Charly

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Was inspired by the wonderful post by @hailed-marys so me and @sam-i-am-27 got possessed by the demons and came out with this.

HC list under the cut

What if that party actually happened on Stratt’s vat during the ending days before launch? Everyone heard the story. (Let’s be honest, it was Olesya’s idea, backed by Dimitri and secretly Stratt, who wanted to subtly get back at Ryland for giving her the most confusing heart attack of her life.) They decided to throw a baby shower just to tease Grace and Carl.

And it’s of course a hit.

Grace is stuttering and flustered, but also kind of annoyed he’s being pulled away from work for this, but weirdly touched by all the people that came to annoy him— while Carl is surprisingly having a good time (Olesya spared no expense ’If we are having baby shower then we’re having baby shower right, but with drinking yes!’.) It’s probably one of the better parties the Vat has ever had aside from karaoke night, and everyone remembers it fondly.

And that picture— Ryland looking surprised, smiling, maybe a little teary-eyed while confetti rains around them in the background, the “Congratulations on the Baby!” banner hanging behind him with blue and pink balloons and a stupid party hat that says “You are the father!” — is stuffed into his personal effects on the ship. Because his friend might not remember him, but at least Carl will have something to show that he was loved, that he was happy, that he had friends.

Maybe it’s a little selfish on Carl’s part, but he hopes this stupid, fun night is the last thing Ryland remembers of him. And if he doesn’t remember in time? Well, he’s sure Yao and Ilyukhina will give him the rundown.

Except four years from the Hail Mary’s perspective, no time at all and eleven years from Earth, Dr. Ryland Grace wakes up with no memory of anything. He of course searches through his personal effects to figure out who he is— who he was. And then he finds a picture of himself. (Maybe Carl put in several.) celebrating the fact that he was apparently going to be a father.

He proceeds, as anyone would, to curse (-the first time he’s done so since waking up) and then freak the fuck out.

And cry, a lot of crying. Over the supposed child he’d left behind to go die in space for. (It has to be for them what else could it have been for?) The child he evidently wanted enough he threw a baby shower for. That same baby he can’t even remember the name of. Maybe not even born by the time he left from the lack of baby photos or ultrasounds in his personal effects. A baby he will never meet and never hold and never get to say I love you too.

Eva's POV

Making Nothing But Silence.

Perhaps a mix of horror and tragedy. The horror behind it is a bit like an alternate/changeling deal where you have some Eridian-shaped thing that doesn't make noise. It doesn't sing, it doesn't echolocate, it just moves around like you would.

But the tragedy is interesting because now Eridian!you, in this theoretical circumstance, cannot speak. Cannot join the thrums. You cannot even see without the aid of other Eridians or anything else that makes sound.

Combine the two and you have some equivalent of the Invisible Man, except more immediately repulsive. This inaudible individual cannot survive or navigate without being with other eridians, but other eridians either mistake them for features of the caves and ignore them, or react to them in horror as described above.

Seems quite versatile, depending on if you want an immediately unnerving monster, or a doomed protagonist.

"1. 2. 3. Eyes. On. Me." *said with such intense glare and direct eye contact it made one person tear up in fear*

"WE RAISE OUR HANDS TO SPEAK!" *even Stratt follows the rule the rest of the meeting*

"I can wait..." *said in a normal volume in a room of screaming frustrated scientists. they all quiet immediately*

Do you think there came a time when he realized he couldn’t clearly recall the faces of anyone he’d known on Earth and knew with a haunting certainty that it wasn’t from the amnesia drug?

Do you think there were times when he would stare up at the simulated night sky of his biodome and think about how he’d never see the constellations he grew up with again?

Do you think there were days it got to him? The enormity of the distance between him and any other human in the universe?

Do you think he ever compared himself to point Nemo? It’s the farthest away anyone can get from any landmass on Earth, it feels laughable from Erid.

Do you think there were times where he’d miss his own species so badly it burned?

Do you think Rocky ever watched Grace, surrounded by Eridians who loved him, yet painfully isolated in a way no other creature has ever been?

Do you think Rocky ever thought about his decades drifting in Tau Ceti’s solar system and the aching loneliness he felt being the lone survivor of a dead ship?

Do you think there came a day where he looked at Grace and realized that Grace had spent a longer time proportional to his lifetime alone than Rocky did?

Do you think Rocky ever thought about their time on the Hail Mary? Not just the adventure and danger and ‘saving the universe’ parts, but the way Grace’s frigidly cold (to an Eridian) body would press against the outside of Rocky’s xenonite and Rocky would press back like a dying creature just for the contact that was never enough?

Do you think Rocky ever reminisced about how he felt landing back on Erid and feeling another warm carapace against his for the first time in decades?

Do you think he thought back to the relief of feeling his own atmosphere pressing down on him and the lovely resonance of another Eridian’s voice ratting through his body?

Do you think it eats at him? The guilt? The same guilt he’d felt every day during the return trip that he’d retreat in private to eat another one of his endless Eridian rations while Grace starved? The guilt that nearly chokes him every time he savors his mate’s touch knowing that Grace will never get to touch again?

Do you think that Rocky’s sleep cycles are disrupted because he stays up wondering if he damned his best friend by bringing him to Erid?