and his hair was a soft and warm gold. His facial hair was short, lips pink and parted slightly. He didn't look like he'd suffered the food shortages Simon was used to, or experienced the rough backbreaking work every convict and Child of Eden knew so intimately.
And he looked down at Simon with so much awe and wonder in his eyes.
Simon wanted to reach up with both arms and clasp them around his angel's shoulders, pull him down and hold onto him gratefully, but only one of his arms listened. Even then it still didn't quite obey his wishes.
Or rather, it obeyed his wishes too well, and went straight for the angel's face.
His angel flinched back momentarily as Simon's hand neared him, but the second Simon's fingers brushed against his skin he practically melted into him. The angel pressed his cheek firmly into the palm of his hand, and Simon watched his face squish from the pressure. His beard was rough, but the rest of him was soft, so soft. The angel's eyes fluttered closed, and Simon took the opportunity to rub along his upper cheekbone, beneath his eye. He moved his hand up a little further, and eyelashes tickled his thumb. One of the angel's own hands moved up and long pale fingers wrapped around Simon's wrist, holding him and keeping him close.
When was the last time Simon had touched someone kindly? Someone had touched him kindly? He watched in silent awe as the angel turned his face further into his hand, lips brushing against the blisters he'd formed over his lifetime. The angel's lips were slightly chapped, moving against his skin as he said something Simon's ringing ears couldn't hope to pick up. Then the angel was moving back, tugging his wrist down. He mourned the loss of his touch, stretching his fingers as far as he could so they ran along his lower lip and chin before losing him completely.
That weightless feeling was stronger than ever, and he prayed the angel would not let go of him for fear he'd simply float away. Please let this be real.
The angel's face however moved closer to Simon's, and he was still speaking. He strained to listen to his words as white framed his vision, only managing to catch the words 'grace,' 'hail Mary,' and 'safe.'
Hail Mary, Full of Grace, the Lord is With Thee. Simon remembered. Mother of God, Pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Simon was safe, finally.
The second time Simon woke up was much slower. He didn't feel like he was full of metal, nor was he made of feathers. And he felt very much alive.
His head was throbbing, the skin on the left side of his face stung, and his bones ached and creaked as he stretched. The bright lights above him still hurt his eyes, but after a few seconds of blinking his vision adjusted and he could see.
He remembered seeing an angel in what he thought had been heaven, but this just looked like any other room on the ships he was used to, only cleaner and missing its familiar propaganda. A machine hovered over him, its black camera shining as it observed him, but it made no move to stop him from sitting up. The air on the ship was clean and cold, extremely welcome after the sweltering heat and pressure in the sub. Had he been pulled up after all? This didn't seem like any COI ship he’d been on, and he doubted Eden would have cared to come back for him. Had there been some third group of people floating around this whole time, staying secret and out of sight in fear of getting involved in the other ships’ conflict?
He was surprised that the angel (who now that he thought about it, was just a very pretty man) wasn't here now. But if this station’s crew was limited like all the others, the man probably had other duties and responsibilities to attend to. They were probably stretched just as thin as everybody else. Still, there was a slight tug in his chest at waking up alone, despite being used to it from his time as a convict. Was Simon still a convict? Would the people on this ship even know anything about the COI or Filament Station?
Why would they put so much effort into pulling him out of the Blood Ocean to save him?
They had to know. They knew what he'd done and thought his skills would be useful. That was the only reason for them to waste resources collecting and giving him medical attention. Everyone was low on all supplies, and even the most important people went without. Simon was pretty sure he’d been given pain medication, he remembered feeling like he was floating just moments after excruciating pain. They must want something big from him if they wasted pain relief on him.
Simon decided immediately that nothing they asked him would be worth it. He'd survived, he was not going to use the rest of his life only doing what other people told him to do. Even if it killed him.
He swung his legs around the side of the bed, placing one foot then the other on the ground. He took a deep breath before pushing off the bed and putting all his weight on his feet. He wobbled dangerously and shot his arms out to steady himself, but again only one arm obeyed. He growled to himself, glaring down at his left arm to see what in the world was keeping it from moving– only to find nothing there. There was the start of his arm, but just above where his elbow should have been was empty space.
Simon blinked.
He waved his right hand in the space where his left arm was supposed to be, and shivers tickled down his spine as his hand passed through where he could still feel his arm. Shit, he could still feel it! Could still wiggle the fingers and flex the muscles that didn't seem to exist anymore. He remembered his hand had been stuck to the pipes and he'd pulled. Then he'd fallen backwards and woke up that first time here on this ship.
No… no wait, that wasn't quite right. He'd fallen backwards and his arm had been ripped completely off like it was made of soft clay, fingers still wrapped around the pipe as his arm hung there.
Simon had to look away from the remains of his arm for a moment, head reeling and dizziness intensifying as he struggled to take even breaths. Gone. In a matter of moments it was just gone. How was he going to put his hair up? Work? Eat? How would he get dressed? So many of his tools needed two hands to work, and now a huge chunk of his body had been torn from him and likely still remained stuck to the metal, or completely eaten by the blood, or absorbed into the many-faced eel that chased him and tried to fuse with him. It was probably with the eel, and now a piece of him would forever be down in the Blood Ocean, never to return to the surface ever again.
He bit down the inside of his cheek, swallowing the bile that rose in his throat at that thought. His arm was not him, he was not his arm. The important bits were out, he was out, he was done. And if he had any say in it, he'd never see a single drop of blood ever again. But when did Simon ever get a say in anything?
While his shirt was missing— likely so the medic could do his job— his pants remained and they were still absolutely soaked in blood. There wasn't a spot of green left, just a dark reddish brown. There was blood still on his skin as well, clinging beneath his fingernails and sticking to his body hair, though there had clearly been an effort to clean him up a bit. A bandage was wrapped around the inside of his right elbow, likely from some kind of IV. Simon went to remove the bandage– but seeing as he had no left arm to unravel it with– nothing happened. His shoulder just wiggled a little. He definitely wouldn't be able to remove it with his right hand, so he sighed and resigned himself to asking the man later.
Most of Simon's body was wrapped in bandages, actually. He could feel some on the left side of his face, adhered to his skin with some kind of cool medicine that soothed the stinging. How many resources were wasted on me? He wondered.
After several more deep breaths and inner motivational speeches, Simon pushed off from the side of the bed and started looking for the exit out to the rest of the ship. There probably wouldn't be many people walking around, and he didn't feel like sitting on his ass waiting for the medic to return.
There were two more beds in the medical room, each with a name attached to them. They were both empty. The names read Lie-Jie, Yáo and Ilyukhina, Olesya. Red text saying deceased was also next to their names. Simon frowned. He didn't know these people, but it still stung to know they were dead. He thought briefly of the workers he’d flashed with the sub’s camera, then pushed it out of his mind. No use.
The bed he'd been on had a nameplate as well. Grace, Ryland. Alive. Simon wondered if that was the medic he'd seen earlier, the blond he'd assumed was an angel. Was there anyone else on the ship, or had it been just the three of them? Well, now it was just one. He cringed at the idea. What the hell could this Ryland Grace want from him if he was all alone? The two of them would not be able to solve the disappearance of the stars on their own. But a lonely man was a desperate man, and a desperate man was a dangerous man. He knew that from experience. Ryland Grace was not someone to be trusted, even if the two of them were the last two humans left alive in the universe. Even if he gazed at Simon with such happiness.
But… how could he be so sure that was what happened? He'd been told the twoish hours he'd spent in the lung had been days on the surface. He'd heard voices from people he wasn't certain ever existed. He saw a giant fucking floating eye in the Blood Ocean and an eel that claimed to be a god talked to him. How could Simon be certain of anything? Was his own perception to be trusted?
Am I going crazy? Maybe I've always been…
He left the medical room.
So far, everything looked normal. There were cupboards and screens with data he didn't quite understand. In the med room there'd been a whiteboard with names he didn't recognize and question marks with stuff crossed out and math equations that made his brain hurt when he tried to follow along with them.
As he walked, he found his body drifting toward the right wall, and had to course correct multiple times. The fuck’s up with that? Oh, it was his arm again. He’d just lost what, nearly ten pounds that was formerly attached to his side, and now his body didn’t know how to walk. Everything was going to be different now. Simon once again had to look up and swallow to prevent himself from vomiting from the sheer panic that threatened to claw its way out of his throat.
There was a divot in the wall with a large round window that took up pretty much the entire space. He nearly walked right past it. There was nothing interesting to see outside of the windows on Eden or the COI ships. A whole lot of dark with the occasional blood covered moon. But right before the window vanished into his peripheral he thought he caught a glimpse of something… different. He paused, backing up a few steps and looking out past the glass. What he saw had him rushing into the divot and pressing his hand and cheek into the window.
Simon was looking at stars.
He could see them, hundreds of little stars way off in the distance. There was one, and there was one, and there was one! And one of those stars was so close to them! His eyes burned as he stared at it, but how could he look away? He was staring at stars! He expected them to all be white, but they weren’t. The sky outside the window was bursting with bright colors winking at him from within the void, like they knew a secret they wanted to let him in on. Red, blue, orange, purple, more vibrant than he’d ever thought possible. He wished he could touch them, reach out and scoop up a small handful. He’d roll them around in his palm and press his thumb into them until they left a permanent impression in his skin before he unfurled his fingers and blew them back out into their home.
Simon had been born long after the stars disappeared, and not once in his lifetime had he ever thought he’d see them again. When he was a child, he could look out at the ghost light of the dead stars, growing dimmer day by day. They were just whispers in the distance before he was sent down. But just past the window, inches from his face, was space full of bright stars. And some of them had to be planets too, right? Not just stars, but moons without blood, gas giants, meteoroids, and solid planets. As a matter of fact, he was pretty sure the closest dot was a greenish planet, not far off from the bright white star he’d hurt his eyes staring at.
What star was he looking at? Could it be the Sun? The Real Actual Sun? What was that green planet then? How far were they from Earth and Mars?
His breath fogged up the window and he had to step back, keeping his palm against the cold glass. His body heat was seeping out into it, forcing him to believe this was real. It had to be, right? Not even in his wildest dreams had he ever imagined seeing real life stars. Heaven was more likely than that. Had they solved it already? How long had he been out? Then he remembered something he said while he was submerged.
What’s more likely, that every planet and star disappeared, or that just a few space stations disappeared? If it happened… why can’t it happen again?
Somehow, someway, it had happened again. Simon had come back to the universe. Back into a world where only a few space stations vanished, where the stars went on burning and the planets went on spinning, because what else was there for them to do?
"Cheese and crackers you're real!" Simon spun around, instinctively reaching for the knife in its holster at his hip, before remembering his knife was gone. At the entrance to the divot stood the man from earlier, Ryland Grace, his mind fed him. His glasses were pushed up onto his forehead, making his hair stick up oddly. He was wearing a red t-shirt with a fake element on it; Ah! The Element of Surprise. His hands flew up when he saw how quickly Simon reacted to defend himself, and he spread his fingers to show he carried no weapon.
How stupid was this guy? To leave a convict with a body count of sixty-two— no, sixty-five now— unattended and walk around unarmed? Well, if he had somehow popped into a world of stars, Ryland Grace likely didn’t know anything of Simon's crimes. He wouldn't even necessarily be in need of his skills as an engineer, either. He actually might have helped him… just because.
Well. Then he really was stupid. He had no idea who he let onto his ship.
"Wait- I'm real?" Simon stared at Grace in confusion.
"Oh," Grace blinked, moving his glasses down in front of his eyes to see Simon better. "I uh- sorry. It was like, really late when you showed up and I fell asleep, then I went to the bathroom for literally two minutes and when I went back to the dorm you weren't there and I thought I'd dreamt the whole thing. Turns out you were just at the window!" He laughed, putting his hands on his hips and rocking back and forth a few times. After a few moments of awkward silence, Simon allowed himself to relax a little.
Grace had no reason to physically attack or hurt him now. He wouldn't have put in all that effort to keep him alive if he hadn't wanted him actually alive. Simon should still be aware of his surroundings though, just in case. He didn't want to be surprised.
"Uh, I'm Grace?" Grace laughed nervously, sticking his right hand out in front of him. Simon stared at his hand for four and a half long seconds before taking it in his own. Grace shook his hand firmly before stuffing both of them into his pockets. Once again, they were silent.
How long had it been since he begged the voice on the speaker to just talk to him? Before he realized it wasn't real, or at least not what he thought it was. Then he'd been told to do one last thing and he'd get to live no wait no nevermind screw you you don't get to live at all. Then it had been the many voices of the fucking thing in the Blood Ocean. All he wanted was to talk to someone, to not be alone, and here was someone who clearly had so much he wanted to say, and Simon found that his words were just not working. He stood there staring lamely at Grace while the other man moved his hands from his pockets to the back of his neck to crossing them over his chest then back to his pockets again. Finally, Simon pointed at Grace's shirt and said:
"That's not a real element." What the fuck, Simon?
Grace looked down at his shirt in confusion before he brightened suddenly, laughing. "Oh, yeah no, it's not. Ahaha… but I sure am surprised, aren't you?" Grace shrugged his shoulders. Simon was surprised, but he'd sort of been in a constant state of shock and confusion for a few days now. "So… what's your name?"
Oh. He doesn’t know my name.
"I'm… Simon," he said slowly, and Grace brightened.
"Simon! It's nice to meet you. Are you feeling alright? I didn't expect you to be up yet, you seemed really hurt when you came onboard." Grace’s eyes scanned Simon’s body. If he was the medic he was probably looking for injuries or signs of illness, but it still made him feel exposed. He crossed his arm over his chest, grabbing at his shoulder.
"I'm fine," he lied.
"Okay, uh," Grace’s eyes snapped up from his chest, face flushing with color. It wasn’t a bad look. Simon observed as Grace moved his hands out of his pockets again, fidgeting with a watch on his wrist. "I think we should go back into the dorm anyway, I'm sure you have questions and I have so many questions and Armando should check you over again—"
"There's another person?" Simon asked, looking out into the hallway to try and catch a glimpse of them. If the medbay was also the dormitory, then there were three beds for three crewmates. Grace, Yao, and Ilyukhina. Grace was the only one labelled alive, and there hadn't been a name plate for an Armando, but maybe he slept elsewhere.
"Oh no, Armando's a machine!" Grace waved his hands in front of himself. He sure did move a lot. Simon hesitantly followed Grace back the way he came into the dormitory. He sat back down on the edge of the bed, keeping one eye on the other man the entire time. Grace however seemed to want to look anywhere but Simon.
How fucked up do I look that someone completely alone on a space ship won't even look at me?
After a quick check-up from the whirring machine Grace had apparently nicknamed 'Armando' and several minutes of the most tooth-grindingly awful small-talk ever known to man, ("I literally went to the bathroom for two seconds and of course that's the two seconds it took for you to wake up.") Grace fetched something from one of the bed spaces and tossed it at Simon. His arm shot out to catch the thing before it hit him, but it ended up just being a shirt. It was a dark blue shirt with the periodic table on it. What the hell are these people living amongst the stars wearing? This fashion seemed entirely impractical, no protection or pockets or anything. Simon looked up from the shirt at Grace, who seemed oddly fascinated by his own feet.
"We sort of had to cut your last shirt off of you, and it was really badly damaged and I don't know how to sew so I don't think it's recoverable. Sorry. But hey— you seem to know the periodic table and I think that'll fit you better than the other options?" He trailed off at the end of the sentence, and Simon could feel Grace doubting himself. He bit back everything he wanted to say about how dumb the design was and simply pulled the shirt over his head. He struggled more than he would have if he still had his left arm, but less than he expected to. The shirt fit almost perfectly, tight in the chest and a little short on the bottom but all things considered pretty good.
This time, it's Simon who speaks first.
"What happened?"
Grace pauses for a moment, glancing up from his shoes. This time, he looks right at Simon. He seems to stare directly through him, remembering Simon's 'onboarding' replaying in his mind.
"My ship— The Hail Mary—" Simon immediately hated the name. "Detected a blip. I looked out the window and saw this tiny little metal tube thing floating in space. Mary's heat sensors picked up a lot of warmth, and what looked like a human shaped heat blob in there. Every second the tube was hanging there, it sort of swelled up. I don’t think it was built to handle a vacuum. I managed to attach the airlock to the entrance of your ship, but your door was welded shut."
Welded shut, trapped inside a tube and dropped into the Blood Ocean. In exchange for my freedom. They lied, he's lying too. Of course he's lying to you.
We will see, Simon.
"Took a hot minute to get a hole big enough to pull you through, and a lot of blood came with you. I got you into the medbay, and then I rushed back to the airlock to see if there was anyone else, but the airlock had shut. Your ship was gone, the blood was gone, and there was nothing on Mary's systems that showed there had ever been a blip to begin with. The only evidence I had that I wasn't crazy was you in medbay."
That made about as much sense as everything else to Simon. He really had somehow managed to 'unrapture' himself. Rapture himself? It was almost too good to be true, there had to be some catch. The eel had called itself a god, hadn't it? An ignorant god. Was it possible it was responsible for getting him out here? But if it was, why? It had to be waiting, waiting for Simon to get used to it here and forget about everything else before it yanked him back into hell. Give him a taste of freedom and keep him yearning.
"So… what were you doing out there?"
"Huh?" Simon hadn't realized his head had started to turn to look out at the corridor, wanting to get up and double-check that the stars were still there. Grace was looking at him with those blue eyes and his hands folded. He wasn't moving, just resting his elbows on his knees and leaning forward as he waited for Simon's answer.
How much should he tell him? He didn't seem to know much. But if he did know everything and Simon lied, then it would not go well. But he was pretty sure he didn't know. What would be the purpose in pretending like he didn't? And Grace didn't seem to be very good at hiding his emotions. He was staring at Simon like he was some large book with a little lock on it, and he was pleading with the Research Officer to just let him peak at it, he wouldn't stain or rip it, he just wanted to know.
Now that he was here, Grace likely couldn't just shoot him back out into space, so Simon was going to be stuck here on the Hail Mary with him until whatever mission he had was complete and they returned to wherever 'home' was for Grace. It really would be awkward if Simon was just this complete mystery who refused to talk.
He wanted to talk.
But perhaps the whole story wasn't necessary. It wasn't like Grace could fact-check him.
"Before I was born, the stars disappeared," Simon started, and recounted the history that had been drilled into him since he was a child. “The planets too, but there was this moon covered in blood. I was sent down in the SM-13– that’s what you pulled me out of– to sort of take a look at things. There uh- there was a hull breach. That’s why it was full of blood. Next thing I knew I was here.” He spoke as neutrally as possible. He so badly wanted something to be someone’s fault, but as he tried to loop it in his mind he came up empty.
He was still pissed and scared and hurt, but he was out, and it didn't need to matter to him anymore. Besides, if he thought too hard about it, he would end up freaking out and he'd had enough of emotional outbursts. After everything from the last few days— maybe his entire life— he felt run dry. Everything in him had exploded out and there was nothing left, how could he have anything left after all of that?
Grace sat and absorbed everything, eyes alight with the kind of scientific curiosity Simon had lost ages ago. He waited until Simon finished with his arm and the life jacket on the black box before asking his first question.
"And how do you think you got here?"
"I always thought it was more likely we disappeared, not the stars. I figure I somehow did the reverse, and found my way back into the world where the stars were." That and there was something claiming to be a god screaming at him that totally could have pulled him into some fucked up place of its imagining to torture him with stars and a pretty face only to rip it all away again.
There was silence for a few moments as Grace pondered what he said.
"Many worlds interpretation…?" Grace murmured, like a thought he hadn't meant to say out loud.
"What was that?"
"Oh, it's this quantum theory this guy Hugh Everett The Third came up with," Grace waved a hand at 'the third' as if it was so fancy for someone to have numbers in their name. "Basically, imagine one morning you wake up, and you can't decide what to have for breakfast: cereal or waffles."
Simon had never eaten cereal or waffles.
"And you decide to eat cereal, that's the world you live in. A ‘you made your bed’ kind of thing, but there exists a universe where you chose waffles. Every decision you make branches off an alternate reality where that is true. We had no real way of proving it, and while people have talked about travelling between universes, we never really expected it to be real."
"So you think someone made a decision that caused the Quiet Rapture?" The light. A fragment of what caused the Quiet Rapture. Grace shook his head.
"No. I mean, maybe, who knows? I'm saying you somehow found a way to travel between realities. I don't really know how to say this, but there's more differences between our worlds than just the Rapture. We haven't colonised Mars. Well. I mean we're still working on it. There was this whole issue with this astronaut Mark Watney— sorry, yeah, we haven't done that yet. And we haven't had entire space stations go missing."
"Could I have moved through time?" Simon suggested. "If it's possible to pass between realities then it must be possible to pass through time, like through a wormhole." He’d spent days down on the ocean floor, after all. It felt like just a few hours.
"You're right!" Grace jumped up, his hands shooting in the air and Simon flinched back. When Grace noticed, he lowered his hands and moved slower, but still started pacing around the room. "If we're on the same timeline and you're just further along, you'd have the same Earth history. Maybe you have heard of Mark Watney. If we managed to colonize Mars he'd probably be in the history books."
Simon shook his head. "I don't know the name, but we didn’t really focus so much on Martian history on my ship. More so on Earth and nature." And God. He tried not to grimace. Everyone also had to have a basic understanding of space travel and the theories of astrophysics. He’d only half paid attention growing up. What was the point in learning about the life cycles of stars if he was never going to see one?
"Well, then you definitely have heard about my mission! Project Hail Mary!"
Simon blinked. "Full of Grace?"
Grace paused, his ecstatic expression dropping as he put a hand on the wall. When he next spoke, his voice was strained. "I… I hadn't connected those dots. Holy cow." Then Grace's legs crumpled beneath him and he slid to the floor. It was Simon's turn to jump to his feet, convinced he'd somehow managed to kill the first person he'd met here before he realized Grace was just laughing so hard he was struggling to breathe, gripping his sides and wheezing. Simon sighed and sat back down. He actually hadn't made that connection either, he just said the first words that came to mind when he heard 'Hail Mary.'
It took a solid two minutes for Grace to catch his breath. Then he started laughing again. It was actually getting a little hard not to laugh himself, but he worried if he started laughing then it would really be all over for Grace and he'd never learn how to breathe again. The cycle of Grace assuring Simon he was done laughing, then keeling over again repeated several more times, before he actually managed to calm himself and sit down again.
"I haven't heard of that project," Simon said, careful not to use the words 'Hail Mary' lest Grace lose it again.
"Okay, well you would have heard of the Petrova Line, or the Astrophage Crisis. How the stars were dimming?"
"No. Did you say the stars were dimming? So you fixed it, right?" He just got here, he didn't think he could handle it if he watched the stars go out one by one. Just hearing about the Silent Rapture was terrifying enough, but watching it happen right in front of him?
"That's what I'm out here for!" Grace gestured around him to indicate his being in space. He opened and closed his mouth a few times before continuing. "I'm gonna fix it. Well. I'm gonna do my best."
No, Simon wanted to say. Don't just do your best. Do it. Don't leave me in a world without stars.
Like Simon had done, Grace began to explain why he was in space. He lived on Earth, he was a school teacher. He was Dr. Grace, but he wasn't really a doctor. A woman named Irina Petrova discovered a line of alien microbes between too many stars, slowly eating away at their heat. Grace had been recruited to the project to study the microbes, called Astrophage. He'd bred them to use them as fuel to send a ship carrying three astronauts— a scientist, a pilot, and an engineer— to a distant star called Tau Ceti to see why it had a Petrova Line but wasn't dimming. From there, Grace's memory began to falter.
"I don't remember why I volunteered. I mean, space. Wow. I think something went wrong with everyone's comas, because when I woke up Yao and Ilyukhina were already… had already passed away and I couldn't remember anything. Took a hot minute to know my own name, remember the Petrova Line, and do the math to figure out that sun wasn't my sun. But… it's gotta be me for a reason, so I'm gonna figure it out."
Grace was sort of smiling, but it didn't reach his eyes. He was shrugging and laughing like it was no big deal when from what Simon was deciphering it was the biggest deal ever. It would be the Rapture all over again if he failed, but even worse.
All in all, Grace’s situation didn’t seem all too different to Simon’s. They were both sent somewhere unfamiliar in the hopes to find some information that would save everyone. Except Grace was a scientist who volunteered. Simon was a convict who'd been handcuffed and welded in and denied his freedom.
"You'll return a legend." he said, watching Grace carefully.
"Oh, yeah," Now the smile was completely gone and Grace appeared pale. "About that— geez how do I even say this…? I won't? Return home? We had enough fuel to get us here but not enough to get back. The astronauts were always gonna just… die in space. Except it was okay, because we all volunteered of course, but now… you're here."
Oh.
"I'm sorry," Grace grimaced.
Simon wanted to live. Above all, above his pride, above his anger and confusion, and above his fear, he wanted to live. He wanted to have what his parents had, all those years ago. He wanted comradery like he'd once had on Eden. He wanted freedom, and respect, and plants, and he wanted to live. There’d been no grand future waiting when he surfaced.
Here, he was out of the Blood Ocean. He was in a clean, cool space. There was a person in front of him, a living breathing human man he could see and touch and talk to. They had a mission, and beds, and glorious painkillers.
"How long?" he asked quietly.
"Uh, there's enough food, water, and medicine for three people to last a while while we all worked on the issue. I suppose now that there's two of us… if we ration things out I think we can make it three or four years." Grace tapped his fingers as he did the math in his head. Simon nodded.
"It's better than the SM-13," Was all he said, and Grace relaxed a little. Had he thought Simon would be angry at him? He was angry, but it wasn't like it was Grace's fault. Grace saved him from a terribly painful death. His last moments would have been screaming in fury and agony in a tiny metal coffin as he was ripped apart by a monster-god and drowned in a sea of human blood with unknown voices in his ear. Completely alone. Now his last moments would be here, surrounded by stars, another person nearby when he fell asleep.
"I— yeah, yeah I guess it probably is. And we got some good methods. There's a lethal injection with heroin, a gun, and worst comes to worst we can taste space!"
Tasting space, huh? Simon would like a taste of something other than blood.