Having spent what felt like an age turning the vessel upside-down, at first shuffling from location to location to carefully sift through the clutter but gradually surrendering to impatience and doing her best impression of a stomping, grunting Human jackhammer as she shoved aside piles of mystery components and upturned drawers, Elizabeth finally happened upon what she was looking for completely by accident. The Engineer had settled back on the couch with an armful of equipment and calmly watched as she raced about the lifeboat in an increasingly frantic manner and, much to her chagrin, had stifled a snort of laughter against a closed fist as she'd tripped on the edge of the coffee table as she'd rushed through and vaulted forward with melodramatic flair, wrenching it open on the edge of her calf and leaving a gouge in the flesh that remained intent on bleeding for at least a few minutes thereafter.
While she noted he had fascinated over the injury, apparently as curious as he was vaguely horrified by it, she had spotted a silvery glint amongst the miscellaneous crap that had spewed from the drawer amid the chaos; pressing a dish towel against the gouge with one hand, she plucked the palm-sized metallic device from the floor with the other, cursing at it emphatically before tossing it onto the table with a loud enough clatter that it had startled her guest from his intent gaze.
Casting the bloodied rag further down the table, she turned her attention back to the hard-won device sitting between the two of them; fingertips brushing over its bevelled surface as she hunted for the controls, she reached for the tablet with her free hand and brought up the lifeboat schematics she'd been grappling with earlier.
Za'il had apparently happened upon a similar thought, and had set about fumbling with a somewhat smaller device of distinctly non-Human origin as he stood and paced toward the glass windows nearby. He paused intermittently to cast her a brief glance or two as he worked, holding the device in the general direction of the crashed Engineer vessel looming in the shadow of the mountains; she barely noticed, focused on her own task of forcing her own technology to sync despite its best attempts to refuse.
Brute force and ignorance once again proved to be the day's victor, with the tablet yielding to her commands and the panel beneath her hand finally lighting up with an affirmative green. Breathing a triumphant huff, she set about calibrating the device as the Engineer paced past her and back over to the storage crates, gently dropping his own technology on the table along the way. When he sat back down she was still working on unearthing the contraption secrets, resisting the urge to resort to percussive methods as the display burped up errors in red.
The Engineer had commandeered the pad as she worked, watching her troubleshoot with as much calm as she could muster before pressing the nearest pen against its surface, by now quite heavily embossed through multiple pages and somewhat warped from being grabbed, dropped, leaned against, slid across surfaces, fiddled with and flipped through. He scribbled a quick note and slid it across the table with a deliberate, restrained grace that was beginning to grow familiar. It had since become reflex to swap the tablet back to the Sumerian dictionary perpetually running in the background, and she set about decoding his message with speed that both surprised and impressed her. A painful process, gradually becoming less so.
Your blood is a strange colour.
She couldn't help but chuckle below her breath. All this time she had been so intrigued by him, oscillating between fear and awe with dizzying frequency, so intensely aware that she was now the only living Human in recent history to have encountered a non-terrestrial person, that she'd almost completely forgotten that he, too, was in the presence of an alien creature of a species he'd likely never encountered before.
It struck her that he'd paid very little interest in her up until this point; sure, he had offered what passed as medical care while she was still in pieces and had made sure she was warm while she was sprawled across the couch, wounded, but apart from dragging her across the room as he prohibited her from following him, his interest had been chiefly on his own ship and, later, the reading material and art around the lifeboat. He had barely acknowledged her presence unless he was required to.
She had to admit, the attention left her feeling a little bare. Would he judge her entire race by this one example oozing red before him?
Of course he will. I'm doing the same of him.
Perhaps it was worth capitalising on this sudden interest. Flipping through the translations again, she penned a response.
And yours?
He observed her for a breath after reading her response, then reached for one of the items he'd brought to the table with one hand, picking it up and twisting the base until a broad, black, somewhat teardrop-shaped structure popped free. After a brief bout of staring she finally recognised the object, the shape and size of it recognisably a jar just like the one that had contained the fire-and-ice goo that'd sealed her caesarean scar like glue. Whether or not it was the same thing was beyond her, but at least she could guess what it was. Still watching her, he ran the tip of the black blade against the tip of his middle finger for just a few millimetres; the edge split his translucent skin in a thin, clean line, and the resulting incision needed little encouragement to bleed.
The bead that rose to the surface of his marblesque skin was obsidian black, or so damn near it she couldn't tell either way. He let it drip onto the dishrag below, the viscous droplets that fell quickly absorbing into the fabric alongside the deep red mess she'd left behind. At their outer edges, the Engineer's blood drops faded to a deep indigo – if not for the harsh lighting above, she would have still assumed it to be black, starkly contrasting the vibrant crimson soaking the towel in heavy smears.
No wonder he'd felt the need to comment.
"That's quite something," she breathed as he twisted the top half of the jar, holding the incision at the tip of his finger away from the contents as the lid popped free; she was not at all surprised to see iridescent white goo bubbling within the thick, grey walls of the vessel, and watched with intrigue as the substance gradually stilled after he placed it on the table.
After smearing a quick dab against the cut he'd inflicted upon himself for mere demonstration, he murmured something in his own tongue and motioned with the other hand with a 'come here' gesture as he scrutinised the mess she'd made of her leg. When she offered little response, attention torn between the mending wound on his finger and the device demanding input an arm's reach away, he said something else unintelligible with a little more firmness and pointed at the gouge on her leg with an index finger, then repeated the first gesture.
Ah. That should have been obvious, she mused as she rotated on the couch raised her leg onto the table; at this rate she was certain they would be leaving a dent in the supply of whatever-the-stuff-was, but if he wasn't shy about chewing through it, she reasoned there was little need to worry.
The sensation of an enormous hand grasping her ankle sent a jolt of electricity through her body, ricocheting from her head to her toes and demanding just about all of her self-control not to flinch. Once again she found herself marvelling at the scale of the creature – his fingers had no trouble in completely encircling her limb, holding her in place effortlessly while his free hand retrieved the sharp implement that had fallen from the bottom of the jar.
As strange as it was, and despite knowing better from the brief, sporadic encounters of touch she had experienced thus far, her mind had long since decided that the Engineer's appearance, sharing more than just a passing resemblance to the myriad of stone statues marking Earth's many cultures' passage through time, meant that he must also feel like marble – cold, smooth, and hard. The hand grasping her ankle was anything but, with an alarmingly familiar soft warmth about the digits gently holding her still. Idly, her mind plucked at the theories that had brought her here in the first place; despite him clearly being from nowhere near Earth, there were enough striking similarities between the giant and her own hairy, fleshy species that it simply made sense that they were somehow related. As cagey as he seemed about interacting with her, what little he'd shown her only further convinced her that somewhere, somehow, they were distantly of the same flesh and blood.
Oblivious to the cogs turning in her mind, Za'il set about dipping the blunt end of the implement into the jar of goo then set about running a thin strip of the substance over the length of the gouge along her calf. She supposed it wasn't necessarily normal practise for one to dip their fingers into medical supplies and smear it around, though with a broken arm and a torn belly between them, she supposed there was little either of them could have done differently when they first addressed their injuries several days prior.
Having released his grasp on her ankle, the Engineer set about cleaning the instrument up with an unmarked section of the dish towel; the chill of the substance going about its work had already begun, and having placed her foot back on the deck, Shaw sucked in a breath and surrendered to the impending, inevitable sensation overload awaiting her.
Murmuring a few words in a slow, deliberate manner, Za'il caught her gaze as he mimed a bracing motion, demonstratively gripping at the edge of the coffee table for a drawn moment before resuming his tidying. The searing pain of her last experience with the stuff would remain forever etched into her mind, and it took little imagination to interpret his message. Grasping the cool surface with both hands, she squeezed her eyes shut and impatiently waited for the icy sting to explode into fire.
It did not disappoint; within a breath the searing cold gripping the gouge had burst into veritable flames, the muscles in her leg quaking uncontrollably as the overwhelming sensation of someone pressing her calf against molten steel gripped every inch of her psyche. Though it elicited an agonised cry from her throat, though she clung to the table as if it were a life raft, a tiny, calm voice in the back of her head observed that the pain simply wasn't as tremendous as the first time, likely owing to the vastly more superficial wound and the meagre slick of the stuff at play compared to half the damn jar spewed throughout her innards. It did little to distract from the searing heat, however.
"Goddamn," she cursed despite herself, immediately swallowing the pangs of guilt for her blasphemy, "God, it hurts…"
Having reassembled the jar, complete with its applicator device, the Engineer cast her what looked, through a mist of tears, like a brief sympathetic glance, then busied himself with other pieces of equipment. She barely registered it as the fire clinging to her flesh gradually dulled, filling the spaces in her mind that finally revealed themselves beyond the haze of agony with the task at hand. Once she was done being a mess, it was time to do exactly as Za'il had suggested earlier and begin planning a way off this foetid world.
Muscles throughout her leg took turns cramping painfully as their uncontrollable shaking reached critical mass, intermittently locking up her thigh and calf with stabbing sensations that rivalled the fierce flames against her skin. What remained of the intellectual portion of her mind, arguably as overwhelmed as the rest of her, found itself pondering the processes that were going on with the healing substance that caused so much goddamn pain; was it forcing damaged flesh back into place, or was it stimulating the body to do it all on its own? Was it leveraging her existing biology, or was it re-writing it? Though she would likely never find out, she yearned to unlock its secrets – if only for the satisfaction of having at least some answers.
As it had before, without warning, the burn morphed into a significant tugging sensation, albeit significantly milder than it had been the first time. Less to tug on, she reasoned, finally releasing her breath and her grasp on the table to look down at her spasming, cramping calf. Indeed; the substance had dried to a thin film this time, rather than a thick, translucent band of glue-like goo. Stealing a moment to mop the confounded tears from her vision with the back of a hand, Shaw raised her leg back onto the table with the aid of her other arm and coughed softly to get the Engineer's attention.
Pausing in his work, he took a quick look at the white, flaking film and, with practised nonchalance, tugged it free by its lower edge. Aside from the remaining smears of blood in the area, it was of course though she had never ripped herself open in a fit of clumsiness; only the faintest of white, shiny scars remained, still cool and tingling from the onslaught. With little more than a subtle nod of approval, the Engineer simply went back about his business.
Time for her to do the same.
The clumsiness had extended to her troubleshooting, she realised with bashful disdain; if the tablet wasn't searching for the device, then it was unlikely to find it. Rolling her eyes as she lamented her sloppy handiwork, she set about rectifying the problem with deft, impatient hands and sat back as the device in the middle of the table finally flickered to life.
With a faint electronic beep, a projected, glowing image of the lifeboat flickered into existence above the table; the crisp, white blueprint sat almost a metre from bow to stern and half a metre high, its crystalline wireframe faintly illuminating the immediate area.
The Engineer jerked backward with its sudden appearance, dark eyes wide for a drawn moment before relaxing with amused understanding. There was the faintest echo of laughter about his voice as he muttered something under his breath, shaking his head as he pressed the tips of two fingers against a panel of one of his own devices he'd placed not far from the projector.
Elizabeth's reaction was no different from his as a similarly white shape exploded into pearls of light, its wispy holographic edges emanating from the black, circular device further along the table. Reflexively recoiling back against the couch with an undignified yelp, she stared in wide-eyed awe at the horseshoe-shaped ship that had materialised alongside the projection of her own. He really had stumbled upon the same idea, hadn't he?
Unsurprisingly, her somewhat panicked scuffle across the furniture had elicited another huff of laughter from the immense alien. Shaking his head again, his attention drifted between the two projections, dark eyes drinking in the stark differences between the utilitarian lines of the lifeboat, and the intense, elaborate detail of the Engineer ship. Colour was all the two images had in common.
"Good thinking," she mumbled as she willed her heart to still with a grin. Right hand once again fumbling with the projector controls, she reached up with her left to trace her fingers across the lifeboat wireframe in a sweeping wave, rotating it about its central axis so the bow pointed toward her. "Let's see how bad this really is."
A press of a button added a flourish of colour to the hologram, with damage showing as a gamut of yellows, oranges and reds; the port side of the ship was peppered with smatterings of red, much of it focused on the largely missing FTL nacelle and the abused thrusters along its belly. Other sections of the hull remained unmarred and glowing white, particularly the uppermost regions and much of the starboard side. The damaged nacelle, she realised, had been rendered by the hologram in its present state, rather than simply highlighted as requiring attention as it had when the data had been displayed on the tablet before her most intense scans. As nice a touch as that was, it wasn't confidence-inspiring.
Having apparently drawn enough information from briefly observing her fiddling and swiping, Za'il reached one large hand toward the lifeboat hologram and cautiously swiped in the same manner, twisting the vessel about to examine the torn nacelle more closely. Leaning closer with an intent scowl, he seemed to scrutinise every little detail for quite some time, rocking the ship back and forth intermittently as one thing after another caught his eye; scowl deepening, he murmured something in his own tongue whilst casting Shaw a grim, thin-lipped glance, punctuating his words with a heavy sigh.
Seemingly uninterested in dwelling on the crumpled red mess for long, he spun the vessel around to examine the entrance by the stern; though he had passed through it several times by this point, seeing it in miniature must have given him context he lacked before. Asking what sounded like a question, though she hadn't a hope of understanding it, he rotated the ship around so the main airlock faced her, and traced a pointed index finger around the outline of the lifeboat's docking port.
At a wild guess, she assumed he'd recognised it as belonging to part of a larger ship. Couldn't hurt to provide him with that information, could it?
After a brief argument with the tablet, she fed the projector the schematics for the rest of the ship and sat back and watched as the lifeboat quickly shrank to less than a tenth of its size, its outer reaches replaced by the far more robust, mitred outlines of the Prometheus.
Wide-eyed realisation flooded the Engineer's expression as he openly gawped at the ship; after an extended moment his gaze darted to the bay windows beside them, tracing the landscape beyond in the wake of his own crashed ship, trailing the debris field scattered for miles between the lifeboat and the towers and well beyond. Little was left recognisable, such was the totality of the Prometheus' destruction, but the tell-tale circular hoop of the rear of an FTL engine had fallen within view of the window. His eyes lingered for an age, picking apart the charred and twisted metal sprawled before them as if he'd finally noticed its existence in the first place. Perhaps, in fact, he had.
Swallowing hard, he finally returned his attention to the projection of the larger vessel; an index finger traced the tail end of one of the Prometheus' FTL nacelles, quickly locating the wreckagein situ, its remains outside glowing a faint purple beneath the gas giant's glow in the pre-dawn haze. He openly drank in the ship's scale, flitting between the lifeboat tucked safely away and the rest of the vessel dwarfing it, twisting the hologram to and fro with obvious apprehension as much as awe, wide eyes struggling with vastly more than what was merely presented before him.
He drew a breath and reached for the pad, fumbling with a pen whose nib refused to stay in place the moment he pressed it to paper. Another found favour after several tries; he scribbled a note, then flipped the pad around for her to read.
She had already flicked the dictionary open, grabbing a pen herself as she immediately set about decoding the message.
How many were on board?
As far as she could recall, it had been seventeen; most she had interacted with very little, despite supposedly leading the expedition. In reality, she realised, it had been a veritable tug-o'-war between Charlie and David, with the man and the android alike vying for progress in their chosen direction, seeking means to their own ends. She had spent so much of their away missions staggering along behind them, questioning their decisions and watching on, aghast, as both had respectively lost their goddamn minds and done things that, in hindsight, had led directly to all manner of disastrous misadventures. Perhaps if the crew had spent more time actually listening to her, they would have been alive to…
Seventeen. Sixteen of whom were dead. She began to pen a response…
No, it had been eighteen, hadn't it? Weyland's appearance out of nowhere had come at a surprise, just when she'd thought she had reached the limit of how much surprise she could cope with.
She scratched out her response and corrected it.
Eighteen.
Pursing his lips, he offered a solemn nod. No words were needed; the understanding that she was the sole survivor was mutual. No one had returned for her, and no one could have survived the impact that had lain to waste the mighty ship hanging before them in beams of white. He cast the Prometheus one last lingering stare, seemingly writing the Human technology off as a dead end just as she did the same, instead turning his attention toward the projection of his own vessel.
With a soft sigh, he shifted on his seat and reached forward to tap at a series of buttons on his own projector; just as had been done to the lifeboat, the immense juggernaut ignited with colour about the surfaces that had come crashing back into the planet's surface, only displaying a haze of cyan and blue in place of the glaring reds saturating the smaller vessel. The entire forward section of the horseshoe ship glowed in scattered blue, deepest and darkest where it now lay against the rocks outside and matching damage on the rear of the main body. This, she realised, must have been where the Prometheus made impact.
Cyan engulfed much of the rear of the vessel in a blast-radius halo, staining the entire arc from the body through to the inside surfaces of both trailing arms – presumably damage from the resulting catastrophic explosion. How the ship was in one piece at all remained a mystery; she could only assume that the Engineers' advantage of time spent in space had resulted in far more robust vessels, but the stunning difference in crash damage between the two ships was nevertheless astounding beyond description. They had so much left to learn…
By now Za'il had his head in one hand, the other half-heartedly twisting the vessel to-and-fro between pinched fingers as he tried to make sense of just how much of the ship was lit up in blue. The projection, unlike that of the lifeboat, also showed up internal systems in a state of disrepair. Just what it all meant was beyond her, but given the position of at least some of the components in screamingly dark blue, she assumed propulsion had fared no better than her own ship's. Given the scale of the ship, any attempt at repairs would likely be even more of an undertaking than what they faced with the lifeboat.
Releasing a heavy, exasperated breath, he flicked the projection aside with an overwhelmed wave and leaned back as he rubbed at his face with both hands, collapsing against the couch cushions behind him. The projected juggernaut spun in place with the gesture for a few seconds before coming to rest with the rear facing toward Shaw, who had since lost interest in the huge alien vessel and instead turned her attention towards its huge alien crewman; lips pursed thin as he stared into the abyss beyond the walls of the lifeboat, his furrowed brows seemed less like he was deep in thought and more like something resembling despair. As the two broken holograms hung before her, she couldn't say she blamed him.
Though she couldn't imagine the two technologies were even remotely compatible, she had to wonder if there was an even distant possibility for both their resources and skills to be combined into at least one functioning ship. At this point, she would entertain any idea, no matter how mad; the mere thought of being stuck on this world for the rest of her days would drive her quickly to insanity, even if the Engineer had started to provide somewhat better company in the last few hours.
Just what were his skills, though? It struck her that she knew so little about him, still, courtesy of their painful language barrier and gaping chasm in technological standards. Or, perhaps, it was because she'd never bothered to ask him, such was her focus on survival. Even in her unending curiosity about him, she hadn't had the chance to ask any personal questions – he certainly hadn't helped in that regard, such was his apparent propensity to either deflect to the task at hand, or return fire with a barrage of questions of his own.
Dark eyes fell upon her as she began scratching haphazardly at the pad of paper, finding a free space on the rapidly filling page; it was more and more evident by the minute that their escape would require more than just teamwork, and to form as much a cohesive unit as they could despite their remarkable differences, they would both need more information about each other. Knowledge is power.
She handed the awaiting Engineer her message. What was your job on the ship?
The question seemed to shake him from his despondency with more efficiency than she'd expected; his demeanour immediately snapped to the business-as-usual persona that constantly distracted him from the abyss of his thoughts, though as he began to press pen to paper, he hesitated, glancing between the vessel and the Human before him a handful of times, casting the open dictionary glowing on the tablet screen a quick look before finally jotting a single lexicon and handing it back to her.
This was a word she hadn't seen before, though she had expected as much; in fact, it was so unfamiliar that she could have sworn she'd never seen it even scroll past during her hundreds of sojourns up and down the full extent of the translations. Up and down she went regardless, struggling to find a word even similar. It made sense – these words were of an ancient language, spoken by an ancient civilisation. How would they have words for starship operations if they hadn't, presumably, ever even seen the technology?
A pair of huge, translucent index fingers and thumbs gently tugged both the pad of paper and the tablet from her grasp. She'd lost track of how long she'd spent scrolling up and down, but her expression, wrought of confusion and concentration, must have given her away. Mimicking her movements with remarkable accuracy, Za'il adapted to the Human technology almost immediately as he flicked through page after page of translations with his left hand, the right poised with a pen to...who knows.
Despite the controlled grace of the movements, his more haphazard scrolling from page to page did not slip by unnoticed. The likely culprit, she realised, was the fact that they were all in English alphabetical order – he was likely left trying to assemble sense from what must seem an entirely random order amongst nonsense. One area received special attention as he combed through it, scrutinising almost every word and apparently coming up blank as he shook his head and eventually moved on; he likely couldn't find the word he wanted either.
At last, he opted for a string of words instead; the pinched expression on his face suggested it was less than ideal, but would do. She took back the items as he offered them, recognising three from previous translations throughout the past few days, and diligently set about finding the fourth–
He'd left the dictionary open on the page she needed. A gentleman and a scholar!
She couldn't help but grin as the message became clear; quite right it did the role no justice, but nevertheless it made sense.
I fly the ship.
"Pilot," she murmured, realising there was not a hope in Hell there would be a word for that in ancient Sumerian. "Helmsman, maybe."
A large finger tentatively prodded at the question she had written, then pointed back at her.
Shaw exhaled hard and heavy through a pout; how on Earth does one explain her role to the unwitting subject of her excavations through the mouthpiece of another? She shook her head and laughed, much to his apparent surprise, as she once again set about stabbing at the tablet with a finger.
How would she even put it to words?
After an extended period of trial and error, quietly thankful for Za'il's apparent patience, she finally cobbled together something she hoped made at least some sense.
I study ancient civilisations by looking at the things they leave behind.
He seemed to stare at the message for a significant period of time, though he gave no indication as to whether the context was lost on him or whether it read as complete nonsense. After a drawn moment his gaze fell upon the stack of magazines, understanding slowly seeping into his expression; eventually they trailed back outside, scanning what remained of the towers in the distance, the shadows cast by his ship, and the uninhabited wasteland between. She wondered if it had become clear to him why they were here at this point, though there must be a million things fighting for his attention right now; she just hoped he didn't feel like she was merely studying him.
Forcing himself from his reverie, he picked up one of the pens and reached across the table, drawing a line underneath the last few words of her initial question. The pressure of the pen against her knee vaguely tickled, but given she wasn't normally the ticklish kind, she wondered if it had less to do with actual ticklishness and more because everything about the creature was strange, different, and obviously alien. What was your job on the ship?
Perhaps they were starting to think more and more alike despite all their differences, because she had prepared for that exact question. In fact, it left her quietly chuckling. She penned a response and handed it back to him.
Passenger.
The expression that met hers was distinctly unamused, tinged with disbelief. His brow furrowed as he glanced between the page and the Human several more times, before he exhaled heavily and pinched his lips thin, scratching at the top of his smooth head with one hand as he descended into pensive thought.
Good work, Doctor. Now it's painfully evident that you're completely useless. Pilot's going to make his own way home. You're just baggage.
He'd set about scribbling a message back to her after a quiet moment that she'd eagerly filled with self-deprecating tripe; as she decoded it, she couldn't help but note how starkly it stood at odds with those dark thoughts of hers.
Then you have a lot to learn very shortly, don't you?
Morning had since arrived with a golden glow that would have reminded her so much of Earth if it weren't for the enormous radioactive orb occupying a significant portion of the sky above. The days seemed to scream past with unfamiliar vigour on this moon, and it seemed neither of their sleep cycles had come close to adapting.
Unsure of what meal it was time for at this point, Elizabeth had settled for a bowl of fruit and cereal with a large mug of coffee to wash it all down; sitting cross-legged on the couch she'd claimed as she silently observed the landscape outside, she found herself once again wondering what it would be like to share all of these experiences with people back home on Earth. What would they think of the incredible peak stretching well beyond the outer reaches of the atmosphere, thick with snow and glowing yellow in the morning light? What would they make of the Engineer, given the vast and conflicting views the billions had of extraterrestrial life? What would any of this do to their beliefs, this newfound knowledge, this whole world, standing at odds with so much of what Humans had known for millennia?
What had it done to her beliefs?
At this point, she dared not think too deeply about it. She wasn't even sure how she'd assumed coming here wouldn't be the mother of all Pandora's Boxes, probing at everything she knew and calling into question everything she had ever taken for granted.
Instead, she turned her attention back to her guest. Hunched over the table in a manner that couldn't have been comfortable, though he was afforded little choice, he had set about making short work of a double-serving of spaghetti not too dissimilar to the first meal they had shared. She still didn't know whether it was a deliberate selection on his part or whether it was simply the meal he'd disliked the least from what had been offered, but it had been the result of a rather interesting lesson on operating the food dispenser moments earlier.
It had been his stomach rather than hers that had grumbled after hours upon hours of not eating, and she supposed it made sense; the last time she'd known him to consume anything had been the cold leftovers of the breakfast he'd hardly touched earlier, and she'd been fast asleep at the time. An entire evening had passed since then, and while she'd forgotten to eat throughout the entire period, she was left regretting it the moment she'd heard the deep, roiling gurgle from his insides across the table.
He had followed her to the bar this time, watching with intrigue as he leaned against the counter a distance behind her. After a period of indecisiveness, flitting between jotting him the question of what he'd like to eat and simply pulling up one of the meals she'd previously presented, she finally decided to poke around with the menu and see if it had a more visual display option; lists in English were of no use to anyone but her.
Some determined sifting about had seen success, however, and the display now showed photographs of the meals programmed into the food dispenser rather than an intimidating wall of, to him, alien text. She had motioned for him to come and join her, and after a moment's hesitation, he had stepped alongside her and crouched down. Distressingly, even when hunched against his ankles, he was still taller than her, albeit by a mere smidge. He watched intently as she showed him how to scroll through the options, how to reorganise them, and how to double the portion size. Why he'd chosen to crouch more than a metre from her left her somewhat perplexed, perhaps distantly insulted, though she had shuffled to her right to allow him to get closer to the machine in the somewhat confined space beside the bar.
It was only when she paced back within arm's reach of the panel that some understanding crept into her psyche; within close range, she couldn't help but notice the subtle but immensely distracting scent of the creature, flooding her mind with a thousand-and-one unrelated thoughts with a ferocity that left her stammering as she forgot what it was she was trying to say. Not that it mattered; he couldn't understand a word she said anyway.
Clarity returned as she stepped away again, forcing herself to give him space and instead clear the dishwasher in search of appropriate crockery for...breakfast? Breakfast. She noted he'd stared dumbly at the panel for a few moments thereafter, jaw slightly agape and eyes unseeing, before clearing his throat, shaking his head and setting about thumbing through the meal options with pointed, deliberate focus.
Now, with apparently safer distance between them, he had made a significant dent in the meal he'd chosen. Rather than follow her lead with a strong coffee, she noted he'd opted for a stiff glass of what remained of the Gin & Tonic; it was impossible to tell how long he'd been awake at this point, but given the dark rings that had formed beneath his sleepy, half-lidded eyes, she supposed it was a fitting end to what must have been a long, exhausting, thought-wracked day. Despite the temptation to do so, she knew it would be pointless trying to synchronise her own sleep pattern with the planet's swift day-night cycle if they were just going to up and leave in the coming…
Who knows how long it would take, realistically – with two damaged ships needing significant repairs before either was going anywhere, it wasn't actually as outlandish a thought as she'd initially assumed.
Having finished his meal as she drained the last of her coffee, Za'il had set about sleepily rubbing his face with one hand, pawing at his eyes as an immense yawn overcame him. She watched with vague amusement as he blinked away the aftermath, forcing just a little more consciousness upon himself as he picked up the pad of paper and scratched a message against it.
I need to sleep. Then we should continue planning our escape.
Offering an understanding nod and a gentle smile, she set about penning a response.
The bed is more comfortable, if you prefer.
He craned his neck in the direction of the bedroom from his seat on the couch, as if by reflex. He'd been in there, he knew what it looked like. After brief consideration, eyes trailing between the curved cushions of the couch and the rumpled corner of the bed visible from their position, he seemed to decide the latter was the better option.
He offered her the faintest quirk of a smile as he stood, stretched, and sleepily padded toward the bedroom.
Author's Note:
I'm not dead, and no, this story hasn't been forgotten – I understand all your fears, fellow readers, given just how many unfinished gems litter this fandom! I've just been absolutely slain with work after a week on holiday elsewhere in the country, and catching up on it all has just about ruined me.
Anyway.
Interestingly, I had originally decided to cram a whole craptonne more into this chapter. There was about four to six thousand more words that could have been put in here, but given the absurdly short character lengths for works on DA, and given how naturally it's tailed off here (without a cliffhanger, gasp), I've decided to reserve it all for the next.
There should be some action soon!
And I promise I won't abandon this (as much as everyone says that) – I've already started work on the sequel, and have huge plans for both the third story in the series as well as the Engineer's version of events, so I'm quite urgently focusing on actually FINISHING this story so I can move on to others.
As usual, I'm adoring your feedback. Thank you so much for your kind words. Every time I see something come in, I'm inspired all over again to pump this out as fast and as polished as I can.