Do you think there were moments on Erid when Grace would realize he hadn’t heard another human voice in years?
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?
