Agent Rouka's Blog

Mama Stratt and little Grace (oc)

“Wait!”

Stratt pauses, turning slightly towards him to look him up and down. The guards walking alongside her stop and do the same. He’s pretty sure he isn’t imagining the way a couple of them put their hands on their weapons, but he tries not to let it visibly shake him.

“What do you want, Dr. Grace?”

“That’s it? You’re leaving?”

She shrugs. “At the school, you said there were thousands of people more qualified than you. I’ll go get one of them.”

“But—But what about me?”

“Are you appealing to my sense of sentimentality?” Stratt turns fully towards him then, her eyebrows arched just so into an expression of disbelief. “I don’t have time for that. I don’t have time for ego. You know what I have time for, Dr. Grace? Dozens of heads of state and university presidents, begging me for samples for their labs. Each of them will only get three or four cells as is.”

“I can do more for you than them.” I’m your soulmate! he thinks incredulously. Or at least, she’s his soulmate.

“Can you?”

“Yes! I’m—I have research experience no one else does. You said it—everyone knew I could have led the field of astrobiology if I hadn’t left. No one else is like me. No one else has the models of novel lifeforms that I do.”

She looks bored.

“I can recreate your expertise elsewhere. You have been out of the field for some time. I can shape another scientist to be what I want.”

Oh, god, she’s going to make him beg. Grace squirms. He wants this. It’s embarrassing how much he wants this, but he does.

“I—God, Stratt. I want to be on the project. I want to work with Astrophage. I want to—I want to help the world.” He takes a deep breath. “Please, let me stay on the project.”

Her hairline is a high aspiration but her eyebrows are reaching for the stars.

“I left you three cells.”

Grace’s stomach flips immediately. He can stay—oh, god, he can stay. This is the most important thing he’ll ever do.

Then her words catch up to him.

She left him three cells.

She already left him Astrophage! He didn’t have to beg at all! She just let him do that for fun!

“Three cells,” he repeats, a little flat. She tips her head to the side, briefly, a sharp movement of equivocation.

“Plus the one you killed.”

Oh, god, he hates her. Grace groans and puts his hands over his face, and he’d swear he sees the corner of her mouth raise in a mean little smirk.

“Why’d you let me talk so long?” He moans through his fingers. She huffs—he thinks it’s a laugh. It’s not fair for it to be such a nice sound when it’s at his expense like that.

“You seemed like you needed to get it off your chest,” she says, and tosses him something. He catches it. It’s his Earth beanbag. She freaking nicked it. “Get to work, Dr. Grace. I’ll leave the lab up. Now that you’ve promised me you can give me what no one else can, I expect results.”

He's who walks up to stand beside her when recruiting Grace. A seamless team. "I need you to come with us."

He's in the observation room with her and all the other important officials, watching Grace make first contact. He's privy to that pivotal moment. She must think he's entitled to partaking of it. Because this is his mission too.

She trusts him to oversee Grace's experiments with three (and a dead) invaluable astrophage cells. How he does it is up to his own judgment. With an expense account and plenty of leeway for how to use it, no questions asked. He's entirely confident in the authority he wields in her name. "Which government?" "All of them."

He's in the room at Baikonur when they present Grace with his role as replacement science officer. He knows. Of all people she thought would be appropriate to have there, the flight team, the lead scientists who have worked with Grace all this time... he's there. Shaking his head in disappointment. Expressing what Eva doubtlessly feels beneath her ever so calmly presented arguments.

He's doubtlessly the one she calls from her office to let him know they predicted correctly and the final stretch of corralling their wayward savior will be up to him. He'll do it right. He'll do it.

Just... unspoken, implicit trust and faith in his ability to do his part in their greater purpose. She believes in Grace but can't fully trust him. Carl? Zero doubt.

So anything regarding astrophage or the ship or space goes through Ryland, and that means he is constantly working with Stratt to make sure all the many moving parts of getting the Hail Mary in the air keep moving. But it’s Carl who the lawyers and accountants and security report to, whose sphere is making sure payments are processed, supply management and delivery to the ship stays on track, authorization to enter national waters or national airspace is obtained, background checks are performed, security threats are handled, political threats to the project are monitored, and who joins activities like springing useful embezzlers out of prison and Stratt’s copyright trial excursion. She has two deputies to cover different aspects of keeping the project running and she thought she chose them well based on their stated willingness to go all in on the task to save the world but as the project goes on only one of them seems to really understand what they’re all dealing with here.

(And so after DuBois and Shapiro die in that explosion, Carl is the one Stratt sits down with to say, “You know it has to be him.”

Carl gives a long sigh and is quiet for a few heavy seconds before he says, “Yeah, I know. Does he?”

Eva: "Took your time."

Death: "I was busy."

Eva: *staring intensely*

Death: *smiling* "But not as busy as I could have been."

“It seems like she doesn’t care but she secretly cares, she just doesn’t let it show”

Idk it seemed pretty fucking obvious to me that only someone who cares so SO much would do the things she does!!! She’s showing it through her actions!! Isn’t she!????

Am I just fundamentally wired differently???

in the end, i think what she wants is certainty.

for the rest of her life on earth, humans are going to hate her and blame her for the hardships they will go through. until the beetles make it back, she wont even know if it was all worth it.

Link to the poem

the little foot stomps when he says question, which is something he does every time but are infused with actual frustration while he interrogates grace

the sulky way he says no again and again when grace tries to get him to give him a thumbs up

the way grace's voice breaks when we says "we got stars to save."

"need word. to risk self to save other." / "dumb." and then writes brave with this sort of painful pride because he doesnt know yet

the way grace steps away to have a moment to himself

rocky doing the math on his claws. "i can give. i go home six years slower."

the resolve in rocky's voice when he says he couldnt fix his crew but he can fix this, and grace go home

the way grace's breath hitches when he breaks down

"okay."

"i thought you made peace, question?" / "i didnt mean any of that. that's just something you say."

ending with the hug which is plain adorable.

We all have to make sacrifices. If I have to be the world's whipping boy to secure our salvation, then that's my sacrifice to make.