Man, I just finished reading Project Hail Mary and I'm just thinking about the moment Grace comes back to save Rocky from Rocky's perspective.
Like, you've just said goodbye to your best friend. Forever. After everything you've been through, all you've learned from each other, coming up with a way to save not one but two suns, you're both going to your respective homes and you're literally never going to see him again.
But then your engines start failing. And you've seen this happen before. This is what happened to Grace's engines. Your fuel is infected. And now you're stuck in a solar system that isn't your own, with no way to get home, no way to call for help. You're truly alone in the universe.
There's no one to watch you sleep. There will probably never again be anyone to watch you sleep.
Your only hope is that someone from your planet sends another ship, but the chances are so unlikely. This was your planet's only hope and you've failed them.
You think of Adrian. How you miss them. You think of how bad the world is about to become and hope that they escape the worst of it. You try to only think of them happy.
You think of Grace, on his way home to save his planet. Or maybe not, if the taumoeba have infected his ship again. You feel helpless. There's no way you could get to him to warn him. He might be as stranded as you are.
But no, you won't let yourself think of this. Grace is smart, and his ship isn't made of xenonite. He'll have figured out a way to contain and fix the problem. He's on his way home to save his sun. To save his people. It's the only hopeful thought you have to cling to so you cling to it with all of your hands.
And then there's a knock on your hull. It's not the random banging of space stuff hitting your ship. Those are deliberate knocks, like the ones you've gotten so used to over the past few months.
It can only be one person.
And then like some kind of miracle, Grace is standing in front of you again. He tells you you're going home. That he's taking you home. That you'll feel your planet's soil beneath your feet again. That you'll watch your Adrian while they sleep again.
He'll never again see his home, he doesn't know if his plan to save his planet will work, he'll probably die (not if you have anything to say about it) but he says it doesn't matter. Because his friend and his friend's world needed saving and he was the only one who could.
You're not alone in the universe after all.
And despite your difference in biology, despite your different atmospheres and planets beneath them, you know Grace will always be family.
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