UPDATED AUTHOR'S NOTE (2017): This fic was abandoned for about three years (oops) and to be honest, I never thought I would come back and write more. Then I saw 'Alien: Covenant' and it ruined my entire life, and I just had to return to this fic. The David/Shaw relationship fascinated me from the first time I saw Prometheus in theaters back in 2012, and I feel that it has been done a grave wrong. I was nervous about coming back to this story because my writing style has changed quite a bit since I started this (hopefully for the better- your girl's even won a few literary prizes out there in the real world), and I hate stylistic choppiness between chapters. But what the hell- this is a goddamn fanfic, and I'm royally pissed at what the writers did, and I know you guys are too. So let's dive into this madness together and try to sort it all out. To those of you who have waited for an update, who've left me reviews urging me to write more, I goddamn love you. And I'm sorry I kept you waiting so long.
Rating: M, for eventual implicit sexual situations, violence, psychological horror, and all that jazz.
Disclaimer: I do not lay any claim on Prometheus or the Alien franchise. This is purely for my entertainment, and hopefully yours as well.
RAPT
CHAPTER ONE
"To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves." -Federico García Lorca
Day 43 of the last survivors of the Prometheus's bleak journey to 'paradise'. Forty-three days spent with a restless frustration pounding inside of Elizabeth Shaw's stomach, a scratching need for something. Absolution, perhaps? No.
Retribution.
She wanted the being responsible for Charlie's death dead. And painfully so. Elizabeth wanted to dig her nails into the murderer's skin, to pull and rip and tear until bloody streaks ran down the pale expanse. She wanted him to bleed. Oh, yes, to bleed- physical evidence that she was gaining justice. Perhaps it would puncture the bag of aching grief in her chest, just enough to ease some of the pressure.
But Elizabeth Shaw's luck hadn't been very good as of late.
Charlie's killer was keeping her alive. Moreover, was he even the true murderer of her husband? He may have slipped the poison into his drink, but Charlie's death was orchestrated by a higher power. And at the very end, it wasn't the alien illness that took him at all. Vickers, her face a sweaty mass of horrified confusion dancing behind the flames of hell that were burning her love, was Charlie's Reaper.
Logic told her that the unfeeling android directing her path through the cold press of space was not Charlie's true killer. But instinct told her that an angry and degraded golem wanted her lover dead for personal reasons. And that was why she needed revenge. Weyland was merely curious about the organic substance the aliens were brewing. Vickers acted out of desperation, a sharp prod of her survival instinct behind the pull of her trigger.
But David.
He had a reason to want Charlie dead. Motive. A means to carry out the murder, a benefit, and it wouldn't even technically be his fault. After all, he was just doing what the David 8 bot does best.
Following orders.
All this, Elizabeth contemplated as she stared down at the curved amber-tinted blade she found in the back of the cargo hold. Racks of personal weapons for the Engineers in charge of the extermination of an entire race, needed for what? Humans would be no problem. Each other, then? Unlikely. Besides, it wasn't the reason the blades were on board that had Dr. Elizabeth Shaw so absorbed by the arched knives. It was the matter of whether or not to apply them to her wrists with enough pressure to slice through the delicate skin there and pump out her life force.
She would see Charlie. Her mother, her father. She would be home. This mission, her mission, was taking its toll, and there was only so much a person could handle before snapping. And Elizabeth was quivering, tensed so tightly that the slightest nudge in the wrong direction would send her sanity into an abyss, where she would have no choice but to jump in after it, screaming.
Hands shaking, blade at her wrist, Elizabeth hunched over, preparing to make the cut.
A flash of silver made her draw back, her cross slipping out of the open neck of her suit, and Elizabeth gave a frustrated groan. No, not like this. She couldn't betray her God that way. She threw the knife away from where she was huddled on the ground, and barely registered the tinny sound of metal-hitting-metal. Drawing her knees to her chest and ignoring the slight twinge in her abdomen as she engaged those muscles, Elizabeth wrapped her arms around her legs and gave in to her grief.
Racked with painful sobs, she didn't notice when her inhuman companion entered the cargo hold.
_._
Anxiety. Not a concept David was familiar with. Oh, he understood how to recognize it- accelerated breathing and heart rate, trembling, perhaps eyelid fluttering. In extreme cases, nausea and faintness. But watching it and understanding what it was, was very different from feeling it yourself.
Was he indeed anxious? David knew that, as a robotic being, he was not supposed to feel emotion. His system was allowed to emit 'good' or 'bad' pulses when he was praised or criticized and the like, but this... This was not normal. Then again, when his thoughts concerned Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, nothing was normal. She was the only thing that had ever prompted what David tentatively labeled 'feelings'.
David was intrigued by her. She was strong, brilliant, but not cold and detached. While Meredith Vickers was the ice queen of the Prometheus, Elizabeth Shaw was everyone's friend. Elizabeth was warm and passionate, a unique thinker, and seemed to possess an esoteric mind. But beyond that, what had drawn his interest to her in the first place, was the doctor's unwavering respect to all on board. And that included David.
Oh, how refreshing it was to have been spoken to like an equal, shot a warm smile or a word of familiarity. Elizabeth's inclusion of him in her social circle on the ship opened his eyes to how shut out he'd truly been. So he'd engaged in conversation, internally wondered at her courtesy, and tried to learn all he could about her. He knew how Elizabeth's father had died when she was young- infection. Her mother was a different story. Gone missing for six months when Elizabeth was four, only to turn up in a shallow grave with her lovely face mottled and bruised. Elizabeth had been so young she hadn't fully understood what was happening, but now... She had known for some long years her mother was the victim of senseless violence. Jeanette Shaw's murderer was never caught, but she was not forgotten.
And so, orphaned and alone, she had gone looking for a parental figure.
There, David thought, was where she had truly found her God. He supposed he couldn't blame her for latching onto the belief that there was a being in the sky, watching over her and loving her unconditionally when she was so lost. The ten-year-old's aunt was hardly a good guardian. Why, Elizabeth's darker dreams showed the woman coming home late at night, piss-drunk and in rages so severe that her shouts of obscenities shook the rafters. The woman would have been a terror to live with- of course she reached out to look for a benevolent hand. And in her local Catholic church, Elizabeth had found her makeshift family.
So yes, in the beginning he'd been interested in her past and different attitude than those around her, but things between them had changed so much since then. After Holloway's death by his hand, Elizabeth had been dazed and broken. He couldn't blame her for that- David knew of how strong human attachments were. But it wasn't until he'd had to hold her down, push her body into the dry dust covering that godforsaken valley to keep her from running to her husband's aid that he'd felt a twinge of what he thought was remorse.
And then there was that fetus!
That monster abomination, caused by him. David had never wished to hurt Elizabeth so directly. He admired her, respected her, and had come to think of her as something like a friend. So when he'd seen what he had done to her, however unintentionally, there was a wash of painfully heavy waves down his nerve connectors. He'd struggled not to flinch, but had stuttered. Noting that the fetus appeared to be developed to three months, but had a rather irregular shape, he tried to keep his judgement out of the way for just a little bit longer.
And so he'd asked Elizabeth- had she and her husband had intimate relations?
When the answer came, he was inwardly astounded at the reaction his body had. It was like his wires were overheating and burning, while at the same time a heavy cloud settled over his thoughts, dark and tinged with a rather unfamiliar thing- want. It took him a minute to realize what he was feeling.
Could this be jealousy?
It intensified when he had the doctor in his arms, but at the same time abated. So confused on the inside but outwardly calm, David had done something very petty. Very human.
Seeking to inform Elizabeth that he knew her just as intimately as her husband, though their connection was through mind instead of body, he pricked her with cruel words of her father. Told her he had watched her dreams, violated that secret and sacred part of her mind. And as David swept away from the woman on the table, another wave of heavy unpleasantness swept over him. But this time, it was directed at himself in blame.
Then, he had been worried for her, but not anxious. Anxious when he lay on the floor of the cargo hold and the Engineer took off after Elizabeth, oh yes. That was the strongest feeling he'd ever felt. And when he told her, how she'd disregarded him! But then, he couldn't blame her. He was robotic. He was incapable of emotion.
He was evidently a lie, because he was beginning feel quite poignantly.
For example- the present anxiety over where Elizabeth was. He'd looked for her in the cubiculum where they slept (complete with rows and rows of too-large slabs of somehow soft stone), the control room, the bathrooms, the kitchen, and what seemed to be a meditation room. He couldn't find her in any of the normal rooms, so he'd searched for the more intimidating spots on the ship. The infirmary, with sharp tools on the walls and a single raised stone platform to lay the body of the victim on. They'd wondered if it was used to harm as well. The holding room, where David knew he wouldn't find Elizabeth- the tiny cells of obsidian stone did not mix with her slight claustrophobia. David now found himself in the doorway of the room filled with black vases they'd found in the back of the ship. The cargo hold, carrying thousands of jars of death. So it was understandable that when the cries of the pained doctor reached him, he sprinted down the rows of canisters to find her, images of her dying of the contagion on his mechanical mind.
At the far back of the cargo hold he found her, collapsed on her knees and hunched over, keening. Her cross was clenched in her fist, her face was streaked with tears, and her lean body shook with sobs. She was like a broken angel to David, and as he slowed to a stop, breathing calm as ever, he wondered if this was what beauty looked like to humans as well.