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There wasn't anything to do.
That was the strange part. For so long there had always been something - a problem to solve or a crisis to manage or an experiment to run or Rocky to argue with about the best methods to solve their problem - and now there was just the transit, the long unremarkable corridor of space between here and Erid, and nothing that needed Grace.
His hands kept starting toward things. Picking up the laptop, putting it down. Reaching for a marker. He'd reorganized the same set of sample containers twice in the last hour before he'd caught himself and stopped himself from doing it a third time.
Quite frankly, Grace was bored.
He was sitting on the floor now, back against the wall, legs stretched out in front of him. Rocky was moving around the room in his ball with that restless, sideways scuttle that Grace had learned to read as contentment - the Eridian equivalent of puttering, of wandering around without any particular goal or destination in mind. He'd been doing it for a while. It was a comfortable thing to watch, in the same way a fire was comfortable to watch, or a cat washing itself, or any small creature that had no idea it was being observed and was simply being in the unselfconscious way of things.
Grace watched him for a while.
The sounds of the Hail Mary filled up the space where his thoughts should have been. He'd been doing that a lot, he realized - not thinking. Just sitting inside a moment, waiting for the next one. He wasn't sure if that was peace or exhaustion or something he didn't have a name for yet. Some specific flavor of the aftermath of everything that his life had become since he left his classroom all those years ago, something that his brain hadn't catalogued because nothing in his life before this had ever required him to think about such difficult things.
The sun was going to be fine. Earth was going to be fine. Erid was going to be fine. Grace was going to- well. He was going to Erid, and then something, and the 'something' remained productively vague because every time he tried to focus on it directly, on what exactly he hoped waited for him on Erid, it slid sideways and he lost his grip.
He had a lot of thoughts that were shaped like that right now. He'd been leaving them alone.
The silence was doing that thing where it started to become slightly too much, and so Grace opened his mouth. "Hey, Rocky?"
"Yes, Grace, question?" Rocky replied, loudly clattering towards Grace and just barely missing the edge of a whiteboard as he rolled forward.
"Why did you go on your mission?"
"Rocky go on mission to save Adrian. Lots of friends on Erid. Rocky go to protect them all." A brief pause, a small gesture with one of his limbs. "More reasons. This simple answer."
Grace smiled, a little. "Yeah. That tracks." He looked down at the floor between his feet. "You're really brave, you know that?"
Rocky shifted, clearly pleased - his limbs did something complicated that Grace had come to interpret as modest deflection, the Eridian equivalent of waving off a compliment while secretly enjoying it.
"In fact..." Grace grinned, "you're the bravest Eridian I have ever met."
"...Grace steal Rocky joke." Rocky said very flatly. "I am only Eridian Grace has ever met."
"That's just another bit of human culture for you," Grace smiled softly. "We love stealing jokes."
"Why Grace go, question?"
Grace's smile faded.
"Why did I choose to go on this mission?"
"Yes."
Grace exhaled through his nose as he rubbed the back of his neck, buying himself a second. He didn't know why it felt harder to say out loud now. He'd already remembered it. Already lived it.
"I..." He paused, his gaze falling to the floor. "Well... I didn't really choose to go," he said finally.
"Not choose, question?"
"I was never actually meant to be in space. I never trained to go on this mission. I never wanted to be an astronaut. I mean, I'm a school teacher. I didn't really..." Grace shook his head. "The actual crew - the people who were supposed to do all the science - there was an accident and they died. And there wasn't time to train new scientists, and I was already involved in the Astrophage research, so..." He shrugged. "I was apparently the only one left as an option."
"So Grace go," Rocky said.
"Yeah," Grace said. "So I went."
"Grace very brave to go on mission without training." Rocky said. He made a sound that was unmistakably fond. "Although no training explains why Grace sometimes very very very stupid."
Grace barked out a laugh despite himself, the tension dissipating for just a second. "Well. I am very stupid, you've got me there, but... brave." he shook his head. "I don't know about brave. I really - I didn't go willingly, Rocky. That's kind of the part-"
"Not go willingly." Rocky had gone still again. The warmth of the previous moment dimmed at the edges. "Grace say not go willingly. Explain, question?"
"They told me that I was going to go on the mission, and... I told them no." Grace's gaze was trained on a bit of scuffed paint between his shoes. "I refused to go. I was a coward."
"Not know word. But... Grace still go, question?"
"Well, when I panicked and tried to refuse, they told me I didn't have a choice." Grace's jaw tightened. "I was going. Whether I wanted to or not."
The hum of the ship filled the space between them. It was always there, that sound, but Grace had stopped really hearing it months ago. He heard it now.
"They chased me, held me down, and... and then they drugged me," Grace finally said. "That's... uh. That's a chemical thing. Humans use it for surgeries, sometimes for long medical procedures. It forces the body to shut down. To sleep. Deeply. You don't get a choice, you can't stop it once the drug is in your body." He looked down at his hands. They were doing that thing again, the faint tremor he couldn't quite control. He folded them together. "I fell asleep on Earth and then I woke up on this ship, years later. I didn't even remember why I was here at first - I didn't remember any of it, the mission, why I was chosen, who I was, any of it. I just-" he gestured with one hand, vaguely, inadequately, "-woke up alone. The rest of the crew was already dead."
Silence.
He waited for Rocky to say something, and Rocky didn't.
Grace frowned and glanced up. Rocky had stopped moving entirely. He was absolutely motionless in his sphere, every limb arrested, his whole body a held breath.
"Rocky?"
"Grace was forced into sleep." Rocky's voice, when it finally came, was not a question.
"Yeah," Grace said. "That's basically... yeah."
"Grace could not say no."
"Well, I said no. They just didn't-"
"Grace could not stop it," Rocky said. "They take the no away."
Grace closed his mouth. "Well..." he said, after a moment. "Yeah. That's one way to put it. They took the choice away from me."
Another pause.
"Grace sleep alone, question?"
"Uh. Yeah."
"How long, question?"
Grace hesitated. "A while. I mean- years, technically. But I was out of it, so it didn't feel like-"
"Grace was alone," Rocky repeated. "For years."
Not a question this time.
Grace shifted, something in his chest tightening. "Rocky, it's not-"
"Grace was forced into sleep," Rocky said again. "Grace was alone. No one watch. Alone alone alone."
Grace blinked. "Yeah, but I- it's not-" Rocky was very clearly distressed, and Grace had no idea how to reassure him.
Rocky's limbs moved then, all of them at once, in a way Grace hadn't seen before - a kind of shuddering motion, like a dog shaking water off its coat, like something trying to rid itself of a sensation it couldn't stand.
"Bad," Rocky said. The word came out louder than anything he'd said in a while.
"Rocky-"
"Bad," Rocky repeated, more forcefully. "Very bad. Wrong."
Grace opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Rocky shifted again, faster this time, pacing inside the limits of his sphere. "Sleep is..." he paused, searching for words. "Rocky not sure Grace-words are right. Sleep is when body is weak. Cannot move. Cannot protect. Must trust others. A-a sleeping Eridian is very small. Very open. Rocky not sure how to say."
"Vulnerable?" Grace offered.
"Yes. That word. Vulnerable." Rocky said it slowly. "On Erid, sleeping alone is-" He made a sound that the translator didn't recognize. "It is wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. When Eridians sleep, others watch. Always. Not sometimes. Always. Family watch. Friends watch. Someone watch. Make sure body is breathing. Make sure nothing come. Make sure-" Rocky stopped again. "Make sure Eridian wake again. That is- that is very important thing. Make sure Eridian wake again."
Grace swallowed.
"Because they might not," he said.
"Yes." Rocky's voice was very quiet now, for Rocky. "And sleep is when trust. When must trust. And so trust must be- must be given back. Others must be there. Must say: I watch. You are safe. You will wake." He moved again, that shuddering movement. "Grace had no one."
"Rocky-"
"No one say to Grace: I watch. You are safe." Rocky's musical little tones cracked on the word 'safe', which was not a thing Grace had heard before, exactly - but it was unmistakable, the way the tones fractured. "Grace go to sleep alone. Forced. Could not say no. And no one-" He stopped. Started again. "No one watch."
Grace stared at the floor.
His hands had stopped shaking because he'd pressed them flat against his thighs, which was one way to deal with that problem.
"No," he said. "No one watched me."
"Grace could have not woken," Rocky said. "If something had gone wrong. In sleep. Grace would have been like rest of crew. Grace dead."
"Yeah," Grace said. The word came out rougher than he meant. "Yeah. I could have died."
Rocky jerked - that sharp, sudden movement - and Grace flinched back instinctively before he caught himself.
"Bad," Rocky hissed again. The word was too loud and too simple and somehow more devastating for both things. He began to move in his sphere, that frantic pacing motion that Grace had long learned meant agitation. "Hurt Grace. Earth hurt Grace. Earth say-" Rocky's voice took on a mimicking quality, pulling in a mockery of authority, "-you go, no choice, drug, sleep, alone, we leave, you die die die-" and then dropped back out of it. "That is, that is... Rocky does not have word."
"...monstrous?" Grace offered, very, very quietly.
"Yes. That." Rocky stopped moving. "Rocky does not like that. Rocky very not like that. Rocky-" He stopped mid-sentence.
"Rocky?"
"Rocky hate Earth."
Grace let out a breath that almost turned into a laugh. "Woah, okay. That's- hey, that's a little extreme."
"No." Rocky stomped one of his limbs on the floor of his ball very empathetically. "Earth hurt Grace. Earth leave Grace. Earth say Grace life is less than other lives, and Earth take choice, and Earth leave Grace alone in dark for years, and that is-" Rocky made a sound that had no translation, sharp and decisive. "Rocky hate Earth. Earth bad bad bad."
Grace rubbed a hand over his face. He sat with that for a moment. He thought about arguing, but somehow the argument died before it got started. "Okay. It wasn't like that. I mean, it was, but... there was a reason. The sun was dying. Everyone was trying to survive. It was one life for billions. It makes sense, logically."
Rocky didn't respond.
"Look, I get it," Grace said. "I didn't like it, but I get it. Someone had to go. I was there. That's just how it worked out. If it wasn't me, it would have been some other poor scientist. Maybe someone with something to lose. A family, kids, a pet dog - whatever. I didn't have any of that."
Rocky was very still. "So Grace has... made peace, question?"
Grace huffed out a quiet, tired laugh. "Oh, no. Not really." He leaned his head back against the wall. "Once I remembered how I had ended up in this tin can... yeah. I wished it hadn't been me. Cried quite a bit over it. Threw a lot of things against the walls."
After a moment, Grace shifted, knocking his knuckles lightly against the shell of Rocky's ball. A small, familiar gesture. "But," he said, forcing a little warmth back into his voice, "if it hadn't happened, I wouldn't have met you. And I would... I would choose to do it all again, just to meet you, Rocky."
"Hm." Rocky moved closer to the xenonite separating them, limbs pressing lightly against the inner surface - as close as he could get. "Rocky still not like Earth. Rocky still think Earth very wrong to Grace, taking choice away."
"...yeah," Grace said softly. "I think you might be right about that."
"But." Rocky paused. "Rocky glad Grace wake up. Rocky very glad Grace wake up and," He pressed his forelimb against the side of his ball. "Rocky very glad to have met Grace."
Grace stared at the small, strange shape of his friend's hand against the barrier between their atmospheres.
He thought about fourteen-year-olds learning about mitosis. He thought about a cluttered classroom he'd left in a hurry and a life that had never fit him quite right. He thought about waking up in the dark, alone, to the sound of machines and the medicinal smell of his dead crewmates, with no memory of who they were or why he was there or how he'd gotten there or whether any of it mattered at all.
He thought about his friend. His brave, new friend.
Grace pressed his hand flat against the xenonite, mirroring Rocky's.
"Grace, question?"
"Yeah, Rocky?"
"Grace very brave."
Grace let out a soft breath.
"...thanks, Rocky."