closed starter for @ofginjxints
𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧? 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐬? 𝐚 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫⁇ 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞⁈ … time had become a soft, formless thing aboard the hail mary. impossible to measure, impossible to hold. with no sunrise or sunset, no shift in light or temperature, the universe simply stretched out into one long continuous moment. just the endless void outside and the steady, indifferent hum of the ship.
rocky had tried to keep track at first … whiteboards filled with neat rows of tally marks, then the backs of clipboards, and then the walls themselves. eventually they were scratching days into the paint with a screwdriver like some stranded half-mad caveman. anything to keep from slipping. his coma had ended early — far too early — but he hadn't a clue as to why. rocky wasn't a doctor ( he was their engineer! they remembered that. they'd had plenty of time to remember … ), and he certainly wasn't going to go messing around with delicate medical equipment, to risk waking the others early and hurting them by accident … he didn't know how to, even if he wanted to. and so he was alone.
eighteen months, give or take … hurtling towards tau ceti at 1.5g, near lightspeed. with nothing but equations, maintenance logs, the AI voice of the ship herself, and his own breathing for company.
and then commander yao died.
it wasn't violent. no alarms no warnings. he just … never woke up. there must have been some complication? some failure in his life support? rocky didn't know. they simply found yao still and cold in his pod — the engineer had taken to sleeping in the lab by then, because being surrounded by the silent, comatose bodies of the rest of the crew was simply too eerie to bear …
rocky tried CPR, tried shouting, tried getting the stupid robot arms to do something — that was it's job, right? the hail mary's nurse, their caretaker! nothing worked. after that the ship felt different … heavier. and grace? grace became the last thread holding rocky to sanity.
and so the engineer kept watch ( he didn't trust the robot nurse anymore ). he checked vitals, checked the pod integrity, tried to decipher medical readouts he barely understood … what began as practicality quickly turned into ritual. and then ritual became compulsion.
they moved back into the pod room, sleeping curled against the wall beside grace. the engineer set alarms to check the systems every few hours … then every hour … then half hour. eventually they stopped trusting the alarms too and just stayed awake until their body forced them to collapse. he talked to the scientist every now and then, voice hoarse from disuse. soft things, gentle words of encouragement, apologies for not being there to save their captain.
mostly, rocky just watched. kept vigil. the hum of the hail mary's life support systems became a comfort. the rise and fall of ryland's chest, the soft beeping of the heart monitor, became the only proof rocky had that he wasn't completely and utterly alone out here … he couldn't lose another person.
the engineer was slumped in the corner, head tipped back uncomfortably against the wall, ( he'd been awake for thirty hours … he hadn't meant to fall asleep ) when the gentle voice of the hail mary stirs them — ᴇʏᴇ ᴍᴏᴠᴇᴍᴇɴᴛ ᴅᴇᴛᴇᴄᴛᴇᴅ — it takes rocky a moment to understand … the flashing lights, the soft mechanical whir, the unmistakable sound of another human being stirring. coughing. spluttering, opening their eyes.
rocky makes a sound that isn't quite human … a choked and broken exhale that catches in the back of their throat. part relief, part disbelief, and part grief that he had been carrying for eighteen long months. he stumbles forwards, hands shaking as they reach for the only other living human for lightyears. alive. miraculously, impossibly alive. beaming, tears brimming, he breaths:
❝ grace ‼ hi ! hi, grace, you— you're awake ‼ ❞ hands hover before reaching out to cradle the scientist's face, desperate to confirm this is really happening, quickly moving to help the man up sit up.
