Idea for possible (50/50 of it being platonic) Bloody Mary
The Eridians are going over the knowledge of humans on the laptop, hoping to help Grace live a more comfortable life on Erid (He wasn't wrong when he said the odds of him surviving a trip back to Earth were not great) and they learn about touch starvation. That humans basically need physical contact with other humans to maintain their health.
Rejected Option the First: Direct physical contact Eridians causes damage to humans and human atmosphere causes damage to Eridians. They cannot be a source of physical contact for Grace.
Rejected Option the Second: They cannot ask for another human to be sent. Even if they could get a message to Earth, any human sent would be as likely as Grace to die en route and that would do no one any good.
Rejected Option the Third: Make a clone of Grace wouldn't work because they would not be able to provide the wider variety of care and nutrition and baby would need.
Solution: Find another way to get to humans. There was some very interesting research being done on the concept of 'wormholes'. Combining that with the Eridian's own science might be able to get them closer to Earth and either safely bring Grace home or at least request companionship (and maybe more food they can clone)
Their first attempt seems a success and they send Rocky in, as he has the most experience with humans. Rocky enters the wormhole with a little translator and a xenonite exosuit and...um...
Something is very wrong here.
He's an a rent metal box filled with plant and gore and blood. There's a human there, but he's very injured, missing an arms, and his dentation is wildly different from what the medical records of humans implied. Rocky take him anyways. He's not going to leave someone to die ever, not if he has the chance to fix it.
Simon never expected to wake up again. He definitely didn't wake up surrounded by living rocks chanting "Excite! Excite!". Not the new arm made of the strange translucent metal. Less pleased about the changes to his eye and teeth.
He manages to piece together that these rock-aliens broke through space-time somehow (and seem a little embarrassed by it) and brought him through to a world where the Quiet Rapture was averted through the efforts of Rocky and a human who was now stranded on this planet. The whole point of the expedition was to find a companion for the 'Grace' person so they wouldn't have to live their life alone.
Given he was about to die, Simon thinks he can handle a gig as a friend.
Simon realizes after meeting Grace he has no idea how socialization works. It's okay. Grace is willing to teach him.
Grace did not think he was touch-straved until he met a weird mutant human and just hugged him for ten minutes straight. Simon was a good sport about it.
Hearing about the timeline where the astrophage hadn't been uncovered, even after it was too late, Grace is all to eager to introduce Simon to creature comforts, like movies, video games, and bean bags. And baked apples, once they make the wonderful discovery of what kind of tree seed was in Simon's pendant.
It's not anything Simon pictured for himself. And he has plenty of night where he wakes up screaming and lashing out. But it's okay. Grace has plenty of nightmares about being abducted and drugged by people he trusts. They both get it.
