AU where Ryland Grace has a few weeks left of breeding taumeoba when he gets his ‘I didn’t want to go’ memories back and when he’s deciding what videos to upload to the Beetles he realizes this is the perfect chance to get back at Stratt. Now that he’s, you know, had a crying jag and freaked out about the betrayal for a few days, his feelings kind of simmer against the necessity of it, you know? And it helps that he’s not actually gonna die.
So, after uploading all the science and posterity videos, Ryland adds one ‘For Eva’ knowing full well that several governments and possibly the entirety of what is left of the world is gonna see it and he lays on a thick spiel about how he finally remembered that they were gonna get married, right before the accident that put him on this mission, that he remembered proming her the rest of his life and he remembered ‘how hard it was for us to say goodbye’ and ‘you made the right decision. Of course you did. Of course it was the right decision, but Eva, I still miss you. I was missing you before I even fully remembered you. Golly, why didn’t we just – touch more? Talk more? You wouldn’t even let me hold your hand! But I understood. Your hands were full. You had the world in them, Eva.’ And ‘I hope you kept the lights on love, because I’m coming home!’ and he gives the camera this goopy, sweet, broad smile, because he’s utterly tickled, knowing full well that Eva is gonna have to live with this for the months and or years between the Beetles arriving and Ryland making it back, and he even gets Rocky to make him a xenonite wedding band to tuck into a Beetle with his little spaceman, to really sell the whole thing, right, and he’s just freaking giddy about how mad that’s gonna make Stratt –
And then the tauemoeba escape, and Ryland has to go back for Rocky, and he makes another video, explaining the science and the issue and the solution and then he trails off for a minute or so, expression conflicted, and when he looks back up it’s just with this breathless soft ‘Eva’ on his lips, and then he swallows, and then he smiles and it’s – sweet in a sad way, because for Ryland this is really goodbye, and his prank had sort of made him feel better about what she’d done, and honestly – he did miss her. Even still. ‘Eva, I’ve gotta go,” he says, his eyes wet and his voice quavering. ‘You were right about me. It’s gotta be me,’ he shrugs, laughs, wipes away the wet line at the edge of his eyes. ‘There’s nobody else and I mean, I’m on a winning streak, right? Why not try 2 for 2 in saving an entire species, huh? So I just…I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I made it so hard for – for us. And I’ll miss you. Just – do me a favor and in case I don’t make it – I know how you love back-up plans, yeah? – do me a favor and send an extra probe of taumoeba to 40-Eridani for me? You really can’t let me die in vain here, alright? So make sure – make sure to save both our worlds, alright? Yeah……. And just…. if you care for me any bit at all still, do me one other favor, Eva Stratt. Live a good life for me’ He pleads, before he shudders a breath, looking off to the side for a quiet moment, and then he looks down, nods to himself, presses a kiss to his fingers and his fingers to the camera and turns it off.’
And Eva, right, watches these tapes in a room full of world leaders and aerospace representatives and she’s just – fuming red and there is that stupid little ringbox from the Beetle in front of her with the most unique wedding band in the galaxy in it and it fits perfectly and she’s just -seething, because that is not what happened. They were not – secret lovers, they did not secretly marry or promise to marry, none of that –
But the old Petrova Task Force, right, they take this and run with it – “Oh yeah, it was obvious, I mean ,they denied it, but you could tell –“
“Grace was so bad at hiding right, terrible liar –“
“Stratt was always slipping him these – sour skittles packets, and i mean, that was definitely favoritism, you have no idea how hard it was to get anything on the vat –“
“And the sticky notes! She’d leave him these cute little notes, right, on his lab or on his coffee mug or, one time, I saw her just stick it to his forehead –“
“And Grace never let her be alone, you know? I mean, he was always kind of following her around like a puppy, but no one else ever really approached her, so when we were all, you know, together, those two would wander off –“
Eva’s getting bombarded with all this, and she’s shaking with anger and like, maybe cried a tear or two of frustration, denying it because people are acting sympathetic, while she's insisting that; "I paved the Sahara and I bombed the Antarctic shelf and I sent Ryland Grace into space against his wishes –“
And everyone is just like, oh Eva, we know you loved him. We know how hard that must have been –
And they remake the movie about the project, and the new one has this entire romantic sublot, and the theme of her loving him so much, and having to give him to the stars to save humanity, knowing she’s never getting him back, and this really poignant ending about Stratt waking up in prison (because she did go to prison) and Ryland Grace, waking up in space, both of them on these narrow bunks with these tiny little windows, reflecting different suns, and theres this mutual red streak of cinematic glare in that sunlight, right, and they turn her into this doomed tragic heroine in the public eye, right, and Eva goes so far as to try and release the audio of Grace’s refusal to go up on the Hail Mary as proof that it was not what they were making it out to be, except someone (Carl) removed bits of it, and the rest can definitely be interpreted as having some… subtext, and Eva’s like ‘Carl, why?’
And Carl’s just – it’s what our man would have wanted.
And Eva actually wears the damn ring, right? It’s a space ring, from outer space, from another intelligent species, and it she looks at it daily wanting to kill Ryland Grace and knowing she already has, and what to do, with that?
So there’s one generation that knows her as Eva Stratt, World Dictator, and another generation who knows her as Eva Stratt, Ryland Grace’s Widow, and like, in every single public appearance, she has to continue to protest that they were not married, and everyone is just like ‘Damn, she’s so broken-hearted she’s in denial’ and Eva is like ‘No, that is not what is happening.’
And anyways, she lives to an unreasonably old age and when she’s like, one hundred and eight or so a ship arrives from Erid, bearing a delegation and Ryland Grace’s ashes, which one of the aliens absolutely insists on delivering to Eva Stratt, right, and this is Rocky and he’s carrying this most beautiful sort of crystal urn and it’s all very public and touching and Rocky asks ‘Did Eva live a good life?’
And Eva actually cries this time, for Ryland, and it’s stupid and they weren’t ever anything and this whole joke of his has tormented her for decades and now she’s crying over him because he’s dead. She sent him into space to die and it took him a lifetime to do it and she still outlived him and it is – unfair, now. It has always been unfair.
‘He did not actually love me,’ Eva tells Rocky, when they have been ushered somewhere private out of respect for her ‘mourning’. ‘We were not – that.’
‘Rocky knows,’ the alien says. ‘But Grace said…. maybe could have been.’
‘Is that really his last message for me?’ Eva asks, shaking her head.
The alien shifts on his feet a bit. ‘Rocky hate hate hate you sent Grace to die. Grace scared scared scared. But… if not, Rocky not meet Grace. Rocky Grace not save stars....Grace last message: Good job, Eva. Thank you, and - goodbye.’
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