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Eva Stratt had never liked hospitals. Not because she was afraid of sickness or death. Both were facts of life everyone had to deal with sooner or later. She disliked hospitals because they were inefficient. Too many hallways with too many doors. Too many confusing signs. Too many people who somehow managed to look incredibly busy and completely lost at the same time. And then there was that god-awful smell.
It had only been a couple weeks since she'd last seen Carl, but it felt like months.
He'd been at her side for so many years. A security agent who'd been loyal to her and the mission from day one, serving as problem solver and, on occasion, her morally questionable right hand. If Eva needed something handled without having to deal with it herself, she sent Carl. If she needed something—or someone—watched, guarded, or nudged in a particular direction, she could put him on it and trust him completely.
Project Hail Mary had swallowed people whole. Scientists. Technicians. Mathematicians. Pilots. Soldiers. People she'd recruited, whose names had once appeared on duty rosters and eventually existed only in files and memories because they'd done their jobs and served their purpose.
Carl was still here.
He'd been there from the beginning. And Eva had always assumed he'd stay, perhaps until the bitter end, whenever and however that end came. But today, given the recent and rather significant change in circumstances, she wasn't so sure anymore.
She knew Carl well. More accurately, she knew his file well. Everyone who'd come anywhere near the project had been thoroughly vetted. Family, finances, relationships, education, psychological evaluations, medical history. Eva knew things about her employees that even their families didn't know.
Of course she'd known Carl was trans even before she'd ever met him in person. It had never been relevant.
His request for parental leave, on the other hand, had caught her completely off guard.
She remembered it vividly. Carl had walked into her office one day, shut the door behind him, and silently placed a form on her desk. Eva had read it while he stood there wearing an absolutely impenetrable poker face. Then she'd had to read it again. Question after question had popped into her head, but she hadn't asked a single one. Because it was none of her business. So she'd picked up a stamp, pressed it onto the bottom of the form, and signed beneath it.
“Congratulations,” she'd said, sliding the paperwork back across the desk.
“Thanks, Boss.”
“I expect you back on duty once you’ve recovered.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
That had been the entire conversation.
Now she stood outside room 317, to see the result of that request and make sure for herself that everything was alright.
The door was closed. It was quiet on the other side. She raised a hand, knocked twice against the frame, then cracked the door open.
“Knock, knock.” She poked her head inside, long strawberry-blond hair following, and found that while the room was smaller than she'd expected, it felt considerably less clinical than the bright, sterile hallway outside.
The curtains were half drawn, softening the late-afternoon sunlight and washing the walls in warmer tones. A few congratulatory cards sat on the windowsill beside a small vase of fresh flowers someone must have brought recently. A duffel bag rested on a chair. Carl was propped up in the hospital bed in a loose gown, several pillows stacked behind him. His curly hair had grown out some and wasn't nearly as neatly cropped as Eva remembered from active duty. Dark circles shadowed his eyes.
He looked utterly exhausted.
And, somehow, content.
He smiled when he looked up and saw her. “Boss.” He waved her in. The movement was unusually careful. Eva didn't see why until she got closer.
There was a baby asleep on Carl's chest. Completely relaxed. And tiny.
The baby slept with one cheek pressed against Carl's hospital gown and a little fist tucked beneath their chin. Their smooth brown skin was a shade lighter than Carl's, and on the baby's head there was a surprisingly thick mop of black hair.
Eva stopped beside the bed. For several seconds, she said nothing. Then, despite herself, a small, tentative smile crept onto her usually neutral face.
“Well, look at that,” she finally said.
“Yeah.” Carl looked down at the slumbering baby. “Look at that.”
Eva couldn't help noticing the expression on his face. She knew Carl alert, focused, annoyed, amused. But she'd never seen him like this. Completely unguarded.
“How are you?” she asked, genuinely curious, after pulling over the empty chair and sitting down.
“Good.”
Eva raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Okay. How are you really?”
Carl smirked. “I feel like I spent twenty-something hours pushing a truck uphill while somehow getting run over by it at the same time.”
“Complications?”
“Nah. Took forever, but everything went fine. The kid's vitals are actually great, mine are alright. Unless something weird happens, we should be home by the day after tomorrow.”
Carl's hand rested on the sleeping baby's back. Two fingers slowly brushed over the sunny yellow fabric of her tiny onesie. Eva watched the movement.
“Girl or boy?”
“Girl.”
“Good.”
Carl looked up at her, puzzled.
Eva folded her hands in her lap and lifted her chin a bit. “The world needs intelligent women to run it.”
One corner of his mouth twitched. “She isn't even two days old.”
“Then she has time to prepare.”
They shared a small smile, one that barely touched Eva's lips but reached her blue eyes.
“She can't even hold her own head up yet.”
“Neither can some current heads of state,” Eva said dryly.
Carl let out a short laugh. The baby stirred against his chest. A tiny sound came from the bundle, somewhere between a sigh and a squeak. Then she settled again.
“Does she have a name yet?” Eva asked.
Carl's smile didn't quite disappear, but something in it changed. It softened. Became more tender. Almost sad. Or perhaps just wistful.
His eyes dropped to his daughter, and he gently brushed his fingertips over her dark hair, as if even that small touch carried a thought too fragile to say out loud.
“Gracie.”
Eva went still. Something tightened in her chest. Out of habit, she ignored it.
She looked at Carl.
Then at the child.
Gracie.
Grace...
Of course.
She had suspected. Not known, naturally. And Eva Stratt made a very clear distinction between knowing something and merely suspecting it. But she hadn't been blind. Carl and Grace had worked closely together for a long time. A very long time. Often under conditions that tended to make people either grow to hate each other or grow much closer.
There had always been something between Carl and Ryland Grace that didn't fit neatly into a professional category. Eva had noticed the looks between them. The small, almost invisible gestures. Nothing she could prove, and certainly nothing that had ever interfered with their work at the Petrova Taskforce. So she'd ignored the fact that Grace had started spending even his lunch breaks with Carl. She'd ignored the way Carl had gradually become a little different around Grace. Not softer. Not careless. Carl was neither of those things. Just less armored. He smiled more.
Eva had never asked. It hadn't mattered. As long as two members of her project did their jobs to her satisfaction, what they did with each other in their spare time was their business.
The answer to the unasked question was now asleep on Carl's chest, breathing.
“I see,” was all Eva said before looking back down at the sleeping little bundle.
Carl offered no further explanation. Eva didn't expect one.
“Would you like to hold her?” he asked suddenly.
Eva blinked. “What?”
Carl raised both eyebrows. “The baby.”
“I know what you meant.”
He waited. Eva eyed Gracie with sudden suspicion.
“I'm not good with babies. And she is asleep.”
“Yeah. Babies do that.”
“Then we shouldn't move her.”
“We can move her.”
“How do you know?”
Carl laughed softly. “I'm her dad.”
Eva had to admit that was a convincing argument.
She sighed. “Fine.”
Carl carefully shifted himself upright. Eva leaned closer and held out her hands as though he were about to pass her a delicate piece of technical equipment.
“Not like that,” Carl muttered.
“I have held a baby before.”
“When?”
Eva stared at him. She didn't answer.
Carl grinned. “Thought so.”
“Just give her to me.”
He carefully transferred his daughter into Eva's arms. Gracie was heavier than she'd expected. Warmer, too.
Carl reached over and guided Eva's arm a little higher.
“Support her head.”
“I am supporting her head.”
“You are now.”
Eva gave him a look that, under normal circumstances, made people stop talking immediately. Right here, right now, Carl was immune.
And then the newborn was simply there in her arms. Eva didn't move. Neither did the baby.
“See?” Carl said quietly.
“What?”
“Still alive. You're good.”
Gracie's mouth opened in the tiniest yawn, and Eva smiled before she could stop herself. She looked down at the little scrunched-up face. So many people had worked, sacrificed, and died so this child could have a world to grow up in. Most of all Ryland Grace, who was somewhere out there in space trying to find a solution.
His tiny daughter lay in Stratt's arms, opened her round dark eyes for a few moments, and blinked unfocusedly at the strange woman holding her.
“Welcome to the world, Gracie. You've picked an interesting time to arrive,” Eva said softly. She could feel Carl watching her, but he didn't say anything. With one finger, she gently stroked the baby's tiny, soft hand. Five impossibly small fingers immediately closed around it. The baby had a surprisingly strong grip. Eva smiled again. “But the world is still here.” Gracie's fingers held on even as she started drifting off again. “And if everything goes according to plan, it will still be here when you're grown up.”
Eventually, she looked back at Carl. “When did you find out you were expecting?”
He cleared his throat before answering. Even so, she could hear the emotion in his voice.
“A week after launch.”
Eva pressed her lips together and looked down at Gracie again. The timeline was brutally obvious now that she thought about it. Of course Carl had already been pregnant before launch. He just hadn't known yet. And by the time he did know, Grace was already gone; sedated, unreachable, on his way into space.
“Grace never knew,” she said.
“No.”
“You had no way to tell him.”
“No.”
One goddamn week.
“That is...” Eva searched for the right word.
Inconvenient.
Unfortunate.
Sad.
None of them came close.
“That sucks.”
Carl let out a cynical laugh, sharp as a bark, startling Gracie in Eva’s arms and making her tiny face scrunch up. Eva watched tensely as the baby's little nose wrinkled and a thin, deeply offended sound escaped her.
“I think she's awake.”
“That happens sometimes.”
Eva rolled her eyes at him, but she'd already started gently rocking the baby without even realizing it. Gracie smacked her lips once, shifted her little head against Eva's chest, and went right back to sleep.
“Nice save, Boss,” Carl said with a grin.
The grin faded after a few seconds as his gaze settled on his daughter.
“Would you have told him if you'd found out sooner?”
“Of course.” There was no hesitation whatsoever. “I’d been feeling sick all the time before launch. But I figured, well… stress. No sleep. All that crap.” He paused. “But it wasn't getting better. So a week later I took a test, even though I thought... I don't know. I thought it was ridiculous.” He let out a slow breath. “I couldn't believe it when it turned out positive. And then the next thing I thought was that I had to tell Ryland.”
Ryland.
Not Grace.
Eva noticed.
She let Carl keep talking.
“I actually reached for my phone to call him. Just pure reflex.” His voice caught slightly. “Then I remembered he wasn't there anymore. And he'd never answer.”
Eva felt something heavy settle in her chest, though she didn't let it show.
“You can say it, Carl. If it will help.”
He looked at her. “Say what?”
She regarded her longtime security officer with a rare softness, one that had always existed somewhere beneath the surface. But it didn’t make the truth of her words any less harsh.
“That I sent the father of your child on a suicide mission.”
“Against his will,” Carl added.
Eva nodded. It was true.
“You knew he didn't want to go, and you sent him anyway.”
“Yes.”
“And I didn't do anything to prevent it. I just... let it happen.”
That was true, too.
They sat in silence for a while.
Then Carl said, “You know, I run that one through my head every day.” He stared down at his hands on the hospital blanket. “First thing I think about when I wake up. Last thing I think about before I go to sleep.”
“You couldn't have changed anything. And it had to be done. You know that.”
“Yeah. I guess so. But I still betrayed him.” His voice was quieter now. “That's something I gotta live with.”
Eva looked up from the baby and found tears shining in Carl’s eyes. He pretended they weren’t there. She extended him the same courtesy and looked back down at Gracie.
“You're going to be very smart,” she told the sleeping baby, giving Carl a moment to pull himself together. “With those two parents? Frighteningly smart. And stubborn.”
Carl gave a quiet laugh. “Definitely.”
“And probably somewhat rebellious.”
“She gets that from Ryland.”
“Yes...”
“Better that than his taste in music,” Carl deadpanned. A quiet laugh escaped Eva before she could stop it.
Some of the heaviness lifted. There was room to breathe again.
“He would have been happy if he'd known about Gracie,” Eva said.
Carl gave her a skeptical look.
“I'm not saying that to make you feel better.” She felt the tiny body shift in her arms. “I just remembered a phone call he made to me once.”
Carl blinked. “Ryland called you, what, like three thousand times?”
“This one was different.”
Suddenly, she could almost hear him again. Grace's voice over the phone. Excited. Nearly breathless.
“He didn't even say hello,” she remembered. Carl was already smiling, even though she hadn't reached the punch line yet. “I answered the phone, and the first thing he said was, ‘Carl and I made a baby!’”
Carl shut his eyes briefly and shook his head. “Oh God.”
Eva was quietly amused. “Those were his exact words. He was awestruck.”
“That was a joke. We'd gotten Astrophage to reproduce.”
“I know. But every joke has at least a little truth in it.”
“Ryland wasn't psychic, Boss. There's no way he could've known we'd actually...” Carl gestured vaguely towards his daughter. “You know.”
“No, probably not.” Eva looked down at Gracie's tiny face as the baby made a soft gurgling sound in her sleep. “But I remember how proud he sounded.” She nodded faintly. “I think he would have been happy.”
“He would've thought I was messing with him at first,” Carl said with a small smile. “Then he would've panicked. Like, full-on panic. Then he'd read somewhere that your emotional state affects the embryo, and he'd start panicking about how his panic was bad for the baby.”
“That sounds like him.” Eva smiled back, if only slightly. “In the end, the happiness would have won out. Just as it did with you.”
“Yeah...” Carl looked down at Gracie. “I guess that's how it would've gone. He would've been a good dad.”
They would never really know.
“The project took away your chance to find out,” Eva said.
Carl looked at her. “You don't have to put it like that.”
“Yes, I do. Because it's true.”
Eva felt that familiar hardness settle into place inside her. She could defend her decisions, no matter how brutal they were. She could explain exactly why Ryland Grace had needed to be aboard the Hail Mary, why there had been no real alternative, and why the ship had never been designed to return home.
That didn't make the consequences any less real.
“I would make the same decision again, and we both know why.”
Carl said nothing. She took that as agreement, however reluctant.
“So I can't tell you I'm sorry I sent him.” She paused. “But I am sorry he never got to know about his daughter. I'm sorry for what it cost you. And I'm sorry you had to go through this moment alone.” Her gaze dropped briefly to Gracie. “And probably many more moments still to come.”
Carl stared at the bare wall for several seconds.
“It's complicated,” he finally said. “The project took Ryland away from me. But it's also the whole reason I ever had him in the first place.” He rubbed at his tired face. “If none of this had happened, he'd still be here. But I never would've met him.” His eyes went to Gracie. “And she wouldn't exist.” A pause. “So what the hell am I supposed to do with that?”
Eva had no answer to that.
“Wishing none of this had ever happened feels wrong. But not wishing things had gone differently, so he could still be here and have his life...” Carl shook his head. “That feels wrong too.”
Eva said nothing.
Carl sighed. “Maybe it was all just supposed to happen this way.”
“You believe in fate?”
“Boss, I pushed a whole human being out of my body thirty-six hours ago. I'm allowed to be irrational for a little while.”
Eva considered that. “Very well. Permission granted.”
“Thanks.” He shifted slightly against the pillows. “Besides, I can't change any of it. Sitting around thinking about what would've happened if things had gone differently isn't gonna do anybody any good. Ryland's out there, and he's not coming back. But Gracie's here.” He reached over and gently touched the baby's little foot. “And I'm gonna make sure she gets to grow up and live in the world Ryland saved. She's gonna learn how to walk, go to school, fall in love for the first time, pick some career I absolutely don't approve of.” Carl gave a firm nod. “He's gonna pull it off. He has to.”
“We all hope he does.”
“No.” Carl looked straight at Eva. “I don't hope. I know.” Then, with quiet conviction: “He's gonna crush it.”
Eva didn't know whether Carl truly believed that with absolute certainty or whether he simply needed to believe it in order to survive everything else. Perhaps it didn't matter whether it was faith or necessity. Either way, he believed.
Gracie started fussing quietly in Eva's arms. She handed the little bundle back to Carl and watched him tuck her against his shoulder, gently rocking her until she settled.
Eva thought again of that phone call years ago.
Grace, wound up and breathless over the breakthrough.
Carl and I made a baby!
At the time, Eva had simply been confused, then rolled her eyes once she'd figured out what he meant.
Now she was looking at the actual baby Carl and Grace had made. A little girl whose future depended on her father, millions of miles away, accomplishing the impossible.
Eva stood and moved closer to the bed. “Dr. Grace has always been extraordinarily irritating when he wants to prove that something everyone else calls impossible can, in fact, be done.” She gave Carl a confident nod. “If anyone can do it, it's him.”
She reached out and gently touched Gracie's tiny fist one last time where it clung to Carl's hospital gown.
“Then we'll make a deal,” she said, her voice serious but gentle.
“What kind of deal?” Carl asked. Gracie gave a tiny squeak.
“Grace saves the sun.” Eva looked at him. “And you take care of her.”
Carl nodded.
“And when she's old enough, you tell her the story about that phone call.”
“Nope.”
“If you don't, I will.”
Carl snorted but didn't argue any further.
“Get some rest. Both of you.” Eva briefly rested a hand on his free shoulder. “That's an order.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“I'll see you soon.”
“Thanks for coming.”
Eva nodded. Everything that mattered had been said.
She picked up her bag and crossed the small room, slipping quietly out into the bright hallway.
Behind the closing door, a tiny girl slept on the chest of one of her fathers, his hand resting on her back.
And somewhere among the stars, her other father, who had no idea she even existed, was on his way to save her world.