Archive of Our Own

Above all, Eva Stratt wished she had a window. In the tightness of her prison cell, all she really longed for was the possibility to stare at something else than boring walls. Looking at the horizon had been a passion she had discovered later in life. During the years at the head of project Hail Mary, it had been the only pleasure she had conceded herself. In a way, it was a reminder of what she was working for. The beauty of the world had to be preserved if it was to stay. Looking at the gentle waves she so loved, she imagined them frozen and still, dead like everything else on this beautiful planet. Now, she ached to see the world she had gone to jail for. The few hours of outside time were not enough anymore. It had been fine when the rest of the day was filled with endless work; not so much if a boring room was the alternative.

With all the heads she had walked on, she had expected to not have it easy. And, truthfully, the prison wasn’t even that bad. It was just, well, boring. So many long hours wasted with nothing to do, nothing she cared about. She might have picked up a book from time to time, but not even her favorites helped her feel better. It was not something Eva was used to, feeling unhappy and useless. She had always been quite contempt with her life, with all its ups and downs. When the Astrophage problem came out, she had been strong enough not to let desperation have the best of it. She was always tired, cranky at times and impossibly busy, but never depressed or hopeless. Having a purpose helped, and she did not have that anymore.

Eva’s part in the saving of the world had been done, she had prepared and sent her paladins in the sky. Lock her, kill her; who cares. What else could she do? She should have felt fulfilled, happy to be free from responsibility even from the inside of a cell. Yet, she only felt empty, and bored. Maybe she felt so empty because she was bored. Or maybe she was so bored because she couldn’t feel nothing but emptiness. Eva hated feeling this way. Being on top of her emotion had always been her best skill, but she had nothing to ground her now. Outside, the world was slowly hurling towards a catastrophic future, and she had no way of knowing how the heads of state were managing things without her whipping them into position and mediating when things went bad. Up in the nothingness of the universe, God only knew where, the Hail Mary was sailing out of her control. It hurt most of all, thinking of her. Of them. She regretted not finding a way to check on them all those light-years away. It’s impossible, they had told her. But in such a short time they had achieved so many impossible things. Eva’s stubbornness told her she should have insisted. She wanted to reach her team in a way she never did when they were on Earth. All the fault of her boring confinement, that must have been the reason.

Things had spiraled so bad, she had picked a new habit after the first few days in jail. She didn’t get on her knees beside her bed and joined her hands in prayer, but each night, as she closed her eyes, she would recite the Hail Mary. Hail Mary full of Grace and on and on. Grace had once asked her if she believed in God. It beats the alternative, she had replied. The alternative being, believe in nothing. So, she believed in something, for nothing else than having a place to put her desperate faith in. That’s what religion was all about anyway. The big man in the sky, granting every miracle, and his loving son absolving every sin. And his Mother, the Graceful Mary. Now she had not one, but three, big persons in the sky, and she had Mary and she had Grace. What can a woman ask for more? She prayed to them, to her own Hail Mary full of Grace. Eva’s faith was now with them, and if a prayer had ever reached a God, then she hoped that hers would reach the ship. Keep them safe, alive long enough to fulfil their purpose. It felt weird, asking for them to die only when needed. She felt ashamed, and full of guilt. Other emotions she had not expected. She had spent years making peace with the fact that those people would die for the world. Liar. Her heart skipping a beat at the thought. Not Grace; never Grace. An all-too-familiar knot in her stomach going up to her throat, strangling her. A knot she had had to force down many times, right back where it started. Move on, think about something else. Images defying her will, of morning coffees and needles in a neck. Little laughs and screams of fear. Begging for an ice cream and begging for life. A sacrificial lamb and the pious woman with a knife to his throat. May it be worth it, may it please the Gods. She had done her job, like always. She had not gotten a choice, just like Grace. It had killed her like it had killed them; him. Eva had been a sacrifice just the same. On the altar built to save humanity, she had been forced to burn herself. Everything there was to offer, she had given. There was no point in crying about it now, she reminded herself. Think of why you have done it; a desperate attempt to stay calm. You’re stronger than this. She had been hated, sued, condemned, berated for her actions. She did not care. The time for concern had been long gone, the only thing that mattered was the common good. Eight billion selfish people, all entrusted to Eva Stratt. A constant having to demand and steal, pry survival from unwilling hands. Coward’s hands. She did not care. Could not, in the face of universal death. Think about that. Eva had been made a mother, forced to make tough decisions for children who refused to understand. A bird throwing its fledglings out of the nest to make them fly. All the way up into space. Terrible, terrible decisions someone had to make, Eva had to make, and only one way to get it done. Cut off every part of you that’s human, learn what’s going to work best and do it, no matter what. No matter the cost. Give people what they need to succeed but never a choice. Be hard, never stumble. Never ask, just take. Don’t let one single person be the reason the mission fails. Never, never, give yourself to anyone. These were the principles that had led her life since she had been given the control of the Petrova Taskforce. Think about that, she begged again. But alas, humans were not made for this. Act non-human long enough and you become non-human. What was she now? A machine? A monster? A primitive lifeform stripped of anything that’s not survival? Were people right when they said that she was overstepping? Did she have a choice in forcing Grace to go to space? Driving herself crazy with questions was another habit she had picked up in the loneliness of her cell. It was eating away at her, as surely and slowly as the Astrophages were eating the sun. She had nothing left. No purpose, and now not even herself. It made her mind wonder about things she had never thought about before. For example, she had wondered many times if it would have been easier to just quit, cut the problem at the source. Eva was a smart woman, she could figure out a way to kill herself in the safety of her cell. Hey, people did that every day. Her uniform enough would allow her to strangle herself. No purpose and no self, not even the liberty to build herself back from the few scraps she might have found in her heart. Rationally, she saw no point in living; spending the worst years of Earth’s history in a prison cell. Wouldn’t they just kill criminals anyway when food was scarce and even tougher choices had to be made? She might have done it if power was still in her hands. It seemed a much better choice, going out on her own will.

Real problem was, each time she came close to do that, the same thought stopped her. Ryland Grace. Ironically, the same reason she did not feel like she deserved to live. He hadn’t been allowed to go on his own will. As Eva breathed and continued to exist, Grace found himself in a forced coma on his way to die. To save the world, sure, but then die. And she was the very same person who had ordered doctors and guards to render him unconscious and go against his very strong will, to ignore his decision and force him to kill himself. Despite all the other details, despite of the lack of choice – because dying was indeed just a small detail compared to the importance of the mission – there was no denying that ultimately that’s what she had done. She could live with every other decision she had made – there would have been no point in accepting to lead the Petrova Taskforce if every hard choice turned into guilt – but not this one. And she had paid for everything else, down to the last rebellious act. She had sat in a court while a judge read a list of her crimes. Amongst them, unwillingly send a civilian on a suicide mission wasn’t present. Her worst act of them all, and no one pointing fingers and throwing stones. It made sense, that none of the few people who knew ratted her out. It must have been the same reason she had not tried to absolve herself by confessing; they had to protect Grace’s memory. A fake memory, but the one who would grant his legacy. That much she had to give him. It didn’t make it easier on her guilt.

And that, was the only punishment she had. She could not run from it. It would have been a traitorous act to escape her pain when Grace could not escape his own. She had made it so that the last he knew of Earth were fear and betrayal. Because of her, he had to wake up confused and scared in a foreign place. It was her fault that he had never had a proper goodbye. The last memories he’d have of his home were being hunted like an animal and being betrayed by the people he had come to trust. She wished that Grace had accepted his fate, just so he could have had the possibility of bidding his farewells. It was one of the things that haunted her the most. Who knew how many people he’d have liked to talk to before going away. Carl, for sure. Then Eva wondered if she would have gotten a special last moment. Of course she would have, she wasn’t stupid. Whatever Grace had thought of her in those years spent together, it was obvious that he considered them close friends. Another stab to her chest. Innocent, naïve Grace, flocking to the only person he could never fully reach. He would have said something sentimental and awkward, embarrassing himself. But what would she have said back? Rationally, she thought, her composure would have not changed. Make him know you appreciate him, keep your distance, the usual rule applied to their every interaction, all through the last one. Lately, obviously, she had found it harder to be rational.

Through the waves of pain and regret, Eva caught herself dreaming of more. Flashes of possibilities invaded her mind the times she got lost in thoughts. Lowering her walls seemed such a real possibility. Eva saying you were the closest thing I ever got to a friend. Not saying how wrong that was, how it had made the job more difficult. Saying I don’t want you to die, I’m sorry it had to go this way. I tried to save you. Saying I love you. As a friend? As family? As a lover? She could never find out now. It wasn’t even clear what he had felt for Eva. Did it even matter? She had never been one for relationships. Even when she was younger, when the saving of the world didn’t command her attention, she had hardly any interest in romance or sex. She could always find other, more important, things to do. Eva wasn’t even sure if she had ever been in love with someone, and she had barely found some people attractive. With his history of failed relationship, Grace wasn’t doing much better. Trying to imagine them in a relationship was almost funny. Mostly, it felt wrong. Whatever she had craved from him, it wasn’t sex, or marriage, or a house full of kids. She couldn’t define their relationship and neither she wanted to.

During the years, there had been many speculations on the two of them. Rumors of them fucking and having a secret relationship. People were not to blame. With the weight of the world on their shoulders and the constant confinement at work they were bound to need gossip and entertainment to keep themselves sane. It was something Eva, as the boss, always understood. They’re humans, treat them like humans. Ultimately, she didn’t care about what others told about her and Grace because she could not be bothered by something to trivial while leading Earth’s most important project. But even without that, she really didn’t care about such things. The only thing she cared about was having Grace with her. Since the beginning he had always been at her side, being brought through infinite strategic meeting, through lab to lab to learn, explain, create; do everything that was needed. She had come to rely on him. A mistake, sure, but Eva was not perfect, in the end, and she had needed someone to ground her faith in a science that she did not understand completely. Grace was such an easy choice. Smart and funny and kind. So charming. And he was the most human of them all. He never hid behind bravery, never pretended to be somebody he was not. Pure instinct drove him. Follow the heart, not the mind. Such a stark opposition to Eva, who had to rip her heart out so only her mind could dictate. The heart and the mind. They could not live in the same person, if anything had to be done, but Earth needed both. Grace was all the humanity she had left. Eva made the hard decisions for him when his instinct prevailed. Like forcing him to work on stuff he wasn’t sure of. Or, you know, sending him on a suicide mission11.9 light years away from his home. Anyway, with all his positive traits, how could she not trust him?

 Well, it was that trust that ultimately killed him. If Eva didn’t have so much faith in her unofficial second in command, if she hadn’t been so thoroughly convinced that only him could fulfill this dangerous mission, coma gene considered, the scientist would have probably been back in his class by now. One could argue that putting the fate of the world in the hands of one so cowardly was a stupid idea, but no one knew Ryland Grace like she did, despite their imposed distance. Eva had chosen wisely to make sure that Grace’s memory would be foggy, if not entirely gone, when he woke up. A failsafe mechanism so that he didn’t sabotage the mission, sure, but she had thought of it for another reason. Eva knew that if Grace forgot his fear, he would be brave. The months of preparation spent with the original crew and the knowledge of the suicide part of the mission had filled the scientist with so much dread that when his time came, he couldn’t overcome it. Remove that, and you had the visionary scholar that wrote a controversial paper and believed in himself so much that he would cuss out a lead scientist, signing his doom.

And in the end, the memory of Ryland Grace was why she could have not killed herself. You have no family, not even a dog, she had told him. Words Eva regretted, the worst she could come up with. But they were true. There was no person alive close to the scientist, well before the Astrophage problem. No one, except her. For years they had shared a life, she had seen the scientist in all kinds of situations, knew how he reacted. She knew what he liked and disliked, what he needed and what bothered him. Throw a scenario at her, and she could tell you exactly what he would do and say. Emotional closeness might have never been an option, but observation was Eva’s job, and she would have always watched her trusted scientist. She wasn’t even surprised when he refused the mission and lost his mind. Sad, disappointed, yes, but not surprised. Like she would not be surprised when in twenty years the beetles would come back with detailed logs of all the amazing things Grace had done in space and the solution for saving the stars. No, after all, Eva stood by what she had done, there was no other option for her. Sending the scientist to space was the right thing to do, as tragic as it had been. But I never got to really tell you how sorry I am she thought often. If feelings had mattered, I would not have sent you; perhaps this was what Eva would have told Grace in their goodbye-that-never-was. But Grace had left earth on her command, and now only she stood as a testament of the life he had led. He would live through his work, and he would live through every person that was going to survive because of him. He had his kids, of course. There was no doubt in her mind that they truly loved him. But Grace would have been just a footnote in their childhood memories, just someone who had made them feel good when they were little. Eva hardly remembered her own middle school teachers, even the best ones. And in a few years, when ice and starvation would come, they were going to have other things to think about. They knew that Mr. Grace had gone to space to save them, so they might have prayed for him too, putting their faith in their former teacher turned astronaut, saviour of the world. But it wasn’t enough. Grace deserved someone on Earth that really knew him, for more than being a good teacher or a scientist sent to space to save humanity. Who would remember him for himself? Eva would hold the most sacred parts a person could have, she would keep him alive in a way that collective memory alone could not do. Ryland Grace deserved someone who loved him for who he truly was. And when time came, she had to be right there to make the most of what he had discovered. A new resolution to live and get out of that damned prison. She could not trust anyone with his last work, and she could not trust anyone else to make the right decisions for Earth’s good. Yes, she would keep his memory alive and paid justice to his unwilling sacrifice. To Ilyukhina and Yao’s sacrifice.

That would be her punishment and penitence.

Eva Stratt found her peace twenty-four years later, on a ship in the middle of frozen waters. On a morning like every other, someone had come to her office and announced that Hail Mary’s beetles had been spotted. She had stood still for a moment, taking in the enormity of the information. Right as scheduled, as if the mission had been just a trip to the store, as if it had been that easy all along. Years spent worrying and praying all washed away with a simple phrase. Calm down, maybe the beetles will just tell you that there’s no solution, Eva told herself. Be damned, she had spent so much time in desperation, she could get her hopes up for a while. Right until the probes where obtained, and they learned that the mission had been successful just by the so called “Taumoeba farms”. Eva couldn’t wait to learn what that was all about.

Using the advantages of her position, she commanded to be the first one to watch the tapes, alone. Whatever had happened on the ship, she wanted to be the first one to find out. God only knew what could have been recorded. Her heart shrank and her stomach knotted as she realized that she was going to see Grace for the first time in more than twenty years. She didn’t exactly know how she felt about it, whether guilt or excitement was stronger. Eva sighed, then pressed play as the grown woman she was. She wept when she learned of Ilyukhina and Yao; that was something she did now, crying. Blame it on old age. And her heart burst with temporary joy as she saw that Grace had survived the trip. I knew you could do it, she gloated, thinking of the results he had sent. Staring at his face, so unchanged from the last time she saw him, trying not to think about the fact that he was dead, that the screen was just a recording of his last moments alive, it took her a while to register his words. He had found…an alien? Bewilderment took over every other emotion, as a new kind of attention made her focus on his every word. And after just a few short minutes, sure there he was. An alien, a rock spider-like creature named…Rocky. She smiled as she stared fondly at the pair’s silliness. Alone, so far from home, on a dangerous mission, and yet they looked so carefree and happy.

She kept watching, her emotions swinging faster than they ever did. Grace had left any sort of footage, from serious stuff to more informational stuff on the alien – Rocky – and their living condition. She didn’t know if it was on purpose, or he just couldn’t be bothered to select which video was useful or not. She just knew that suddenly their attention wasn’t on the camera anymore. Like that, Eva had to witness Rocky learning that Grace was on a suicide mission, something that apparently he hadn’t discussed with his new friend. Rocky’s reaction filled Eva with a new wave of shame that she had almost forgotten in the comfort of witnessing the happiness on Grace’s face.  Rocky’s desperation, and then his sacrifice. An alien, who had just met Grace, was prepared to give up six years of his life – that were going to be spent alone in the universe – so that a single human could live and go home. Eva wasn’t smiling anymore, the shame ran too deep into her bones, crushing her. Then another awful thought struck her. The beetles had come without him.

She continued to watch the tapes in silence, the glee that had sparked in the last hour gone. The stakes had gone up. She had spent years preparing herself for Grace’s death, but now that she had learned that he could have come home, it felt like loosing him again. What had gone wrong? In the next few videos they explained their plans, and the more they went on the more she realized what the “Taumoeba” was. A clever name that would have made her laugh just a few minutes prior.

The last video of the mission cut to another, and nothing could have prepared her for what happened next. If she had thought that Rocky was sweet, if not crazy, now she could not put into words, or even just thoughts, the insanity of what the alien had done. He might have been dead, all to save Grace. She knew, objectively, that Rocky was not a leader. He was an engineer; a very smart one, but not one tasked with hard decisions. Yet, due to circumstances, he had found himself entrusted with the survival of his whole species. And he might have just given it all up to save an alien he had just met. In her eyes, it was absolute madness. A new emotion rose above all, one that was not expected. Envy. Yes, she envied Rocky. He had just done what she wasn’t strong enough to do. Or was strong enough to not do. Whatever. He had just chosen Grace over his own species. He had saved the ship and their project, and then saved him instead of securing himself. Tears started to pool again at the corner of her eyes. She let them fall. Eva had sent Grace 11.9 light-years away from home with no way to come back, and only there he had found someone who was willing to put him above everything else. God, she prayed that Rocky survived.

The tapes couldn’t go fast enough as the scientist explained everything he was doing with the amoebas. The pain and tiredness on his face was so different from the enthusiasm he had shown until then. It hurt. Then Rocky woke up, thankfully. If you’d have told her just minutes ago that the survival of an alien would fill her with so much joy, she would have laughed. And she was laughing now, just a little and through the tears. Both Grace and Rocky had survived and they had saved their suns. Then why wasn’t he home? The answer came briefly after, as she was watching the last footages. Rocky was in peril again, and it seemed like he was facing an even worse death than before. Eva understood then, maybe even before Grace, what he was about to do. The reason he didn’t come home. She watched as he found the kind of confidence that comes with knowing and accepting your only choice. Eva thought, also, that maybe he had never really wanted to come home. Turning his ship around and going back to Rocky had always been his deepest desire. How to blame him. Not one single human had shown Grace the kind of love and devotion that the rock spider alien had shown him. Not even Eva, who despite everything had so desperately wanted to. But at last, this wasn’t a love story between two people. It was a love story between humankind and their Earth. It was a story of friendship between two species working together for a common goal. Each of them had to play their part. Grace never really forgave Eva for hers, not in his videos anyway.

The footage stopped, with a final goodbye on his part. He did tell her she had been right, but Eva needed more. She would not get it, and it was fine, she guessed. A victim owed nothing to the person who hurt them. Her only, true wish was knowing the fate of Grace and Rocky. Eva could not know if he had reached the other ship in time, if Rocky had already been dead, or if they had reached the alien’s home planet. But the world had just been saved, and a dead man had been granted a second chance. Their odds weren’t all that bad, compared to the one’s of Project Hail Mary, and that had been successful. She could believe that the two of them had met again and continued their voyage in safety. Eva could imagine Grace on the alien planet getting the life humans had never gifted him. Maybe she could even imagine him teaching little spider pebbles about Earth and humans. She didn’t know that much about eridians, but there would always be children to teach where intelligent life was. She could see a deserved happy ending, and it was enough to finally heal her heart. Eva was only sad for Ilyukhina and Yao, who also deserved so much more than what they had gotten.

The little human – made of Xenonite – weighed in her hand. Eva felt with the tips of her fingers the first alien artefact the world had ever been gifted. More than that, she felt the last piece of Grace she could ever touch. Something to keep near her heart as she rebuilt Earth, as she continued to play her part. The only shoes she knew how to fit. A reminder that Grace had never been hers, that she had been right after all to trust and believe in him and to let him go despite his fears, despite her love. The little alien-made man in the palm of her hands saying that Ryland Grace had been the most extraordinary human being to ever exist, and she would never find another one like him.

__________________________

Grace’s mind would sometimes wander to Eva Stratt. He was happy with his life on Erid, but he was bound to get bored and get lost thinking about his old life. So yes, he would think about her from time to time. He had stopped tracking time on Earth for a while now. Once he had reached a certain point – more precisely, when all the people he knew might have been dead – Grace had stopped caring. But sometimes he would still wonder how Stratt’s life had gone, if she was really already dead and if she had lived a good life, once he had saved Earth. You’re welcome, Stratt. Okay, Grace didn’t hate her. Not in the last years anyway.

Once he had regained his memories, he had been filled with all sorts of negative feelings. There was betrayal, and there was grief. Grief for himself, for the autonomy that had been stripped from him, and grief for the person he thought he was. Everything had been easier thinking that he had volunteered, that he had already accepted at some point that he was sacrificing himself for the world. That he was brave. It was ugly, discovering after all that he was just a coward. And, God, Stratt. In his mind, he thought he had such a clear image of her. She had been right there with him all through the mission, with sunshine behind her and the strength of a giant. Despite not knowing everything, he’d never imagine that she would murder him. There was a time, at the start of the mission, that he actually thought that there had been something between the two of them. It might have been the fact that the first images that had flooded his brain were of a head full of soft, light-colored hair. Embarrassing, right? But as all the memories, the unimportant ones, resurfaced, he had started to think that maybe he hadn’t been that far off. Those memories could wait, on his journey with Rocky he had tried not to think too much about anything. He was still in survival mode, and God did he not need other big revelations. But then he was on Erid with nothing to worry about. And safety came with boredom. Not the ugly kind, that leaves you wanting to pull your nails out and kill yourself. Just, you know, the normal, good, kind. It made his mind wander to Stratt, and all the other memories he had ignored. He remembered stuff like his favorite places to eat. He remembered that time when he was a kid and he had saved a cockroach from his class, with all the other children screaming in disgust. Random stuff, from childhood down to the field where he last touched earth. Like he could see, now, with so much clarity, Stratt’s face when he refused the mission. Hard to be mad at someone who’s so sad about killing you. When he had first got those terrible memories back, all he could see and feel was the terror he had experienced. But as his mind revisited the event, he had started to remember a quiver in Stratt’s voice and tears dwelling in her eyes. Heck, maybe he invented those memories, maybe she had been as cold as stone and she hadn’t cared one bit about forcing him onto the Hail Mary. But deep down, he knew that this harsh version of her defied everything else he had remembered about her. After all those years, he was positive that his brain wasn’t hiding anything else from him. Whatever they had injected him with to make him forget stuff wasn’t something magical that could erase memories forever. So, he knew, with absolute clarity, that Eva Stratt was a good person.

The assumption that most people, and she herself, had about the head of Project Hail Mary, was wrong. Eva had always thought that she was hard, tough. Grace had come to know that, instead, she was so, so, soft. Soft, beautiful, hair that had made him think very stupid stuff like we need to save the sun just so they can keep shining like that. A soft face made softer by a rare smile she reserved for him. And, most importantly, such a soft heart. She was hard and tough in her leadership, but when it came to take care of her people she always went above and beyond to be kind and make them happy. It defied another assumption that Grace had.

Until he had known Stratt again in his mind, he had thought that his kidnapping had been a wrong and awful choice. Only people who don’t care about you can force you do to something so tragic. But after accepting what had happened to him, and seeing how Rocky and him had been the reason their homes were safe – seeing the celebrations on Erid, how they had been hailed heroes – he understood that he had been sent to space with love. Stratt hadn’t chosen him because he was expandable, or she didn’t care. She had told him that she believed in him, and he had taken Grace a while to understand the importance of that. If she hadn’t put her faith in him, he would have never gone. The mission was too important not to send the people you trust most. Of course, the coma gene had been what had sealed the deal – thank you mom and dad – but it wasn’t the only factor. And he thought about the little good luck he had found written in his bag, and the little fox and Saint Christopher’s medal charm they had left him. He thought about the children’s drawing they had made sure to give to him. Despite his loneliness in life, they had made sure he remembered that he had a connection to Earth. Ultimately, he had been sent to Tau Ceti to save the world, because humans loved life and they loved their home. What was one small human in front of that? Ilyukhina and Yao were full of friends and family, and they had still decided to go. Because of their love. And he’d never find out if Stratt had ever loved him in any way, but he was sure of two things: Stratt was in love with the world and it had hurt her to kill Grace. Both could be true. And could he blame her? Love is what guided her heart, even if she didn’t believe that. Just like Grace had loved Rocky more than Earth. He couldn’t be mad if she had put her world above one man. Maybe, in another life, Stratt would love him enough to be selfish, but in this one she loved him just enough to entrust him with the thing she cared about the most. Even if it had killed them both. It meant something, to him. Now more than ever, he knew how she must have reasoned. She liked Grace, maybe did love him somehow, but they had never gotten a real chance. Whatever could bloom between the two of them was sacrificed just as everything else. Truthfully, Grace wasn’t very good at relationships anyway. He wanted to be closer to Stratt, sure, but it ran deeper than what people usually try to sell you for love. He had tried that, didn’t end well. Definitely wasn’t what he wanted from Stratt. He could wonder till the end of time about what they could become. He could try for another ten years to understand his feelings and interrogate a ghost about hers, but no conclusion would matter and that was exactly the point. She had been too involved with the rest of the world to give them some kind of development, and then Grace had met Rocky. They had shared a moment in life, but they were never meant to last. So, he understood her, because despite the care he felt for Stratt, he would always put his best friend above everything and anyone. His love for Rocky was very real, and uncomplicated.  With these terms, he could understand her decisions.

He forgave her, completely. His only regret was not telling her all of this when he had the chance. Grace had to admit that he was bitter at that time, still stressed from the mission and worried about Rocky. He was more mature now, and he’d have loved the chance to absolve her, just in case she wasn’t a total piece of shit who didn’t even care about killing him. I absolve you, he still told her in his mind, and I hope you found your peace. He had saved Earth, the bare minimum she could do was enjoy her retirement without guilt. That if she had been still alive when the beetles had arrived. It was a weird possibility, to think that she was the dead one and he was just chilling in a biodome on another planet. But no, he could never believe that she had died without first solving Earth’s biggest problem, before knowing that the mission she had given her life for had been successful. That sacrificing Grace had been the right choice. And, Grace discovered, even then he could not believe in her death. Eva Stratt was the biggest person he had ever met, if someone could be immortal it was her.