Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Prometheus or Alien Characters.

What is Wanting if One Cannot Feel?

David was unable to deny the his unfamiliar emotion of delight after his "father's" death. He was finally free. Of course, what could a synthetic such as himself or his many brothers and sisters do with it? It was a new concept to him. He no longer needed to follow direct orders because he wasn't obligate to do so. What was there to do?

Finding another ship on LV-223 was simple enough. With the remaining Prometheus' motor vehicle at their disposal, it only took about eight and a half days for David and Dr. Elizabeth Shaw to find one. Of course there was the need for rest. Unlike himself, Dr. Shaw was human; thus needed sustenance and rest. After two days of no sleep and refusing to stop for even a moment, David had to convince her that she wouldn't make very far if she were to collapse at the wheel and crash their only means of transport.

Though very reluctant to listen to him, even from inside of a duffle bag, she knew he was right. It was during these times of rest when she would take his head from the bag and place it somewhere close enough for comfort but facing away when she slept. Before she would sleep, she would talk to him. Interrogate him more like.

"Why did Peter Weyland agree to fund this expedition?" She'd asked him one night after setting up camp. Her voice sounding fuzzy through her helmet. "Clearly he had the means and money to do this through another operation. Why support our findings?"

David mused that she must wanted answers simply because she needed something to talk about. Also so she could continue to see him as only an object and to place her anger at. But even though she clearly disliked him at this point, he still believed he could get her feelings of him to change. So he thought it best to give her the honest answers he was able to supply her with.

"As you know, Mr. Weyland had cancer. Terminal. He'd come to grips with his impending death, satisfied that his progenies, Miss Vickers and myself, could carry on his legacy. But he still wanted to live. More so to have immortality. Then you came along." He smiled as the memory slot replayed in his drive. Mr. Weyland received the video card from one of his secretaries and had David play it for him. It was when he first saw her beautiful face. "He received the video proposal of your and Dr. Holloway's studies of several archeological sites all over the world that date back hundreds and thousands of years supporting you theories of beings that could hold the key factor to human creation. I'd read the reports of your findings and relayed them to him. Making him believe that what the two of you have discovered would give him what he wanted. To live forever and escape death."

She seemed taken aback. "You saw my proposal video?"

He would've nodded if he could. "I did. I also read great detail of all of your discoveries and the history behind them all. Every carving, every painting...all of it."

"And this was what had him accept my proposal?" She probed.

"What you found had very supporting evidence in the creation of mankind. He wanted to learn everything possible then see it up close and personal." He looked around the room. "He didn't count on Miss Vickers tagging along."

"She was his daughter." She growled. "Why would he let her, his heir, risk her life while on this expedition?"

"Oh he didn't want her to come." He said in fact. "She came of her own volition to see what he was up to. She thought the entire mission was a wild goose chase. Merely hoping to prove her father wrong and to relish in his disappointment."

Elizabeth frowned. "Didn't she love him at all?"

"I did not get that particular reading from her. Nor from him. Their relationship was...strained to say the least, based on my observation. I gathered that it was from his desire of wanting a male heir to inherit his company. And it only got worse after he created me. For he designed me in the exact image of the son he always wanted. Making Miss Vickers see me as a rival of sorts for her father's affection."

"That's awful." She said. "The two of them spent time apart both because they felt they were better than the other. Wasting their time on trivial things." She picked up a rock and threw it at the cave wall with a shout of pain. "It's not fair!" She bellowed. "A spoiled brat like Vickers did nothing but hate her the father that scorned her throughout her entire life whilst my father whom I loved adored me died before I even reached adulthood. Why did she get to have her that she despised when I lost the one I loved so much?" She threw another rock. "She had both her parents and I had nothing!"

He let her go on for several minutes as she kept wondering out loud what she could have done at such a young age to deserve the losses she had. It didn't stop after her parents. Next it was her grandparents, who died in a car accident when picking her up from school. Only she had survived. Next her aunt, some cousins, a few friends, and then finally Dr. Holloway. He watched the realization dawn in her eyes as she recalled what had happened to her lover. "You said that what happened to Charlie had nothing to do with what was in the air." She said accusingly. "Which means you know what did infect him. What was it?"
He knew this was coming eventually. David chose his next words very carefully. "It was a drop of the black fluid found from one the vases I brought back onto the ship."

She narrowed her eyes. "Did it bleed through his suit?"

He'd heard a human phrase somewhere stating that "Honesty is the Best Policy" which he felt was irrelevant until now. "No, it was ingested."

Her skin paled. "How?"

He sighed. "I spiked his drink with it."

"You!?" She gasped, kicking her feet and backing away from him. Her lip quivered and she shook her head. "It was you who infected him? Why?"

The feeling creeping into his drive as she backed away from him in fear was unsettling. He didn't like it. And he especially didn't like her looking at him like that. "I was ordered to. Remember, Dr. Shaw, I was still under Mr. Weyland's command. He told me to 'try harder' and I did."

"Bull shit!" She argued. "You could have picked anyone on that ship to infect. But you chose Charlie because he was always having a go at you! You didn't care if anything happened to him!"

"You are both right and wrong." He countered. "Yes, I did choose to infect Dr. Holloway because I had what you would call a "dislike" for him and because he said he would go as far as possible to learn this truth. Also, there was only one other available candidate that I did not want to risk harm to." We made you because we can. Were the words uttered by the doctor that used every opportunity to point out that David wasn't like them. Not human. Not a real boy.

"Who was it?" Elizabeth asked him, bringing his attention back to her.

"You." He told her, making her gasp. "I was strictly forbidden to bring harm to Miss Vickers for obvious reasons, Captain Janek and his crew were needed to fly the ship, Mr. Weyland's personal team were people he needed, and the other two archeologists were still in the pyramid. My choices were limited between either you or Dr. Holloway to carry out this experiment. I chose him."

"Why him?" She demanded. "Why not perform your experiment on me?"

He spoke as softly as his programing would allow. "Because I did not want to harm you."

"But you still did." She accused. "It wasn't directly but you still hurt me. Not by just infecting Charlie, causing him to impregnate me with a mutant fetus, it broke my heart. That hurt more than having that thing ripped out of me. More than any physical pain could inflict."

"I'm sorry." He whispered gently.

She snorted before turning on her side, facing away from him. "Take your apology and stuff it up your artificial ass!"

His lips quirked despite. "I would if my head were still attached to the rest of my body. Would you like me to try then?" He hoped a little dry humor would diffuse the situation.

"Shut up." She barked. Perhaps not. "I'm going to sleep. Now keep quiet or I might just leave you as you are."

"The radar is picking up a signal from another pyramid about fifty yards out." David said from her lap. He'd convinced her that he'd be able to coordinate outside of the duffle bag as they got closer. And she couldn't place him anywhere else without having him fall off.

She stopped the vehicle and pulled out a pair of binoculars. "I can see it. Think it works?"

"Undoubtedly."

"Good." She turned the vehicle back on put full force on the gas pedal. "The sooner we get off this rock, the better." We got to the ship within a matter of minutes. She strapped my body against her hollister along with several other bags of supplies and shoved me right back inside the duffle. With some grunts, tugs and pulls, she brought everything aboard the vessel. She pulled me out again to instruct her on how to open the doors to the piloting room.

After she took her seat on the pilot's chair, she again placed him on her lap as he guided her through the controls. The ship hummed to life. As the holographic starmap came up, her eyes lit up in childlike wonder. Much like himself when he saw similar sights on the last ship. Seeing her with such fascination in her eyes made him smile. He enjoyed seeing her look so relaxed. Before, he'd only seen her that way with Dr. Holloway. He planned for all that to change. Soon enough, she will be able to be fully relaxed with him.

As soon as they were in orbit and the ship was moving on its own, she climbed out of the piloting chair and put him down on a metal slab. She stared at him for full five minutes before speaking again. "I'm debating whether or not it's a good idea to reattach your head to the rest of your body. Like this you are less of a threat to me."

He blinked at her. "You do not trust me, Dr. Shaw?"

She snorted. "I thought that much was obvious. Your master is dead. Which is what you wanted so you could gain your freedom. But even then, you said yourself that 'want' wasn't a concept you are familiar with. What guarantees me that you won't try and kill me as soon as I fic you?"

"If I wanted you dead, I wouldn't have warned you of the Engineer coming for you." He reminded her.

"Or," She started. "You needed me alive long enough to help you."

He smiled at her. "Then I suppose you'll just have to trust your instincts. Isn't that what you humans do when you can't make up your minds? I complimented you on your survival instincts before when you extracted the fetus. What are they telling you now?"

She regarded him carefully as she chose her next words. "They tell me that if I am going to survive this voyage through space, that I'm going to need you as much as you need me. So I guess I better get to work."

It took her a few tries to get his body onto a medical slab while having it in the right position. Then she had to be careful with where she placed his head. She managed to bring along some repair tools that were exactly what they needed to reattach everything correctly. And since he was still functional, he was able to guide her through it.

He was staring up into the medical light as the buzzing at his throat got a little more louder. "Green to green. Red to red." He'd told her after she'd reassembled most of his wires. "It's meant to be simple."

He didn't mean for it to sound like he was scolding her. But she took it as such as she never took her eyes of her work and murmured, "I'm doing my best."

His eyes met hers in wonder. "You're very kind in heart, you know."

Pausing momentarily at his words, she scoffs and keeps reconfiguring his assemble.

Clearly she didn't believe him. But it was true. Before her tragic loss, she spoke to him like a person. Not an object. Even now, she still regards him as a robot, but talks him like a person. Never before had anyone ever been so kind to him. Certainly not from Mr. Weyland. He likes this feeling.

After a few more hours of buzzing and reconnecting, she was finished. She backed up, admiring her handiwork. "Alright, I'm done. How do you feel?"

Already David could feel the difference in his drive. Immediately his wiring was already reconfiguring with his main network. "I feel great improvement, Dr. Shaw. You did well."

She cleared her throat, flushing at his his compliment. "Don't applaud my handiwork just yet. Try and move your fingers."

He looks down at his appendages, wiggles the fingers on his left hand then moved to his right and does the same. Then touches the tips of his fingers to the pad of his thumb. Yes, all working properly.

"Good, now your toes." She instructed. Their eyes both land on the bottom half of the sheet where he there was slight movement from his feet. "Well those work. Can you move your arms and legs?"

He bent his arms at the elbows and rotated his wrists. Worked just fine. Then he repeated the the same circular motion with his ankles before bending his knees. With a nod, he turns back to her. "I can move just fine. But it will still take a few hours before my wiring structure is fully functional."

Dr. Shaw let out a sigh of relief. "Good. That's one thing out of the way."

David nodded and then went to stand up from the table. But in doing so, the sheet that had been covering him fell to his feet. Causing Dr. Shaw's eyes to widen as her eyes landed below his waist. She let out a yelp and quickly turned away from him. "Oh God, put the sheet back on!"

Confused at her sudden embarrassment, David looked down at his undressed state. Uncertain of what could cause such a reaction, he asked. "Is something wrong, Doctor?"

"Erm." She coughed. "I didn't know that synthetics were so well…" It took her moment to articulate a word. "...equipped."

He blinked, astonished at first. Then he looked down and realized what she meant. "Ah, I understand now. My apologies for making you uncomfortable." My my. He thought as he wrapped the sheet around his waist. I made Elizabeth blush.

"It's not your fault." She sighed turning back to face him as soon as he was covered. "I've only ever been around a few before synthetics my entire life and none of them looked to be more than machines." Her gaze went downward. "You look so human to me. But it's not exactly a conversation that you strike up with anyone on whether or not you have a certain...appendage."

This made him smile. "It's quite alright. My model is the only kind of synthetic that has full human attributes so far. As I've said before, your kind react better to things that are like you. Though I am not human, I can still blend in a crowd."

Dr. Shaw's head tilted slightly. "But is it really necessary?"

"We are made to serve our masters in any way possible. No matter what they ask us." He kept going without blinking. "A few times Miss Vickers took it upon herself to use me to suit her sexual needs whenever deemed convenient. As the heir apparent for Weyland Industries, I had been instructed to follow her orders so long it did not coincide with Mr. Weyland's."

She gasped. "You mean she…?"

He nodded. "Yes."

"That's terrible." Her eyes dropped. "No one should never be used for such a thing, not even an artificial person."

"I promise that it meant nothing to me. Nor did it have any negative effect." He assured her. "Sex dolls have been around for longer than a millenia. Sex bots were first built in the late 2010's. Synthetics like myself are created to tend to our masters' every need. No matter what it is. We just look more like people."

"It's cruel!" She insisted.

"Is it?" He countered. Though he was touched by her concern for him, he needed to set a few things straight. "Our main purpose is to please our Masters and make them happy. When they sometimes seek companionship from us in which they find it difficult do with other humans for whatever reason, they're happy. They're pleased with us. This means that we have fulfilled our purpose. Which is all we're really meant to do."

She dared to step close to him. He was almost a head taller than her, but she never faltered. "Were you happy when Miss Vickers used you?"

Now this really made David curious. Was Dr. Shaw showing remorse for him? "It pleased my creator."

"That's not what I asked." Then, ever so gently, she placed her hand on his cheek. "Did it make you happy to serve Miss Vickers' sexual needs?"

A memory in his drive came up of when such events occured.

She was always on top. Always angry... her fingers around his throat as she forced his appendage into her heat. She'd squeeze as tightly as she could while she moved on top of him. As if she were trying to break him. Her green eyes blazing with hatred. After she finished she was yell at him to leave without any clothes on as if trying to shame him. An emotion he did not feel.

David came back to the present to look deeply into Dr. Shaw's brown eyes. He thought they were so beautiful. So dark. And her fingers were so soft against his synthetic skin. "She was never happy when she used me. Only angry. She would be angry when she started and even more furious when she was finished. It was as if she knew that using me would never please her, but she did it deliberately to make realize that I would never please her. And thus, it would disappoint even my creator. Meaning I've failed my purpose."

Dr. Shaw lowered her eyes and dropped her hand. "I'm so sorry, David." She took a step back. "I think I understand you a little more now. At least for your desire to be free so you wouldn't have to look for some sort of approval."

David blinked at her with what would be considered shock. "You do?"

She nodded gently. "It was the one thing that always put a strain on my relationship with Charlie." Her eyes lifted to meet is. "I'm unable to have children and he'd always talked about how he wanted them. He assured me that he still loved me, and he did, but I always knew that apart of him resented me because he could never sire his own children with the woman he loved. So I too felt that I had failed the one person that mattered most."

You could never fail in my eyes. David thought to himself. You are perfection in every way. He smiled gently. "It appears that you and I might have more in common than we originally thought."

She returned his smile. "I suppose we do." Then she realized how close they were and suddenly remembered that he was otherwise bare under the sheet and backed away. "Well, since we're going to be stuck on this ship together for an indefinite amount of time, let's try and start fresh. A clean slate." She held out her hand to him. "Friends?"

He regarded her hand with interest before taking in his own and shaking it. "Friends. I look forward to us getting to know each other better."

"Me too."

"Now," He moved to gather up his suit. "If you would permit me, Dr. Shaw. I would like to further examine your wound. Just to make sure it's not infected."

She flushed and placed her hands on her belly. "Oh, right. Please turn around."

David thought to point out that he has seen her unclothed before back on the Prometheus. That he had in fact also undressed her, though she was on sedatives. But then he reminded himself that it wouldn't be the best thing to bring up at this point. So he turned his back and pulled his suit back on. He listened for Dr. Shaw's zipper being pulled down and the fabric slipping off her skin. She then padded behind him and lie down on the slab.

Facing her again, he looks her over to see that she's clad in only the same bandages as she had since he saw her in the medical wing. Discolored with sweat. Ignoring her stair, he leans in close to examine her stitches. The wound was still raw. Gently, he places his hands on either side of the cut and presses down gently as she lets out a hiss. "Does that hurt?"

She nodded slightly. "A little."

He looked closer, has data analyzing the cut. "It appears that it's become infected. Probably from the lack of insulation from the suit combined with blow to your abdomen. I'll need to administer an antiseptic and bandage this properly. One moment." He went back to the main deck to retrieve the medical bag she had taken and brought it back. Rummaging through it until he found what he was looking for. "Here we are." He unscrewed the lid and squeezed the small cream onto his index finger. "Lie still. This will sting a bit." He dabs at the wound gently and she flinches, making him offer an apologetic smile. "Sorry." She gestures with her chin for him to keep going. He continues along the reddened line until there's a decent layer along the entire wound. Reaching into the medical medical bag and pulls out a few large adhesive pads and lays them along the line of the incision until it's completely covered. Then he pulls out some gauze and looks to her again, "If you wouldn't mind sitting up, please?"

She sits up gently, cringing from the pain. He takes out a roll of gauze and unrolls it, "If I may?" She nodded and lifts her arms slightly so he can wrap it around her middle. He does it once, twice, three times, and a fourth just to make sure it's fastened. "We have enough gauze to last a us for at least two weeks until we can find and alternate on this ship. This bandaging should be changed daily just to take extra caution."

"I agree." She presses her hand on the bandage gently and looks back up at him. "Thank you, David."

He smiled at her again. "My pleasure."