A/N: So sorry for the delay in posting this! I had a bunch of RL writing obligations to deal with, but I think I have them under control now! At least long enough to finish the story.

Chapter Warning: There's some relatively non-explicit sexual content. And some language.


Two weeks passed, and things settled back into their old familiar patterns. Meredith managed the mine as effectively as she could, sending reports back to Earth, running the numbers over and over. The mine was turning a profit. A small one, but enough that she opened a bottle of champagne the previous manager had left behind to celebrate. Of course, she had no one to celebrate with, really, except David.

She poured him a glass, but he only smiled and said, "I'm afraid it would be wasted on me."

She blinked at him, still unsure of what she had seen the day she found him in the cafeteria. "I know," she said, her voice chilly. "I just thought it was polite to offer."

"I appreciate it, ma'am."

He took his place beside the door and Meredith drank the champagne herself, watching the snow fall across the trees. There was nothing else to look at out here, but at least she'd made the mine turn a profit. That was something.

David. He'd returned to his old familiar patterns, too.

He continued to disappear at night. Meredith checked for bugs and cameras one late evening - David's actions hadn't shaken her paranoia that easily - but she found nothing. After that, she was able to relax more easily, and she spent her evenings watching films on her media screen, reading novels on her tablet. After awhile, she realized she didn't need to go out to the greenhouse anymore, either. Her job didn't overwhelm her, at least not to the point that her stomach would churn and tears would spill out unhindered.

She remembered that meeting with her father on the Martian office, all those months ago. Maybe he was right. Maybe experience was better than education.

God, she hated admitting that.

And so things carried on. Meredith's confidence was stronger, but she still didn't want to let her guard down in front of David. Part of her wanted to thank him, for leaving her alone at night, but she was nervous about admitting it out loud, as if her father might hear. So she didn't dare. Still, she felt herself softening towards him, more than was probably safe, and she smiled at him when he completed tasks for her, and it felt right.

They worked well together. She couldn't deny it, even if he was a spy. She enjoyed working with him more than she enjoyed working with anyone back at school.

One Friday afternoon, Meredith finished the week's tasks earlier than she expected. It was almost three o'clock. She powered down her computer and twirled around in her chair so that she was looking out over the trees, coated in a layer of freshly-fallen snow. The sun was out, coating everything with glitter.

"Ms. Vickers? Is everything all right?"

David's voice was close by, and when Meredith turned around she found him standing on her side of the desk, his hands clasped behind his back.

"What? Yeah, everything's fine." She kept looking at him after she answered. She could tell by the sharp angles of his face that he'd been designed to look like her father in his youth, but right now, in the slanted winter light, she couldn't see the resemblance. His eyes were different, larger and brighter, and the style and color of his hair threw off any similarities. Funny. The previous Davids hadn't been blond.

"I'm glad to hear that. Is there anything that needs to be done? You seem distracted."

"I finished everything for today." Meredith turned back to the window. The ghosts of their reflections stared back at her, layered on top of the snowy trees. "I'm not sure what to do with myself." She laughed.

Silence. Not that she expected David to respond.

But then he spoke.

"If I may, Ms. Vickers, I have a suggestion."

Meredith froze. His words set her on guard.

"A suggestion."

"Yes. For something we can do during the remainder of the day."

Meredith looked over at him. His stance was unchanged, but his expression had altered slightly - amusement? Hopefulness? There was always something uncanny about his features. They were too beautiful to read the way you would a human's, maybe.

"Did I miss something?" she asked, thinking of her work tasks.

"No, of course not. This would be -" David paused. "A recreational activity."

Meredith stared at him.

"You haven't seen much of LV-183. Perhaps you'd like to."

Meredith's survival instincts set in. She reminded herself that his eyes were a camera, and that her father was on the other side.

"There's not much of LV-183 to see," she said lightly.

"I beg to differ." David moved closed to her, then knelt beside her chair in a strange gesture of supplication. He gazed up at her and for a split second Meredith was drawn to him, a crack of desire running through her body. It was followed by a creep of horror - feeling that, for him, would be the worst of ideas, not because he was synthetic and technically a product of her company, but because he was programmed to be her father's assistant.

David continued on. "There's an astronomical occurrence that occurs several kilometers north of here. I saw it once and found it quite remarkable. I thought you might be interested."

"A - an astronomical occurrence?" The words felt like a foreign language. "What are you talking about?"

"Lights from the magnetic fields. Rather like the auroras on Earth, but -" He stopped, smiled. "Different."

Meredith looked down at him. A lock of his hair had fallen across his forehead and she had the strongest urge to reach over and push it aside.

No. No, that would be stupid.

"David, I'm going to ask you a question," she said. "And I would like you to answer me honestly if you can."

"I'll always answer you honestly."

Meredith blinked, shook her head. He was probably programmed to say that. "Is this some sort of - Did Mr. Weyland ask you to do this?"

David stared at her like he was trying to understand something. "No," he said. "Mr. Weyland doesn't know about the magnetic fields."

"Then why -"

"I thought you might like to see them. And you're finished with the day's work, as you said." David stood up and held out his hand, palm up. She thought about the last time she had touched his hand, how stunned she'd been by it.

"Several kilometers north," she said, and David dropped his hand to his side, that faint trace of smile disappearing from his mouth. "That's - that's getting into the plateaus, isn't it? The gulches? Isn't the temperature there -"

"Considerable colder, yes."

"And it'll be dark soon." Dread crawled over her. Taking her into the isolated cold like this - Jesus, was her father trying to kill her? No, that didn't make any sense. He'd fire her before he killed her.

Would he?

"I'm not going to hurt you." David lay his hand over Meredith's, and she jolted at the suddenness of his touch. But she also didn't pull away. "I told you, Ms. Vickers, I don't show your father everything. I wouldn't show him this."

Meredith's chest tightened. David looked down at her and everything about him was gentle, guileless, and inhuman.

"I'd like to show you this very much," he said. "And I'd like very much if you would trust me."

"Trust you," Meredith whispered.

David nodded. His fingers closed around hers.

He looked nothing like her father.

"Okay," Meredith said, and she felt as if she'd been detached from her body, as if some other force was speaking for her. "Okay, I'll go."

David smiled, and then so did she.


The rover bounced over the snow. Dry heat blasted in Meredith's face. She wore a thermal and sweater, but her parka was folded up in the back with the rest of the supplies: a pair of flashlights, a portable heater that could convert to a stove if necessary, packets of freeze-dried foods.

"How long do you expect this to take?" Meredith had asked when she saw it all.

"About half the night. I wanted you feel reassured." David smiled, but Meredith hadn't felt reassured, not exactly. But she also wasn't suspicious enough to call off the trip.

They rode in silence. It was already dark out and the rover's lamps cast wide yellow circles across the snow, the spray from the rover's wheel sparkling like static in the light. Meredith folded her arms over her chest and peered out of the thick-glass window, up at the starry night sky. She could make out a sliver of LV-184, the planet around which this moon orbited, hanging like a sickle in the darkness.

"How much longer?"

"Another ten minutes or so." David smiled. "We're almost there." They'd been driving for nearly two hours, most of it in shared silence. Meredith had used that time to consider all the possible outcomes to this trip. Death, of course, lurked at the back of her thoughts, but she still didn't quite believe her father was capable. It was more likely this was another test, but Meredith could only see the parts of it, and she couldn't knit them together. Or maybe David had malfunctioned. That happened too, although rarely, and if that was the case -

If that was the case, Meredith should never have gotten in this rover.

All she could see was snow and night sky. David slowed the rover down, and Meredith felt consumed by the emptiness of this place, the cavernous darkness closing in around them both.

"You'll want to put on your parka." David stopped the rover for no clear reason that Meredith could see. He reached into the back and handed it to her, then put on his own parka, the result of a scrap of programming meant to make him less off-putting. He didn't need it for warmth.

They climbed out of the rover.

The wind slammed into her, a thousand knives slicing open her face. She turned away and tightened the hood on her parka and that helped some. She'd been on LV-183 long enough that she thought she was used to the cold, but no human could ever get used to cold like this.

David took her by the arm, startling her. She looked at him. He'd kept the rover's lamps on and they carved his face into shadows.

"Are you going to kill me?" she asked. Speaking it aloud, she didn't feel afraid at all, but strong, as if she'd caught on to his plot.

David's expression flickered, almost like she'd wounded him. "Of course not. If you'd like to go back -"

"No." She was strong; she'd made the mine turn a profit. She'd stood up her father, by proving him wrong about her abilities - she could stand up to an android, if she wanted. "We came this far."

David smiled. The shadows on his face shifted. "We have to walk to the edge of the ridge."

He was still holding her arm, and he didn't let go as they walked away from the rover and the pools of yellow light. Darkness closed in on them.

"I can't see," Meredith said.

"I can." David paused. "Would you like a flashlight?"

"Yes. Jesus Chris, David."

"My apologies, ma'am." He fumbled with his coat and then a disk of flat shined against the snow. "Better?"

"I guess." They moved forward. Meredith's eyes watered and she imagined ice forming on her lashes and cheeks. She pressed close to David without thinking. "Are you sure we won't walk off the edge?" Her question vibrated from the cold.

"I'm quite sure. We're almost there."

And then they weren't in darkness anymore.

Meredith gasped, not understanding how the lights - the magnetic field, David called it - could come on so quickly. One moment the world was choked out by darkness and the next spirals of color, orange and red and white, swirled through the sky, drowning out the stars and staining the snow with color. Meredith stared at them, her breath in her throat. She'd felt small from the moment she had first met her father as a child, but right now she felt infinitesimal, like an atom, a tiny part of something enormous.

"Do you like it?" David asked.

"Y-yess." Her teeth knocked against each other. The cold and the beauty in the sky both made her dizzy. "H-how did you f-find -"

"Would you like my coat?"

Meredith looked at him. The lights played across his face and hair, turning him into something new. He wasn't supposed to do that. He didn't have that programming to protect humans from harm, and he wasn't supposed to do anything to ruin the facade of his humanity.

"Ms. Vickers?"

"Yes." She didn't realize that was her answer until she said it. "Yes, I'd like your damn coat."

He shrugged out of it, revealing the thin sweater he wore underneath. He draped the parka over her shoulders and she slipped her arms into the sleeves as best she could. It barely fit over her clothes, but it did help, that extra layer of warmth.

"We can stay as long as you like."

"O-okay."

They watched the lights together. They didn't speak. Meredith wasn't sure what she would even say.

But then David broke the silence.

"I saw this when Mr. Weyland sent me here the first time, to watch over Mr. May." He was staring up at the sky, unblinking. He was supposed to blink, too. "One night I left the facility and drove north -"

"You aren't supposed to do that."

David tilted his head, studying her. "I know."

"Then why -"

"Because I discovered that I could."

Meredith stared at him. He looked away from her, back up to the lights.

"The mine is as far north as humans have ever come. Until now." He smiled and the light washed across his face. Beautiful. He was beautiful.

Meredith shoved the thought deep down inside herself.

"W-why me?" Meredith was still shivering violently, despite the extra coat. "W-why not m-my f-father?"

David turned to her again, and his expression was unreadable in the eerie flame-colored light. He stared at her for a long time, and Meredith finally said, "Well?"

Another pause. He wasn't going to answer. Meredith turned back to the veins of light splitting open the sky.

And then David said, "Your heart."

"E-excuse me?" Meredith looked at him. He was still staring at her.

"Your heart, Ms. Vickers. It gives off heat. All human hearts do. And I can see it."

Meredith went very still.

"Every human heart has a different pattern. Some are more pleasing than others. The first time I saw yours, it reminded me of the magnetic fields here on LV-183." He gestured with one hand and for the first Meredith noticed he hadn't put on gloves. She stared at the bare skin, shivering, and then it struck her what he'd said.

"My h-heart reminds y-you of this?"

"Yes. That's why I showed it to you. I wanted you to see how beautiful your heart is."

Meredith couldn't breathe. She sucked in the cold air and it burned in her lungs. She was dizzy. Everything was wrong. He wasn't supposed to do this. He wasn't supposed to speak this way, or feel this way, or feel at all.

She took one step back, her foot sinking into the snow. "This is a t-test," she whispered. "From Father. He sent you to test me."

David caught her by the wrist. "Don't wander off without a flashlight. We're on the edge of the ridge and the lights are bright enough to illuminate - ."

"Dammit, David, let me go! This isn't fucking fair! You t-tell him that! W-what does this have to d-do with any -"

"It's not a test." David dropped her wrist but she stayed in place. The cold burned her cheeks. She was crying. Her tears were turning to ice on her skin. "Mr. Weyland asked me to monitor you, and nothing more. Everything I do isn't a test."

Meredith took a deep, shuddery breath. David stared at her for a moment, and then he reached up and touched her face, his fingertips warm enough to melt her tears away.

"David," she said.

"It's not a test."

And like that, she believed him. For the first time, she looked at him and she didn't think of him as an extension of her father. That was a dangerous line of thinking, perhaps, but now that she had uncovered it, she couldn't let it go.

He was separate. She was separate.

"I w-want to go back," she said. "It's too cold."

"Of course, Ms. Vickers." He hesitated for a moment before taking her by the elbow. She let him. His touch was a comfort, and when she glanced at him in the shifting light, she felt a quiver in her chest. He thought her heart was beautiful.

She was cold, and tired, and confused.

They climbed back into the rover. Meredith peeled off the top parka, David's parka, but she left on her own during the drive back. Meredith only spoke once. She said, "Thank you for showing that to me, David. It was remarkable."

She didn't look at him. She looked at the darkness and tried to imagine it filled with light.

"I'm glad you enjoyed it," David said.

They returned to the domestic facility, driving the rover into the garage with all the others. Meredith stepped out, still wearing her parka. Dawn was a few hours away.

She looked at David, who regarded her the way he always did. During the two hours in the rover, she began to realize he had surpassed her father's plans for him. That he was more than his programming. She didn't know what that meant, only that it was important, and significant, and her father should never know.

And also that it dazzled her the way the lights had.

"I'm going to my quarters." She couldn't say what she was thinking, what she wanted. She didn't have the words for it.

"Of course."

They walked side by side down the hall, the way they always did. The only difference was that it was night instead of day, and they were alone.

Meredith entered the code for her quarters and stepped inside. David followed. The door swished shut. She made no move to remove her many layers of clothes, only stared at her reflection in the narrow window. Her reflection. David's reflection.

"David," she said, her voice rough and her heart pounding. "Help me undress."

She did not need help undressing. David knew that. But he unzipped the parka and pulled it away from her shoulders anyway. The blood rushed to Meredith's head. She could hardly think straight and she couldn't believe she was doing this, couldn't believe she wanted this.

But she did.

David pulled the sweater over her head. He was close to her, as close as he had been the day of the fight in the cafeteria, the day she had felt that energy spark between them.

She felt that energy now, burning her up.

"Your shoes?" David asked.

Meredith nodded. He knelt in front of her and she sat down and he pulled the boots off, one at a time, and then the thick thermal socks, until his cool dry hands were touching her bare feet. He stood up and watched her expectantly. Meredith knew what she wanted but she was too afraid to put it into words.

She stood up. David did not look away from her. She took took his hands and brought them to the snaps on her snow pants. He hesitated, his expression unreadable.

"Go on," she whispered, and speaking only made her more dizzy. She shouldn't do this. She shouldn't jeopardize her entire career because of a fucking android. But as he pulled apart the snaps on her pants, she realize she didn't think of him as an android at all.

And that was dangerous.

David guided her to the bed and nudged her down until she was sitting. He pulled her snow pants off one leg at at time. For a moment she thought he would stop, that maybe it wasn't about what she wanted but what about what he didn't want - but then he was sliding the thermal leggings over her hips, down her thighs, revealing the bare skin underneath.

She stared up at him, heart pounding, breath coming short and fast. She was still in her underwear, the bra and panties different colors. Now David was the overly-dressed one - she thought about him standing in the snow without his parka, snowflakes landing in lacy patterns on his hair.

"Would you like to go to bed, Ms. Vickers?" he asked.

Meredith laughed. Once, quickly, and then she slammed her hand over her mouth.

David tilted his head. "Is something funny?"

"No, it's just - 'go to bed' is -" She fumbled for the words, feeling like she was back at boarding school, naked with a boy she met in the nearby village and too afraid to ask for what she wanted "-It's an old-fashioned way of asking if someone would like to have sex."

David stared at her for a long time. Then he said, "I know."

Meredith's breath caught. "Was that - was that what you were asking -"

He didn't take his eyes off of her. Meredith felt wild, reckless. She wondered what her heart looked like now.

"Yes," he said.

Her head buzzed.

"Would you like to go to bed?" he asked again, and there it was, laid out in the open. She had to answer. Her mouth was dry and her body prickled with sweat and she thought about the lights moving through the darkness.

"Yes," she whispered.

David didn't move. Meredith shifted on the bed, suddenly aware of her nakedness. She crossed her hands over her stomach.

"Well?" she said, voice wavering, a little indignant. "Was that the answer you wanted -"

He knelt down and kissed her, one smooth movement she didn't see coming. At first she didn't know what to make of it - she was kissing a robot, no one did that, it was illicit and unsavory - but then she melted into the kiss, melted into him, and none of that social programming mattered anymore.

They fell backwards on the bed. David's suit was dry and scratchy against her skin, and she slipped her hands up underneath it, feeling the muscles in his back, the way they moved with him, as any man's would. He kissed along her jawline and down her throat and she gasped and ran her fingernails against his skin. He seemed hesitant at first, slow and careful and calculated, but as she began to breathe more heavily his touch became more assured. He slipped off her bra and kissed over her breasts, then he slipped off her underwear and his head moved between her legs and Meredith stopped thinking about anything. She gasped up at the ceiling, pressed one hand into his hair, arched her back.

She came. Quickly, easily, as if she were already used to him. He peered up at her over the planes of her breast and stomach. She smiled through her gasping breaths, touched his face with her fingertips.

"So who've you been practicing on?" As soon as she spoke she regretted it; this wasn't a time to put up her shields.

"No one." David slid into the bed beside her. Meredith kissed him, as a test, and when he kissed back, she peeled away his suit. Part of her expected to find machinery underneath, but it was only skin, creamy and smooth and etched with lines of musculature. On the left side of his chest, marking the place where his heart would be if he were human, was a scar in the shape of the Weyland Industries logo.

Meredith's stomach lurched at the sight of it. She curled up against him and her fingers found their way to the logo regardless, the ridges slight and rough. David moved her hand away, lower down on his chest. Meredith's cheeks burned, but he didn't seem upset. He stroked her hair, staring at her like he was waiting for a command.

For a few breathless moments, they stayed that way, pressed together. Meredith could feel her blood pumping through her body, quick with desire. She felt no movement from David except his hand in her hair. She didn't want to think about that stupid logo. Didn't want to think about Weyland Industries at all.

She propped herself up on her elbow. "So what else can you do?"

"Many things." He lifted his shoulders so their mouths met in a kiss, and then he pulled her on top of him and she slid into place, legs on either side of his hips, her hand reaching down to find him, hard and waiting. She sank down on him and cried out and David said, "Did I hurt you?" And Meredith shook her head, pleasure sparking through her body. "You fit perfectly," she whispered, and it was true. He filled her up.

David smiled, the same distant smile as always. "I'm glad to hear that."

It sounded so much like him that Meredith laughed, utterly charmed. Then he began to move, rocking his hips against hers, and desire overcame her. She moved with him, her head thrown back, the pleasure so intense it almost hurt. She dropped her hand between her legs and David knocked her fingers and said, "Allow me." And she did.

He brought her to orgasm again, drawing it out this time, so that she felt it shuddering deep inside her. For a few seconds she lost herself completely. David stared at her the entire time, his expression full of wonder, as if they were back out under the lights of the magnetic field.

And then he let out a short hard gasp and dug his fingers into her thighs. And Meredith, despite her daze, knew exactly what that meant, knew she had just discovered that another supposed impossibility wasn't impossible at all.

Meredith collapsed beside him. She couldn't think straight. David wrapped his arm around her shoulder, drawing her in close. It was the only place she wanted to be, next to him. Because she knew leaving his side meant stepping back out into the world - LV-183, a Weyland world. And when that happened, this connection, whatever it was, whatever had caused it, would be severed.

She closed her eyes, shutting reality away.