Don't wake me up

Grace: It is vitally important that I get along with Adrian. This is my best friend's mate, the person he fought so hard to come home to, and the most important person in his life. Yeah it's a little awkward because they've been together way longer than I've been alive and I'm just some alien he picked up on the way and will probably forget about once he has his real family back, but I've still gotta make this work. For Rocky.

Adrian: It is vitally important that I get along with Grace. This is the person who saved our entire species and brought my mate home to me. I owe him everything for that, and he clearly means the world to Rocky. Yeah it's a little awkward because I haven't seen my mate for years and now it's like I barely know him anymore and he's closer to this weird new alien than he is to me, but I've still gotta make this work. For Rocky.

This leads to Grace and Adrien having many conversations in front of Rocky which are very polite and nice and accommodating- and excruciatingly awkward.

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?

“Hey Stratt!” shouted a voice. I looked up. It was…. Ryland Grace!

“Vhat’s up Ryland?” I asked.

“Nothing.” he said shyly.

Original post by @morallygrayautisticscientist here, this post was so funny I decided to draw it lol.

Panel by panel below:

as for the way it affected my view of grace, it honestly made me like him more. when i assumed he volunteered himself, he read more as someone who stepped up in impossible circumstances and then got (understandably) scared/maybe regretted it when faced with the reality. in retrospect, realizing he was *always* scared and was never actually prepared to die (“i didn’t mean any of that. it’s just something you say”) it makes every risk he took after meeting rocky feel so much more meaningful. especially the last one, when he turns around and actually chooses another life over his own with his eyes wide open.

YESSS you get me. and here’s the thing right. if he had said yes, is that really a choice? is ‘get in this ship and die or the world ends’ actually that much *less* coercive than knocking him unconscious and putting him in there anyway?

it's Eva Stratt saying you are smart. I know you will figure it out. you may be the only one able to figure it out. you are my only option. I have to do this. I believe in you. I need you to save the world. I wish we had any other choice. It has to be you. I trust you with everything i have. you will figure it out. I am sorry.

it's Ryland Grace saying you are smart. I know you are still out here to keep up the fight. I remember you. I know what you did to me. I am not mad. I did everything I could. I still think of you fondly. it's your turn. I trust you to save the world. you have to make sure it was all worth it. this is the last joke I have to give. I believe in you. you will figure it out. you were right.

Eva Stratt isn't good at jokes, but after all this time, this feels like a peace offering.