Chapter Text
The Taumeba learned to escape xenonite containers and got into the fuel supply.
Ryland kept repeating this information in his head as he watched Colt make his way along the hull, coming back in after he finished getting all the dead Astrophage out of the one fuel tank they’d lost.
The rest of them, Ryland and Court had managed to contain, thankfully. They’d used random bits of metal to make new, hermetic tanks around the leaky ones. It seemed they had caught it just in time, for most of their fuel was still alive and well.
They could still go to Earth. It would be slower, but that would be all right. What’s a year more?
Ryland had bred Taumeba specifically ready to sabotage them all.
Colt reached the airlock and hauled himself in. Ryland switched the cameras to the interior of the airlock and watched his twin cycle the atmosphere, and wriggle out of his suit.
“Done,” Colt declared as he walked in the control room. “I hope I never have to do that ever again. Such a pain.”
“Be thankful you can’t smell it out there,” Court said. “Taumeba poop and dead astrophage stink.”
“If you did your job right we’ll be good… right? Ry? We’re good?”
“We’re good,” Ryland agreed softly. “We can get back to Earth.”
“Good. Perfect.” Colt clapped his hands together. “We’ll just have to ration our food better.”
Right. Food was an issue. Not a giant one, but still an issue. Obviously the Hail Mary hadn’t been packed with endless food supplies, since everyone on board was supposed to kill themselves after a while.
To stretch their reserves over several years, they’d had to carefully ration what they did have. Colt had taken over the role of quartermaster, helped by Mary who dutifully explained and calculated what percentage of coma slurry they had left.
Ryland was a little hungry all the time, but it wasn’t that bad. Soon enough, his brain would simply shut off the hormones telling his stomach to expect food, and it would be easier.
He wished he could eat like an Eridian, once a week or so and be done with it–
Ryland jumped to his feet so fast he nearly broke the pilot’s chair again. His heart stopped beating and his stomach rolled.
“Ry?!” called Court. “Is something wrong?”
“Rocky!” Ryland turned to his brothers, horror on his face. “His whole ship is made of xenonite! Everything he has! He can’t contain the Taumeba!”
The horror was soon mirrored on his brothers’ faces.
“Wait- no. No, no, no. Are you sure the Taumeba would escape his tanks too?”
“Of course it would! He has the exact same batch we do!”
“Okay,” said Court, raking a hand through his hair. “But maybe he has other materials than xenonite? He’s clever, if his Taumeba have escaped then he’s worked out why and how. He must have made something.”
“Court, his fuel tanks are xenonite! It took a few days for ours to be infected because this ship is mostly aluminium, he doesn’t have that protection!”
“Shit,” hissed Colt. “Shit, shit, shit! What do we do? Can we-... Can we send a radio signal over his way? Tell him what’s happening?”
“What good would that do?”
“Well I don’t know! I’m trying to think of solutions here!”
“There is no solution!” Ryland screamed.
His words echoed in the sudden silence. Colt was breathing heavily as if he’d run a marathon, and Court was still as a statue. Ryland felt hot, too hot. He felt sick.
Because there was one solution. And he knew his brothers knew it. They were looking at him, as if waiting for him to say it first, to be the one to put this impossible choice on the table.
Ryland sat back down and put his head in his hands, fists tightening in his hair. Rocky and his unending optimism, his joy at being saved, at finding friends. His own sacrifice, nearly killing himself to save all three of them, giving them his fuel. His little jazz hands, the way his carapace jiggled when he laughed…
Tears streamed from Ryland’s eyes. He heard himself whine but he didn’t know how to stop it.
“Ry.” Colt was suddenly crouched before him, a hand on his knee. “Ry… it’s okay.”
Ryland choked on a breath. “How is any of this okay?!”
“No, no, I mean… I…” Colt stopped, and looked over Ryland’s shoulder, presumably at Court. “We’ll go back for Rocky.”
“What?!” Ryland was out of his seat once more, feeling like he was going insane. “No! You can’t do that!”
“Why not? Ry, it’s okay–”
“Stop saying that, none of this is okay!” He whirled around, facing Court who had his arms crossed and a determined look in his eyes. “How can you say that? How can either of you say that? Going back to Rocky means you die!”
“We know, Ry,” Court said slowly. “We signed up for a suicide mission. We knew the risk when we boarded the ship.”
“But- not- no! You didn’t know the risks! You didn’t know anything!”
Colt turned him around bodily. “Ry, of course we knew. We weren’t planning on leaving this ship alive until a few weeks ago. It doesn’t change much.”
“You can’t do that. You can’t!”
“Why are you talking about us?” Court asked, frowning. “You’re part of this decision too.”
Ryland giggled, a little high-pitched, a little crazy. Or a lot crazy, judging by the dumbfounded look Colt gave him.
“No, I’m not. I’m not part of any decision. This is not my life, it’s yours, it’s always been yours, and you can’t just- just- decide to throw it out for me, this is so not worth it, oh my god–”
“Ry.” Colt took his forearms and squeezed. “You need to slow down. Why wouldn’t this be your decision too? You’re part of this crew. You solved the Astrophage crisis. We followed you on the Hail Mary, and we’ll follow you wherever you go.”
“You didn’t!” Ryland screamed, snatching his arms back. He hugged himself, felt the fabric of his shirt strain as he pulled on it. “You didn’t know! You- you- you don’t know! You threw your lives away for nothing! I can’t - you have to go back, I can’t let you die on this ship, this is not fair to you!”
“What are you talking about?” Court asked, and Ryland struggled to get a breath in.
He looked at his twin, then his older brother. If they turned around for Rocky, they would never see their families again. They would die under false pretenses, believing Ryland was someone worth listening to, worth abandoning Earth for.
Like branches snapping, his legs folded under him. He sat in the tightest of balls on the floor, his body so tense that he felt like he was going to snap. Everything was too much right now -the blinking lights of the console, his brother’s presence, their breathing, the faint hum of the engines that were bringing them closer and closer to Earth.
Colt was there again, on his knees in front of him, hands hovering like he didn’t dare to touch.
“Ryland. We know what we’re saying, I promise you. We’re not trying to be heroes. It hurts that I won’t get to see Jody again but…” He had to stop and take a deep breath, the heartbreak slipping through. “She knew when I left her that I wasn’t coming back. This doesn’t change much.”
“Claire is safe,” Court added, coming to kneel before Ryland as well. “She is cared for, she is loved, whether I’m here or not. I said my goodbyes. She grew up without me, but she grew up safe. I want to give the children on Rocky’s planet the same opportunity.”
Ryland shook his head wildly. “No, no, no… you don’t understand…”
“Then help us understand!” Colt said. “You’re a teacher, explain to us why you’re freaking out so much!”
It took a few seconds and a last, big gasp of air, before Ryland looked up at his brothers.
“I don’t-...” he started, his voice shaking and barely above a whisper. “I don’t think I volunteered for the Hail Mary…”
Colt’s eyebrows went up, Court’s went down. One in surprise, the other in consternation.
“What do you mean, Ry?” Court asked. His voice wasn’t steady as it usually was ; it sounded strained and it sounded scared. “Ry? Ryland. Answer me. What do you mean you didn’t volunteer?”
Ryland’s scared, wild eyes looked directly into Court’s as his brother asked, “What did they do to you?”
The memories hit Ryland like a freight train.
He heard the explosion.
He was lying in his bunk when it happened. It shook the ground, made the walls crack and his ears pop. He didn’t move.
He hadn’t been able to move in a while. Grief was weighing on him, and had turned his body into a block of cement that his muscles couldn’t lift.
It was Stratt who told him what happened, maybe minutes or hours later, he didn’t know. He felt the stab of sadness for Dubois and Shapiro, who had been nothing but kind to him since the very start. But he couldn’t feel anything more for them.
Right now, if he allowed himself to add to his current grief, he was pretty sure he was going to collapse into himself like a dying star.
He was left alone after that. He, somehow, kept living.
This was what it had been like this past week, since learning about Colt. Life had kept happening, without Colt in it. Ryland had eaten, he’d showered, he’d breathed and talked, in a world without Colt. How strange that nothing else had stopped, as if Colt’s entire being, his wishes and his fears, the way his face creased when he laughed so hard at something Ryland said, the pain he’d fought through and conquered… all of this didn’t matter in the end.
Project Hail May certainly hadn’t stopped. Though Stratt didn’t drag him into every meeting anymore, she still expected him to review papers and data. And he had done it, loyal little dog that he was, because that was just one more thing that kept happening while Colt had disappeared.
He’d had moments where he would forget, just for a few seconds, and think to himself that he should call Colt and tell him about his day. He went as far as reaching for his phone before reality would come crashing down on him, and he would sit on the floor, wherever he was, and barely exist, aimless, while people around him avoided him.
They all knew. They all pitied him. Maybe a few had tried to reach out and help, Ryland couldn’t be sure. He didn’t want help. He wanted his twin.
The day after the explosion, Stratt came again, and this time she dragged him out of his room and to a conference room. She sat him into a chair. Ryland didn’t even notice the other people here until they started speaking.
In fact, he didn’t register much until the conversation around him stopped entirely, and he looked up at three faces looking at him as if expecting him to do something. He had to replay the conversation he’d heard but not paid attention to in his head, and when he finally understood, he huffed.
“You’re crazy. I’m not an astronaut. I’m…” Nothing without my brother.
“You have all the necessary training,” Stratt stated.
“And you’ll be in very good company,” Ilyukhina added, both thumbs pointed toward herself.
He could read forced levity in her tone, as if trying her best to make him laugh. He had never felt less like laughing in his entire life.
“I’m not doing this.”
Stratt didn’t seem to listen to him. “I will give you three hours to decide, Doctor Grace. I hope you make the right decision.”
“I’ve made my decision. It’s no.”
“See you in three hours.”
She and the others left the room. Left him.
He wasn’t sure why he’d said no. After all, it wasn’t like he had anything tying him to this world anymore. Nothing…
-except the bodies of his brothers were here. Colt’s had probably been buried by now, but had he had a proper memorial? A proper moment of remembrance? Ryland wanted to give him that. At least one day where people could say they missed him, instead of the world carrying on as if he hadn’t mattered.
He wanted to be on the planet where his brothers had lived and died. Where he could visit their graves and tell them he’s sorry. Where he could talk to people who knew them.
He couldn’t die in space, lightyears away from them, even if they were nothing more than memories now. These memories were on Earth.
Was he dooming the world to a slow death by doing this? Maybe. He didn’t care all that much, not about a world that had hated his family since the day his older brother was born.
He thought about his kids, about their little faces full of hope. He did want a bright future for them. He wanted to protect them so they would never know a pain like his. He couldn’t do that while lost in space.
Stratt had talked about another potential astronaut, a biologist from Peru who had volunteered and had been tested for the coveted coma-resistant-gene that Ryland apparently had as well, the one that meant they would survive four years in an artificial coma. She could do it. She wanted to do it. Ryland didn’t.
He spent the three hours wandering, lost. He ended up on the roof of the cosmodrome, his phone clutched in his hand as it rang into nothing. Colt’s number hadn’t been discontinued, but even the answering machine didn’t pick up anymore. Ryland had left too many messages, it was full, and it was never going to be emptied.
He curled up on himself, and Ryland let himself cry.
“I said no.”
“Can I ask why?”
He shrugged. “I have things to do here. I have my bro– my… I have C-Colt’s life to deal with. I have my kids to help. I can’t go. Not now.”
Stratt looked at him with that same, flat stare she always had, the one that made you feel like she was both calculating how to kill you and how to help you at the exact same time.
“Doctor Grace, you’re a coward and you’re full of shit.”
If he was in any other state of mind, Ryland might have been offended. As it were, the only reaction was his heart squeezing painfully in his chest.
“You have no immediate family, you have no spouse, you don’t even have a dog.”
That low blow hit Ryland and it hurt. No, he had no one left. Thank you for the reminder. Was his life that meaningless, now? Had he only ever had value because of his brothers?
“This attachment to ‘your kids’ is just an excuse. You think you can help them here, instead of saving their lives by finding a cure to the Astrophage?”
“I’m not an astronaut. I won’t be able to do anything.”
“You have followed training alongside everyone else. You know enough.”
“I don’t want to go, Stratt,” Ryland repeated, a little more forcefully. For the first time in a while, he was feeling something else than grief right now -anger… and fear. “Find another solution.”
The two men in suits on either side of Stratt moved on her nod. They approached Ryland, who immediately jumped to his feet.
“What are you doing?”
“You are my solution, Doctor Grace. Please don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.”
He ran.
When they finally caught him and pressed him into the earth, as he scrambled wildly for purchase into the soil until his nails broke and bled, Ryland’s only thought was that there would be nothing left of any of them. No one from the Gentry family ; they would all disappear as if nothing they had done had mattered. Lives that blew away in the wind.
He cried, and he begged. He screamed.
“You’re murdering me!”
Carl stood before him, a tall silhouette against the sun as a rainbow illuminated the sky.
“You know who you are,” Carl said. “You’ll do great.”
Then there was a needle into his neck. Ryland felt the prick of it and his fear grew tenfold, absolute terror clenching his heart in an icy grip.
The next time he woke up, he was in a cell.
It wasn’t too badly made. The bed on which they’d put him was comfortable. He wasn’t even in handcuffs.
Of course he tried to open the door, he banged on it, he called for Stratt. Nobody acknowledged him. He wasn’t a person anymore, just a cog in a machine he had no power over.
Hours passed, maybe days. They gave him food through a small trapdoor. He barely ate anything.
Eventually Stratt did appear. She tried to justify herself some more. Ryland was past caring.
He was terrified. He was overwhelmed. He just wanted someone to tell him they heard him, and they cared about him and his brothers, and that for once in his entire fucking life, everything would be okay.
Someone, anyone, to tell him he mattered. That his brothers had mattered. That he didn’t have to be alone.
All he got instead was Stratt giving him a spiel about how much the world was going to suffer while he was in space, dying for people he did not know.
“I’ll sabotage the mission,” he swore, a new rush of anger pushing through. “You think I won’t? Try me. The moment I wake up, I will break this whole ship apart.”
Stratt, for once, took him seriously. But of course she had a plan.
Amnesia drugs. How nice.
There was a commotion behind her, and someone came in hurriedly to whisper something in her ear. She left quickly, without so much as a goodbye. Whatever had happened must have been a big deal. Another explosion, this time with Yao and Ilyukhina? If this happened, was she going to grab two new people who didn’t want anything to do with this whole suicide mission?
The days kept passing. Ryland didn’t move from his bed. And when, finally, the doctors came in with machines and sedatives, he fought. But of course he couldn’t win. When had he ever won in his life?
He felt another needle pierce his skin, and he cried as he fell to oblivion. His very last view of Earth was the cold, detached eyes of a doctor just doing his job.
Ryland was sobbing, keening, rolled into as tight a ball as he could make it as he finished recounting his memories to his brothers.
He didn’t dare look at them. He didn’t dare move, feeling like a deer in headlight.
He had said no to saving the entire planet. He had just… wanted to live, even though he didn’t have any reason to. He had been drugged and dragged on this mission, and his brothers had followed him to their own death thinking he was worth it.
He wasn’t worth anything. He wasn’t some strong intrepid hero. He was a lonely, cowardly loser who would rather save his own skin than billions of children.
He didn’t know how much time passed in silence before he heard something crash and Mary’s voice echoing around them.
“Please refrain from breaking essential equipment, Mr Gentry.”
“You shut the fuck up!” Court yelled.
He sounded angry.
No. He sounded enraged.
That was the voice of someone who had killed countless people on orders without asking why for almost thirty years.
Ryland only curled tighter onto himself. If Court wanted to kill him too now, it would be deserved. His older brother had sacrificed himself and his one chance at a happy family life, for his cowardly brother who couldn’t even look him in the eyes and face him.
Something else crashed and Ryland flinched so hard he pulled on his healing burns. It hurt. He tried to get some air in his lungs but it didn’t seem to work. Nothing was working. His skin felt too tight, too hot. He wanted out.
He brought his hands to his hair and pulled. The pain grounded him, some -not enough. Anything to make the horrible, overwhelming feelings stop. Right now, physical distress hurt so much less than what was happening in his mind.
He scratched at his own cheeks, pulling at his stupid skin. Punishment for his failures.
Then someone grabbed his hands and pulled them away. He fought against it, but the grip didn’t falter, and he was pulled against a warm body, arms encircling him in a fierce, protective embrace, trapping his arms so he could harm himself. Someone’s voice rumbled against his ears, making it impossible to ignore.
“Please don’t hurt yourself. Please stop. You can hurt me if you want, I don’t care. Just please stop hurting yourself. Please Ryland, please…”
Colt.
Ryland’s hands had taken to scratching him now that they couldn’t scratch his own face, and his nails were drawing cuts on his twin’s bare forearms.
He stopped immediately, instead clutching Colt’s arms to himself.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”
“Shhh. It’s okay, Ry. It’s okay. I promise you’re okay.”
“I’m not. I’m not okay, Colt. I’m a coward-”
He didn’t get to finish the though as something else crashed and he flinched.
“Court, damn it!” Colt yelled out. “Will you stop destroying this spaceship and help me out!”
Another pair of arms immediately enveloped him. Ryland felt the weight of his two brothers bearing down on him, squeezing him against themselves, and his frayed nerves started to settle.
His sobs remained, but the tempest in his head and body slowed. His head hurt. His burns hurt. His heart hurt.
“Why?” he whispered as he burrowed further into his brothers’ embrace.
“Shhh,” Colt said. “It’s okay.”
“Nothing about this is okay,” Court rectified. “But we’re here.”
That was when Ryland realized Colt was crying too, and Court’s arms were trembling as they squeezed him.
There was only silence then, for quite a while. Colt only raised his voice once more to ask Mary to shut off the engines and immobilize the ship.
And then there were only the three of them, floating alone in the middle of the deep, dark expanse of space.
It took Ryland a moment to register that Colt and Court were having a whispered conversation over his head.
He’d been locked in limbo for a while, cowering in his brother’s arms, trying to stop all input from the outside world from reaching him. It had been successful until now, as his higher brain functions slowly turned back on one after the other after surviving the onslaught that his panic attack had wrought.
“--wouldn’t help anything. We’ve already said we would go.”
“I need to see her. I need to talk to her.”
“And what, Court? Shoot her?”
“She did this to our brother!”
“I know! God damn it, you think I’m not angry?”
“She locked him up, Colt. While we were training. He was awake, he was right there! We could have gotten him out, we could have saved him! I didn’t even- fuck, I didn’t even question her when she said he’d volunteered out of fucking grief!!”
“I know,” Colt answered, his voice breaking. “I know. Shit…”
“I’m sorry,” Ryland whispered.
Colt’s embrace tightened. “You never have to be sorry. For anything. So shut up.”
“You came on a suicide mission because of me-”
“Yeah! And I would do it again, you fucking idiot! Whether it’s by choice or not, you’re here anyway, so that’s where I’m gonna be too.”
“But-”
“No but!” Colt interrupted him, and Court took over.
“Ry. Ryland… Stratt lied to you. She used you.”
Ryland raised his head for the first time in what felt like hours, and met his older brother’s gaze. Court looked… destroyed. Anger, sadness, fury, regret. Behind him, Ryland could see a dent in the wall that hadn’t been here before, perfectly fist-sized.
“I chose myself over everyone else,” Ryland tried to reason. Why weren’t they listening to him?
“It doesn’t matter. Fuck, Ry… I know what it feels like to follow orders without questioning who pays the price. It fucking sucks and I got out of it in the end. Stratt-...” Court stopped his thought, and his broad hand landed on Ryland’s hair, ruffling it. “You said no, Ry. They took you anyway. You don’t have to be sorry for this. They did this to you and we’re not going to let you destroy yourself over it.”
“I’m a coward!”
Colt let out a sob, though he quickly tried to squash it. "Ryland Cleveland Gentry, you've always been the bravest of all of us. You stood before dad when you were barely bigger than my little finger. You survived all the shit life threw at you and you still got up and faced the day. I know what courage looks like in you, Ry… It’s not a moral failure to survive something someone else did to you. Believe me.”
Ryland almost laughed. “My middle name's not Cleveland. And you're not supposed to be so wise."
“I have to tell you about Ryder, one day. Not now. Now you just breathe and you calm down and- and- and you be okay. Please be okay.”
“I don’t deserve–”
“For fuck’s sake!” Colt pushed through gritted teeth, his hands curling into Ryland's shirt. “This isn’t about deserving anything! Your life is worth something, you’re worth something, and I’d love you even you were- if you were- a fucking worm!”
Now Rylan actually laughed, and even Court chuckled.
“You don’t matter just because you’re useful, Ry,” Colt said after their laughter settled. “You matter to me whatever you do. They-... They tortured you, Ry. Fuck…”
“You were scared,” Court said, “and I’m so sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me.”
Ryland closed his eyes.
So at least two people in the entire universe loved him enough to tell him as much.