Chapter Text
Why are humans so afraid of time travel, question? asked Rocky. He had spent a lot of time recently on science fiction as a genre, both in movies and books. It seemed to him that an overarching theme among stories about time travel was that it would go wrong somehow.
"I think it's partly a way of making us feel better that we can't do it. Telling ourselves, 'Oh, you can't visit the past, but it's okay because you'd mess it up if you did!'" Grace answered, in a tone that told Rocky he wasn't taking this very seriously.
Rocky does not think this is the reason, statement. He thought there was more to it and he wanted Grace to actually explain it to him.
"Oh, so you're the expert on human culture and media?" Grace asked, not quite irritated, but sounding like he was heading in that direction.
Yes, I am one of the leading experts on humans on all of Erid! Many Eridians want to learn from Rocky about leaky space blob humans. Rocky declared, secure in the knowledge that there were very few Eridians who rivaled him for knowledge of humans and their culture. He was especially familiar with their movies after four years of travel on the Hail Mary with nothing more to do than research on the human thinking machine.
Despite all his efforts, Rocky never really got a straight answer out of Grace about why humans seemed so apprehensive of the subject of time travel. Eridians had a much more practical approach to the idea. If it was possible, they would hold a thrum about the best way to utilize it and they would use it sparingly and only in an effort to make the world better.
If Grace could talk to himself when he were younger, what would he say? Rocky asked, keeping his tone light and curious and doing his best to not give away that he had ulterior motives for the question.
"Oh, jeez, there's so many things I'd tell myself. Like how young are we talking?" Grace asked sounding more curious than suspicious. Good.
What if you could send a message to yourself about 5-10 Earth years before the Hail Mary left for Tau Ceti? Rocky asked, practically patting himself on the carapace for how nonchalant he sounded. This was purely theoretical, nothing more!
"Well, if it was on the longer side of that, I'd tell myself to make sure that I don't let Colt push me away. We'd both regret it eventually and you never know when you'll run out of time to make things right," Grace made a small sobbing sound at this and then continued. "I'd tell myself to take Tom seriously when he invited me out on a date. No matter what Colt said. Don't waste time just because it sounds like a crazy idea."
Rocky leaned in, trying not to appear too eager about this line of questioning. So Grace would focus on personal relationships?
"I mean, how much information could I send? I'd send myself so much data about astrophage and taumoeba if I could. Save myself so much time in the lab by having the information already. I bet if I knew what I was looking for I could find an organism on Earth to breed into something that could eat astrophage. There are some extremophiles in the oceans that could probably do the trick if modified to survive in space." Grace was really warming up to the topic and getting excited by the idea now. It was the most animated Rocky had seen him in weeks.
Grace had long since retired from teaching his class. As much as he loved it, it was too much of a strain on his body to get down the beach on a regular basis any more. He instead focused on recording as many video lessons as he could for future generations of Eridians he would never meet. It didn't allow for much variation in his routine and he didn't get a lot of company aside from Rocky, Adrian, a few of his medical team and the rare visit from a scientist or educator interested in meeting the famed hero from Earth. Grace was moving less these days and he didn't talk as much any more. Rocky was happy to hear him get interested in an idea again.
"I would insist that we replace the faulty pump in the coma slurry system. I've long thought it must have been what killed Yao and Ilukhina. I'd insist on as much spare coma slurry as possible, in fact. That stuff tasted awful, but it was a whole lot better than scurvy and all those other malnutrition related illnesses. I'd insist that DuBois and Shapiro not be allowed to work on astrophage experiments at the same time. And I'd fix our labeling system for small quantities of astrophage so no one ever mixed up a microgram and a milligram of the stuff." Grace paused and then continued, sounding a bit sad, "But that would mean I wouldn't be on the mission. I wouldn't meet you."
Rocky paused at the thought. But Grace would live. You would have a life on Earth and spend more time with your mate and maybe have pebbles like you talked about. You would get to grow old as a twin and not leave your Colt behind.
"You don't know what you don't know," Grace said, a statement as redundant as it was nonsensical to Rocky. "I wouldn't be aware of what I'd missed by not meeting you, but I don't regret having done so. I would choose it again if it could be a choice."
If you sent a message to yourself in the past, how would you know it was really from you? Rocky asked. He was careful to space out these questions, days and weeks apart, knowing that Grace would get suspicious if all the dots were laid out for him to connect at once.
"I'd probably remind myself of something no one else would know about. Like the fact that every year on Court's birthday I would buy his favorite donut and then take it to the park to feed the ducks. We used to feed the ducks together when I was little and I loved those times away from the house feeling safe with Court." Grace's eyes started to leak a little as they often did when he spoke of his older brother.
"Or maybe I'd talk about the first time I had any alcohol. It was the day that we got the news that Court died in prison. I couldn't sleep and Uncle Holland took me out in the back yard with him and a six pack of beer. He barely drank at all anymore, even though Holly said he was drunk for nearly a full year before me and Colt came to live with him after. Well, after everything. But that night he gave me my first beers and we just sat and talked about Court and how he was the best big brother and I told him how guilty I felt that he died because he saved my life." Grace gave him a sad smile. "I never told anyone that because Uncle Holland told me that Uncle Jackson would kill him if he found out he was 'corrupting' me like that."
Rocky sat quietly and filed away the stories for no real reason. He wasn't going to use them for any nefarious purposes. He just wanted to know more about how his friend thought.
Rocky raced to Grace's bio-dome. Adrian had gone to visit him in the morning and called for Rocky as soon as they got there. They sounded upset on the radio, but they would not elaborate as to what was wrong with Grace.
Rocky arrived to find two members of Grace's medical team leaving his house. Their carapaces were slumped in a way that told him all he really needed to know. He couldn't hear the sound of Grace breathing. He didn't hear the sound of his heart beating. He didn't hear the soft sounds of his stomach or the creak of his old joints or any of the hundreds of other sounds that his friend's noisy, noisy body made all the time.
He slowly made his way into Grace's bedroom. He looked like he was asleep. Adrian sat on the bed beside him, curled into a protective posture. One a parent would use while protecting their sleeping offspring. Grace was not sleeping though. He was finally still and quiet and gone. Rocky headed to his workshop. He needed to go. He needed to fix. Grace could not die like this. Not alone. Not on a world without his brother or his mate. Rocky had to fix this.