Work Text:
The room was the same, dark, raining and horrible.
“No immediate family” Stratt has announced. She was saying this too quickly announcing it to the room like it was decided, it was the group intaking a breath allowing the moment they all knew was coming to come crashing through the door anyway.
It was the look of realisation on Grace’s face how his grief seemed to retreat to his eyes as he realised what was happening. Noticed what was truly going to happen, his confusion was laced with fear as soon as he started yelling.
“No” Ryland outcried, “I have him, please”.
He pulled out the photo the one he carried with him, they had all seen it at some point. The odd blur or how he would hold it close as he was writing in that bar before stuffing it into his jacket as soon as he could, that or his cardigan but it was always there. Grace always double even triple checked. They knew that square well.
It was the harsh intake of breath as he started hyperventilating: “he’s away on a mission for someone in this government and l am not brave like any of you, l am just me”.
He was showing the photo, standing pushing it further to her, almost topping over.
Then it was another voice, tired, a bit croaky, red puffed eyes.
“You have to do it for him” he spoke watching as Grace sat down, breathing heavily, hands in his hair, clutching the photo. They knew he always went on his own to cry.
It was the touch of a hand, the way Grace rose his head, to see Yao* in front of him even more “he can give you hope. I am not brave my family gives me hope” - Yao had said **
Then it was the deadline, the hours. The fact he left the room, tail between his legs. Opposing their view of him. (eternal opener similar but after he left to think)
“Stratt” Ilyukhina has said, her voice firm and sympathy plaguing her eyes. She moved her hand towards the doors; Grace crying echoed down the hall.
She knew what they were on about, she had told them the mission report. At least they had heard it when she gasped. The document in front of her moments before the meeting and a sharp word.
“Don’t mention it”.
“But Doctor Grace-” Carl was cut off by her firm stare, the manner of which she got out the document. The reason this meeting had been planned anyway, it was to break the news, the news about the man in the photo.
Sticking to her word, the crew did not mention it, Carl did not mention it, l mean how could they, they were in space millions of miles away. And Ryland was injected before she could break the news.
But she did not allow them that same moment of peace, well contemplation seemed a better word for it. Only for a brief moment they could have left the room, but she presented the document to the room.
Back to the meeting room, they all stared at her. Passing the document around the room. The one that sealed the fate, all she could hear was the gasps. Hands covering mouths.
The door closed, guarded in case anyone wanted to, Grace wanted to.
This was about him after all.
1.School Rumours
Stratt knew that finding him at his place of work would be difficult, it was the chatter as he left some of the classmate’s giggle outside the door before she entered.
“Mr” the words blurred due to the wind and “Partner” were all she heard, then she did not put it into anything useful, at the time it was nothing to be concerned about. This was a school; the person she was after would not be the main topic of every conversation and middle schoolers did not have anything interesting to say. Although, she did see that Dr Grace had an incredibly high mark rate he was a teacher of the year as well. She allowed a small turn of her lip, watching his cheesy smile before knocking on the door, seeing the man studying the ceiling. Allowing the memory to displace itself.
So Stratt, placed the memory into the grey matter of her mind, not for its importance but forgetting about it. Focusing on recruiting the ‘Doctor Grace’ whose paper she held tightly in her arms.
2.Fellow Scientists
Rumours were as prevalent as high schoolers; she could hear the whispers of conversation. Studying something and always talking about the end of the world had never really interested anyone or been something to leap their moods up. So instead, it was about rumours, people.
She heard it as she walking around the research routes, she was a busy woman. A lot of people needed to be kept in check, checked, witnessing their research. Today she did not need Grace, even from now it was the matter of how he was so giddy to have a lie in.
She was walking further, the clipboard heavy in her hand with her list of checks, documents and-.
“They are so cute” It was one of the scientists, his voice raised in a high pitch, laughing excitability from where Grace was always working. She slowed down a little.
“Yes- Ryland is so lucky” the other smiled, her voice light and breezy. Then it was the moment that made her steps slow. Ryland was the first name of Grace’s. It might be about a dog, a friend, a coworker. Maybe even a partner-
“Let’s get back to work as Grace would say” they expelled into loud laughs between the fabric of the labs.
Stratt jumped out of her moment of stopping, snooping when she really did not have the time for that. Grace’s private life was none of her business, anyone’s life like this was none of her business. After that, it was the fast walking she would have to do and the memory being placed into the back of her mind. It did not matter.
3.Carl and Grace in the hallway
It was just as she was about to round the corner, she heard Call laugh. Carl.
He was so serious and despite her serious approach to saving the world she did not like interfering in conversation. She had already been slow that morning listening to the luck of Grace’s dog. It was the moments that she waited, trying to busy herself with the documents. Fill out paperwork when she heard it the moment that soft chuckle.
“Oh, Ryland and Si-” he laughed.
The words seemed to be cut off by a hit.
“Carl shushes!” Grace laughed, joining in with some string of giggles, “I have work to do anyway”.
She heard the echo of two sets of footsteps, the laughter, some sort of tap dancing and when she turned her head it was the jazz hands that Grace had done just before opening the door. Carl copied him only for a second just before a familiar song began to play, closing the door tightly to Hult its movements.
“Ryland And Sim-” After that it was a loud shout battle cry and a tumble of laughter that echoed down the hallway and into her mind until her meeting. She could think about this thing with Ryland-Grace later, it was the topic of the Arctic and the Saharah Dessert concerns that seemed to trouble her mind. She had the fate of the world in her hands.
4.Yao and Grace at the bar
Yao was sitting near the bar, trying to order a drink. It was after Stratt had sung her heart out, she left to do some work and then returned. She liked the taste of a nice drink, a small drink, even as she filled out paperwork upon paperwork. A lot of the bar had cleared out Martin Dubois and Annie Shapiro were elsewhere for their own reasons she was sure, but what truly puzzled her was the lack of just engineers.
There in the corner was Yao who she saw as she entered nursing a drink. A soft one, it was incredibly late the hours of the morning, when all the scientists and who was she kidding the engineers should be fast asleep.
Yao was accompanied by one of a similar mind to her own. Grace with a notebook his jacket with an odd rectangle sticking out. He seemed to flicker to it as Yao did, zipping it into his pocket with a laugh.
She could hear their laughter so clearly, the lack of people and the soft music helped. She buried herself with the documents relevant to metallic minerals and H20. Signing where needed, she did not mean to, but she overheard it.
“I keep a photo of my loved one’s too” Yao had smiled, showing Grace the photo. The other man smiled, complimenting the other man on his family before patting his chest.
“They work here but their busy” he sniffed, raising his head from his notebook.
She could only see Yao face, the way his eyes once bright and a bit consumed by a large pupil, constricted. He pressed a small comforting hand onto his shoulder, “Cheshire them in every way as you are now” he bestowed, setting off from the stool.
After that, to avoid being nosy or rumours that she had no time before she allowed ink to paper. Hearing the clink of glasses over the plans for tomorrow, the bye’s and then the scruffling of pens into a small bag before a man in a fluffy cardigan left the room, some kick in his step.
She knew, what they did not. The universe, this world was going to trouble their souls over the future. Shaking her head of the emotion she pushed that conversation, like all others into the greys of her mind, continuing with her work as the sun rose. A coffee order dancing on her lips.
- Carl and the Meeting
Just before the meeting he knew, she could tell by how his sharp demeanour had falter to expose the personality and soul of a man that Ryland Grace knew deeply, to know him as a friend.
“Be easy on him” she heard him say, all she could do was nod, nod as the reached for the door handle to the meeting room.
His eyes tracking the file in her hand, the one of the missions that would take Grace and the person he if given time would be legally tied to in matrimony.
The way he was staring at that file, the one they had nicknamed ‘convict’. It was a code name, not linked to the man’s criminal record but the fact that what the mission was would be like that. A moment of jail in a small submarine. Battling time and then something that had been disturbing the earth’s core, sending researchers to their deaths. She had their lives in her hands, the destiny of their love story.
She nodded again, seeing his eyes flip up to her, entering the meeting room. She ignored the burn at her eyes, blaming sleep and sipped coffee before sitting down.
Just as she did, Grace turned to the entrance, the glass presenting his small smile and bubble of grief within his eyes. She briefly saw him giving Carl a small hug, a nod. An exchange of greetings coated in tear-soaked throats.
Then finally as the last attendee entered the room, she saw Carl wiping at his eye. Just before she started the meeting, the plan. To tell the fate of Doctor Ryland Grace and to inform the other’s not to spread the information about Rylands partner, the one in the photo he carried with him everywhere. Not to say that the man within them was now a ghost, or soon to be. The Earth core was coated in blood as red as the Petrova line that Ryland would face.
Stratt cleared her throat, allowing the bubble to dissipate before staring the meeting. In the corner of her eye, she saw a tissue bundled in Carl’s hand, his face stoic but eyes betraying the heartbreak for his friend.
As the shattering of glass of those warnings of those in the meeting, after Grace had left, like him they were sobbing, knowing Simon’s fate. The man from the picture. Grace would be unrecognisable in space, a blip in reality but she knew this would destroy him. She signed the order for the Amnesia drug, she signed it at that bar, before the explosion. Before this. Before this day. The memory she could never force into the back of her mind. They ghosted her as she was sure the lives of Dr Ryland Grace and soon to be Simon Grace, if they had time of course, would haunt her.
—
+1 Rocky:
Another box had fallen over - one labelled something brief just “stuff”.
Grace had taken a fall earlier, Rocky had laughed at him after knowing he was ok. That morning they worked with small stories of a photo that Ryland always kept close, always on him or in eye sight
His photo as he remembered was always with him. But the document under it, he had never seen it in his life.
“Oh god” he drained his mind, his soul onto the floor, it was a silly thing to think about, the document was included for a reason.
It looked like scrambled slightly creased and strung into the box for him to find. The word “Stuff” was not neatly written but an odd Scramble withs some scribble of his name attached. From the looks of all the stamps and the condition it was thrown in. Probably moments before the launch, motioning to the time mentions within it. Stratt was never one for not breaking rules, she must have given these minutes before the launch. Maybe this was a line of her jail sentence, enduring safety to deliver belongings to Dr Grace.
Dr Grace who did not want to go. Dr Grace who was forced to, that line would never make her sentence if Carl wanted to, but he was too kind to do that to them.
“Grace. Face Leaking” Rocky hammered on “Grace good question”.
It was the manner as he flicked through the documents, seeing his other box that held his heart within, that photo from the fair. Simon pressing a firm kiss to his cheek as they laughed in bundled clothes. Enjoying the autumn breeze as candy floss, hot dogs and a log fire scorched his senses.
As he saw the picture of Simon, the written documents. Saw the hours they were signed, the days. He knew. Stratt was always rushing, her day exceeded outside of the 9 to 5 he knew. But he did not know that this “Iron Mission” as it was titled - blood in the ocean and iron machinery’ was her night hours.
Each day pressed into his mind, flickering through government documents and a research paper that Simon had kissed him furiously for upon finishing. He always had that similar passion that this news was going to change the world. Their world, they would be rich.
Instead, Grace shook his head furiously, reaching the end of the document, seeing the red ink, the black ink melded into one another. “Deployed” in red ink, some scramble of it at least. Over Simon’s face just interfering with that line of text was the words “Deceased” in black letters.
“No no no” He gasped into his hand, leaning against the lab as he stared at it frozen. The photo in his jacket pocket pulsed painfully. The last meeting, one a few hours after he was sent to be monitored, then a few days.
How Simon was transferred to the iron submarine, bathed in iron scented water and then made to feel his blood break away into the ship. He lost his arm, His right one, the one he wrote everything with. The one always thrown over Rylands shoulder or waist.
“Rocky…” he sobbed, bringing his head to look at the ceiling. To get a better view of bright lights to perhaps clear the blur that his tears were setting horrible for him.
“My mate is-” he broke off into violent sobs.
Rocky stood frozen, he had heard the name “Stratt” a few times. Mentions in the lab, that time they had celebrated with Vodka and Eridian traditional clothes before he had sobbed a little. Rocky had to admit he was confused; they were not a great attempt at Eridian that Grace always joked about. It was harsh and like a bubble rising out of him.
Rocky pressed a small claw against the transparent structure, seeing how Grace held his hand there too as he sobbed. The name that he dares not put into that computer to be translated. THE name that he would whisper into his sleep.
“Simon” echoed with some pleas broken in as Ryland sobbed, forgetting the analysis they needed to do just before the fishing of that planet. Forgetting his lab, the mess that Rocky had yelled “Dirty Dirty” at. He forgot to breath as he pressed his hand further against the material of Eridian’s. Holding Rocky’s claw in a way through the glass. Whispered a pet name he had not uttered in years “Simon, love!” making him sob even harder into his hand and the death certificate cosplaying as government papers. He did not even have the rings of marriage or engagement, just a collection of photo’s she must have raided his house for and the notion that this was the love of his life on this piece of paper, dead.
Rocky knew that Adrien was safe. Ryland as he became to be as he talked of his mate was overjoyed only a few hours ago, dancing round the ship and laughing as he wondered if he could see Simon again. Talking of fate and destiny in such great detail that Rocky had to keep it to bring to Eridian, to “romance” Adrien as Ryland had joked. He remembers the uncontrollable joy, not from science but just as uplifted as Rocky got about his mate. He danced as Rocky said the names of Adrien and Simon, relishing in the tune before they laughed together.
Now all Rocky could do was hold his hand, barriered by altering atmospheres, as Ryland was certain of Simon’s fate. Clutching the photo he had carried with him throught out the ship and from the stories earlier that morning even on Earth. Rocky learnt how a human cries and anguishes at his worst, only a claw and a hand to link them in comfort. He hummed the name of Ryland’s mate to help him sleep. Every night until Erid, until he had it on repeat. Certainty always intensified humans with the strongest emotions, Ryland tried to pretend, to be Grace but grief of fates haunted him.