project hail mary fic but it's stratt in a time loop and no matter what she does she always has to send him.
project hail mary fic where what we saw was the 20th attempt and nothing else was working so she tried sending him.
project hail mary fic where the first few times she wasn't even in charge and she had to fight her way there before she could even start changing things.
project hail mary fic where the time loop is short, each day over and over until she finally gets it right and they next day starts. the lab explosion happened and she thought surely she'd get to do that day again but no, somehow that was the right thing to make the loop move on. she no longer trusts the loop itself. it might not even be possible to get this done. she tries everything on launch day. kidnapping grace and sending him was a crazy Hail Mary attempt to get the dang loop to move on since nothing else had worked. she expected the loop to reset and he'd be back with her, trusting her to find someone to send. but no, the loop moved on and she sentenced her only friend to death in space and it's permanent and she just has to live with it now.
that was the right choice, the loop says. The only choice. Does that make it any easier?
project hail mary fic where the time loop isn't short. it isn't short at all. It starts when the petrova line is discovered and it restarts when stratt dies and it ends when the sun comes back. whoever she sends into space, she has to wait twenty-six years to see if they succeeded, knowing she'll have to do these thirty years again if they failed.
the loop is so long that she always forgets the details of what happened last time, so long that her changes spiral out of control and she spends twenty-six years wondering which ones were wrong and which were right.
the beetles don't come back and she dies of old age and the loop restarts and she changes anything she can think of and they don't come back and she dies and tries again and they don't come back. how is she supposed to know what happened, what went wrong? how is she supposed to fix it. how.
she can't figure it out without being there. she needs to be on that ship. the loop resets when she dies. she can die over and over again on the spaceship and get the information she needs.
she doesn't have the coma gene.
she puts herself awake on the ship with the unconscious crew. she needs to survive thirteen years of complete isolation without going crazy in order for this to work.
yao and ilyukhina and dubois die in their comas within months. she considers going on and trying to collect the data herself but she is not the expert she needs for this and she desperately does not want to spend another twelve years alone for maybe no results. she figures out why they died and she uses yao's nitrogen to restart the time loop.
it's such a blessed relief this time, to be able to start over after only a few years, to not have to wait out the whole interminable time. they fix the coma issue and she sends herself again with the sleeping crew.
she makes it almost a year before she feels the isolation starting to unravel her mind. she uses ilyukhina's heroin to restart the time loop. she researches sanity and isolation and learns every way to try to keep a mind intact. she makes it two years before her memory starts to come apart and she uses dubois's gun to restart the time loop. she can't go alone.
she doesn't have the coma gene.
she takes a crew with her awake. yao dies in his coma after two years and they figure out why and write it down and she doesn't restart the loop, she can still get the information she needs this loop. they make it three years before they hate each other and four years before someone snaps. she bleeds out listening to gunshots and screaming. the time loop restarts. they fix the coma problem and hope there won't be more.
she can't go alone. she can't go with people. is the coma gene really as important as they say? she tells them to put her under. she feels ice creeping through her veins. she doesn't have the coma gene. the loop restarts.
she can't go. she can't wait here not knowing what's going on and guessing at what went wrong. she can't go, she doesn't have the coma gene.
she puts cameras all over the hail mary and names probes after every drummer and producer and sound editor and publicist the beatles ever had. she waits on earth and gets new footage every few months. she waits for years and watches them sleep and every day drags on interminably and every day is a victory because they're still alive and they make it halfway and then some stupid coincidence in the engine system breaks the ship. she watches the footage a month later and wants to give up but there's no giving up, when she dies she'll always wake up with the news of the petrova line discovery on her morning tv. she gives in the despair for a while until the panic on every face and the news of wars and starvation are too much again. the nitrogen was the best way. she heads down to the empty lab and restarts the time loop.
the petrova line is discovered again. she fights her way to international power again. she recruits dubois and yao and ilyukhina again. she starts them building the hail mary again.
this time she tells the research team to look into every last unlikely way the engines could break. both her scientists die in the explosion because some idiot sent the wrong amount of astrophage. should she restart again or can she learn anything from this loop before she has to try again? no, this loop is still worth something, she needs to know if the comas are safe yet, and she's so tired of fighting her way to power, bribing the french president and convincing. british prime minister and blackmailing the american senators to get out of her way. who else can she send this time? it doesn't really matter, she'll make sure the scientists survive the next loop. but no, it does matter, because they might make it this time. she does need to send the right people in case they do make it, otherwise she's wasting more interminable years.
she turns to grace. last loop she told him everything, hoping it might pull him into the loop with her. it would be so nice to not have to remember it all herself. but no, it's only her. he didn't remember any of it when the loop restarted. it's only her and she has to send someone who actually has a chance, otherwise she'll have to do this again. (she'll probably have to do this again anyway). she's so tired of doing this again.
she turns to grace. he has the coma gene.
he refuses to go. he doesn't want to die. she knows death, now. it's not as bad as he thinks. he won't remember any of this in the next loop. she doesn't have time for his cowardice. she has all the time in the world.
she sends him. she waits for years. she misses him, but she'll see him again as soon as this attempt fails and she restarts the loop. she'll send dubois again next time and he'll be here waiting with her. they make it halfway and the coincidence doesn't happen and they continue. yao dies in his coma again (there is nothing new under the sun) and she doesn't know why. she's not there. she doesn't have the coma gene.
there's no one awake on board to find out why, to ask the computer, to do an autopsy. she doesn't have the information she needs. how is she supposed to fix this when she doesn't know what went wrong. she has to keep going with this loop until she gets enough information to fix things.
they make it three-quarters of the way. she feels the arthritis starting again and celebrates. it's been a long time since she made it this far. (she has all the time in the world). ilyukhina dies in her coma (there is nothing new under the sun). she doesn't know why. she's not there to find out. she doesn't have the coma gene.
how is she supposed to get past this point. if they die and there's no one awake to tell her what happened, she can't fix it. she doesn't want to watch him die. she'll be here forever, a ten-year cycle of sending astronauts and watching them die in space. (she has all the time in the world).
she watches it all in amazement. there is something new under the sun. she watches him find himself and she watches him find an alien and she watches them make a plan to collect taumoeba and she watches it all go wrong. she watches the hail mary's momentum crush him against the wall of screens and she doesn't want to watch him die. how is she supposed to fix this?
she watches the room fill with smoke as the alien saves his life. she watches him wake up and she watches the alien wake up and she sees them try to figure out how to breed the taumoeba that will save the sun. she runs out of footage from that probe and she waits. the next probe saves the sun.
she sits and she grows old again and she waits for him to come back.
she has all the time in the world.
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