Chapter Text
The morning of my liver removal, Simon rolls over and touches my face.
“Grace?” he asks.
“Hm?”
“Can I… kiss you?”
My face feels hot, but I smile.
“Do you want to?” I ask, “You’re not trying to pay me back for anything?”
It’s Simon’s turn to blush. “I do want to,” he admits, “I’ve been wanting to for a week.”
“Then yes,” I say, “You can.”
His kiss is short and chaste, just a peck on the lips. It’s almost exactly what I would expect from him. He looks shy when he pulls away. “How was that?” he asks.
“It was perfect,” I say.
“Good,” he says, “I’ll give you another one when you wake up from the surgery. But you have to wake up.”
I smile. “I promise.”
Unlike a liver transplant on Earth, the Eridians don’t need to take half of it. They’ve been able to use their own technology, which is more advanced than ours in some ways and less in other ways, along with human research and technology to grow organs. They already made a spleen and a kidney by taking small biopsies of each from me. Those were small procedures, but because my liver will grow back, they can take a larger chunk of it. That’ll reduce the amount of time it takes to grow, which means that they can start mass producing blood sooner.
Simon isn’t allowed in the room during the operation. Rocky and Adrian will keep him company. He stays by my side until Armando sedates me.
Anesthesia is a funny thing. At first there’s a pain that goes up through your arm starting from the IV. It’s a dull ache, not anything unbearable, but you can definitely feel where it is in your veins. Then you’re asleep, but it isn’t peaceful. I imagine it’s the same kind of sleep you might get after you get knocked out. There’s no rest, no dreams, just nothing. Then you wake up.
I can tell that time has passed when I do, but I don’t know how much. I don’t know exactly where I am for a minute. Armando knows I’m awake right away, and asks about my pain. I feel sore, and I say as much. I assume Armando sends me morphine or something, because before long, the pain eases.
Right, I just had major surgery.
I doze off again. No reason to stay awake. I’m not excited for the next several weeks where I won’t be allowed to teach. I’ll miss my students terribly. I try to keep my eye on the prize, though. If this all works, if we can create real living blood, I’ll be able to teach them forever.
The next time I wake up, Rocky, Adrian, and Simon are all in the room. We don’t have hospital gowns, obviously, and I’m not worried about modesty, so I have no shirt on. I am under a blanket. It’s one that the Eridians made me. They used a fabric as similar to the Good Luck quilt as they could get. It’s comfortable, and not heavy against my stitches. I pull it down anyways. I need to get a look at myself.
It’s incredible, how small they managed to make the incision. It’s big, don’t get me wrong, but I was expecting it to be a whole lot bigger. When I look up, I catch Simon staring, too.
“You like what you see?” I slur out. Why the heck did I say that? Simon turns red.
“Grace stupid after surgery. Drugs in brain,” Rocky says. I hear both his normal voice and the TTS voice. I giggle.
“Rocky!” I reach over to pat him. He leans into it.
“Hi Grace. Feeling okay, question?”
“I’m feeling awesome right now,” I say, “Adrian, get over here!”
They take a few steps forward and I pat them, too.
“Oh Adrian… You can’t even see…” Tears spring to my eyes, “Simon they can’t even see the pretty color they are.”
I lean back into the pillow and look at Simon. He laughs a little bit.
“No understand word,” Adrian says.
“Color is what the light looks like,” I sob, “And your color is called turquoise.”
A few tears roll down my cheeks. It’s so sad that Adrian can’t even see their color. I don’t know why it’s upsetting me only now. Probably the drugs.
“No leaking!” Adrian says. Their voice is much deeper than Rocky’s. At least two octaves, “Adrian no sad about color.”
“Rocky, you are so lucky to have them.” Ugh, I sound so gushy. Like I live in a rom com now.
“Yes, Adrian amaze amaze amaze,” Rocky says, “Grace stop leaking.”
I take a breath and try to stop the crying. In the lead up to this day, I got Simon and Rocky around the laptop and we watched some anesthesia videos online. They knew what to expect. I don’t anticipate remembering this later. Simon touches my hand, the one with an IV in it.
“Simon,” I mutter, “I like your teeth. They’re so pretty.” I reach up with my other hand to poke at one of his fangs, but he dodges to the side. Boundaries no longer exist, apparently.
Simon is grinning, “Thanks for waking up, Grace.”
“I told you!” I poke his hand. “When do I get to go back to class?”
“Twelve weeks,” Rocky says, “Liver grow back then.”
“Bullshit,” I mutter.
“Grace use bad word!”
I giggle again. “I go back to class tomorrow.”
“No! You go back after twelve weeks.”
“Fine, day after tomorrow.”
“Simon tell Grace he will not.”
I look at Simon. He smiles at me, “I think once the morphine wears off you’ll change your mind.”
“Mm… probably,” I say, “When can I go back to my bed?”
“Go now! Rocky make wheels chair!”
“I can walk…” I mutter.
“No walk. Grace fall down. Grace die. Rocky sad sad sad sad.”
“Mmh.” He’s right. I’m a fall hazard for another twenty four hours or so. Simon goes to get the wheelchair for me while Armando removes the IV from my arm. I can stand, but I’m a little wobbly. With Simon holding my arm I could probably walk to the bed. It isn’t very far. But Rocky put in all the effort to make the chair, so I sit in it and let Simon push me the approximate ten feet to the bedroom, where I stand again and lean on Simon to get to the bed.
I spend a lot of the day sleeping after that. Simon wakes me up every few hours, a schedule moderated by Armando, to give me pain medication, often with a little food. It’s important to keep ahead of it, but I do start to feel the ache in my stitches.
I’m still tired the next day, but not nearly as dizzy. Doctors orders are to walk around a little bit today, so I go to the garden with Simon when he gets me lunch. It’s then when Simon fulfills his promise of a kiss. It’s another quick peck when I’m finished eating. I smile at him. “That was worth waking up for.”
He rolls his eyes. I ask Rocky when he thinks the blood farm, as we’ve decided to call it, will be operational. It’s really a crazy system they’ve come up with. They used the bone marrow to create stem cells, then used samples of my kidney and spleen to grow their own human kidney and spleen. I don’t know how they keep it all alive. I haven’t asked. I do know that the whole thing is fueled on vitamin shakes. Those have everything required to keep me alive, which includes everything required to create blood, I suppose. They’ve set up a pseudo human body somewhere just outside the dome. The organs will power the production of blood.
“Blood farm working!” Rocky says, “Simon test blood today, question?”
We don’t have the laptop, so I relay the question to Simon. I’ve learned that he can eat whenever. Waiting until he was hungry was only for my sake, which I do appreciate. Drinking more blood in between just extends the time before he needs to eat again.
“Yeah, I can test it today,” Simon says.
“Does that mean you could turn me today?” I ask. I’m not exactly looking forward to going through the transformation, but I also feel like the sooner I can get it over with, the better.
“No,” Rocky says, “Grace recover first. Blood production small. Need time to make bigger farm”
That’s a good point. It’s one thing to make a taste of blood for Simon to test, and a whole other thing to scale it up for both of us to survive on the blood for forever, or at least for the four hundred or so years Rocky will be around, plus the time it'll take to get back to Earth, if we decide to go back. I assume they will also want to have a backup store of it, enough to last years and years, just in case. I want all of that too. I don’t ever want to starve again, and I don’t want Simon to either.
Rocky brings a cup full of blood to Simon to test out. Simon stares at it for a while, then looks at me.
“Grace?” he asks, “If this works, after you turn… can we keep the garden?”
I smile at him, “Of course we can. It’s nice to have some greenery here.”
Simon smiles. He puts the cup to his lips and takes a sip. The sip turns into a gulp and he ends up swallowing the whole thing. He looks refreshed when he’s done.
“It’s perfect, Rocky,” he says, “We did it.”
I keep going on little walks with Simon for the next few days. I do concede that I need a decent amount of time to recover from this. It isn’t like the bone marrow transplant where I felt fine after two days. But my job isn’t too difficult. There’s no risk of popping a stitch from playing the organ for my students. I walk out to the organ sometimes and stare at the empty classroom. Sometimes I work on new lessons while I sit there.
Simon, who usually sides with Rocky about recovery times, eventually starts asking if I can get my class back even a little sooner. I think he hates to see my sad face as I play to the empty room. Rocky won’t hear it. He insists on me taking time to heal.
I spend a lot of time reading books on the laptop. It’s not the best way to read, but it’s not like the Eridians can make me a printer and paper to print out the books. Sometimes Simon reads to me, when my eyes are tired or I can’t stand the feeling of my glasses on my face anymore. We keep up our movie night tradition. Sometimes Adrian joins us to watch something. They’re fond of animated movies. They like the cartoonish shapes of the characters.
One morning, I wake up to the sound of the airlock opening. It opens over and over again. I can’t fathom why, unless Rocky keeps walking through the door and realizing he forgot something on his side. That’s not like him. It’s not like any Eridian, actually. They have perfect memories. It must be something else. I close my eyes and try to go back to sleep.
After maybe the tenth time I hear the airlock door, Simon nudges me awake.
“Get up, we have a surprise for you.”
I’m still groggy, but I don’t argue. I hold Simon’s hand and we head out the door. At first, I don’t know what I’m looking at, but then it clicks.
“Surprise!” Hums a chorus of Eridian voices. It’s my kids!
“Hey!” I say. I drop to my knees so that I’m on their level. Each of them has their own little EVA suit. All of them are eager to come up to me and say hi. I take the time to give each one of them a hug. They all have something to say, but they know I have a hard time hearing when they all talk at once, so they take turns.
“Miss class!”
“Love love learn science!”
“Grace get better soon!”
Some of them bring gifts. Cute little trinkets like the ones I keep on my side of the classroom. They bring little models of things they’ve learned about on Earth, or of their favorite things on Erid. Different animals, geologic formations, cities. I love to see it all. None of it is like anything on Earth. They tell me about each one, but I can’t talk back to them. Teaching them through the organ means that they haven’t learned English. Rocky teaches them ‘thank you’ so that I can show my gratitude for their presents.
After the initial surprise, the students wander around, looking at all the things in the dome. They spend a lot of time looking at the plants and the house, the most unique things to them. They have cliffs and oceans on their side, although most of them were raised in the city. They have plants, too, but they don’t look the same as the plants I have.
Unfortunately, they all have to leave before lunch. Eating is taboo for Eridians, and it would be highly inappropriate for them to see me eating. Rocky has gotten over it, mostly. He still tells me how gross it is sometimes, but he doesn’t leave the dome for it.
I can’t wipe the smile off my face while I eat. I keep thinking of them. It was brave of them to come over to this side of the dome. Sure they’re all little scientists, some of them may even go on to be the next astronauts, but I remember the first time I got in an EVA suit and went into an unfamiliar environment. It’s terrifying.
And they did it for me.
I keep thinking about them that night, while we watch our nightly movie. An idea dawns on me. I hit pause.
“Is everything okay?” Simon asks.
“I have an idea,” I say, “Rocky, could you build a big texture screen in the classroom?” I ask.
“Yes. Rocky make anything.”
“On Earth, when a teacher can’t come to class, sometimes there will be a substitute teacher. A lot of the time, they’ll turn on a movie for the kids to watch,” I say, “I don’t need a substitute, but I could turn on a movie for them. They can learn about Earth culture, and they’ll learn English.”
“Show documentary about Earth to students,” Rocky says, “Fiction movies show meals. Inappropriate.”
“Right,” I say, “Documentaries sometimes show animals eating, though.”
“Context different. Learn about animal. See natural functions.”
Fine. They’ll still learn English if it’s a nature documentary, and that’s more science based anyways. I agree to Rocky’s terms. He tells me it will take a few days to build the screen, but I can go back to class as soon as it’s functional. I spend those days finding all the best shows to put on. Simon helps. He loves watching them with me, especially ones that show trees. He’s not as fond of ocean documentaries.
The students love it. Rocky is there, translating the English for them, and I’m there watching the documentary on the laptop while it plays for them on a giant screen on their side. After we watch, I host a little discussion where they can ask questions and I can answer. It’s perfect. I get a little teaching in, they get a lot of learning in. The movies are shorter than class usually is, so I still have plenty of time to rest and recover.
The blood farm is going great, or so I hear. They already have a few years of stored blood. From my calculations, that means that they’re already producing far more than a single human would. Maybe more than two humans. I’m a week away from being back to teaching. Really, I feel fine. The recommended recovery time is for someone who gives half their liver, not someone who gives a little chunk. My stitches have been out for weeks and I haven’t been on pain medication for almost as long. If we did an MRI now, I’m sure that my whole liver would be intact.
I ask again, if it’s time for Simon to turn me.
“Blood farm is stable,” Rocky says, “Lots of storage. Will continue to store. Produce more than needed.”
“So is that a yes?” I ask.
“Afraid afraid,” Rocky says, “What if Grace die?”
I hold Rocky close to my chest. “I know, pal,” I say, “I’m scared too. But I trust Simon.”
“Yes, trust Simon.”
“We can wait if you want, but I don’t think it’s going to get any easier,” I say.
“Yes…” Rocky ponders. “Do tonight. After eat.”
I okay the plan with Simon. He agrees.
Simon prepares a lot of fruits and vegetables for me. He tells me it’s the last time I’ll get to eat them. I finally ask about it. He says that vampires can eat, but the taste is terrible. Like eating ash. You get to live forever, you get supernatural strength, but there’s a cost. I take time to eat. I savor each different food, each different flavor. Simon and Rocky stay quiet. I would appreciate a more conversational atmosphere, but I get it. It’s a somber occasion. Simon won’t even look at me.
I finish the food. I’m as full as I think I’ve been since coming to Erid.
“Simon?” I ask, “Do you miss eating?”
He shrugs, “I haven’t done it since I was five or so.”
I guess he wouldn’t know.
“But… once you’re a vampire, blood has the most incredible taste,” he says, “It’s not something you can get used to.”
He still won’t meet my eye.
“I guess…” he sighs, “I guess we should get comfortable.”
I nod. We go to the bed. Rocky sits beside me. Simon kneels over me, straddling me. He eyes my neck. I have to brace myself.
“Are you ready?”
I nod. I don’t think I’ll ever truly be ready, but I’m ready to stop anticipating it.
Simon bites into my neck. It hurts. It might be some of the greatest pain I’ve ever felt. He sucks slowly and gently. My veins turn to ice. I can feel the moment when I’ve lost too much blood. I’m going to die. I’m going to die.
I’m going to die.
Simon keeps going. He’s going to kill me. I’m going to die right here on the bed. The coldness spreads. I’m a corpse, already cold. I’m going to die. Simon pulls away. I can barely see him through my fluttering eyelids. He looks terrified, devastated. He did something wrong. I’m going to die.
But then, he bites his own hand.
He slashes a cut into it and presses his hand to my mouth.
“Drink,” he says. I do.
His blood is cold. I suck it out of his hand and suddenly I feel different. I’m going to be okay. I’m not going to die. I might die. Maybe I already died. I keep drinking.
”Grace die! Grace die! Simon kill Grace, question? Danger danger danger!”
I feel weak, but not so weak that I can’t lift my hand and touch Rocky. He’s so warm compared to me now. He always was, but I feel so, so cold. I’m going to be okay. I’m not going to die. I’m not going to die.
I fall back into the pillows. I can’t keep my eyes open anymore. I feel the weight of Simon lift off of me, replaced by Rocky.
“He’s going to sleep for a long time,” Simon says.
“Rocky watch. Keep safe."