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Grace was finally stable.
Or, at least, mostly.
It'd been a long journey to get him the right kind of food. Turns out synthesizing vitamins basically from scratch wasn’t as easy as it sounds, whoda thunk. There were a lot of scares, and even after the scientists and the chemists and everyone had synthesized sufficient food that had all the nutrients he needed, it took a long time for him to recover. For a while Grace was bedridden, with barely enough strength to sit up.
However, after a couple weeks of Grace slowly transitioning to eating more and more solid food, he started to gain some of his energy back. I didn't think I'd ever be so happy to see Grace eat. It was still disgusting, but it was leagues better than the feeling that sat in my carapace when he hadn't been able to. I held my carapace quite a bit higher that day.
Eventually, we tried to work on standing, that had been a work in progress for a while.
“Careful.” I said to Grace as I reached two of my arms forwards to support Grace while covered with my flexible xenonite suit. It hadn't been as much of a priority as finding food for Grace, but I had mostly finished it by the time we got to Erid anyways. Plus, I did not trust Grace at this moment to not fall on his face. Despite his name he was clumsy at his very best. Add in a bunch of vitamin deficiencies and my already thin trust in my friend’s mobility was basically non-existent.
Grace huffed a small laugh, “What do you think I'm doing?” his voice was doing a lot better than it had been, but it was still a little raspy. He wrapped his arm around one of mine and used it to slowly lower himself down to the floor.
I grabbed his other arm, and forgot for a moment just how light Grace was. Humans were not very heavy, but Grace was even lighter than normal now, it pained me to think about.
Grace huffed, but his mouth was still curved upwards. “Rocky, if I'm going to get any stronger, I need to support at least some of my weight.”
I grumbled, I didn't like it but he had a point. He needed to build back body mass somehow. Very slowly I shifted to support only one side of Grace. He slumped a little bit, and leaned more heavily on my arm supporting him. It took all of my willpower to not immediately grab Grace again, it looked like he was going to fall. If he broke something I wasn't sure we would be able to fix it in time. Eventually though, he found his footing, and stood up a little straighter. A little bit of the tension in my body eased.
“Alright, there we go.” Grace said, strained. He put his free hand to his back and stretched, several concerning pops emanated from his spine. Or at least they would've been concerning if I hadn't heard them a million times on the trip here. Grace had said it was nothing to worry about, it was just air escaping from his joints. And while I insisted that the acceptable amount of noise that bones should make was zero, Grace didn't seem concerned so I let it be. Still…
“Grace okay, question?” he'd been wrong about things before.
Grace straightened up. “I'm fine buddy, just popping my back.” Grace was breathing a lot faster than normal, but I chose to leave alone for now. Grace probably would not stop unless he was literally dying, and even then it was a struggle to get him to rest. “Let's walk around a bit, eh? Get some exercise.”
I bobbed his carapace up and down in an approximation of a human nod, a weird and slightly disorienting gesture, but I wanted to give him familiarity wherever I could. I helped Grace walk around his biodome- Grace had insisted we call it that, as opposed to an enclosure or anything similar, he said it made him feel like a zoo animal. Which may have been closer than I had been willing to admit. But if that were the case he was the best zoo animal ever to exist. Adrian had carved some new rocks to put near the little artificial beach they had at one end, so they decided to go there first.
I carefully helped Grace lower himself down onto the combination of sand and pebbles. It was a little hard for me to walk on but it seemed to make Grace happy every time he went, so we kept it.
Grace chuckled, “I can get down on my own, Rock.”
I balled two of my extra hands and banged them together, “No, statement. Grace is fragile.”
Grace’s leg chose that moment to prove me right, and gave out from under him as he stumbled as clutched my arm to hold his weight.
“See?” I couldn't help but add.
“Okay okay, you have a point.” Grace carefully lowered himself down and plopped onto the sand. He leaned back on his hands and extended his legs out in front of him. He looked so relaxed, so much more than he had in the past several months. It contrasted with how much louder his chest pump was.
It was fine. Grace was fine, or- he was going to be. I was (mostly) sure of it. We had finally gotten the right kind of food and Grace was doing better than I had heard him in many many Earth months. But…
“Grace okay, question?” You could never be too cautious. Especially when you are looking after a very leaky, very fragile space blob.
Grace huffed out a small laugh, “I'm fine, Rocky, I swear.” But the way his voice was still a little rough, his laugh much quieter than it usually was, it wasn't very convincing.
He looked towards me, during the trip to Erid he'd gotten really good at telling Eridian body language, which was a blessing, and a curse. Grace was annoyingly perceptive.
Half of Grace’s mouth curved up annoyingly high. “But hey, if you want, I could have Nanny-bot run a full diagnostic on me. Have someone else tell you everything's fine for a change.”
I shift my carapace in mild annoyance, “Grace thinks Grace is funny.”
The accused lifted his arms off the sand and leaned forward, “I am! It's not my fault you're more worried than a mother hen.”
I had since learned that ‘mother hen’ was an Earth expression meaning somebody overly concerned with another person's health and safety. I had tried to explain to Grace that my concern was very much warranted, as he had spent the last several months almost dying from starvation. Grace had only said something confusing about a container and pointing. He did not elaborate any further.
“Is not bad idea though. For safety.”
Grace chuckled, “case and point.”
I wished Grace was not so fragile so I could shove him.
“Am serious, Eridian doctors try very hard to understand human biology, but not understand all. Ship robot know much more, might catch something we missed.” I was hesitant to trust Grace's ship robot, after all, it had put Grace and crew into a long dangerous sleep, and then had proceeded to kill both of Grace's shipmates. However, now he had people watching over him, and I would personally ram into Nanny-bot if it looked like it was going to do anything harmful. Plus, it had actually been quite helpful when Grace had been starving, had helped keep him as stable as possible while scientists synthesized vitamins.
Grace looked up, his posture more relaxed. “Oh? Trust her now, do you?”
“Trust is strong word. More like tolerate. Can be helpful.”
He shifted to lean on my carapace, I wish I could feel him without the xenonite barrier, touch his skin and hold him close. Intertwine limbs like Eridian’s while sleeping. He would be freezing, but it would be worth it to be able to actually hold him without killing us both.
“Alright buddy, I'll have Mary do a full analysis later today.”
I hummed a high frequency and tilted my carapace, “Good.”
A moment passed before he spoke again. “You know I appreciate your concern, right? I appreciate everything you and the other Eridians have done for me since I got here.”
It was my turn to titter, just a little smug. “Have not forgotten since last time.”
His eyes went to the top of their range of motion, then moved back towards me. Finally he folded his arms behind his head and leaned back on me. “Good.”