#uri fic

"Why do you go by Grace instead of Ryland?" Simon asks after Grace gets done explaining surnames to him. On Eden and in the C.O.I. everyone was only given one name when they were born. There were so few people left after the quiet rapture they didn't need two anymore. "Well, when I first started to get back my memories I remembered being called Grace by practically everyone—out professional respect and distance like I explained—so it was more familiar. But really? It was my memories of the kids calling me Grace that made the name stick and it felt right in here, ya know?" Grace says rubbing at his chest over his heart and Simon nods, his throat tight. Years of being called The Butcher or Convict had broken something inside of Simon. Something he thought could never be fixed at least until an impossible miracle happened and he met Grace. Grace hadn't know him by any other name than Simon. And even when Simon confessed his sins and told Grace about what everyone called him and why, Grace still never once called him anything other than Simon. It felt good, really good. Grace's smile slips and he clears his throat, looking away. "And then uhh, well. I remembered the truth about why I was the one in outer space—how I got there I mean. I remembered screaming at the guards holding me down that they were killing me." Grace goes quiet like he does sometimes when he gets lost in a bad memory. Simon reaches out and puts his hand on Grace's shoulder, offering him some comfort. Grace leans into the touch, most of the far away look fading from his eyes as he looks back up at Simon. "It's kind of morbid but I feel like they really did kill me. Part of me anyway. That drug Stratt gave me? It was only supposed to be temporary, I should have remembered everything after a few months but it's been years and there's still so many blank spots. So many missing pieces that I'll never get back."

Grace ran, just like they both knew he would. Still, hearing Stratt say it over the walkie crushed that last little bit of hope Carl had. He took his time, walking not running, towards Grace's location. He got there in time to watch as Grace got tackled to the ground and he was relieved to see it. He hated himself for being grateful that it was a Russian soldier's knee in Grace's back but if it wasn't their knee it would have been his. Carl, as loyal as had been his whole life, wasn't sure he could have been the one to do it. Could he have held Grace down while he struggled? While he begged? "Carl!" Grace cried out to him when Carl stepped up into his line of sight. "Please! Please don't-don't do this!" Bile rose in the back of his throat to hear Grace, a man made for laughing, instead begging mercy. A mercy the world couldn't afford to give him. "You know who you are," Carl said, his voice stronger than he felt after decades of practice in the service. "You'll do great." Even with half of his face pressed into the grass the look of betrayal and hurt in Grace's eyes was plain to see. It cut through Carl, guilt eating at him with each passing second that he watched someone he considered a friend cry and begging for his life. A life that they were stealing from him. Carl watched as Grace was injected, held eye contact until Grace's eyes slipped closed and he went limp. There was anger in Grace's eyes and Carl accepted the fact that Grace would spend the rest of his too short life hating him. But he didn't want the last face Grace saw on Earth to be a stranger's.

From his peripheral Simon can see Armando moving towards him but he waves it away. He doesn't want its help. If it weren't a robot it would never have offered its help to Simon, but its just a machine and doesn't know Simon is undeserving of…everything. Simon pulls himself to his feet and stumbles into the bathroom to rinse his mouth but ends up spending god knows how long scrubbing his hand against the sponge mat attached to the side of the sink. Trying to erase the stain of what he's done but it's impossible. Butcher. Hands stained red red red with the blood of Filament Station. But no sin stains his hand greater than what he's done to Grace. To the man who pulled him out of hell and gave him a new life—a life actually worth living. Simon hadn't truly lived until he met Grace, merely survived. Grace treated him with a gentle kindness Simon had never known and this was how he repaid him?! "Fuck!" Simon yells out, slamming his fist against the xenonite sink. "FUCK!" He yells out even louder slamming his fist down again and again, not stopping until drops of red are splattering across the ivory.