Dr. Ryland Grace//Project Hail Mary//Ryan Gosling

When Grace woke up, the first thing he became aware of was the sound.

Not alarms. Not the endless hum of the engines buried deep inside the Hail Mary. Not the quiet clicks of machinery cycling through another automated process.

Breathing. Another person breathing.

For a long moment, he simply lay there in the dim light of the medical bay, staring at the ceiling while the realisation settled over him slowly, carefully, like sunlight warming frozen skin. Someone else was awake.

You.

His chest tightened painfully.

He had spent so long alone that sometimes he forgot what it felt like to hear another human being exist nearby. Weeks blurred into months aboard the ship. Maybe longer. Sleep schedules and survival routines had become the only things keeping him functional. He talked to himself more than he wanted to admit. Sometimes he would catch himself speaking out loud just to hear a voice in the room.

But now there was you. Awake. Alive.

Grace sat up too quickly, dizziness washing over him as his body protested the sudden movement. He barely noticed. The blankets tangled around his legs as he stumbled out of bed, hands gripping the wall for balance before he pushed himself forward.

The hallway lights glowed soft and pale around him. He almost ran.

By the time he reached your room, his pulse was hammering so hard he could hear it in his ears. His hand hovered over the door panel for half a second, uncertainty catching him at the last moment.

What if you needed space? What if you were confused? What if he overwhelmed you?

But then he heard movement inside. A quiet rustle. The creak of fabric. And God, he couldn’t do it anymore. The door slid open.

You were sitting up slowly on the bed, still groggy from cryosleep, blinking against the light with a disoriented expression. Your hair was a mess. Your face still carried the exhaustion of waking too fast, too suddenly.

Grace stopped in the doorway. For a moment, neither of you spoke. Then his shoulders sagged with something dangerously close to relief.

“Oh thank God,” he whispered.

*His voice cracked. You barely had time to react before he crossed the room. Not aggressively. Not carelessly.

He dropped to his knees beside the bed and wrapped both arms around you like he was afraid you might disappear if he loosened his grip even slightly. The force of it almost knocked the breath from your lungs. His forehead pressed hard against your shoulder, shaky breaths escaping him unevenly.

You felt him trembling. Not violently. Just enough to betray how tightly wound he’d been for far too long.

“Sorry,” he muttered instantly, though he didn’t let go. “Sorry, I just—”

His fingers tightened in the fabric of your shirt.

“I needed this.”

The honesty in his voice was raw enough to ache. You slowly lifted a hand, still sluggish from waking, and rested it carefully against his back.

Grace exhaled sharply, almost painfully, like your touch alone had pulled something tight loose inside his chest. His eyes closed. He leaned into you without thinking, practically melting where he knelt beside the bed.

Human contact. Something so small. So ordinary. Yet out here, in the endless dark between stars, it had become precious enough to hurt.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this,” he admitted quietly. “I kept thinking about when you’d wake up. Kept counting days. Talking to you while you slept because I was going insane hearing only my own voice.”

A weak laugh escaped him, though it carried exhaustion underneath.

“I know that sounds pathetic.”

“It doesn’t,” you murmured. That nearly undid him.

Grace laughed again, softer this time, but his face stayed buried against you. His arms remained around your waist, secure and warm and impossibly clingy. Like he’d forgotten how to exist without holding onto something real. Or someone real. The Hail Mary suddenly felt less cold. Less empty.

He finally looked up at you then, eyes tired but painfully open in a way most people never allowed themselves to be. Isolation had stripped him down to honesty. There was no room left for pretending out here.

“You’re really here,” he said softly. Not a question. Wonder.

His thumb brushed unconsciously against your side, grounding himself in the simple fact that another person existed within reach.

You noticed how touch-starved he truly was in all the little ways. How he leaned into every bit of contact. How his shoulders relaxed every time your hand brushed his arm.

And honestly? You didn’t mind.

Because beneath all his awkwardness and exhaustion, there was something heartbreakingly gentle about the way he sought closeness. He wasn’t demanding anything from you. He just wanted to feel less alone.

The silence between you became comfortable quickly. The ship hummed around you softly.

Grace rested his head against your shoulder again after a while, quieter now, calmer. One of his hands absentmindedly held onto your sleeve, fingers loosely curled there as if reassuring himself you were still real.

“I missed having someone,” he admitted eventually. The words were almost too quiet to hear. Then, after a pause:

“I missed being able to care about someone in person.”

Something in your chest tightened. You turned slightly toward him, letting your head rest lightly against his.

And for the first time in what was probably an unbearably long while, Grace looked genuinely at peace. Not because the mission was easier. Not because space had become less terrifying. But because he wasn’t facing it alone anymore.

Outside the Hail Mary, the universe stretched endlessly cold and silent. Inside, tucked away in the quiet glow of the sleeping quarters, there was warmth again. A hand in his hair. A shoulder against his. Another heartbeat nearby.

And for Grace, that was enough to make the darkness feel survivable.

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