Grace is absolutely devastated the day he picks up his good luck quilt and realizes that it has a hole in it. It must have caught on something at some point, because there's a tear in the middle of it almost as long as his palm, right between the sea turtle and the fish. There's stuffing starting to leak out, and the stitches are only coming more undone the more he touches it. Heartbroken, he sets it aside in hopes that maybe Adrian or Rocky can take a look at it, and then heads off to class with a little less brightness in his smile than usual.
When he comes home and finds that the quilt is miraculously as good as new, he's absolutely gobsmacked. He pokes the area where the hole had been in open wonder, noting the meticulous stitches holding it back together. The thread is a different colour, and the stitches aren't machine perfect, which means someone fixed it by hand. But unless he's looking closely, it's impossible to tell. And given none of the Eridians have actually entered the biodome today, the only one who could have possibly done it is Simon.
Carrying his repaired quilt tucked up in his arms, Grace goes in search of Simon.
He finds him in the bedroom, in the midst of rolling up a ball of thread using his hand and his teeth, the remains of one of Grace's older, more worn shirts carefully separated out into each individual piece lying next to him on the bed. The new thread on the quilt matches the thread Simon is gathering from the shirt into a ball perfectly. There's no need for any more thread, now that the quilt is fixed, but Simon is still taking the time to ensure none of it is wasted. None of the fabric has been tossed aside.
It looks like it's painfully tedious work, and Grace can't even imagine how much harder it would have been to do one-handed. And yet Simon took the time to carefully pick out a shirt that wouldn't be missed, take it apart delicately enough to preserve the thread, dig through the supplies that had been brought down from the Hail Mary until he either found a sewing needle or was able to make one of his own, and then use said recovered thread and needle to painstakingly repair Grace's quilt so cleanly that he almost couldn't see the spot it had ripped.
It hadn't been necessary. They have other blankets. Grace didn't need his good luck quilt. It wasn't life or death, and Simon knew that.
But Simon had mended it anyways. For Grace.
I love you, is what Grace wants to say.
"I didn't know you could sew," is what comes out instead.
Simon looks up, spots Grace hovering in the doorway, and then gives Grace a careless shrug.
"It's a practical skill to have," he replies gruffly, as if it's no big deal.
"You fixed my quilt," Grace says quietly.
"Yeah." Simon's expression is a bit more wary now. "Didn't think you'd mind. It's your favourite, right?"
"Yes, it is," Grace confirms, heart fluttering a little in his chest. It was probably pretty obvious, given how much he curls up in it, but it's still nice to know that Simon had noticed. That he'd been paying close enough attention to Grace to have known that the quilt was important to him. "I'm...really grateful you fixed it. Thank you."
"It's nothing," Simon says.
He's wrong. It's everything.
I love you, Grace tries to say again.
But what comes out is, "Maybe you could teach me?"
Simon blinks at Grace in surprise. He clearly hadn't expected the question, given that it's usually Grace who teaches and Simon who learns. It must be a nice change of pace, because a small, bashful smile pulls up the corners of his lips. Grace feels a flush of victory run through him at the sight.
He may not have been able to say the words he wanted to, but at least he managed to make Simon smile.
"Yeah, alright," Simon drawls. He sets the thread down and pats the spot on the bed next to him. "Here. You can practice with these shirt pieces."
Feeling his own smile spreading across his face, Grace eagerly joins Simon on the bed, ready for his first sewing lesson.
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