Archive of Our Own

You ever try pouring pancake batter straight from the big bowl into the pan? I used to do that as an undergrad. Couldn’t be bothered shelling out for a ladle, and I wasn’t about to spend an extra three minutes washing and drying a jug or a cup or anything, so up went the bowl and out went the batter over half the stove as well as the pan. The kitchen smelled like burned hair but the pancakes turned out mediocre, so I counted it as a win. Anyway, that’s what it’s like getting out of bed in the morning when you’re old as the goddamned hills.

Jennifer and Rocky tried to insist on a live-in nurse, which I knew was code for Rocky spending every waking second dancing around me. I love the guy to bits, but his anxiety infects my temper, and turns us both crabby. That, and he and Adrian are busy with the clutch. They’re only thirty, and Apollo and Artemis in particular can be a real headache before day-school starts, so. Yeah. I claimed I could manage this.

I do what I do every day at 6am (Local Grace Time) and heave until I can reach my mobility aids. Then I spend a few minutes hacking up phlegm and spitting it into a special bin, which is fun. Then I orchestrate the process of standing up, which entails specific foot placement on the textured floor and the stretching of muscles that really, really hate me. There are bars and handholds installed on damn near every inch of the place, because the last time I fell down I sustained six compound fractures, and – well. It was a bad time. Not just for me, but especially for me. Half a dozen bones turning to powder in a heartbeat really takes it out of you for eighteen months.

I sit down to pee (awesome) and then spend another handful of minutes standing up again (heinous). I wash my knobby hands and droopy face, poking at varicose veins that wind all over me like a roadmap. I’m a bit bristly, but I leave the shaver alone. No shot I’m touching it without Rocky; the arthritis barely lets me hold a fork on my own. Even I know blades of any kind are a bad idea.

I glance at the shower reluctantly before giving my bare torso a quick rub-down with wet wipes. My friends and family can’t smell, so I rarely feel too badly about avoiding the humiliating process that is washing myself. No less than three people are required to circle me in that stall, a medical order which has been deemed non-negotiable for the past five years. Gravity wants my ass badly, and since water and smooth floors are aiding and abetting the blasted thing, I’ve been designated bodyguards against it. I’ve been offered a bath, but as long as I can stand I will. Even if certain people call me dumb, stupid and foolish for it, stomping on little legs the whole time.

I pop in my ceramic dentures, and I hobble back to bed so I can change out of my pyjama pants and into my flight suit bottoms. They’re patchy as hell but worn and comfortable. Since I’m feeling indulgent, I also choose to pull on a faded t-shirt and a cardigan Adrian made out of a stained blanket. The re-woven polyester fibres almost feel like wool.

The clock ticks ever closer to 7am as I struggle with my socks and grippy slippers. I use the crutches to get me up, and then I shuffle over to my walker, which clips around my waist and thighs in a way that used to be annoying. Now it’s a handy dandy way to move about the house semi-freely without worrying about that darned villain, gravity.

I lurk by the front door, and undo the cable from around the handle. Apollo and Balboa helped me set the bucket up the night before, both of them snickering, begging me to record the whole thing. My eyes aren’t good enough to start messing with their camera at this time of the morning, so I’ll just have to remember the sounds Rocky makes and tell them about it later. I’ll make it up to them by re-enacting whatever happens. They still find my slapstick funny, even if their parents don’t.

I hear the patter of familiar steps, right on time. I release the cable and wobble away, and then the door swings open.

“Good morn –,”

The bucket makes a pretty anticlimactic bopping noise as it bounces off Rocky’s carapace and falls to the floor, where it rolls around in a circle. Water drips from his exosuit to a large puddle that seeps up to my slippers and soaks them. I’d scramble away, but, y’know. My mortal enemy’s waiting for me to make sudden movements, and I’m not gonna give it the satisfaction.

“Gotcha!” I yelp, waving my arms around. “Pranked! Haha!”

 Rocky takes a step over the puddle and comes around to stand in front of me. “Two stars.”

I let my arms fall. “What? But it hit you and everything!”

“The water isn’t even touching me,” Rocky says idly, flicking his arm so droplets spray me in the face. “Two stars is being generous.”

“This took a week of planning!”

“You’ve been more successful with five minutes warning and a caffeine shot.”

I tap my chin. “So what you’re saying is I should make fake insects out of coffee beans again.”

“If you want another needless fumigation, sure,” Rocky says archly, bypassing me to head to the bathroom. “Spend another week in your emergency tank while we scorch the place with chemicals. Did you enjoy that last time?”

“I enjoyed you screeching like a baby,” I say, leaning into my walker. Rocky emerges from the bathroom carrying several towels. “Even if the house smelled like a distillery for a month after.”

Rocky whuffs through his vents. “What’s your favourite saying? Play stupid games, win stupid prizes?”

“You say that way more than I do,” I grouse, as Rocky bends to swipe at the puddle of water.

“Yet it still hasn’t sunk into your tiny meat brain,” Rocky says, lifting a sopping wet towel. He shakes it near my slippers, and I gasp.

“God forbid a guy tries to terrorise his pal every now and then,” I say indignantly. “It’s called creative expression!”

“Hardly,” Rocky says, soaking up the last of the water and scooping all the towels into his arms. “This has Apollo written all over it. Did he not tell you he tried this at home?”

“We thought it might work if the bucket was up higher,” I admit, shuffling back as Rocky goes to dump the towels in the laundry chute. “We thrummed about it and everything.”

Rocky stalks out and dips his carapace in a way I know means incredulity.

“Look, he only wants to thrum about pranks and Star Wars movies,” I say guiltily. “It still counts as practise!”

“Mmhmm,” Rocky says, in a tone that seems disappointed, but not surprised. He approaches me, plucking at the wet spots on my pants and slippers before patting his way up to my arms. The exosuit padding over his claw is only slightly damp when he sets it over my wrist, the embedded sensor ticking.

“Blood pressure is lower today,” he says, using another claw to tap rapidly into the monitor under his arm. “Very good.”

“Jennifer said she’d take away Pilotwings 64 if I didn’t control my cholesterol,” I say, sighing. “Meditation and lab-grown grains suck, y’know.”

“Suck the plaque out of your arteries, maybe.”

“I like my plaque. Reminds me of steak and gravy.”

Rocky tuts, and clambers up to his shelf on the wall before summoning me over. I comply without complaint, well used to the routine by now. I stand still as Rocky arcs arms around me. He sets his sensor over my heart, my temple and the middle of my hunched back, presses on several nerve points, and cops a decent feel of a few bones before he declares me alive and well.

“Sounding beautiful, Grace.”

I’m too old to be embarrassed by this guy’s flirting, but it works on me anyway.

“I know,” I say pompously, while trying to hit him with my walker. Rocky dodges my slow-motion attacks as he taps at the monitor.

“Save your energy,” he says, finishing with his record-keeping and grabbing the walker to hold it steady. “You’ve got your appointment this morning, and I won’t be able to stay for the whole session –,”

I groan. “Don’t remind me of that place.”

“I absolutely will,” Rocky chirrups. “Two hours of physical therapy with Doctor House, and no shortcuts. They’ll tell me if you try to escape again.”

“I have allies in there,” I hiss at him.

“I’m rooting them out,” Rocky says, climbing down from his shelf. “Now hurry up, or we’ll be late, which will in turn make you late for the tutoring class.”

That gets me to trot a bit faster towards my shoes, which are set on a stand by the door. “Oh, hell. Arty will kill me.”

“You?” Rocky says, following me dutifully. “She cried the last time Adrian substituted for you. Haven’t had a tantrum like that since the Converse incident.” He slides off my wet slippers and socks before I can attempt to do it myself, holding each leg securely as he does so.

I cringe internally. “Hey, how was I supposed to know all five of them wanted those ancient things? They were falling apart!”

Rocky produces a new pair of socks from somewhere, and starts drawing them carefully up my feet. I note they’re the new ones with the tiny foxes embroidered on them, also made by Adrian.

“Mary still keeps them over her bed,” Rocky says, moving to my loafers, which are Eridian-made and sculpted to my feet. Rocky got a pal from two provinces over to make them for me last year, and I’ve never had orthopaedic shoes but I imagine this is the sort of cushiony bliss they deliver. Rocky slides them on to my feet, steadying me when the gentle force makes me sway backwards.

“I gotta get those kids more presents,” I reflect, lifting my coat from the hook beside the door. I slip into it, wondering if I can bribe Olivia into getting me little security badges. I can inscribe their names on them, or smiley faces if my eyes don’t hold up to the challenge.

“They have too many already,” Rocky scolds. “Now put your figurative skates on! Breakfast is in two minutes.”

“Ooh,” I say, shuffling my walker through the door as Rocky holds it open. “It’s a beach day?”

“Yeah,” Rocky says, his tone getting softer. “It’s Friday, remember?”

I hadn’t, but. I’m not going to let him know that.

“’Course I do,” I say briskly, and I spend the whole trip down the cliff-lift pretending I’m going to throw Rocky out of the cart. He, in turn, pretends to almost fall overboard, and we do a few renditions of the Scar-and-Mufasa scene from The Lion King until the lift meets the sand, and we both have to cooperate to get me out of it.

I squint across the beach and I see the vague shapes of Adrian and our friend Rose waving, the little breakfast bar and umbrella set up between them. I smile broadly, and I don’t even protest when Rocky puts one claw on the walker and another on my hip as we head towards them. Even with the xenonite pathway, the sand often makes me skid, and I’m glad to have him with me.

*

“You’re not even trying.”

“Eat my frickin’ shorts, Doc –,”

“If you put half as much energy into stretching as you do with your insults –,”

“I’d put you out of a job. Wouldn’t do that to you, buddy.”

House clicks deep in his carapace. “Please consider it. My stress levels would plummet.”

I snort, both hands rigid around the balance beams. My knuckles are bulging and sore from keeping such a tight grasp on them, but it’s vastly preferable to the concept of divebombing the floor. The solo walking tests are the worst, not only because I’m getting wobblier but because they’re the easiest exercise House drills in the little gym he calls his office. At least when I take twenty minutes to do a single set of ten lateral arm raises, it’s because that’s hard.

“I feel like I’m doing pretty good,” I lie, taking another shaky step forward. I miss my walker. Even with the chafing.

“You’re not,” House informs me stolidly, rumbling with impatience. He’s a 6’5 mound of slate-grey stone marbled with onyx, and his favourite activity is threatening to eat me. He hasn’t reminded me of how hungry he is since I came in today, so that means he’s in a good mood. Well, as good as it gets. I try to run the clock down a little.

“Say, Doc, any vacation plans this year, or –,”

“Enough stalling,” House says, coming over to cast his shadow ominously across the beams. “Let go of the bar.”

I’m sweating a lot. “My knees aren’t great today, all right?”

“Two metres,” House says, his claw tapping the bar beside my hand. “It’s a tiny distance.”

“Yeah, to you,” I mutter.

House rumbles again. “You need motivation. Should I fetch the Chief Engineer?”

My stomach twists. “No. Don’t call him, okay? He’s busy.”

House settles his carapace lower, so he’s my exact height. He’s shiny up close, the ridges around his vents glinting under the glow of the overhead lights.

“You walk faster when you walk towards Rocky.”

I sputter. This has to violate some sort of HIPAA thing. “That is – not – I don’t even know what you mean, so.”

My sentence dangles like a noose, and House chuffs with amusement. “If you still need Rocky to help you exercise, we can facilitate that.”

“I can do it on my own,” I say, all wound up. I know I function better in general when Rocky’s around. It’s not breaking news or anything, and it bugs me when people treat it that way. “I’m already motivated, ‘kay?”

“Prove it,” House says loftily, taking a step back. “Two metres. No dawdling.”

It’s awful. It hurts. My hamstrings scream for mercy and my meniscuses are close to ending it all as I abandon the bars and walk – without limping, thank you very much – towards the finish line. It’s just a strip of granite in the floor, but I cross it like it’s a 10K marathon, sweat dripping down my face and neck, my breath wheezy and sticking in my throat.

“Easy, easy,” House says, clamping two arms under my ribcage and lodging another behind my knees, giving me the chance to slump my weight onto him. “Breathe, Grace.”

I take a few minutes to recover, cussing House out in a manner that makes his vents undulate like the keys of a piano. He tries insulting me back, but I’m so used to all variations of the derogatory label ‘wet’ that they land more like affectionate nicknames.

“Keep this up and you’ll be too slimy for me to eat,” House says, using a claw to pat away sweat that was trickling down my brow. It dribbles off his exosuit like the water had off Rocky’s, earlier. “Too muscular and stringy, too.”

“Better – better keep at it, then,” I say, my heart slightly arrhythmic in my chest.

“Atta boy,” House says, or an approximation of the phrase I taught him years ago. He used to be one of the Eridians who was too ‘proper’ to use my crude human idioms. I wore him down though. There are only so many catchphrases and weird noises you can choose to ignore; a couple have got to stick around.

We move on to wall push-ups and heel raises, which aren’t terrible, but soon after there are squats and bicep curls, which leave me so wrung out I almost cry. I manage not to, even when House makes fake mewling sounds and asks if I need to crawl back into my egg.

“You’re – such – a dick,” I hack out, my glutes aching as I shift into my first set of stationary lunges. My whole body quakes with the effort, and the sweat has rendered me so moist that I sort of get why a passing assistant had gasped at me. My underarms are squelching. Yuck.

“Can’t understand whiny baby cries, sorry,” House drawls, leaning against the rowing machine. “Get lower, and do not let that knee touch the mat again, or so help me –,”

“Screw you,” I say, through whimpers. I do, however, complete a second set without dropping my leg, which hasn’t happened in weeks.

By the time Rocky arrives to collect me, I’ve allowed myself to be hauled in and out of the shower, far too depleted to bother declining the assistants’ offer of a wash. Their human bathroom is nicely furnished, and they tell me brightly how healthy my thoracic cavity, digestive tract and secretory glands are sounding, so. I allow the invasive scrubbing.

Rocky scuttles over to where I’m ensconced in a big settee, and climbs up to the armrest. He places his claw against my sternum, tapping a single digit to check on my heart and lungs. He just came from work; he’s wearing his toolbelt under his exosuit, which I always find funny. “Hello, Grace,” he warbles. “Tough session?”

“If I asked you to murder House for me,” I ask, coughing into my arm, “would you do it?”

“Of course,” Rocky says, shrugging a pair of his arms. It’s a habit he must have picked up from me, since I’ve never seen anyone but him and the kids do it.

“Unbelievable,” House growls. He’s folded up next to me, updating my chart. “You’re a bad influence, Chief.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Knew you were the problem,” I grunt, shifting around on the settee. “Get me out of here, Rock.”

Rocky obliges me by ducking under my arms, pulling over the walker that House’s assistant Chase had towed out. He clips me into it without asking, checking over my clothes. “New shirt?”

“Old one was toast,” I say, dragging on my cardigan again. “Spares were a good idea, huh?”

“Knew they would be,” Rocky says, taking hold of the walker. He matches my snail’s pace as I shuffle slowly towards the door, and tips his carapace back towards House. “Thanks, Doctor!”

He nudges me. I sigh, and turn to offer a quick nod. “Thanks for the agony, Doc.”

“My pleasure,” House says smugly. “We’re doing twelve reps for each set on Monday.”

I flip him the bird, and House whistles in fake outrage. Behind him, the assistants burst into melodious giggles.

“Grace,” Rocky says, flustered.

“He started it!”

*

Rocky and I take a brief sojourn in the Greenhouse for lunch, since it’s conveniently linked to my personal tunnel system through the city, and because nobody there cares if I eat with Rocky present. It’s one of the few comfortable places outside the dome that I realised I could walk around without a suit, breathing my own air, so I lost all modesty pretty fast. The caretakers are well used to our shared oddities by now, anyway. We observe the thriving shrubbery and commentate on some genetically enhanced wisteria, and by the time Rocky escorts me back to his and Adrian’s burrow under the house I’m getting slow and sleepy.

It doesn’t last long. The kids are blowing out my eardrums before I even set foot over the threshold.

“Put him down – Artemis!” Adrian shouts, adding to the general racket. I peer through the xenonite divider and see the little jade ball get yanked up into the air by her arm. She continues slapping at her twin, whose sole difference in appearance is a splodge of brown near the bottom of his carapace. He dodges her swipes and even gives a few back.

“He called me dumb,” Artemis howls, and Adrian, still holding her aloft, sags in a way that must be universal to parents across the galaxy.

“Honey, we’re home,” I sing, just to add my own dollop of chaos. Adrian clacks out a mix of a greeting and an imperative that I’ve come to recognise as ‘shut the hell up’.

Rocky bats me on the side and hustles up to the divider’s airlock. “Sorry, my love, we’re late.”

“Mary threw up in the utility closet again,” Adrian says, instead of responding to him. They hoist Artemis away from her brother and use another claw to keep him at bay. “And Balboa said he didn’t have athletics training today but he did, the coaches sent a message, so I dropped him off a few minutes ago and he’ll need to be picked up before dinner – Apollo, stop that –,”

“She hit me!”

Rocky groans deep in his carapace, and I grin widely at him. He points a claw back at me while he dials open the small airlock. “You. Sit.”

“I always follow orders,” I say, saluting. I shuffle over to my ergonomic chair and settle in for the show, moving gingerly after the workout. My half of the room is decorated for tutelage, with posters, sculptures, my desk, my microscope, my synthesiser and a magnetic board all set up neatly, just the way I’d left them. Conversely, beyond the transparent xenonite wall, toys, snack packets, homework tablets and schoolbags are scattered like debris.

Rocky gets into the airlock, repressurises, and makes it over to the other side of the family room. The twins squeal with excitement upon hearing him, then they spot me and seem to remember their class. Artemis scrambles away from Adrian, climbs over Rocky and then starts pawing at the xenonite, jumping and yelling in anticipation. Apollo joins her after a second, weaving between his parents before butting up against the wall.

“GRACEGRACEGRACE –,”

“UNCLE GRACE DID YOU DO THE PRANK DIDJA DIDJA DIDJA –,”

Artemis whacks Apollo. “ME FIRST –,”

“HEY!” Apollo squeals. “YOU’RE A GIANT NO-SHELL DUMB-DUMB –,”

“Kids, kids,” I say hastily, as the twins start beating on each other again. “C’mon, it’s the best time of the day!”

They ignore me in favour of trying to crack one another’s carapaces open. Rocky picks them both up, one in each claw. They’re only the size of footballs, so it’s not hard to do. Even I can do it, provided I’m sitting down first and they promise not to move too much.

“I am this close,” Rocky says sharply, holding up another claw, and pinching the air. “This close to sending Uncle Grace home right now.”

“NOOOOOOOOOO –,”

They sound eerie in unison, I think fondly.

“Do you want your science lesson?”

“YES!” the twins chirp.

“Then settle down and start acting like good students,” Rocky says, plonking them both on the floor. Artemis raises her little arm towards Apollo and Rocky slams his fist down. Even I shrink back a bit. “What did I just say?”

He tilts his carapace up. “Unfortunately, Grace, I’ll have to bring you home –,”

“Sorrysorrysorry!” Artemis says desperately, skittering away, up to the airlock door. “Won’t do it again, swear on – on –,”

“Charles Darwin,” I whisper.

“I swear on Charles!”

“Go back on that and there will be serious consequences,” Adrian says, looming from behind, toys and tablets in three of their claws. “Get in your suits, before Bobo changes their mind.”

I smile as the twins crawl all over Rocky, who’s doing his best to get them into their specially crafted exosuits. They’ve got extra padding, and they’re softened on the exterior to withstand tumbles and falls, so the kids always greet me looking like balloon-animal versions of their actual selves. It’s painfully cute, especially when they have to work extra hard on their already dubious coordination.

“Uncle Grace is here?”

I see Gracie lope out from behind Adrian, wiggling with happiness.

“Hey kiddo!” I call out, waving.

Gracie trills loudly and makes their way towards the airlock door. They reach up to the handle with their fairy arm, and Rocky scoops them up before they get frustrated.

“Suit first, beloved.”

“Oh yeah,” Gracie says, still wiggling, even when Rocky is fitting them into their suit. He’s gentle with their fairy arm, the one that was twisted around when they hatched. It’s gnarled like the branch of an old tree, and we all know it won’t grow any bigger, but it still looks right on them. I tell them all the time they look perfect to me.

The kids chitter amongst themselves while Rocky depressurises the airlock, and the instant he opens the door they spill out like skittles from a dropped bag.

“GRACE!”

“UNCLE GRACE, GRACEGRACEGRACE –,”

“Hiya Grace! Hiya Grace!”

I lean forward to meet them all, letting the twins scale me like a building while Gracie folds their arms under their carapace and wedges themselves between my feet, wiggling away.

“Mary’s got the spurts,” Adrian says, as Rocky closes the door behind him. “Caught it at day-school. I might bring her in an hour or so, if she’s up to it.”

“That’s awful,” I say, as Apollo tries to burrow into my cardigan sleeve. “Is she okay?”

“Just leaky and whiny,” Adrian says, clearing up the last of the mess by dumping it in their lounge nest. “She’s becoming more human than her Bobo.”

“Hilarious,” Rocky says, tapping back at the xenonite divider. “I’m barely a quarter human.”

“A third at most,” I say, trying to shuck Artemis off my shoulder. She dislodges and tumbles into my lap, shrieking with glee.

“KUKU!”

Adrian’s large carapace bows again, before tipping back towards the hallway that leads to the rest of the house. “Yes, Mary?”

“IS GRACE HERE?!” I hear Mary chirp in the distance, a little pitchy around the edges. Poor thing is probably bedbound. “I WANT GRACE!”

“Here we go,” Adrian says wearily. “Back in a moment.”

Rocky taps the floor in acknowledgement, and Adrian trots into the inky darkness of their main hallway. I kind of hope they return with Mary in tow, even if her energy isn’t at its usual level. She’s got big emotions in her little carapace, and while the noise can be overwhelming at times, her enthusiasm never is. I don’t want to wind her up and get her more ill, but if I miss my Mare Bear and Balboa today I’m liable to get what Rocky calls ‘the grumps’.

“GRACE!”

I blink at the sudden whistle right next to my ear, and abruptly remove Artemis from her perch back on my shoulder. I plop her in my lap with her brother, who immediately climbs on top of her and hoots in triumph.

“GET OFF, YOU PENIS!”

I cringe and Rocky makes a sound that is close enough to a growl for me to start sweating.

“Artemis,” he says. “We do not use language like that –,”

“Don’t have a penis, so it’s not a bad word,” Artemis says in a sing-song voice. Well, more sing-song than normal.

“It’s still rude,” Rocky says sharply, coming to stand in front of me. He doesn’t quite have the intimidation factor of Adrian’s size, but the kids quail a bit anyway.

“Science word,” Artemis mumbles, fidgeting with a crease in my pants. “Saw on science tablet.”

“I gave you those so you could study human anatomy,” I say reprovingly. “Not pick up new insults –,”

“Arty is nasty foot,” Apollo says slyly, leading to a predictable cry as Artemis tries to leap back at him. Rocky scoops her up and I cage Apollo in my hands before we’re treated to another round of WWE: Rockslide.

“Grace, move claws. Might break bendy claws.” Apollo touches my fingers gently, poking at the skin half in annoyance, half in fascination. I know his tells. He likes learning as much as the others, even if he takes a while to pay attention.

“They’re not claws,” Artemis says angrily, squirming in Rocky’s grasp. “Grace, Uncle Grace! I know what they’re called on humans, I listened to the lesson last night and observed the diagrams –,”

“Fingers!” Apollo yells. “I know, I know! Uncle Grace has fingers!”

“They’re PHALANGES,” Artemis shouts over him, and Apollo, predictably, volleys back some nonsense. I enjoy the squabbling as Rocky shakes his carapace back and forth.

There’s a light tug on my sock, and I peer over the twins to see Gracie bobbing up between my ankles, trilling eagerly.

“Earth hands have twenty-seven bones,” Gracie says happily. I have to strain to hear them. “Listened to – to tablet after Art and Appy, for homework. So many bones!”

My chest feels like it’s glowing. “That’s excellent, kiddo. What was your favourite part of the chapter?”

“Hm,” Gracie says, tapping one of their arms against the floor in a way that echoes Rocky. “Ossicles are amaze. And love cervical vertebrae! So clever!”

I chuckle, and Rocky clicks like he does when he’s trying not to laugh. The twins have calmed down, listening intently to the conversation. Artemis scrabbles her way out of Rocky’s claws and back into my lap, while Apollo tucks his arms and sits neatly inside my hands.

“That’s how I felt when I found out about your guys’ anatomy,” I say, leaning forward to beckon Gracie closer. Rocky, probably sensing the stretch in my already besieged muscles, bends to pick them up for me, depositing them alongside their siblings. Artemis instantly climbs on top of Gracie’s carapace, and Gracie sits to accommodate her. Apollo flips up the hem of my shirt and rolls himself into it like a burrito.

“Tell about when you first heard Bobo eat,” Artemis says excitedly. “Uncle Grace said ‘EW’ and Bobo heard Grace eat and said ‘EWWWW’ too because aliens so weeeird –,”

“You’ve heard that story a million times,” Rocky groans.

“And it’s always funny.”

I blink and see that Adrian is back behind the xenonite divider, their voice wry. In one arm I see they’re cradling a sleek, golden rock with pinwheeling arms.

“Grace!” Mary warbles, all pitchy, tiny plumes of steam puffing from her vents. “Uncle Grace! I’m here!”

“Hi, sweetheart!” I say happily, sitting up as much as I’m able with most of the gang crawling all over me. “I missed you! How are you feeling?”

“Great, great, great!” Mary says, sounding very scratchy. “Want lesson, coming to class now!”

Adrian murmurs something too low for me to hear, and Mary lets out a pealing wail that makes my heart ache.

“But please, Kuku, please, please!”

“It’s not safe for you to get in your suit when you’re unwell,” Adrian says sternly, pulling Mary closer to their carapace as she twists around. “You can listen from here. That was the deal.”

“But – but –,”

“If your spurts start up when you’re with Grace, it will damage your suit and harm your uncle,” Rocky says, in such a targeted attack that I’m actually impressed. “Is that what you want?”

If Mary had a lower lip it would be trembling, I’m sure of it.

“No!” she says eventually, sounding devastated. I want to hug the poor thing so badly.

“As soon as you’re better, we’ll do a whole day of lessons in person,” I tell her kindly, and she perks right up. The other kids start cheeping in delight along with her.

“A whole day?!”

“Can we listen to whale songs again?”

“Can we do experiments that blow up?”

The kids continue to chitter as Rocky leans towards me, crackling in concern.

“I can manage a whole day,” I say aside to him, with a lot more confidence than I feel. I may have to take a bunch of breaks, and lie down at some point, which will certainly lead to the kids trampling me, but I’ll be here, dangit.

There’s a loud bang, which makes nobody but me jump. The sudden jolt makes Apollo roll out of my shirt and nearly off my knees before I catch him and bring him back.

“That was quick,” Rocky says, amused, and Adrian sighs. They disappear into the hallway opposite the one leading to their personal rooms, the one that goes to their front burrow.

“What was?” I ask curiously, only to hear a familiar squawk.

“Someone decided to play truant at athletics practice,” Adrian says, reemerging into the family room. They’re trailed by a dark brown comet that shoots past them and straight into the xenonite divider with a bonk.

Rocky and I wince in tandem. “Bal, take it easy –,”

“LATE FOR UNCLE GRACE!” Balboa yelps, rolling around and staggering a bit as he straightens up again. “HI GRACE! HI!”

“Hey little man,” I say, unable to stop laughing as Adrian does their best to trap Mary against them while chasing Balboa away from the airlock. “Everyone came along for class, huh?”

“Your suit, Bal – stop it, stay still –,”

“You’re the best around,” I sing to Balboa, which makes him bounce like a beach ball, much to Adrian’s chagrin. He loves it when I break out that old chestnut, and I love it when Adrian makes threatening stances at me that they can’t follow through on until they’re in their own suit. I take my privileged position behind a barrier very seriously.

Rocky shoves at me. “What if I made you put them to bed tonight? Hm?”

“Joke’s on you,” I say sniffily. “I’ve been waiting to tell them about the sequels.”

Rocky lets loose another helpless growl. Got ‘em.

“UNCLE GRACE, GUESS WHAT, GUESS WHAT!” Balboa screams, as the airlock flies open and he comes rocketing out of it. “I LEARNED ABOUT PENIS FOR HOMEWORK!”

*

After the tutor session the kids are ushered off to their personal rooms to have dinner, whinging the whole way. Adrian is trying to instil the importance of normal cultural values, which I understand, even if it makes Rocky grumble. I eat alongside Rocky while we chat about last week’s mugball game, and argue about which of the six teams deserves to go to the regional championships. Rocky switches allegiances every time the topic comes up, solely to irritate me into ranting about player trading, I know it. It also distracts me enough that by the time I say goodnight to the kids, I’m knocking back my antacid medication without argument. He’s a sneaky little thing.

“I really don’t need that crap,” I say gruffly, as Rocky shepherds me into the elevator. “And it’s too early for bed, I wanted to get to Dexter’s office first. They asked me to consult on their thesis.”

“They’ve been picking over that thing for the past three years,” Rocky says, pressing the arrow pointing up on the dialling pad. “I promise they can wait for another day.”

“It’s for the advancement of science, though.”

“It can advance tomorrow.”

“Okay Dad,” I say huffily. “But it’s fascinating stuff. They’re studying the cross-species transmissibility of septicemic bacteria. They’re one of the first people to have a specialty in extraterrestrial microbiology for their whole career, you know. They’ve been pioneering research into xenopathology for longer than I’ve been on this planet!”

Rocky tilts his carapace, his version of narrowing his eyes. “Was Dexter the one who tried to get you to consume a live Ebola strain?”

“It wasn’t real Ebola, just a cheap copy,” I say, grinning. “They lost interest when I told them so.”

“They need a new hobby,” Rocky says darkly. There’s a ding as the elevator gets to the ground floor of my house, and Rocky wraps a claw around my walker to help me shuffle out.

“I can do it,” I insist, though I’m already out of breath, and my knees and wrists are bending under the slightest pressure. My hands are aching, too, curled up and stiff after such an active day.

I allow Rocky to direct me over the slip-resistant mat to my couch, where he unclips me and deposits me gently. I pant, not very subtly, and rub at my knuckles while Rocky aligns the walker next to the arm of the couch, angled perfectly for when I need to reach for it again.

“I’m a hot commodity for researchers around here, y’know,” I add, pretty proud of that fact. My interview queue has had a waiting list in the millions since it opened to the public.

“I know,” Rocky says, with more of a sour tone than I was expecting. I smile slowly as my suspicion grows, turning towards him while he bustles into and around my living room storage cupboards. He’s clattering a great deal for a someone who’s ostensibly clearing up a few poorly arranged bottles and boxes.

“Rockster,” I say, not even remotely hiding my glee. “My precious pal, light of my life, my parter in crime. Are you jealous?”

Rocky slams a cupboard door shut. “No.”

“Rockyyy. Rocko, Rockabilly, Rock-a-bye-baby –,”

“Shut up,” Rocky retorts, making quite a production out of searching for my nightly pain meds, pyjamas and slippers. I’m pretty sure he’s checking in the wrong place, he’s so irritated, which is hilarious. “I just think all of those travelling doctorate-holders could have a bit more – humility, is all –,”

“What does that mean?” I ask, delighted.

“They act like the dome is a petting zoo,” Rocky mutters, snatching up spare pyjamas and slippers from a storage box and trudging back over to me. He dumps them in my lap. “Remember the group from the South-Burrow Wildlife Trust? Adrian told them to keep their claws to themselves when they came in, and that one professor –,”

“Oh yeah,” I say, recalling a squat mound of purple quartz, who tried their very best to steal some of my blood. Funny in retrospect, at least to me. “That was a long day.”

“Understatement,” Rocky says, carefully observing as I shuck off my cardigan and sweater and pull on my nightshirt. “I still think we should have ended outsider visits then and there.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re boring,” I say cheerfully.

“I love being boring,” Rocky says, folding my day clothes and setting them in the laundry basket. I always tell him just to chuck them, but he treats them like they’re made of glass. “Boring people make the world go round.”

“Not true. I helped you make the world go round and I’m awesome.”

“Jury’s out,” Rocky says, another learned human-ism I enjoy immensely. “Now finish changing and go pee, or we won’t have time for the movie.”

“Okay, okay,” I say, heaving myself forward on the couch. “We’re watching – um –,”

“Star Trek,” Rocky says, drifting slightly closer. “The Wrath of Khan.”

“I know,” I say. We probably talked about it ages ago, that’s why I didn’t remember. Rocky’s claws are fiddling with the edge of a blanket, busy in a way I don’t like.

“I’m gonna pee,” I say, keeping my voice light. I lurch to get up, because I did a lot of physio work earlier, and I lifted the kids one by one no problem, so it’s a good, if sore day for me. I grab for my walker and miss, and my knees give the second I put my weight on them. It’s so unexpected that I don’t even have the time to panic.

“Got you, got you,” Rocky is saying, his arms sliding meticulously around me, aimed for my soft spots so it won’t hurt. He lifts me mid-slip back to the couch. “I’ll get the carrier –,”

“No,” I say, too harshly, and Rocky stills. The carrier is a hip-height hammock attached to cables which follow grooves in the ceiling, an installation that can be dragged all over the house. It’s used by Rocky and some of the nurses to transport me to the bathroom or living room on really bad days, and I haven’t required it in weeks.

“Sorry,” I say, shaking myself to get rid of the cloud I can feel descending over my mood. “I just don’t need it. I’m fine, I swear.”

Rocky hovers, his claw tapping agitatedly on the cushion next to my leg. I pick it up and squeeze, letting him hear all of me.

“Just give me a minute,” I say, hoping it sounds reassuring.

Rocky bobs in a nod, and I pat his arm gratefully. He does still trust me, even though I know it takes a toll on him to do it.

I wrangle back my walker by myself, feeling Rocky’s attention trained on me the whole time, soft crackles rippling from him every few seconds like he’s tracking me by the millimetre. I get up on my own and give a cartoonish wave as I shuffle towards the bathroom, which gets Rocky to settle a little bit. I close the bathroom door on him as soon as I can and sigh heavily, relieved to have soundproofing. It hurts to wrest off my pants and go about doing my business, but I’m used to that. Knowing Rocky is nearby and waiting keeps me from giving up halfway through and sleeping on the porcelain throne. It wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened, but I’m not looking to repeat the embarrassment either.

And – today is a good day. I want to keep it that way.

When I finally haul myself out of the bathroom, Rocky is standing directly opposite the door. He’s learned over the years not to lurk right outside it, since my general lack of spatial awareness has led to plenty of face-first greetings with the floor.

“Still kicking,” I declare, reaching over to noogie the top of his carapace. Rocky wiggles, reminding me a lot of Mary when she’s in the middle of a complaint.

“Stupid phrase,” Rocky says, sticking close as I shove the walker inch by inch back to the couch. “It should be ‘still walking’.”

“I’ll let everyone know,” I say, nudging him aside so I get the best spot in front of the television. It’s just a rewired screen from the defunct Don’t-Go-Crazy Room, but I like to call it my TV. Rocky puts my grippy slippers on my feet for me before I can even reach for them, which makes my insides feel more like warm jelly than usual.

“All ready,” Rocky says proudly, checking me over for the hundredth time in the past minute. I push at him impatiently.

“You’re taking forever. Turn on the computer!”

Rocky whacks my leg. “Manners.”

“Please,” I tack on, fluttering my eyelashes. Rocky snorts, but still goes over to load up the computer linked to the TV. He’s so easy.

Rocky locates the movie file in no time at all, though he does go to the effort of informing me that my desktop is a mess and I need to fix the laptop charger. It’s been hanging on to the adapter by a couple of wires for a decade now, so I bat away his concerns and yank up the comforter, shaking it invitingly until he comes over.

“We don’t have a spare,” Rocky says, collecting his viewing equipment from a shelf by the TV stand. He holds it aloft as he climbs up beside me. “Bismuth and his apprentices can only do so much with the material we salvaged, you know.”

“I have faith in them,” I say confidently, tossing the blanket on top of Rocky. “They’re the best electricians I know.”

“They’re the only electricians you know,” Rocky says. He shifts his arms around without moving the blanket, looking like a cat trapped under a bedsheet. “Lazul, from the Kerogen Fields laboratory, has been expanding their team, and they now have multiple members of their radio communications guild in the SRC. They’ve reportedly had a great deal of success maintaining the electrical power of their Generation Twelve devices for long periods, and the Director has extended an invitation to have them test the machines in the city’s headquarters. I’ve proposed to Adrian and Rose that we explore a partnership with them, including Bismuth’s input, of course, to honour their prior work –,”

“All this for a charger?” I ask, tugging down the blanket so I can see him. Rocky lifts his equipment over its hem and folds his arms in such an obliviously cute way that I have to hide my smile behind my hand.

“Obviously,” Rocky says, activating his crystal wand and translator tablet.

“The SRC has other computers.”

“And they’re in high demand,” Rocky says primly. “This computer is a crucial source of information and entertainment for you.” He clicks in consideration. “And me.”

“That’s what I thought,” I say, pressing play on the little remote, which is really just a another modified scrap from our ship. Makes wrangling the TV somewhat sentimental. “You’d become a monster if you didn’t get your weekly dose of Buffy.”

“She is a role model,” Rocky says. “Now be quiet. Saavik is messing up the Kobayashi Maru.”

“I bet we’d figure it out,” I note, rolling my aching shoulders back into the couch. “We’re the masters of no-win scenarios.”

“Hm,” Rocky says, instead of boasting about his intelligence and cunning, which is probably his second favourite thing to do in the world. I eye him, but let the comment pass. I don’t think we’ve watched this particular movie since our journey home, and there had been a lot of cross-talk then, mainly debating how a real Genesis Device might work. That was the experience watching any sort of media with Rocky, though. He always has nits to pick. He’s still not satisfied with the way I explained the time dodgery in Tenet, even after I used a whiteboard and pointer to break it down. I think his questions ended up confusing me.

All this to say, I’m excited to revisit it, even if Rocky’s being unusually tight-lipped. In a manner of speaking.

The movie progresses to the torture scene with Chekov, and I intend to monitor Rocky’s reactions during it, because I know he gets jumpy when it comes to body horror of any kind, but it’s harder to focus on him than I expected. My knuckles are throbbing, a flare-up of the arthritis that’s turning the skin of my fingers shiny and red. My shoulders are getting tighter, too, as though only now recalling their day of strain, and my head pulses along with my hands. I blink rapidly to clear my eyes of water. The screen is a little blurry, even through my glasses, and I spend a few minutes trying to will away the strange stinging. I’ve had the lenses replaced every few years since Rocky discovered how to reshape the xenonite, so it shouldn’t be happening, really. Eventually I have to take off the glasses and rub at my eyes, wincing when I accidentally press on my tender knuckles.

“Grace?” Rocky’s emitting a low series of clacks, searching me.

“’M fine,” I say, sticking my glasses back on my face. The screen looks a little better. My hands are worse, not that I’ll admit that. “Kirk get the Enterprise yet?”

“They just docked,” Rocky says, after a pause. He doesn’t tack on anything else, which I appreciate. I sit back and pretend to be engrossed by the movie. Rocky pretends to do the same. There’s nothing I can do to make him switch off his hypervigilance, I’ve tried.

I hang on for as long as I can. The movie is cruising past the halfway point by the time my headache gets bad enough that I have to shut my eyes completely. I take off my glasses again, lifting my hand to rub at my face. I’m careful this time, but even the slightest contact of my joints against any surface hurts. I don’t know why the damn disease is troubling me now. I haven’t even been writing or typing all that much. Since I retired from full-time teaching, I don’t use a board or stylus when tutoring the kids or working on research papers. Any writing I do is entirely via voice command. I don’t do anything that requires fine motor skills at all, unless juggling baby Eridians counts, and it’s not like I’m going to give that up.

There’s a sudden jolt from beside me, and I startle as Rocky flings off the blanket, drops his equipment, and hurtles out of the room into my bedroom. I hear a clang as he whacks into the dresser, which he always does when he goes too fast.

“Jeez, where’s the fire?” I ask, squinting into the abyss of my bedroom doorway. “Rock?”

There’s another litany of clanks and bangs as Rocky shoots back into the living room, only slowing once he reaches the couch. His vents are steaming inside his exosuit, and his arms are jittery as they reach for me.

“Sorry, Grace, sorry – stupid, I was distracted, stupid –,”

He’s taking my wrist like it’s a baby bird, and placing a small metal cup in my palm. There are three pills inside it.

“Late,” Rocky hisses to himself, holding up another cup, this one full of water. “Sorry, Grace. Sorry.”

A wave of relief crashes over me when I realise what happened. Rocky always delivers me my painkillers at 6pm every evening. I must’ve thrown him off his routine at some point, and forgot to take the pills. It’s vaguely worrying, I suppose, that it never occurred to me to ask for them. I don’t examine that feeling any more than I have to, however.

I laugh, and pick up the cup with clumsy fingers. “Don’t stress, Rocky, I forgot too.”

“Not meant to forget,” Rocky says, so low it’s almost subvocal. “I fucked up. I’m sorry.”

I nearly gag on the pills as I’m chasing them with water. Rocky, both the parent of little kids and the unfortunate witness of my endless aversion to swearing, never uses bad language. Adrian’s the incurable potty mouth. We joke about it all the time.

I make sure I’ve swallowed the pills properly before attempting to talk again. “Rocky, it’s okay.”

“No,” Rocky says. A tiny shudder ripples through him as he stands next to the couch. Behind him, Kirk observes a natural vista of miraculous growth.

“Jeez, bud,” I murmur, closing my knobby hand around his arm. “C’mere.”

Rocky allows himself to get towed back up to the couch, following my hand back to his place next to me. He grasps my wrist again.

“I’ll get an ice pack,” he says quietly, but when he turns to wander away from me, I hold him back. It hurts. A lot. But I don’t want to see him sunk down all low and defeated, like this is the first mistake he’s ever made in his life.

“Rocky,” I say seriously, looking him in his – not eyes, but deep in his carapace, for sure. “What’s going on, huh?”

Rocky slinks so close to me that I nearly tip into the huge dent he’s making in the couch cushion. I brace myself on him, trying not to let his edges poke too much into my ribs.

“You’re in pain,” Rocky says, in a dismayed trill. “I was thinking about construction tomorrow and the schedule for next week, and I didn’t – I didn’t pay attention. I’m sorry, I’m –,”

“Enough of that,” I say, patting him briskly. “I forget stuff all the time! It’s no big deal.”

It sort of is. I know how my father and his father died, and they didn’t get scurvy, marasmus and beriberi, nor did they spend their middle age in twice the gravity they were born in. I try not to think about it.

Rocky isn’t saying anything. He’s done his own research, of course, probably hooks me up to all sorts of monitors when I’m asleep so he can conjure his favourite worst case scenarios. It makes me sad to think about that, too. I don’t call him out on his fear, mainly because it would be the holy grail of hypocrisy.

“Rocky,” I say. “I’m fine.”

“You’re hurting.”

“Right now, yeah. But the meds will start working in a second –,”

“Not just now,” Rocky says, his claws tapping softly against my thigh. “All the time.”

I stare at him, taken aback. “Rock, that’s not true.”

“You’re used to it, that’s all,” Rocky says, scrunching all but the claw petting me in tight. “I know when your body is struggling, when you are struggling. It’s constant.”

I scrub at my face, my overgrown stubble. “Rocky, that’s – that’s just a part of my life. It’s not – torture, or whatever you’re thinking –,”

“Shouldn’t be,” Rocky says. “Your life should be simple, without pain.”

I can’t help but chuckle, and Rocky recoils slightly, like I’m aiming it at him. I pull myself closer and hug him with my sore, crumpled arms.

“Pal, nobody’s life is simple like that. It all comes with sacrifices, y’know?”

“It’s not fair.”

“It’s how it is,” I say, shrugging. Rocky is vibrating under me, almost certainly making noises at a frequency too high for me to hear. He doesn’t really do that anymore, not since we became accustomed to speaking to each other in a shorthand. He wants us to understand each other, even if it’s in a way others can’t.

“Where’s this coming from?” I ask, tapping a finger against his arm. “I’ve had chronic issues for years. We’ve always dealt with it.”

Rocky just hums to himself, a long, purring sound that glides from his vibration into something far gentler. It’s not too different from a lullaby he and Adrian used to use to send the kids to sleep.

I sigh, and try to tune back in to the movie. Things are going very wrong for the Enterprise.

Rocky’s voice, when it pipes up a few minutes later, is tentative. “Grace?”

“Yeah, bud?” I say, rubbing his arm.

“Do you – do you ever regret not going back to Earth?”

The question is so out of the blue that I’m struck dumb, for a moment.

“I – I would understand,” Rocky says, dropping his claws onto my leg. They’re restless, drumming up and down. “Considering – everything. I’m just curious.”

That’s not all he is, I know that, and it’s vaguely apocalyptic to me, that he could sit with me and tend to me and amble around my house and hand me his children and assume, even for the briefest second, that it’s not exactly what I want.

“How could you say that,” I say, shaking my head, flabbergasted and agitated and annoyed, honestly, that he might think I resent him for anything. “Rocky –,”

“You wouldn’t be hurt, if you’d returned,” Rocky interrupts, his anxious vibrations building again. “You wouldn’t be sick, or –,”

“You have no way of knowing that,” I say, snappishly, and Rocky goes silent. “I miss Earth, of course I do. I’ve said that before. That doesn’t mean I’d ever, ever want to go back there. I haven’t thought of that as a possibility since I swung my goddamn ship around, thirty-eight years ago.”

Rocky’s claws dig into my skin, an exact pressure too cautious to bruise.

“Our whole family is here,” I say, and I can feel my voice wavering, my impatience giving way to something far too fragile for exposure like this. “Rocky, you were my whole life when I was on our ship, you were the only reason – how could I ever –,”

I have to stop to breathe, and Rocky puts more of his hands on me, claws that spread in threes and cling. He purrs again, a rumble designed to soothe that’s brought me down from many a ledge. I can feel him bleed through me.

“I wouldn’t have been able to survive without you,” I say, because maybe it has to be said aloud, every now and then. Maybe we have to make these things alive between us so the misunderstandings and paranoias shrink to nothing. “I wouldn’t change it. I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”

Rocky speaks over the hum he’s making. “I’m sorry.”

“I said, stop –,”

“No,” Rocky says stridently, getting up into a crouch, and pulling himself right into my space. Our personal space, as Adrian called it, when they first spent time around the two of us. “I’m sorry for ignoring your feelings in this. You are not your pain, even though – even though it’s loud.”

My eyes are burning again, for a different reason. “You know I love you, right?”

“Yes,” Rocky says vehemently. “Yes, Grace. I love you too.”

He hovers his weight over my lap, for all intents and purposes sitting right on top of me. I grab a hold of him, even though my fingers twinge at the contact.

“This is home,” I say firmly, my heart pounding. “Whatever aches and pains I have are worth being here, with the people I care about. And before that, when it was just for you –,”

Rocky’s humming is musical, now. Harmonious and wordless.

“– it was worth it then, too,” I say. Behind Rocky, Spock places his hand on the glass wall that’s shielding his crew from radiation. Kirk reaches for him desperately, which is a lot to see right now.

“Should’ve picked frigging Rush Hour,” I say, all wobbly. “Dang it all.”

Rocky wraps his arms around me, and I do the same for him. He sways us like wind chimes, and threads his claws through my thinning hair.

“I’m selfish,” Rocky says, and I feel it resonate in my bones. “I always wanted you to come back with me.”

“Even when you gave me the extra fuel?” I say, huffing wetly into his suit.

“Yes,” Rocky says gravely. “I considered kidnapping you. But with your history, it seemed tactless.”

I honk with laughter, all gummed up with snot and tears, and Rocky dutifully fetches a wadded handkerchief to dab me with. They say goodbye to Spock’s body, on the TV.

“I’m glad I came,” I say, taking over the process of wiping. God knows Rocky does enough of that for me. “I’ll be here as long as you’ll have me.”

“Forever and ever and ever, as Gracie would say,” Rocky informs me. “You’ve got a lot of people who depend on you.”

“You think?”

“Trust me,” Rocky says, settling in my lap again. “I’m a saviour of the universe.”