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It seems like Grace has more nightmares all of the time. It’s no surprise, really; Grace is also gathering more bad memories all of the time. Between remembering all of the bad stuff that happened to him on Earth and experiencing more on the Hail Mary, Grace has got plenty to dream about. He wishes he didn’t, if not for himself then for Rocky.
Even after months and months of watching each other sleep, Rocky is still horrified by the fact that Grace has dreams. Grace can’t blame him. If his species basically went into a coma every time they went to sleep, the idea of hallucinating while resting would probably freak him out, too.
At this point, Grace is almost used to it. His nightmares often play out in the same ways; it’s like his brain has a list of his greatest hits that it plays over and over. He dreams of being face down in the dirt, hands holding him down, looking up at a faint rainbow in the sky. He dreams of Rocky, curled up in the airlock, never waking up. He dreams of burning pain streaking up his arm. He dreams of reaching Rocky’s ship and finding nothing living left inside.
He lives with it, because at least his dreams are predictable. Rocky, though, Rocky can’t get used to it. Grace thinks his nightmares scare Rocky more than they scare himself.
Before Project Hail Mary, Grace used to have funny dreams. He remembers telling his students about the silly things that he saw when he slept, how some of them laughed even when the dreams weren’t particularly funny. He remembers being too tired to dream on Stratt’s Vat. When his subconscious did dredge up the energy to show him something, it was stressed-induced chaos that was too incoherent to be scary.
He’s never really had what one might consider “good dreams”. The kind where you’re with your dead loved ones again, or hanging out with your childhood dog, or something. But for once in his life, his brain sees fit to bless him with a good dream.
He dreams of a beach. He dreams of cool sea air and fog, a gentle breeze and the waves. The sand is soft beneath his hands. The water laps at his feet and Grace smiles. When he looks up, he can see the stars the way they are on Earth. He can pick out the constellations, Orion and the Big Dipper and Canis. For a moment, he feels like a child again, staring up at the sky through his bedroom window long after he was supposed to be asleep.
Rocky has no idea about the constellations. He couldn’t. There is no light on Erid, no night sky at all.
Grace looks down the beach and sees Rocky bounding toward him, free in the open air. A grin splits his face. Rocky’s here. He’s always wanted to show Rocky a real beach. The real deal is so much better than the screens in the Don’t Go Crazy room.
Rocky reaches Grace’s side, running up to him with the enthusiasm of a puppy. “Rocky like the beach,” he says, and it occurs to Grace that he doesn’t hear the automated voice of the translator. Rocky’s whale song simply makes sense to him. It makes him smile even wider. He reaches out and wraps an arm around Rocky’s carapace, pulling him against his side.
It feels like hugging a rock that’s been out in the sun for hours. (It feels like home.)
“Grace like the beach too,” Grace says with a laugh. He takes a deep breath and relishes the smell of the sea, the fresh air that floods his lungs. There is nothing recycled or artificial about this place. Grace is really back on Earth with Rocky by his side, no screens in front of them and no xenonite between them.
“Sound of waves is nice,” Rocky comments. “Pretty, pretty, pretty.”
Grace lays back against the sand, feeling the water wash over his feet. He looks up at the clear night sky, the twinkling stars, bright as ever. It’s so good to see Earth’s sky again. Grace had no idea just how much he missed it until now, when he’s finally seeing it again. There’s no rainbows in it tonight. “Do you know about the constellations?”
“Constellations,” Rocky repeats somehow. “Grace tell Rocky about constellations.”
Grace laughs. “Aye, aye, captain.”
Rocky settles in against Grace’s side again, curling up under Grace’s arm. The waves keep coming in. The breeze blows through Grace’s hair. Rocky lifts one of his arms and points to a collection of stars. It doesn’t matter how Rocky can see them. Grace doesn’t care. “What is that one, question?”
“We call that one the Big Dipper,” Grace says, tracing the constellation with his eyes. It was the first one he learned about as a child, the easiest one to see. He remembers always pointing it out to his parents out of the car window at night. “See how it looks a bit like a spoon?”
“Does not look like spoon,” Rocky says. “Look like nothing.”
“Well, humans think it looks like a spoon,” Grace says. He points to another. “And that one there is called the Little Dipper.”
“Look even less like spoon.”
Grace laughs. Rocky does too. Grace is smiling so hard it’s starting to hurt his face. He’s not sure he’s built this kind of contentedness. But even that doesn’t matter right now. Grace opens his mouth to start explaining the story of Orion, but he’s interrupted by Rocky deciding to climb onto his chest. It should crush him, but it doesn’t. Rocky weighs just the right amount. He settles in again, and Grace thinks that he could in fact sleep like this. Rocky is a warm weight on his chest. He can’t stop smiling.
“Is okay?” Rocky asks.
“It’s nice,” Grace says. “It’s…good. Feels right.” He clears his throat and gets back to Orion. There’s a feeling in his chest that’s almost suffocating. Or perhaps, it should be suffocating. It’s heavy, it’s intense, but it doesn’t feel like it’s drowning him. It takes Grace a moment to place what feeling it is: happiness. Grace hasn’t been this happy in a long time. Maybe ever. Maybe he’s spent his whole life just waiting to be on a beach explaining the stars to Rocky.
Rocky likes the story of Orion. He asks Grace to tell another.
And then Grace wakes up.
It takes a moment to place where he is. One second ago, he was on a beach with Rocky, sea breeze in his hair and fresh air in his lungs, and now he’s…looking at the stark white ceiling of the Hail Mary’s dormitory. All of the air, the heavy recycled air, leaves Grace’s body in a whoosh. It takes him a long moment to breathe it back in.
He doesn’t bolt upright. He isn’t breathing fast or sweating or shivering. It wasn’t a nightmare.
It was nice. He was happy.
But it wasn’t real. Of course it wasn’t real. Rocky would die in Earth’s atmosphere. He’s way too heavy to ever be able to lay on Grace’s chest without killing him.
And Grace is never going to be on a beach again. He came to terms with that a long time ago. He accepted the fact that he would never see Earth again when he went back for Rocky, accepted the likelihood that he would die in space after all. He did. He really did. This isn’t just him lying about making peace again. And he’s very glad to still be alive and to be on his way to Erid but…
“Grace okay, question?”
Grace jumps, having almost forgotten Rocky was even in the room. He sits up and looks over to Rocky, who is sitting on his side of the xenonite barrier with tools in a few of his claws. But he isn’t working right now. He’s just watching Grace.
“What?”
“Grace wake up but not move,” Rocky says. “Is weird.”
Grace shivers. He remembers the phantom feeling of Rocky’s carapace under his arm, weighing down his chest, radiating heat into his skin. He remembers the intense elation of being able to touch his best friend. And he remembers that it wasn’t real. He will never be able to touch Rocky. The scars curling up his arm prove that. There will always be something between them.
“I’m…I’m fine,” Grace says.
“Do not seem fine.”
“I just…had a weird dream.” Grace pulls his knees into his chest, leaning back against the wall. He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, trying to banish the images of Rocky on that beach from his mind. It doesn’t work. All of it is still there. He swears he can still feel the breeze.
Rocky drops his tools, making Grace jump. “Nightmare? Grace had nightmare?”
He sounds panicked. Grace hurries to reassure him. “No, no, not a nightmare. Just a…just a dream.”
“Just dream?”
Grace sighs. He wrings his hands and sniffles. “We were…on a beach. Together. Sharing the same atmosphere. Safe and…and happy. You asked me about the constellations.”
“Rocky no understand,” Rocky says. “Sound like good dream. Why Grace sad, question?”
It should have been a good dream. It should make Grace happy. He should still feel that warmth in his chest, shouldn’t he? But all it has done is remind him of all the things he will never have again. He’ll never see a beach again, never feel the breeze in his hair again, never see Earth’s stars again. They ran out of coffee ages ago. It’s been a long time since Grace last even saw another human in the flesh. Rocky can’t touch him. Nothing can ever touch him again.
Grace wraps his arms around himself in a poor imitation of a hug. He tries to imagine the hands belong to someone else. He tries to imagine the hands are claws and the skin is gritty. If he thinks about it hard enough, he can almost feel the heat radiating from Rocky’s skin. Almost. “It’s…hard to explain.”
“Try.”
Grace shakes his head. “I don’t…let’s talk later, okay?”
“No, Grace talk now,” Rocky insists. “Grace is sad. Talking make Grace less sad.”
“I’d just…I’d just like to be alone right now, buddy,” Grace says. He gets out of bed and trudges out of the dormitory into the Don’t Go Crazy Room. Rocky calls something after him, but Grace doesn’t really listen.
He sets the screens to his favorite beach, but it isn’t same.
…
After Grace goes into the Don’t Go Crazy Room, Rocky tries to leave him be. That’s what Grace asked him for. Sometimes Grace needs what he calls alone time. Rocky does his best to respect that, even though he can still hear the beating of Grace’s heart from here. Grace is a lot more concerned with privacy than Rocky is, though Rocky doesn’t think this is about privacy. He thinks this is about avoidance. But maybe Grace needs a moment. Or a few hours, apparently. Rocky decides to stay in the dormitory, only because he can’t get to the lab without bothering Grace.
He thinks bothering Grace might actually be a good thing, but he’s trying to avoid getting into an argument. Why exactly the dream Grace described would make them argue is lost on Rocky, but he can feel the tension in the air. So he’s trying to take his mind off of it by working to repair some of his tools, but he can’t focus. Every time Grace so much as twitches, Rocky hears it and it distracts him. He just can’t figure out what’s wrong.
Grace’s dream sounded nice. For the first time since Rocky learned about them, Grace had a dream that doesn’t sound terrifying. Rocky wishes that when he went to sleep, he imagined himself with his loved ones in a place where he feels safe. He wonders if he would dream about Adrian. It sounds nice, comforting.
Grace said he felt safe. He said he felt happy.
Yet, somehow, Grace found that as distressing as his nightmares. He told Rocky he was fine, but Rocky knows when Grace is lying. Though, he doesn’t seem scared. He wasn’t panicked when he woke up. He wasn’t thrashing around or mumbling in his sleep. He just seems…sad.
Grace is still sitting in the Don’t Go Crazy Room, staring at the ocean on the screens. Rocky can hear the canned sounds of waves hitting the shore. He can also hear Grace’s slow, careful breathing and the occasional sniffle. Is Grace crying again?
Okay. Rocky’s let this go on long enough. He needs to go talk to Grace.
Rocky transfers to his ball. He approaches Grace in the Don’t Go Crazy Room slowly, hoping to avoid scaring him. Grace’s hearing is so much worse than his, and sometimes he does what he calls zoning out, where he just stares off into space like he’s not even in there anymore. Rocky doesn’t like it when he does that. He’s probably doing it right now, and when he does that, he sometimes gets mad at Rocky for sneaking up on him.
“Grace?” Rocky says.
Despite Rocky’s best efforts, Grace startles. He jumps, gaze flickering to Rocky for only a few moments before returning to the screens. “Hey, Rock.”
“What is Grace doing?” Rocky asks. Grace does this sort of thing sometimes, where he just sits in the Don’t Go Crazy Room looking at forests or street corners or wheatfields. Rocky knows it makes him sad, but this seems worse. Different. Grace had a dream where he was safe and happy and it made him miserable.
Rocky fears he will never understand humans.
“Nothing, buddy,” Grace says. “Just…thinkin’.”
“About?” Rocky rolls a bit closer to Grace, wishing he could reach out and touch his friend.
Grace shakes his head. He’s still not looking at Rocky. The staticky sound of waves keeps distracting Rocky from the matter at hand.
“Grace,” Rocky says, rolling forward enough to nudge Grace’s leg. “Grace need to talk about it.”
He bumps Grace’s leg again, trying to get his attention. Grace shakes his head some more. “Not now, buddy.”
“Grace is sad,” Rocky says. “Rocky want to fix.”
“You…you can’t fix this, Rock,” Grace says. He puts his hand on Rocky’s ball. Rocky make a happy sound, glad that Grace is seeking contact. He reaches one his claws up to press against the same spot, but he realizes only when Grace pulls back suddenly that Grace wasn’t trying to make contact with him; he was trying to push him away.
That’s bad. That’s really, really bad. Grace has never done that before. “Rocky will try,” Rocky declares. “Rocky no understand why dream bother Grace so much. Grace need to explain.”
Grace sighs, putting his face in his hands. He drags his hands down his face and says, “It’s because I woke up.”
Rocky pauses, trying to make sense of that. Grace didn’t want to wake up? He…he wanted to die in his sleep? Is that what he’s saying? There’s no way. Grace has never said anything like that before. He has fought so hard to stay alive. “Rocky still no understand.”
Grace pulls his knees closer to his chest. “You miss Adrian, right?”
“More than anything,” Rocky answers, though he doesn’t really know how Adrian pertains to this conversation.
“If you dreamt that you were back with Adrian, it would make you happy, right?”
“Rocky no have dreams.”
“Right, but if you did. If you dreamt about being with Adrian, that would be good.”
Rocky makes another happy noise. Of course it would make him happy to be with Adrian again. He misses Adrian so much that sometimes it feels like a physical pain, somewhere deep inside his carapace. Sometimes, when he has nothing else to do, Rocky fantasizes about their reunion. He imagines the sheer ecstasy of seeing Adrian again after so many years of believing he would die alone at Tau Ceti. It soothes the ache under his skin.
(Sometimes, when it is very quiet and Grace is asleep, he imagines returning to Erid and learning that Adrian has found someone new. It has been a very long time since he was on Erid. They must think him dead. But Rocky can’t afford to think like that most of the time.)
“Would be nice,” Rocky says. “Would make Rocky very happy to be with Adrian again.”
Grace nods. “Right, so you dream that you’re with Adrian again. You’re somewhere that makes you happy and you’re together and everything is okay. You have everything that you want.”
Rocky imagines it. He imagines being in the home he shared with Adrian, knowing that the Astrophage is gone and the sun is saved. He imagines Grace being there too, safe and happy with him and Adrian. He feels that warmth deep in his carapace again.
“And it feels so real,” Grace continues. “You think you’re really there, that you’re really back with Adrian. And then you wake up.”
Grace makes this rough, choked sound in his throat. Rocky bumps the ball against Grace’s leg again, staying there with xenonite pressed against Grace’s skin. He places one of his claws on one of the panes of the ball, right where it meets Grace’s leg. He hopes it’s comforting, but then a harsh sob tears out of Grace’s chest and Rocky pulls his claw back.
Oh no. Rocky messed it up somehow. Grace is so good at being confusing.
Grace sobs again, burying his face in his knees. Through all of the liquid in his throat and coming out of his eyes, Grace cries, “And then you wake up, and, and you’re here, the same place you’ve been for so long, and you’re never going to be on a beach again and the constellations are all different and you can’t ever touch him for real, and, and—”
Grace cuts himself off to sob some more, and Rocky can do nothing but press the ball against his side, hoping it won’t make it worse. This time, at least, Grace doesn’t pull away. He drapes one of his arms over the top of the ball, pressing his forehead against it. Rocky hears the sound of his tears dripping onto the xenonite.
“Grace is okay,” Rocky says. “Grace will be happy again. Rocky will make sure of it.”
Grace slumps further against Rocky’s ball. For a second, Rocky hears nothing but the pounding of Grace’s heart, his harsh, wet breath, and the crashing of the waves. That gives him an idea. He adds, “Rocky will make Grace beach.”
Grace huffs out a wet laugh. “How are you gonna do that, buddy?”
“Rocky is engineer,” Rocky says. “Will figure something out.”
Grace will need somewhere to live on Erid. He can’t live in the suit they used so he could see Rocky’s ship. Rocky will make sure there is a beach for Grace. He will do whatever it takes to make sure Grace can be happy on Erid.
“It wasn’t real,” Grace mutters, probably more to himself that Rocky.
“Rocky and Grace will make it real,” Rocky says. “Rocky and Grace go to Erid, Rocky see Adrian again, Grace meet Adrian, Rocky make Grace beach. Will be happy there. Will be real.”
“Will be real,” Grace repeats in a whisper.
“Yes,” Rocky says. Grace sniffles, raising his arm from Rocky’s ball to wipe at his face. Rocky’s never going to get used to all of Grace’s leaking.
They sit there in silence for a few moments, Grace still slumped over Rocky’s ball as he uses his shirt to wipe the tears off of his face. Rocky should distract him. It seemed like talking about constellations made him happy in his dreams. Maybe the same will work in real life. “What Grace say about constellations?”
“What?” Grace says.
“Constellations,” Rocky says. “Grace say the constellations are different. What mean?”
“The stars make different shapes based on where you look at them,” Grace says. “Earth has constellations that don’t exist anywhere else.”
Rocky hums. “Grace like Earth constellations?”
“Yeah.”
They had talked about constellations at some point before. They must have, because Rocky recognizes the word. Erid has no constellations. They can’t see the stars from the surface. Maybe Grace can invent new constellations on Erid.
“Rocky want to hear about Earth constellations,” Rocky says. “Grace tell story.”
Grace laughs, still a little watery, and wraps his arm around Rocky’s ball. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds nice.”
“Do it,” Rocky says, “Show time. Tell constellation story.”
Grace leans his head against Rocky’s ball. He picks up the remote for the Don’t Go Crazy screens and starts pressing buttons. Rocky points his transponder at one of the screens and realizes Grace has pulled up the stars. It takes Rocky a second to figure out why they wouldn’t just move to the window. This is the Earth’s sky, the Earth’s constellations. This is home for Grace.
“So, Orion…”