the traveler

His favourite time, he thinks, is just before you go to sleep. He noticed on the first night after you had woken up that you hummed just before bed, a melody he didn’t recognise and at the time neither did you but as your memories returned you revealed it was an old lullaby your grandmother would sing when you had nightmares. The words came a little bit after that and now Rocky insists on your singing it to him each night before bed. 

So as Ryland prepared your own makeshift beds for the night (really a pile of every blanket and soft thing you could both find on the Hail Mary, Rocky had called it a ‘nest’ when he first saw it and asked if you were getting ready to have a ‘pebble’) he watched as you sang to Rocky in his little insulated ‘room’. Voice soft and sweet, like you were singing to an actual baby and not a few hundred year old alien life form, eyes dropping closed as you drifted in and out of sleep yourself and hand drawing idle patterns against Rocky’s walls where he lay against it, almost like he was leaning into your touch. He could imagine a normal life with you in those moments, a house, a dog, a kid who looked just like you with your sunbright smile and eyes that rivaled galaxies. On those nights, he would dream of the life the two of you could of had if you had met as normal people and not two people on a suicide mission to the save two worlds.

But while you never noticed, Rocky certainly did. For a life-form that relied on echolocation to see, he was probably the most observant out of the two of you.

“Why does Grace keep looking at Sunshine, question?”

Your eyebrows almost shoot to your hair line at the question, head lifting slightly from the book you had been reading about piloting a space carrier, to look at Ryland whose face turned a delightful shade of red right up to the tips of his ears. He quickly looked away and down to his hands while he tinkered with a piece of Eridian tech.

“I…uh..I wasn’t looking at them bud.” 

Rocky moves as if he was tilting his head, much like a confused puppy and you can’t help the small smile that spreads to your lips.

“Grace is weird weird weird. Grace always look at Sunshine when should be looking at work or pilot books like Sunshine.” 

Your heart stutters at that, skipping a beat and speeding up at the same time as heat spreads across your own cheeks. Rocky twists towards you then and your eyes widen slightly.

“Why Sunshine heart rate high, question? Is Sunshine sick, question? IS SUNSHINE DYING, QUESTION?”

The urgency in his voice has you choking on a laugh and he panics even more, rushing over to your side as you try and get your breath back.

“No…No Rock. I-”, you take a deep breath, book dropping to the floor as you raise a hand to your chest as the laugh finally settles into your bones, “I just got embarrassed.” 

You look to Ryland then and finally you see it. The gentle gaze, his ocean blue eyes staring at you like you were the entire center of the universe, his reason for existing. A memory hits then, unexpected but important.

A starless night. 

A lit lamppost.

Rylands hands against your hips and a promise sealed with a kiss. 

A ring slipped onto your finger.

Another hit, faster and fleeting. 

Stratt, a minister, a certificate with both of your names on it. 

Then another. 

Tears. Hot and heavy. A goodbye you never wanted to say. You had been chosen for the Hail Mary after Ilyukhina had to drop out but Ryland was too important on Earth. He was Stratts right hand man, he had to stay. You had to go.

A fight, not with Ryland. But Stratt, security. There's a needle in your neck and then darkness. Then the Hail Mary. 

You almost fall backwards as they all hit you at once, Rocky actually has to maneuver himself behind you to keep you upright. Your ears are ringing, a million different thoughts and moments and memories tumbling around like a hurricane. You can’t make out what Rocky was saying, just the high pitched panicked chirps as he repeatedly bumps his ball against your back to try and break you out of whatever spell you had been under. 

You can feel your heart hammering against your chest, know Rocky can hear it and is probably freaking out but then Rylands hands are on you. One threading into the hair at the back of your neck, the other lifting your own hand to his chest. His lips are moving but you can’t make out the words, but you can feel his heart beat. The steady thump against his ribs. The deep breaths he was taking and you tried to copy them. 

Slowly things came back to you, Rocky’s melodic way of saying your name was less panicked and more worried, the hum of the ship and the creek of metal as Armando moved somewhere to get closer to you, Mary having obviously picked up on the need for medical attention. Then Ryland. 

His voice was calm and gentle as he spoke. Steady in the way it grounded you back into your body, it reminded you of late nights spent on picnic blankets and conversations about what the future would look like. Promises written against your skin where his lips had left their mark. Arms wrapped around your waist as a playful threat leaves your lips because he keeps trying to steal little bits of what you had prepared for dinner. It reminded you of home. 

A shaky breath leaves you and Ryland smiles as his thumb rubs against the back of your hand.

“That’s it Sunshine, come back to us.” 

“Ry…”

His smile widens, just a fractions, for months you had been calling him Grace or Ryland or by his full name when you were exacerbated by him, so to finally hear the nickname fall from your lips was like heaven. It was honey dripping down his spine and blooming heat across his chest. 

“Sunshine okay question? Sunshine heart back to normal question?”

You can’t take your eyes away from Ryland, the hand on his chest curling around his t-shirt and tugging gently to pull him in closer to you. But Ryland looks over your shoulders to Rocky and nods.

“Yeah Rock, they’re okay.”

He glances back to you, then there's a moment of hesitation. As if he’s questioning did you really remember, but he gives in. Lips pressing into the crown of your head as it falls gently against his shoulders. Something breaks in you for just a second, and tears start to fall as your shoulders shake. You can’t stop it, didn’t even try to if you were being honest.

“Whats happening to Sunshine question?”

The hand on the back of your neck moves to your lower back, warm and comforting as Ryland spreads his fingers out and starts to rub gentle circles against the fabric of your shirt.

“She’s crying Rock”

“Is Sunshine sad question?”

You feel Ryland shake his head as you take in a deep breath and try to steady yourself, eyes blinking rapidly against the tears because you are absolutely soaking Ryland’s shoulders and want them to stop now. 

“No bud, they uh…some of their memories came back and they’re overwhelmed. But they’ll be okay.”

His voice is soft, like he was talking to one of his students,  but he is so close that you can feel it vibrating against your skin. You hear a hum from Rocky, a soft note you don’t recognise or that hasn’t been put into the make-shift translator yet. 

“Can you give us some time alone Rock?”

You feel Rocky thumb down on his legs, almost as if he was protesting, then there’s a sharp click and you’re sure it's the equivalent of an Eridian swear word and then another gentle bump against your back.

“Why question?”

Ryland lets out a sigh and finally something breaks through your tears, a gentle laugh, the one Ryland remembers from nights spent on the couch where he told stories of his students and their ability to never run out of questions, like why is the sky blue? Why does he wear glasses? Why isn’t he married yet? He remembers your smug smile and raised eyebrow at that last one and how you had asked well why aren’t you married yet Dr.Grace with nothing but mischief in your eyes not knowing he had hidden the ring in his desk at work and was just waiting for the perfect moment to ask. 

“Because Sunshine and I need to talk Rock, about something important.” 

Another thump.

“Grace is dumb dumb dumb, Rocky will hear anyway.”

Another sigh from Ryland and your gentle laugh turns into full blown giggles as you turn your head on Rylands shoulders and raise an eyebrow at him. The tears had stopped, replaced with a small smile and a crinkling nose as you try and hold in the big belly laughter Ryland can see bubbling beneath the surface. He removes his hand from yours on his chest and rubs at the bridge of his nose. He starts to think he would rather face a 100 middle schoolers and their million and one why questions or maybe walking out into the infinite abyss of space without a suit on than deal with this right now. 

“Just…human social standards Rocky. We need some privacy.” 

Rocky thumps again, and lets out another chirp. Another curse word your sure but he listens and starts to roll away but you can still hear him muttering away to himself about dumb, dumb, dumb, human standards. You can tell he’s pouting and make a promise to yourself to tell him the stories of the constellations before bed tonight, his favourite was Draco. 

“Are you alright?”

The question is whispered, a desperate attempt to not have Rocky hear, but you nod as an answer and slowly sit yourself back up to face Ryland. Your face is tear streaked and you’re sure your eyes are puffy and red rimmed but he still looked at you like you were the sun itself. It finally made sense why he called you Sunshine. 

“Yeah…yeah…just…” 

You let out another shuttered breath, hand leaving his chest to wipe at your face but Ryland stops you. His own hands wrapping gently around your wrists, his pinky pressing just hard enough into your pulse point that he can feel it jump beneath the skin. You take a deep breath and clear your throat, eyes scanning over the face you just remembered you had fallen in love with and suddenly the tears well up again. 

“How long have you remembered?”

It’s a whisper, almost lost amongst the hum of the ship and the distant clunking of Armando as he still tried to find you. But Ryland hears it and he has to cast his eyes down to the metal floor beneath you as he gathers his thoughts. There's a heart beat of silence, then another, then a sigh as he looks back up to you.

“I still don’t remember everything. Just bits and pieces. The first one came about a week ago, I brushed past you in the lap and suddenly I was in my apartment kitchen and reaching up over you to grab something from the cupboard...I think it was winter and you were making”

“Stew.”

You both say it at the same time.

“My grandmother's recipe. We had only been together a few months and you had caught a cold.”

You could see it now, the texts insisting you don’t come over because you had a test flight the next week for NASA and he didn’t want you missing out on it because he got you sick. The warmth from the stove top and his cardigan that you had stolen because his heating was busted and the landlord had yet to fix it. 

“Yeah…”

His voice goes softer then, the memory replaying in his own mind. You reach a hand out, gentle in the way you cup his cheek and run a thumb along his cheek bone. 

“Why didn’t you say anything?” 

He clears his throat, his own tears starting to well.

“Because you didn’t remember yet. I…I didn’t want to force you if your mind wasn’t ready for it yet.”

You smile at him. He was your Ryland. Your sweet, caring Ryland, who had always put you before anything even the Hail Mary. There’s a vague memory in your mind, a warning from him in the form of a cryptic test that this was happening and he didn’t want you involved. Hell of a lot that text did after Stratt walked into NASA and demanded to have you by name. 

“Oh Ry…” 

You can’t help yourself, you pull him towards you and press your lips against his. It’s soft at first but quickly turns firm as he wraps his arms around you and all but pulls you into his lap. Something shifts inside you, a puzzle piece slotting back into place as your souls reconnected with one another.