convoluted au where stratt has the coma resistance genes, and then pre-launch yáo really puts his foot down about not going if he doesn't have confirmation that grace is willing, and then his backup says the same thing, so she decides "fuck it, we'll just have to get this done before the amnesia wears off, not like I was ever going to live out a good life on earth" and subs herself in as mission commander. uh oh! they wake up and ilyukhina has still died en route, that's their only qualified astronaut gone. and that's also the only corroborating witness for literally any of grace's memories. upside, she can tell him he came here toooootally voluntarily and no one's around to point out that certainly wasn't the case three days before launch. downside, oh fuck, with this down to a two-hander it'll take longer and if he remembers and realizes she's been actively lying then Oh No. upside, hey there's a friendly alien to help, maybe that will speed things up and let them get to their suicide appointment on time. also it's cool or whatever that they're working with an alien. he's actually very competent and pleasant to be around and he cares enough about their wellbeing that he's willing to just Give Them enough fuel to go back home, and grace is crying from relief, and stratt has never even considered the idea that a future existed where someone was ever happy to see her again, she'd just written that off as a possibility, but now maybe they can save the world and get home and be happy and be hailed as heroes, and maybe their lives can have value and potential and joy beyond this one act of service for humanity, and--
the amnesia wears off.
she can tell the minute he gets his last few memories back, not because he confronts her or says anything, but because his body language starts very visibly broadcasting that he's afraid of her. and then rocky starts acting real shifty, too. she assumes they're planning to kill her so grace can go back on his own as the only actual hero. grace assumes that her plan is to kill him because she sees him as disposable. oh yes oh yes oh yes they both oh yes they both oh yes they both reached for--
hypothetically, let's say, they work it out. grace isn't, umm. pleased. shall we say. to be sharing a ship with her at this point, but he's not going to actually murder her about it if she doesn't actually murder him, either. and rocky would be sad if either of them murdered the other, so it's a draw. they're just going to go back into comas for the trip home and then never see or speak to each other again because grace will be too busy kissing every individual grain of sand in california to think about pressing charges for any of this. and then, Oops, looks like they're both going to erid, where they will be the only two humans on the planet. and yes rocky does have to mediate the "not murdering each other" situation for the entire trip and then some.
"do they have ill-advised erid sex after being confined alone together for too long and accidentally conceive without access to human birth control and abortion" clamors the crowd. to this I say: the bad news is that in the book stratt is described as being in her mid-forties the first time grace meets her, and sandra hüller is 47, so she may simply be past her fertility window by the time she gets to erid. the good news is she and grace might be banking on this same assumption and have one hell of a surprise waiting for them when she beats the odds. oh nooooo
