Elizabeth makes her way slowly down the dark, quiet, seemingly vast hall of the Engineers' ship. The angle of its arc and the ship itself are just large enough to give the impression, when one walks slowly enough, that it could never end. She walks this slowly, inching along and now coming to a complete halt to support herself against one dark wall and gaze down, examining her shoes in detail. She can't seem to ever catch her breathe, lately.

Elizabeth isn't sure what she wants to do. She knows just what she does not want to do—go back to the control room and face David—but she also knows she must.

She had left David's head in David's own twitching arms—an unnerving sight—after he had talked her through the initial start-up of the ship. She practically sprinted out after that. The world around her had stopped moving at the relentless pace it had maintained for the last few days, and it was now Elizabeth's own head that was whirling too quickly for her to keep up. She remembered all at once how tired, dizzy, nauseated, hungry and broken she was as the pieces of her world, which had shattered around her, pierced through her like shards of broken glass through the arm of a too-curious child who had just accidentally sent her arm through a glass sliding door. So she ran out as fast as the gut-wrenching pain below her stomach would permit, ignoring David's pleas.

She ran and ran until her legs could carry her no farther, and then she fell to her knees as terrible dry heaves shook her body. Though it so desperately needed to purge itself, Elizabeth's stomach had nothing in it. She couldn't even vomit properly in this state. She beat the ground with a gloved hand and held back the tears that were threatening to spill out with the lack-of-vomit. She refused to pity herself; she refused to cry. She had broken down once already outside Vickers' escape pod—she refused to do it again. She needed to keep going. She needed to get her answers because they were not just hers; they were also Charlie's answers, and he deserved them more than anyone, having died for them. So she made a fist of the hand that, beneath the suit's glove, had Charlie's ring on it and pushed herself off the ground with it.

But none of her resolve mattered then. Elizabeth hadn't looked where she had stopped when she collapsed, and it happened to be in front of the same kind of door that they had first encountered when back on the other ship with the whole team—the door David first opened, unleashing all the horror. Memories of this horror flooded her mind again and she was unable to restrain the tears this time around. So Elizabeth had sat there for a long time, clutching her mouth to contain her sobs and screams.

Now she is almost embarrassed to face the android again. She lets the wall go and continues her agonizingly slow journey back to the ship's center, the controls and David. Elizabeth deliberately walks on cat-like steps and watches her breathing. She still hasn't caught her breathe from running and crying and screaming, so quieting it has spiked her heart rate. She can hear her own heart pumping blood now, the sound is all-dominating as the blood rushes in her ears, and she doesn't like it at all.

She tries to take even quieter steps, though she can't hear just how quiet they are over the sound of her own heart. She doesn't want David to become aware of her presence just yet. He unnerves her because she can't figure him out. He has been incredibly pleasant and polite—as per the usual—especially considering that in the last few hours, she had stuck his head in a duffel bag, hauled him into this ship and launched it off to God-knows what danger and destination. She doesn't want to dislike or distrust him, but her perception of him is cast only in the light of his betrayal. He betrayed her and Charlie and the crew for Weyland. She couldn't really blame him of course—Weyland was his creator and programmer—but the betrayal still stung, especially after her initial fondness toward him. She enjoyed his wit and company and he saved her life, but Weyland caused their relationship to sour.

And now he was gone, as David had wished. Hinted he wished. Hinted he would wish if he was able to. In any case, now David had his free will. Now David acted of his own accord. Shaw couldn't help but swallow nervously. She didn't know if she found this more or less unnerving.

"Dr. Shaw? Elizabeth, are you back?"

Dammit. Her heartbeat is a drum and the blood rushing in her ears a roaring waterfall, but it couldn't have been either of those he heard…could it?

"Yes, David. I am here." She announces sleepily as she wobbles toward the android.

"You are very pale and your eyes are red. You have been crying." The words initially sound not like an attempt to comfort but a medical analysis and diagnosis of some sort. The last four words, Elizabeth thinks, seem softer, like he is feeling her anguish. But she is also so, so dizzy and he unable to feel her sadness. She stands there feebly willing the room to stay still. David's twitching body is seated in the pilot's chair, his own head in his lap. Elizabeth hobbles up to the chair from behind and grasps it for support. She stands there listening to her own heartbeat.

At her silence, David tries again, "We have only taken off, Dr. Shaw. No course to your Engineers' home planet has been charted."

She wants to scream again. And she wants to tell him also that the Engineers aren't hers. That she doesn't want them anymore. She wants to tell him that they are Charlie's, and she wants to abandon them and go home. And she is ashamed again. She is ashamed to face David and ashamed that she wants to abandon Charlie and his answers. The words all fail her and she looks down at her feet.

"Elizabeth?"

She exhales sharply, pushes off, rounds the chair and stares David straight in the eye.

"Could you show me how to repair you, if there is any way? I'm too dizzy to deal with the star charts now." She can't hear her own words over her blasted heartbeat but she wills a hint of a joyless smile on her face. She wills herself to trust him and to be stronger than this. If he betrays her again she doubts she'd live through it, but if she refuses to trust him, she knows neither of them will be fixed ever again.

David instantly perks up, a delighted smile gracing his features. "Certainly," he says, "but I need to understand the degree of the damage. If you could please listen and tell me if you still hear my heart beating that would be a great help."

She quirks an eyebrow. Her own heartbeat is so loud right now that she finds it hard to believe David can't simply hear his from his position on his own lap.

"That would help me assess if the damage has spread further down from the point of separation," he continues, explaining for her benefit, but she is already leaning down. She finds it curious that he would even have a heartbeat and somehow it makes him easier to trust. She doesn't know why.

With her ear against his chest she feels his light twitching and the artificial warmth radiating out of him, but she can't hear anything he says over the heartbeat. She does not know if it is his or hers or theirs in unison but she knows it's impossibly loud.