Chapter 1: I’m Sorry
Ryland Grace x Gn!Reader
word count -> 3.4k
tags -> ryland grace x gn!reader, chapter series, no use of y/n, no pronouns (might change?), canon-ish, movie adjacent, no beta reader just me and my google docs, dunno how to tag stuff yet i’ll get better
warnings -> mild swearing, rip crew members, mostly a characterization of reader, reader is based off my own concept, i’m very unoriginal, bad jokes? chapter index: 1…
author note: I hope you guys like what I wrote 👉👈. I kept rereading it while writing it so I may have gone a little manic lol. I somehow spat this all out in a course of like four days. It will be mostly based from the movie since I haven’t read the book yet. Maybe the later chapters I might reference the book when I get to it.
edit: I changed a couple of minor details after reading the book—just for the sake of authenticity.
The first thing that came into view was the night sky. A sea of midnight blue littered with stars that sparkled like fairy lights.
Automatically, your eyes connected invisible lines between them, marking each constellation and naming them without fail. Your fingers traced along those lines you mapped out in the air as though they were physically etched into your brain.
You didn’t look away for a second, eyes permanently glued to the canvas above. Everything felt right in that moment. Calm. Quiet. You reached your hand out with your fingers splayed. You could almost touch it.
And then a sound to the left snapped you out of your trance. You were no longer looking at the night sky, but an entirely different landscape. Men in suits were piling on top of someone. The sight of a yellow raincoat peeked out from underneath it all and you felt something in your chest lurch.
You tried to yell, but not a single sound came out. Thrusting a hand forward, you tried to reach for that familiar coat; a feeling of desperation flooded your mind to the point that you couldn’t think about anything but getting to whoever was wearing it.
But external forces stopped you from getting close. They grabbed at your arms, held you back, and dragged you further away, deaf to the silent pleas you screamed.
Rain began to cloud your vision, the edges darkening the farther you were pulled away. You felt a searing pain fill your throat and you let out one final cry before the scene in front of you blipped off like a tv.
.✦ ݁˖
“kHhh-coff! hucK!”
A wet, disgusting cough violently shook your senses awake, the sound vibrating and burning in your throat as more fluid bubbled up from your esophagus. You didn’t even realize your eyes were closed until you felt them peel open and a hazy shape came into view. It took a couple seconds of blinking and spitting up more fluid for your vision to clear up. The first thing you noticed was the blue endotracheal tube dripping from above followed by your first thought being—ew.
You had zero recollection about anything: who you were, where you were, and why the hell were tied to this thing.
In the midst of you trying to process just about everything, a feminine robotic voice rang in your ears.
“What is two plus two?”
You twisted your head around, looking for where the voice came from. It repeated its question.
“What is two plus two?”
It was then that you realized it was coming from the creepy mechanical arm thing above you that near choked you to death from removing the tube.
“Ffff…” A rasp wheezed from your throat and the arm stilled, waiting for your answer. “...fuck.”
“Incorrect. What is two plus two?” The voice continued to prattle on about other things that you couldn’t quite focus on. The words coma and memory loss stood out the most, but you were kind of busy trying to evade the metal pinchers poking at your face to think about them.
“Ugh…! Four!” You groaned out, hoping that answer would stop this crazy machine.
“Correct. What does E = mc² stand for?”
Bullshit. You couldn’t stand this probing any longer and thrashed in your restraints. The answer to the question popped into your head clear as day, but your voice was equivalent to a seventy-year-old smoker right now and you had zero fucks to give about answering trivia in your current predicament.
You somehow found yourself on the floor, free—more or less—from the constraints of the table. You managed to wriggle yourself out of the prison colored body bag, feeling like a wet slug rather than a beautiful butterfly escaping its cocoon.
With legs shaking as much as a new born fawn, you took slow, careful steps through the padded room you woke up in. A very imposing ladder was bolted to the side with bunk beds extending from another wall. You climbed with what little strength you had and as you climbed past the beds, you looked over your shoulder to see if anyone was in those beds. There was. Or well, were. You stared at the sickly pale skin of what you assumed were your crewmates. The two words were at the tip of your tongue, but you just couldn’t bring yourself to say them.
You struggled for a moment to twist the hatch open, a thought passing in your mind that you needed to do more shoulder presses. At least you know your sense of humor wasn’t forgotten. The hatch finally opened with a wheezing grunt and dropped inward, almost knocking you off the ladder. From an outside perspective, you probably looked like the girl from that ring movie crawling up from god knows where. Your body hunched over the now horizontal flooring and you took a much needed breather before moving on.
Your eyes shifted around the whole interior, walls lined with cabinets and ventilation and other equipment that seemed vaguely familiar to you. You waddled from hall to hall, stopping every so often as more and more things were coming back to you. This was probably the memory loss you recalled hearing from the machine.
You paused for a second during your little exploration, the sight of a tall whiteboard catching your attention. Red and blue writing was scribbled across it, listing… you weren’t quite sure what you were reading.
Science Teacher Bay Area Single? Always Muscles?? Friends? 𝒢𝑜𝑜𝒹 𝒶𝓉 𝒞𝓊𝓇𝓈𝒾𝓋𝑒? Carl… (Foggy) Glasses - OK w/Cilantro How did I get here??
There were multiple things you could’ve commented on, but the most important thing right now was the fact that you were not alone. Someone was still alive. Who it could be, you have no idea. You couldn’t even remember your own name. The more you tried to think about it, the more your head throbbed, like a lemon juicer squeezing your brain for hidden information.
You shake your head. Oh well. Surely it’ll come back to you.
At both ends of the hallway was a cupola window. From a distance, it appeared to be night time with the blackened sky from where you could see. But as you walked closer you noticed it wasn’t the night sky at all. Stars. They were everywhere. From top to bottom and all around. You recognized each one. The only problem was, you shouldn’t have been able to see them.
“Centaurus… Octans… No, they’re way too south to be seen from where we are…” You whispered, the heat of your breath fogging the glass. You reached a hand out to wipe the surface. But where exactly were you?
A sudden flash of white invaded your vision. Fuzzy pictures projected themselves into your mind like a sputtering film reel trying to fix itself.
You saw … yourself.
Standing.
Gazing at… something.
A sky? You saw stars.
And then there were people.
They were strangers to you and yet so familiar.
A woman’s face bubbled up from the depths.
She wore such a solemn expression.
Another flash of colors blinded you.
A mess of blond hair paired with soft steel blue eyes. The way the light was reflected made it apparent they wore glasses. The person’s face was blurry, but for some reason …
You could almost imagine an awkward smile peeking out from their hazy visage.
…
The shuffle of shoes echoed around the empty space of the planetarium. Squeaks from sneakers and the taps of heels almost made for a calming metronome. You watched as the group of teenagers and respective chaperones entered the dome theater, filling the seats slowly. You could tell how the students separated themselves into their cliques, flocking like birds that had already decided who was at the top of the hierarchy and who was considered lesser. Your eyes shifted to one particular student that sat alone at the front semi circle.
“Welcome, everyone, to the Samuel Oschin Planetarium theater. I’m sure you’re all buzzing in your seats to explore the rest of the building. But first, we’ll be starting off with a little introductory preview. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the magic … of space.” You recited your usual welcome speech, doing your best customer service voice.
To be quite frank, you weren’t very social. You would rather sit in a room full of rocks than talk to another human being. But just like everything else in the world, you adapted. You learned to talk without really thinking about what you were saying and pretending to listen to others when you didn’t really want to. Regardless, working at the planetarium allowed you the chance to view the stars near 24/7.
Now if anyone ever found out you had a PhD in this field of study, they probably would’ve gone on and on asking about why you didn't go work for NASA. The funny thing was you were actually offered a full time position there along with a generous sign-on bonus. The not so funny thing was that you turned them down … while also calling them pretentious space rats acting like they owned the moon.
The 4k projection of Earth’s solar system danced along the ceiling of the dome, the narration playing in pace as the planets orbited above the students’ heads. You had watched this presentation to the point you could probably recite the entire script while describing everything in such detail a blind person would think they could see it.
“I hope watching this made you a little more interested in the universe we live in. Any questions?” You asked as the theater lights flickered back on once the video ended.
The students glanced around at each other, heads turning like owls. One raised their hand. “Can you tell us what the Petrova Line is?”
Oh. Hard-ball right at the start. You turned to look at the chaperones, silently asking if it was okay to answer. They all gave indifferent shrugs. Useless. Well, it was your job, in a sense, to educate.
“The Petrova Line,” You began with a sigh. “Is a streak of infrared light reaching between the Sun and Venus. It was discovered at Russia's Pulkovo Observatory by Dr. Irina Petrova. Hence the name.”
Another hand raised. “Is it really eating the sun?”
Damn these kids and their hungry-gossip little minds.
“Eating requires a mouth of some sort. So I wouldn’t say that,” You said.
“My uncle who’s a scientist said that the Sun is losing its light. Is that bad?”
You opened your mouth, then closed it, and opened it again. “If it was… by a marginal amount. Perhaps.”
“I heard from my little brother that his teacher said it could drop to about ten to fifteen degrees cooler.”
“That sounds bad.”
You had to bite your tongue from saying any unnecessary comments. Whoever this teacher was, really needed a smack on the head.
“Are we going to die?” And here comes the overly dramatic dying question.
“No, no, no,” You waved your hands around. “We are not going to die. They said the same thing back in 2012 and look at us now. Still alive.”
Eventually the chaperones decided it was enough world ending questions and rounded the students up to leave the theater. You waved goodbye as they continued on with their tour, but paused when you noticed that same lone student turned back to look at you. You tilted your head as they shuffled back over. Their head was lowered, only lifting it slightly to glance at you for a quick second.
“Is there really no way to save the sun?” They asked. Their hands fidgeted with the hem of their shirt. You could hear the timid fear in their voice. Honestly, you wanted to tell them they have nothing to worry about and that they should just continue on without thinking about it. But that just didn’t seem fair when it was their future at stake.
Letting out a slow exhale, you pulled out a small ball-shaped beanbag colored as the earth. They were small souvenirs the planetarium sold. You held it out to the student.
“We’ll find a way. We always do,” You said, your tone gentle with as much sincerity you could muster. “I bet you the government is already half-way to finding a solution as we speak.”
Sometimes you wonder if speaking things into existence really did make them come true.
…
The dome theater was currently empty. No shows were playing, no tours were coming, you finally had it all to yourself. Just as you were gazing up at the northern constellations from the projection, a voice called out to you. Title and all.
You tilted your head in the direction of the voice. A woman stood near the entrance of the theater, approaching you with an aura of intensity. You noted her appearance: strawberry blonde hair that framed her face, a high turtle neck paired with a trench coat, and a large purse hanging from her forearm. As she got closer, you saw the prominent age lines in her expression.
“… Who’s asking?” You asked with hesitation. Aside from the owner of this building, no one else should know of your title and experience. You prayed it wasn’t some sort of stalker.
Unlike you, she didn’t miss a beat with her introduction, the slight East German accent coming through. “My name is Eva Stratt. I am the Head of the Petrova Taskforce.”
Petrova Taskforce. That should’ve set off warning bells immediately, but instead you sat there, curious why someone of her position was coming to someone like you.
“I’ve always wanted to meet the person who said NASA was full of ‘pretentious space rats’, and that you had ‘better things to do than pest control’.”
Ouch. That came out of nowhere.
You pursed your lips, shifting your gaze back to the stars. “So are you just here as a reminder that I lost the one good thing that could’ve happened to me? I don’t regret it, I’ll tell you that. I’ve seen monkeys solve problems faster than them.”
“I’m here to remind you that you have a doctorate in Astronomy with two masters in astrophysics and astrobiology,” She said with as much seriousness as when she was introducing herself.
“Technically,” You butted in, wagging a finger in the air, “I'm just an astrophysicist when I don’t want to talk to people and an astronomer when I do. And 99% of the time, I’m an astrophysicist.”
You could almost feel her roll her eyes at you. “Well, that 1% of you better be prepared. Because I have a life-threatening offer.”
You turned your head back towards her. “How life-threatening are we talking about.”
“A one-way ticket into outer space with no return.” Nothing in her expression made it seem like a joke. “But at least you’ll be recognized as a hero for the rest of time.”
“Time is just a concept.” You looked away again, but kept her within your peripheral. “Why are you asking me of all people? Surely there’s others. Do you take me as someone so eager to throw away their life?”
Stratt gave you a look, her eyebrow raised as if questioning your attitude. “Do you really need me to answer that?”
Okay she’s got you there. You took a couple seconds to ponder the thought, staring back up at the constellations as they slowly rotated on the ceiling. You looked around the theater space before eventually meeting Stratt’s gaze.
“Alright, I’ll bite. When do I start?” You stood up from the cushioned seat and faced her.
“Right now. Welcome aboard Project Hail Mary.”
Stratt held her hand out for a handshake and you returned the favor. Although this was the start to you saving the world, it felt more like a beginning towards an end.
…
A gasp ripped through your throat as you clutched your forehead. You gritted your teeth through the painful remembrance. Memories started to filter in, putting together puzzle pieces that had fallen during your trip.
The Petrova Line.
Project Hail Mary.
Tau Ceti.
Details about the mission you were sent on and the sole purpose of why you were here—the fact that you were 11.912 light years from Earth all came rushing in like a semi-truck in a dream.
With a shaky breath, you opened your eyes back to the starry expanse in front of you. “Astrophage…” The word slipped off your tongue before you could fully comprehend why.
Just as you were sorting through your broken thoughts, you heard the creaking sound of footsteps behind you. You snapped your head around so fast you nearly gave yourself whiplash. A sharp inhale sucked in through your teeth at who you saw.
A mop of blonde hair, steel blue eyes, crooked opticals—it was him. Your only other living crewmate.
You opened your mouth to say some sort of greeting, but instead what came out was, “Why the fuck are you here?”
.✦ ݁˖
He said his name was Ryland Grace—for some reason hearing that made your brain tingle in a funny way—and he had no idea why he was put on this ship.
You found yourself in the medical bay, shuffling through a soft cubed box that was supposedly your packed belongings—it had your name on it so it must’ve been. Unlike the other boxes, you noticed it hadn’t been tampered with. Perhaps Ryland was holding onto hope that you would wake up. Your eyes shifted towards the man that was facing the corner of the wall, waiting for you to signal you’ve finished changing.
“I’m guessing what you remember from before is no different from what I remember,” You said, zipping up the light blue jumpsuit over your clothes. Your fingers grazed the sewn in patches of your name and branded logos. “We figure out why the Astrophage hasn’t gotten to Tau Ceti yet, save our Sun and in turn, the fate of all of humanity.”
“Pretty much,” Ryland mumbled out.
You turned around to see him rocking on his heels and stared. Were you silently judging him or were you appreciating him? You weren’t exactly sure. But the sight of it made your chest feel weird.
“I’m done.”
He turned his head first, body following in suit after. You didn’t miss the way his eyes flickered down and then back up to your face. “It, uh, suits you.” He gestured with a nod.
You looked down at yourself and then back at him wearing the same exact thing. “Likewise.”
The two of you stood side by side, just below the bunks where the deceased members still rested. Ryland was holding one of the leftover jumpsuits, their names also sewn in patches as a reminder. A look of contrition settling over him. Without speaking, you helped remove them from their casings, being extra careful as you dressed them appropriately. Ryland stood in front of the laid out bodies like an officiant to a funeral, sharing his words of remembrance, or at least the bare minimum of what he could think of in the moment. He tenderly tucked the photographs the two must have brought in their suitcases into their folded hands.
“I wish you were still here,” he said. You could hear the strain in his voice as he tried to keep his emotions in check. “At least, I’m not…”
You met his gaze from the corner of your eye. You didn’t need to hear him finish to know what he was trying to say. I’m not alone.
He cleared his throat. “You were both very loved. You deserve much more than this. I’ll do my best so that you don’t… that you didn’t…” Ryland’s voice cracked just the slightest, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He quickly wiped away the tears that trickled out.
“We’ll do our best,” he managed to say in the end.
One by one, you carried the bodies into the airlock. You didn’t say anything, just stared at their sunken faces before turning around and closing the hatch. Ryland pressed the override button and with a loud hiss and release of mechanics, the outerlock opened. Together, you silently watched their lifeless forms float into the void, drifting further away until they were just specks among the stars.
Neither of you moved. The gentle hiss and puff of coolants being the only other sound filling the silence along with Ryland’s sniffles that he tried to keep quiet. You were the first to break it.
“You don’t even remember them, but you still cry for them,” You murmured out, realizing only a second later that probably came off condescending. “I mean—they knew what they were getting themselves into. It… was… an unfortunate risk.”
Ryland didn’t answer right away and you didn’t rush him. You heard the shaky inhale he took.
“I know,” he breathed out. “But, it’s still sad.”
You felt a little pinch in your chest.
You opened your mouth to speak, but the words got caught in your throat.
You licked your lips and parted them.
But you still couldn’t say it.
I’m sorry.
