Chapter Text
Rocky knows Grace's respiration rate as well as he knows the rhythm of a ticking clock. It's constant background noise, just like his heartbeat. The expansion and contraction of his lungs, once a foreign, windy sound that made him feel like he was always in a storm. Now, it's a sort of white noise that he intentionally listens for when Grace is quiet for too long, focused or sleeping. It's a convenient little reminder that Grace is alive.
For the past 46 hours, the noises of Grace's biological functions have been overshadowed by the sounds of machines.
Rocky hates it. Every heartbeat is eclipsed by a mechanical beeping where the medical robot is tracking its too rapid, too weak rhythm. His breaths are being controlled by a tube that's pumping air in and out while his body is too weak to do it. Instead of the rapid tapping of fingernails on the benchtop as Grace thinks, he's left to fixate on the drip of fluids in a bag being injected through a cannula into his far too hot bloodstream. He hasn't made a sound of his own since the horrifying thump of his head hitting the floor when he collapsed.
The worst part is that he should have seen this coming sooner. No, worse than that: he did, but they didn't have a choice. Grace was sick, getting worse fast, and though both of them knew it, there wasn't a moment to spare to treat it, not without ensuring both their deaths. It was better, in Grace's opinion, to give them a fighting chance and deal with the illness later. Rocky hadn't known how bad it was going to get, and foolishly agreed.
And now he's here, in the medical bay, barely clinging to life, and Rocky has no idea what's going to happen. Not for the first time today, he drops down impatiently, his carapace clunking against the bottom of the ball in despair. Then, he regrets that, too.
"Grace sleep," he calls again. He does that after every time he loses his composure and makes some sort of sound of anguish, whether that's his body or his claws or just plain saying it aloud. He hopes Grace can hear him, and if he can, he doesn't want him to feel rushed to wake before he's ready just because Rocky is desperate for him to move again. "Rocky still watching. Rocky no go anywhere."
-------
LAST WEEK
Echolocation kicks in before anything else. Before pain, before olfactory sensation, before rational thought: it's a general sense of awareness of his surroundings.
That means that the first thing Rocky is aware of when he wakes up after saving Grace is that Grace saved him, too.
"Grace," he calls, but Grace is sleeping. Just before he reaches out to tap tap tap the xenonite and wake him, he realizes that he can do one better and hops in his ball. Though he's wobbly and it's a bit tiring, he's strong enough, finally, to roll right up next to him. "Grace?"
"Rock," he mumbles, stretching. Grace always wakes up stupid. "Would you give me a chance, please, to sleep a little--?" He trails off, looks at the xenonite behind him, and looks back to Rocky. He trills musically. The computer doesn’t translate. Whatever feeling this is, they've never had occasion to define it between their languages.
Grace throws his arms around the ball, but immediately draws away, hissing in pain. It startles him.
“Grace okay, question?”
“Me?” He laughs. “Yeah, just a little burn. Are YOU okay? You’ve been out for days.”
“Rocky still tired, still weak, but healing. Okay.”
“It’s so good to hear your voice, bud. I’m so relieved.”
Another happy little trill. Grace wipes away a tear. He’s pretty sure they’re the same emotion.
“Did we… find predator?”
Grace grins, then motions for Rocky to follow him into the lab.
When he sees it, he’s speechless. It’s incredible what Grace has managed to do in so little time. Dozens of containers of budding taumoeba colonies line the storage wall, enough to study for a long, long time, plus have enough left over to save both their stars. Rocky has all kinds of questions, and the teacher in him is thrilled to answer.
Grace coughs, a sound that’s been getting increasingly familiar throughout their little tour. Rocky has heard him cough before, obviously: dry air, and all the times he’s choked on coffee, but this is different. Persistent and painful-sounding.
“Grace is okay, question? Cough a lot.” He waits for Grace to stop, and when he finally replies, he’s a little breathless.
“Just a little irritation in my lungs from the ammonia. It’ll go away in a few days.”
“Hurts, question?”
“Don’t worry about that. What do you think of my taumoeba farm? I was kind of expecting more of a reaction, to be honest.”
“Is great!” he chirps. “Amaze amaze amaze!”
“Thank you. Now, let’s get you something to eat, huh? You’ve got to be hungry.”
“Yes. Grace eat, too.”
Rocky follows Grace to the dormitory, where he prepares a hot burrito as Rocky gets his own meal ready. Weird that precooked human food needs to be heated up when it doesn’t actually change the nutritional value. Grace has explained to him over and over that it’s just about the experience of eating, but it still seems like unnecessary work.
He’s so relieved to see Grace again that he isn’t even bothered by his chewing and digestion sounds. Neither of them speak it aloud, but he’s sure Grace felt the same fear when he found Rocky collapsed and burning that Rocky did when Grace passed out in the command room.
The relief is undercut by something, though, and Rocky can’t quite pinpoint it. There’s a vague but ominous wrongness afoot. He scans his surroundings to see if he can find it. Nothing on the ship is beeping or making otherwise concerning noises, so that’s good. Nothing shaking or falling apart. Nothing obvious at all, really.
“Whatcha thinking about?” Rocky refocuses. Grace is looking at him. “Feeling okay?”
“Yes,” he replies. “Feel good.” Grace coughs again, and that’s when it hits him. “Grace heartbeat is fast.”
“Is it?” he asks lightly, unconcerned. “Hm. I’m still healing, too. We both need some rest, I think.”
“Agree. Grace sleep?”
“Only if you will.” Rocky hesitates, nervous. “Want me to watch you? I don’t mind.”
“No. Grace need sleep. Is okay.”
“You sure?”
“Maybe just… stay awake until Rocky sleep?”
Grace nods. After a week of helplessness, he seems relieved to have a task.
“Of course. Get some rest. I’ll be here.”
Rocky settles down and falls into a much needed sleep.
——
When he wakes, Rocky is stronger, but Grace isn’t feeling well.
He sleeps for 10 hours before Rocky is concerned enough to wake him.
“Grace,” he calls, tapping on the panel. “Grace wake up.” It takes a little effort, but eventually, he rouses, rubbing his face tiredly.
“Mmph,” he groans as he stretches. “Hey, Rock. How do you feel? Did sleep help?”
“Yes. Feel good.” Grace seems content, humming happily before rolling over and bundling the blanket tighter around him. “Grace wake up. Sleep long time already.”
“In a minute.”
Grace says that sometimes, so Rocky waits patiently for him to muster up the will power to get up. He sleeps another hour.
When he finally does get up, he agrees to a cup of coffee, but doesn’t want breakfast. He claims he isn’t hungry.
“Been too many hours since Grace last eat. How not hungry?”
“I don’t know. Just feeling a little nauseous. I’ll eat something when I’m a little more awake.” He coughs into his elbow and it makes Rocky nervous, but Grace seems okay otherwise, so maybe he’s being sensitive. “I have some work to get done, if you’re up to sitting with me.”
“Yes! Rocky watch. Want know what Grace been working on.”
Grace grins. “I have so much to tell you.”
Despite Grace’s concerns, Rocky ends up feeling bored just sitting and wants to work on making some new taumoeba farm containers. He insists they have enough, but that’s never enough. They need backups. They need backup backups. Rocky will make sure they have all they need and more.
For a while, they work in silence. It's so, so nice to be back to this, Grace at the benchtop and Rocky in his bulb, big science. However, Rocky can't tune out the noises Grace is making, and not because they're bothersome. Chewing annoys him. Tapping annoys him. This--this is something else.
The cough is bad. Grace writes it off as just a little irritation, and sometimes it seems like maybe that's acceptable, but others, he's not so convinced. Sometimes, it sounds like he's struggling to get it under control, or like he's laboring to catch his breath when he finally does so. It's frequent, even more frequent when he tries to stifle it behind closed lips. Whether that's to keep Rocky from worrying or because his chest clearly aches, as evidenced by the absent rubbing of his knuckles against the middle of it, he's not sure, but it makes things worse.
"Grace should not do that," he finally says when he can't take it anymore. Grace looks up, pen balanced between his thumb and his forefinger, confused.
"Do what?"
"If Grace need clear lungs, just cough. Stop trying make sound quieter. Makes it worse."
He frowns. "Oh. I didn't realize I was." Turning his attention back to the computer. "I'll be more careful."
He isn't.
Grace would think it's beyond nitpicking if he told him this, but the sound of Grace's cardigan rubbing against his skin is also upsetting him. It's been doing so for the better part of two hours, rapid and rhythmic. He's shaking, something that has been explained to him as a reaction to the cold. It normally doesn't worry him, but then again, there's usually a clear cause, and it stops after he puts on his cardigan. Now, however, he's wearing that and sitting under his quilt, plus gripping his mug of hot coffee in both hands, and he's still cold. Rocky doesn't know what that means, but he silently notes it as odd.
The final thing is his posture. Every once in a while, he puts down his coffee to massage one shoulder or to pinch the bridge of his nose. It means tension, which means pain. It's not abnormal for him to do that absently, like he's doing now--Grace isn't always the best at receiving signals from his body when he focuses--but he's doing it a lot, and they haven't been working that long. Again, nothing so strange as to bring it up and risk another argument, but something to log away. He's becoming a detective, piecing together pieces of a puzzle. Problem is, he's got no idea what the picture is supposed to look like.
They sit like that, Grace silently working, oblivious to the fact that Rocky is scrutinizing him, and Rocky, secretly scrutinizing him, for another two hours before Grace groans, tossing his pen down and leaning forward to put his forehead to the benchtop. Rocky turns toward him, questioning, but his eyes are shut.
"Grace okay, question?"
"Yeah, fine," he replies. "Just a headache."
Maybe that's why he's been acting so weird. He's in pain and exhausted. Perhaps it's time to pause.
"Grace take break."
"Yeah. I think I might go see if Armando can give me something for it."
That, too, is what Grace would call a red flag: something that sticks out as a warning that something isn't right and that if something doesn't change, disaster could strike. As Grace stands, Rocky, obviously, trails closely behind. He's coughing pretty badly by the time they get to the med bay, any exertion seemingly enough to set that off, and, hearing that, Armando is leaping into action before they're even through the doorway.
"Down, boy," Grace says, swatting at his probing arm. Armando may be stupid, but if there's one thing that can be said for him, it's that he doesn't give up. If Grace wants medicine, he's going to have to be good and allow the quick scan he's trying to give. He looks annoyed as he tolerates a quick pinch to his finger with a little plastic bit and a probe swiped across his forehead from temple to temple.
"Blood oxygen content: 94%. Recommended treatment: immediate rest. Elevated temperature detected: 38.1 degrees Celsius. Recommended treatment: 200 mg ibuprofen and immediate rest."
"Huh," Grace say. He's not nervous, just surprised.
"Grace have fever, question?"
Fever has been explained to him as the most comparable human equivalent they have to Eridians' method of fighting off sickness: the body heats up to create an environment in which viruses and bacteria struggle to multiply and survive. For Eridians, that means boiling them off, but for humans, it just gives their immune system (something that is so complicated that Grace only knows the basics and Rocky barely even understood that) to fight off the infection.
"A little bit," he replies. "Guess that explains why I feel so rough."
"Grace sick, question?"
"Nah. Sometimes it just means your body is working hard to heal. It can be a good thing."
"Could also be bad thing," he points out. "Could mean Grace is sick."
"I'm not sick, bud. Promise." He accepts the offered pills and a pouch of water. "I'll take these and get a little rest; I'll be fine." Rocky isn't convinced, and Grace can sense that, so he places a reassuring hand on top of his ball. It means nothing to him, but Grace seems to use it as a comforting gesture. It's the thought that counts. "It's okay. You're a little on edge after everything that happened. I am, too. I say we call it a day and get out of the lab. Maybe watch something in the viewing room?"
Well, Rocky will never say no to the viewing room, now that he's improved it with his little device that allows him to see the screen. It always relaxes Grace, too, which is apparently the correct course of treatment for whatever is going on with him, anyway. At least he feels better knowing that he's seen medical. If anything were seriously wrong, they'd know.
"Yes!" Rocky chirps excitedly. Grace laughs and pats his ball.
-----
Grace keeps falling asleep during the movie.
That's not typical, either. Rocky always has a lot of questions, and Grace is always keen to answer them. Instead, He's dozing on and off, head resting on the arm he's thrown over Rocky's ball. It doesn't appear as though he realizes he's doing it, either.
"It's just the fever," he explains when Rocky points it out. "It can make you sleepy."
This is a new kind of tired. He's not grumpy angry stupid, but slow, unfocused, and quiet.
When the movie ends, Rocky isn't sure Grace watched even half of it, but that's okay. It's more important that he rests. As is typical for him when they finish a movie, Rocky expects him to be restless to get back in the lab, antsy from sitting still for so long. Instead, he yawns, stretching.
"I think I might go take a nap for a little while."
"Grace sleep again, question? Sleep so much today."
"Rich, coming from you," he teases. "You were asleep for like a week. It's part of the healing process." He coughs again, rubs his chest. That, Rocky believes, is not a normal part of the healing process, no matter what Grace says. "It's just a nap. I'll wake up in like half an hour. You don't have to watch me, if you've got work to do."
"Nothing Rocky can't do while watch Grace sleep."
"Figured. Alright. Well, let's go, then."
Once again, Grace is wrong. Sure, he wakes up after half an hour, but it's not for long. He says his head still hurts and wants to get a little more sleep, so he takes another dose of medicine from the med bay and goes back to bed.
For five more hours.
Sometimes he doesn't even sleep that long through the night, let alone a nap. Not to mention, it doesn't look restful. He tosses and turns, frequently waking to cough or because his blanket brushes the burn on his arm the wrong way and it hurts so badly he jumps. If he's been sleeping this poorly, perhaps that explains why he's sleeping more often.
Making more taumoeba farm containers passes the time for a little while, but eventually, he becomes too focused on Grace's elevated heart and respiration rate to think about anything else, even idly. It's just so weird. He's barely moving.
He frets that way until Grace stirs, then sits up and stretches.
"Grace feel better, question?" he asks before he's even exhaled all the way.
"Yeah, I do. But I feel like I slept for more than half an hour."
"Grace sleep five hours. Long time. Rocky worry."
"Five?" he echoes, then whistles. "Man, I was more tired than I thought. Sorry I worried you. I really do feel better. Head doesn't hurt as much, and I have some energy."
"Good good good," Rocky replies, noting the qualifiers "as much," and "some." "Grace hungry?"
"I could eat a little something." Rocky trills excitedly. This is good. He really is feeling better.
Then, he coughs again, and Rocky slackens in dismay at how it has changed over the course of the day and while he slept. No longer is it an airy, tight sound, but a deep rumble that lasts longer and makes him wince. It's almost like there's fluid in there.
"Grace chest make weird sound."
"Yeah, huh. It's fine. I'll take more meds. Clear it right up."
Well, it's not like he's going to get any more information out of him than that, so he'll take what he can get and get Grace a meal. That should help.
Grace eats half a bowl of oatmeal, saying he'll just have a bigger lunch today to make up for his pathetic breakfast. Because he doesn't have any solid evidence to utilize to keep him from working, he follows Grace to the lab, warning him to be careful and not to overwork himself.
Of course, that advice goes unheeded.
Four hours later, Grace is shivering, struggling to stay awake, and coughing badly again. He's been perfectly still for 15 minutes, no longer pretending to read or taking notes, save for the occasional bobbing down and then back up of his head as he fights sleep.
"Grace..." Rocky says after he gets so close to unconsciousness that his head almost hits the benchtop.
"Yeah," he replies. His voice is lower, rougher than it should be. "You don't have to say it."
"Grace should say. So I understand."
He sighs. "I don't feel right." That clears up nothing. He digs his thumbs firmly into his temple and rubs it in tiny circles, eyes shut. His head hurts.
"Grace needs more medicine. Grace take now."
"Okay, okay. I'm going."
Rocky leads the way to the med bay, so anxious that he doesn't realize he left Grace behind until he drags himself in several second later. He gently sits on the bed, this time not fighting Armando off as he checks his vitals.
"Temperature moderately elevated," he reports. "38.8 degrees Celsius. Recommended treatment: 400 mg ibuprofen and bed rest. Blood oxygen content: 92%. Recommended treatment: oxygen therapy."
After he swallows the pills, Armando places a mask over Grace's nose and mouth, which Rocky immediately recognizes. It's the same treatment he'd been given when he'd dragged him to the med bay. When he was dying.
"Bad bad bad," he says, an anxious feeling he hasn't had in 40 years digging its fingers into him. When Grace was dying, instinct had taken over, and he hadn’t felt much about it at the time in favor of acting fast. This is worse. "Grace sick sick sick."
"No, Rock," Grace says, taking the mask off, and oh, no, Grace is taking the mask off just to comfort him, when he needs to keep it on.
"Keep mask on," he demands. He won't let his panic be responsible for Grace's death. “Breathe.”
"Hey. I know this looks scary, but it's just the inflammation. Fever's spiking a little. It's okay."
"Diagnosis: pneumonitis secondary to chemical exposure. Recommended treatment: high dose prednisone."
Just as Grace is given the pills, whatever they are, the ship goes silent. No humming machines, no beeping systems, no chattering Armando. Most devastatingly, that includes the machine that's supposed to be pumping oxygen into the mask to help Grace breathe.
"What just happened?" Grace asks. "It's pitch black."
"Ship lose power," Rocky supplies the obvious answer to the question Grace is only asking conversationally.
"Okay," he says in that tone that means he's forcing calm, "why?"
But, fever and low-grade suffocation forgotten, he's already off to figure that out.
---
"Where's the door to the control room?"
"Left."
"Ow!"
"Watch wall."
"I can't watch anything, that's why I asked--wait."
"Grace see something?"
"Yeah, actually. There's a red button in here."
There's a clicking sound as he presses it without any deliberation, and then a low hum.
"Lights working, question?"
"A little, but they're dim. I can barely see anything. Found a screen, though." He shuffles around a little more until he reads something that makes his posture stiffen. "Oh, no," he breathes.
"What, question?"
"No, no, no, no!" Rocky trails behind him as he rushes down the hall and down a ladder, where he can't follow. He's still muttering to himself in a high-pitched, panicked voice. He fumbles around for a while down there, emerging only to once again ignore Rocky in favor of rushing straight to the lab. He smears--something--from his hand onto a microscope slide and looks at it, then grunts loudly in frustration so deep it sounds like pain.
"What, question? What is wrong, question?"
"There's taumoeba in the generator," he replies, devastated and numb. "They're in the ship's fuel supply. That's why we have no power. Taumoeba ate all the astrophage." Rocky's mind starts working faster while Grace's halts completely, devolving into panic so deep that his already abnormal breath sounds start coming faster and faster. "Oh, god. We're stuck out here forever. We're going to die out here."
"There is astrophage on Rocky ship," Rocky suggests.
"Yeah, but we have no way to get to your ship. And even if we did, the engine's full of taumoeba. Anything we put in there is just going to get eaten."
"Hm," Rocky hums. Grace coughs, breaths still coming shallow and fast from either illness or fear. He's shaking again, probably for a lot of reasons, and leans heavily against Rocky's ball. "Rocky think. You sleep."
"What? I can't--"
"Grace sick. Rest help, question?"
"Well, yeah, but--"
"Sleep. Rocky watch. Think of solution after."
Grace sighs. He sounds exhausted.
"Okay." He follows Rocky to the dormitory and lays down in bed where Rocky can see him. Sometimes, worry keeps Grace awake. Often, in fact. It speaks volumes about just how sick he really is that within just a few minutes, he's already drifting.
Suddenly, he shoots upright with a gasp, startling Rocky so badly he jumps.
"Problem, question?"
"No, solution! The little," Rocky can barely understand what he's saying because he's coughing, but continuing to talk, anyway, "little ships on my ship--the beetles; I've told you--for sending--they didn't expect us to come home, so they sent us with--and their fuel supply isn't connected to the ship's. We have plenty of astrophage!"
"Good good good!" Rocky cheers with a little dancey dance. "Knew Grace would think of something."
"Your confidence means so much to me." He begins to push the blankets off himself and sit up, but Rocky taps on the xenonite panel to stop him. "What? They're in the nose of the ship, I have to--"
"Later. Grace sleep now. Fever bad. Lungs bad. Beetles will still be there after sleep." Though he pouts a little, he doesn't argue.
"Fine." Rocky is glad Grace gave him the word "impatient," because that's what he calls him, and Grace can't fight him on it. He needs to save the energy for tomorrow.