Closing her eyes had become a very risky game, indeed. Flames, blistering flames were etched into her eyelids, searing her cheeks the moment they fell closed and drawing her back in, into the abyss that seemed destined to swallow her whole.
The scientist within had long since grown tired of the persistent breakdowns, its patience finally extinguished in the aftermath of last night's shenanigans. Drawing a deep, rattling breath, Elizabeth set about stripping herself of her clothing with deliberate, mechanical movements as she fixed her swollen, heavy eyes on whatever lay immediately before her; she needed to gain focus and start putting one foot in front of the other if she intended to escape this Hell. Allowing herself to mope like this was the antithesis of progress.
Thrusting aside the last of her clothing with violence befitting of the growing anger in the pit of her stomach, she punched the shower console with the side of her fist and strode under the cool, pounding droplets the moment they began falling from the ceiling.
A shiver hard enough to choke the air from her lungs erupted from her; whoever was in here last had set it bloody cold.
Naturally, she knew exactly who had been in here last. He'd left it absurdly cold last time, too.
Having fiddled briefly with the temperature, she reached toward the wall with both hands, gripping the slick surface with the tips of her fingers as the raindrops beat against her skin, the heat hammering at her stiff, borderline cramped muscles as her gaze lay fixed on the surface before her. Sweat-tainted trails of water eventually found their way from her head and into her eyes, much to her irritation; merely blinking them away, her gaze remained between her hands below a heavy scowl.
It's not like she didn't have plenty of reasons to feel so sorry for herself, present pounding headache notwithstanding. It was readily apparent that she'd lost everything, everything, and had only begun to come to terms with it as she watched their intruder burn and her mind did...whatever the fuck it had decided to do last night. There was little left intact of her memories of the last day – just gelatinous piecemeal floating about in the void, refusing to be strung together in any coherent pattern. They merely bobbed past, adhering to her psyche in dribs and drabs, offering glimmers of clarity before snatching to the next moment and jarring her grasp on them free.
For all intents and purposes, she had been transported back in time. She had, for an indecipherable eternity, howled at the door of the Prometheus until Za'il had, in the most literal of ways, dragged her back to reality kicking and screaming. By her arms. As if she were a sack of potatoes.
The lingering anger staining her thoughts refused to acknowledge that he'd allowed her to cling to him for an indeterminate period of time, sobbing until she was dry-retching, then clinging for yet longer, violating his personal space as she fought the endless tide of a cacophony of thoughts. The anger, the misguided, misdirected anger wouldn't allow her to recall for more than a second how he'd clung back, warm hands steadying her against the event horizon, refusing to let her lose her mind against the cold, polished floor.
He had wordlessly, silently tended to her in the throes of misery, and she couldn't ignore that forever.
As much as she was loathe to admit it, what she still needed to do was to talk it out with someone – preferably someone who understood, particularly someone that had been there. What a twist of fate that there were no other Humans left alive in the mission's aftermath, not one single soul to confide in who had a chance of understanding any of the thoughts that raced through her mind with the persistence of the monsters that wrought them in the first place. It's not like she was picky at this point; heck, in the absence of Charlie, she would have taken anyone bar Weyland himself. Janek, Ford, even Vickers in her infinite, sour hostility. Simply airing it out would do so much, so much, for the last shreds of her sanity.
Instead, she was left with an android head that spoke words but didn't understand the Human condition, and an alien that, as much as she could tell, understood enough of the Human condition – or, perhaps just that of sentient, organic life – but spoke not a word. God was mocking her, and unfortunately, she had a few leads as to why.
She scowled deeper as she entertained the idea of what would happen if she told David any of that. He, too, had mocked her for her beliefs; oscillating between believing it to be mechanical innocence and fearing it was something far more malevolent left her head spinning. A lifeform programmed in such a manner would only ever see logic; she knew he simply lacked the nuance to believe. Though, with a creator like Weyland, she hardly blamed him. He could at least be more polite about it.
Instead, she decided to entertain the second option; what did the Engineer believe?
Scratch that, she mused with a grumpy sigh. He was explosive enough about the mere suggestion of creators.
The question had loomed in the back of her mind, forming as a niggle over time and finally prying at her consciousness soon after exploring the planet; what was God's place in all of this? If they were created by the Engineers, who created them? What did it mean for the last vestiges of her own beliefs?
Even Charlie had tried to untangle the questions from her fingers aboard the Prometheus, but there was no stopping them – not then, not now, not ever.
In any other circumstance, she would have loved to sit down with Za'il, ask all her questions, and be humbled by the answers. It was strange; despite all that had happened in the past week, despite all she'd learned about the planet, its people, the horrors that befell it, and its last survivor himself, there was still a tinge of romance about the idea of gleaning pure knowledge from a greater being, learning about her place in the universe and discovering what came before them.
In reality, Za'il was a soldier – an impatient, temperamental one at that. He had no answers for her, and no apparent desire to provide them if he did.
To be fair, right now she would settle with simply stating everything hurts and banking a good, solid hug. No questions, no answers, no politics and no walking on eggshells...just a sliver of contact.
Stop it, Elizabeth.
She drew a deep breath and released it with a mighty huff as her fingertips gripped the wall with increasing force. She had no business invading the personal space of aliens she'd only just met – let alone aliens whom she was constantly inventing new ways of offending and insulting, and least of all aliens whose lives she had invariably altered the course of indefinitely.
It was hardly worth musing what he thought of that notion. Seeing the giant creature bent and broken before the window for what must have been hours, alternating between bouts of half-strangled sobbing and rigid catatonia, told her all she needed to know. Ruined was likely more accurate than merely altered; she knew so little about the giant in the next room, and the more she thought about it the less she realised she knew at all, but it didn't take an awful lot of imagination to realise what had been stripped from him.
She had lost her husband, her crew. Doubtless she had lost any semblance of a career, and she was likely never setting for on Earth again, when she thought about it – but he had lost aeons. The rest, all that she had been stripped of, was mere static by comparison.
Everything her arse.
Shaw bit down on her lower lip, eyes still trained on the wall before her. Frankly, in comparison, she still had plenty; she knew what awaited her should she indulge the luxury of returning to her home planet, but standing amongst the desolate ruins of this one, it was obvious he was not guaranteed that same certainty. If anything, he was likely guaranteed the opposite.
And here she was, feeling sorry for herself.
She wondered, idly, just how he managed to put one foot in front of the other in the wake of such an unimaginable reality.
It was high time she sucked it up, took her beheaded companion with her, and merrily toddled off around the galaxy while Za'il set about reclaiming the scraps of what little was left after more than two millennia.
You sure do a good job of moping, Doctor, she scolded herself.
The shower console earned itself another well-deserved whack as she punched at it with the same fist. Sure, she had merely stood beneath it for God-knows-how-long without putting any real effort into washing, but this would be good enough – she was adamant she would steal one last shower before they left the lifeboat for good, and that was the one she would make count.
Her mood had hardly improved by the time she was dry, dressed and somewhat presentable, slinking back into the main room with remnants of that same sullen expression welded to her features. A tinge of something else, however, tugged at her downturned scowl as both pairs of eyes immediately fell upon her; as she froze mid-step by the piano self-consciousness flooded her belly and gripped at her spine, rising as a wave of heat that lingered about her cheeks and neck as she found herself glancing between the two men, finally settling her gaze upon the Engineer, prying at him, trying to decipher what the Hell that look meant.
Stomach twisting with sinking annoyance, she realised that the hesitant gaze, lingering somewhere between feigned optimism and poorly-masked, wide-eyed sadness was pity.
Pity, of all things.
As the silence lingered, she had little doubt the two had been talking.
For all the effort she'd sunk into hoping, praying the two would get along for long enough to communicate, once it dawned on her that of course she was destined to be the singular topic of discussion the moment she left the room, she found herself wishing they had remained at each others' proverbial – and literal – throats.
Worst of all, she distinctly remembered telling David to ask Za'il for details of what hd unfolded hours prior. Either the pale giant had far more in common with her species in the emotional department, or David had talked his head even further off than it already was when she left the room.
"Feeling better, Doctor?" The android's bright, overly polite voice was nothing short of jarring against the viscous quiet.
"Much better, thank you David," she forced through a plastic smile. "We should probably eat some breakfast and prepare for our escape."
"Wonderful idea," the android enthused. Za'il's gaze had finally drifted on after lingering for an uncomfortably significant length. "Is there anything I can help with?"
"Good question," she mused as she padded toward the food dispenser. The irony of her consideration of any task that didn't involve him talking was not lost on her. "I'll discuss it with Za'il. I'm sure there's something you can do."
The Engineer had flinched at the mention of his name, though she noticed it was nigh on imperceptible; she had simply grown used to it, actively hunting for the most subtle of movements whenever it came up in conversation. Offering a nod and the most neutral, pleasant smile she could muster, Shaw set about serving herself a bowl of porridge and a mug of coffee before drifting toward the couch with her meal, perching beside the stack of blankets that appeared to have mysteriously folded themselves between now and her shower.
As much as she was loathe to admit it, there was something striking about this particular vista that she would miss once it was gone. Morning light having faded to something far more akin to white than gold, the snowy peaks reaching beyond the atmosphere were a magnet for the eyes that one simply couldn't match on Earth; sure, Earth had its own astoundingly beautiful, dramatic, dangerous ranges, but the Human psyche was an extremophile in its own right and craved noting the biggest, the best, the most noteworthy. The monstrosity towering beyond the valley was that in spades, never letting her fool herself into thinking this was merely Everest for a second, eternally arching toward the Gas Giant looming above in a constant reminder of just how far from home she was.
Perhaps it was the beginnings of her imagination returning to her that left her picturing what this place must have been like in its hypothetical heyday; given it had been used, at some point, as at the very least a military base, it took little of that imagination to fill the blanks with settlements, creatures, a functioning biosphere. Maybe there was life beyond hangars, cargo bays and hideous vials filled with liquid death. Perhaps there were townships supporting the soldiers and providing the bare bones of an economy. Perhaps those settlements were surrounded by farms, producing exotic crops her mind lacked the creativity to paint the gaps with; maybe there were people that, just as she had, stared up into the night and gazed in wonder at the monstrous rings that glittered in the star's rays, faces stained violet by the Gas Giant's glow. Perhaps they, too, had become lost in the details of the crags of the glaciers beyond, comparing it to yet more worlds beyond this one as they went about their lives.
Lives long since lost – all that remained was dust and death, and creatures that exceeded one's worst nightmares.
In a manner of speaking, she felt it would be better if all this place had ever been was a military base. That way it would only be the flesh-and-blood tendrils of a presumably violent organisation that had met their grisly ends piled high against the walls of the base beyond, defiled from within having succumbed to...to...God, she shuddered to think how they'd died.
A gentle clink of crockery against glass jarred her from her breathless reverie; the Engineer paused as he placed his mug down, having drained it and moved on to a double serving of the same porridge she'd selected for herself – which, she noted, had begun to go cold. When had he sat down? How was she that absent-minded?
She offered him another limp smile as her mind dragged her back out the plexiglass and into the valley. One thing she hadn't planned on finding enroute to seeing out their invitation had been petrified bodies of giant humanoids, though in hindsight, she struggled to figure out just what she had expected to find; with little more than a matching set of ancient rock carvings, beyond creatures possibly larger than Humans, she was working with less than guesses from the start.
Belief was what she was working with, she silently grumbled as she bit down on her spoon with bitter irritation.
The glint of the morning sun against the Engineer's suit caught the corner of her eye every time he moved his arm to poke at his porridge; normally, an eye full of sunlight was enough to drive her to at least grind her teeth to a fine powder, but today she was almost thankful for the way it dragged her out of her musings by the face.
Though she had seen far more of that suit design stretched over living, breathing flesh than she had over mummified corpses, seeing it in motion still periodically sent her for a spin. As much as the last week had, in its unending torrent of adrenaline and abject terror, almost become routine, the fact remained that more than three decades amongst her own kind, living on their one, singular planet, in the knowledge that they were, until this point, alone in the universe, made for a phenomenally disorienting shift in reality when viewing her current predicament in context. The bodies of long-dead Engineers had almost been more jarring a discovery than one living example, forced out of hypersleep by their own hand; seeing him sitting opposite her, picking at the fruit throughout the grey mush left in his bowl, oscillated wildly between feeling ghostly and strangely tangible.
That living example, she realised, was likely blissfully unaware of the carnage littering the towers.
The cold, sticky goop in her mouth was suddenly unbearable; she was a hair from retching as she forced it down.
Setting the remainder aside with an unamused grunt, Shaw stole a quick glance at the lists sprawled across the table, thumbing the corner of the closest for a brief moment before dragging it toward her, pen and all. Dark eyes watched with half-interest as she studied each item, brushing through the day's scrawl and poking idly at the sheet with the nib of the pen. The list itself was short enough, but there was significant meat on several items – chief among which was 'repair David'.
Speaking of whom...
She scrawled a quick note as she fumbled with the tablet, then pushed the pad across the table toward Za'il; she briefly glanced in the direction of the severed head as his gaze caught hers.
Is there anything useful we can get him doing?
The expression on his face was, on the surface of it, calm and neutral. He simply read over her note, silently considering it with far more poise than he had since the android had arrived. He was controlled. Too controlled. Mirroring the same, she eyeballed every feature of his face as he reached down to pen a response with a civility that was so out-of-character she found herself plucking off red flags in the slightest of details. He had kept his heavy brows impassively raised and his mouth relaxed, but the slightest tensing of his jaw gave him away; his shoulders were almost too relaxed, held down forcibly rather than sitting comfortably.
He wouldn't keep her guessing for long.
Follow me outside. Give him a good excuse.
Her own eyebrows shot up as she finished translating the note; with the briefest brush of eye contact, he plucked the pen, pad and tablet from the table and began ambling toward the airlock. It did not go unnoticed that he'd turned their scrawlings against the tablet, out of the way of prying eyes.
This isn't how I intended to spend my morning…
Forcing calm with a heavy exhale, she followed a moment afterward and set about wrestling with her pressure suit, cursing her choice of jeans this morning as they bunched unhelpfully and resisted the suit's zipper.
"Where are you going, Doctor?" David enquired politely, his tone devoid of accusation or irritation.
"Uh," she began as she hopped on one foot, sealing the boot half-on the other. "Recon. Need to check the damage to the lifeboat from last night."
A pause. "What damage are you expecting to see?"
"I don't know, that's why we're going out there." Damnit, now he's going to pry my excuse to pieces. "Whatever it was out there tried to tear chunks off the ship. We just need to make sure it can still fly us to the hangar."
"Perhaps you could take me with you," he chirped pleasantly, "I have the ship's schematics in my memory banks, and I could help wi–"
"No disrespect, David," she quickly interrupted, patently aware of the black gaze burning a hole in the back of her head, "But I'm not in any state to be carrying your head around right now. Very sorry. We'll be back soon."
He lingered again as she stuffed her helmet on. "None taken, Doctor. I could be of service here, though."
"It just needs to hover, it doesn't need to break orbit," she quipped hastily. "We'll be back. Don't go anywhere!"
"Of course," he mused as the airlock slid open, then shut. Those words, in contrast to the rest, did carry the slightest hint of bitterness.
With the airlock sliding shut behind them, Elizabeth finally indulged the luxury of eyeballing the immense creature with expectant impatience as she cautiously threw both palms out beside her. What on Earth was this about?
And why wasn't he wearing his helmet?
Of all things, he chose to draw a breath and sink to a crouch; moments later he simply sat down cross-legged against the platform, flipping the pad over and pressing his fingers against the top leaf as it fluttered in the cool breeze. The faux calm he'd so carefully painted had faded, giving way to that damnable pity that had hung around like a bad smell earlier in the morning. Refusing to break eye contact, she sank to a crouch and hunched against her ankles. This was new behaviour. In light of the events that had unfolded in the last week or two, surely she couldn't be blamed for remaining ready. Whatever ready entailed.
Apparently ignoring her tense posture, Za'il turned his attention to the pad, scrawling a quick note, then offering the whole lot to her.
Placing the tablet against her thighs, she set about translating the message.
I don't trust him. You shouldn't either.
She released a grumpy sigh. Hadn't they been through this?
As she fumbled with the pen, trying to assemble a sane response before attempting to translate it, two thick, translucent fingers pinched the top edge and gently tugged the pad back. If he was going to clarify his position, she was all ears; she offered him the pen.
He began to a longer message, brows furrowed as he appeared to carefully select words. Or second-guess his thoughts. Only he knew. Realising this was possibly going to be a fairly long exchange, she rolled backward and sat against the platform in a similar position, stealing a moment to glance about the expanse beyond as he wrote. Whatever had been out here last night appeared to be alone, from what she could tell; there was barely a sound beyond the gentle breaths of wind toying with the grit below, and the slow, deliberate pen-strokes opposite.
The message he'd handed her, after an extended moment, would take a while to translate. She blew another heavy sigh, and got to work.
He gave me a lot of information this morning. A little about your mission, a lot about you. He didn't have much interest in the creature from last night, he kept talking about you. Told me some of what brought you here, told me some of what killed your crew. Told me about your work. Your husband.
She didn't even need to fully translate the message to understand the gist of it. Besides, so many of the words were becoming familiar by this point that she needed little effort to plough through it. But language was not the issue here – it didn't make sense that he would draw offense from that conversation. Sure, she was still miffed that David had gone about divulging personal information about her while she wasn't present to defend herself – not that she should have to – but it was more of an insult to her than a crime against him.
Her response felt inadequate, but it would have to do.
What's wrong with that?
He regarded her for another long, drawn moment, his dark eyes prying at her as he fiddled with the pen in one hand. How the light did strange things to him, toying with his features; aboard his own vessel, he had appeared just a little off white in the dim lighting, whilst that had been a far sharper white beneath the harsh artificial illumination aboard the lifeboat that did little to mask the stark alienness about his eyes, so wildly different in colour to his skin. In the full sunlight, outside, with no windows between them and the warm rays, there was most definitely a translucent element about his flesh that revealed faint, spidery networks of arteries deep below the skin. She flushed somewhat as she recalled the first time she'd noticed that detail – he'd been in quite a state of undress, and the majority of the vessels she'd noticed were well covered by his suit at this point..
The searing light from the blue sky above did little to disguise the plethora of old scars about his head, face and hands, too; it was an understatement to presume each came with quite a story. Their wildly different appearances would suggest they'd not all arrived at once. She couldn't ignore the fact that his man had history, and not all of it was etched permanently into his skin.
He handed her an answer that was far more brief than she had expected, jarring her from her reverie.
Every time he spoke of your misfortunes, he smiled. He enjoyed it.
If anything was going to seize words in her throat, that observation would about do it.
There was an urgency rippling below his carefully-constructed patience; gone was the pity, he seemed to be trying to stare straight through her.
This wasn't helping to alleviate the persistent niggle that had clung to her shadow since the moment they'd stepped foot aboard the Engineer ship. She knew, she knew David had something to do with Charlie's untimely demise. He'd admitted to knowing far too much, and while she lacked any concrete evidence beyond that singular interaction, it continued to twist at her gut.
Perhaps Za'il wasn't wrong.
I don't know what his motivations are, and no, I don't trust him. But I need him for my journey.
He scowled as he read her message, heaving a sigh; her persistence frustrated him, clearly, but surely he had learned by this point that her people were nothing if not resourceful.
In light of several of their previous discussions, it seemed almost out of character for him to be exuding quite so much patience.
He handed her a response.
You're stubborn. But you must be careful. Keep him separated, he is dangerous.
Don't need to tell me twice, she mused, tapping the pen's nib against the page as he handed it back. She didn't know if she had the patience to, once again, list the reasons keeping David disassembled would prove immensely impractical – not least of which was his weight, beyond the limits of what she could adequately carry.
Hard for him to fly the ship in two pieces.
There was the slightest hint of a grin as he read her message, though he quickly sought to suppress it.
She knew exactly what he was going to say before he handed the pad back, so she was hardly surprised when it translated to precisely what she'd expected.
Like I said. I will show you how.
Like it mattered what he thought of the android once he was on his way; it was patently obvious by this point that he intended to go in a separate direction to her. For the sake of maintaining this newfound peace for as long as possible, she realised it would be best to just humour him.
Alright. I'll keep him as he is for as long as I can.
Again, he seemed intent on staring through her skin and deep into her inner workings; the sunlight against his pale flesh left the stare all the more ghostly.
I'm serious. They don't have empathy for our kind.
She was left double-checking his last message; surely something had gone wrong in translation. After coming up with exactly the same thing a second time, she sought clarification.
Our kind?
Tapping the nib of the pen against the pad for a moment, he finally gave up halfway through another note, and reached across to tug the tablet from her lap. After a seemingly haphazard scroll through its contents, he completed the message with somewhat of a frown before handing the whole lot back to her.
Living beings. Flesh, blood. His kind are programmed to obey, sometimes worship, but they cannot be programmed to have empathy for us.
Ah.
She shifted against the unforgiving metal of the deck as she ruminated. He did have a point; David had happily toyed with her on several occasions, foregoing subtlety in favour of programmed decorum and feigned politeness. This was completely ignoring his treatment of Charlie, and the casual acknowledgement of wisdom into his death. Sure, he had saved her life during the sandstorm that had damn-near blown her away from the Prometheus and into next week, but she had also saved his – much to the very obvious outrage of the man sitting cross-legged opposite her, staring at her with a heady mix of determination and pity beneath a thin veneer of patience.
No matter what else was rattling about in her overwhelmed mind, the thought that kept fighting to the fore was written in plain text on her lap. Our kind. Content to disregard its context for the time being, ignoring its deliberate reference to the biological versus the synthetic, Shaw was determined to cling to the first sliver of victory she'd been afforded throughout this entire disaster.
Trust David of all people to force any kind of kinship between the two of them.
This, she realised, was the first time she had felt anything in common with the huge alien. From the moment she'd first seen him she'd recognised they were somehow, somewhere, distantly related: the skeletal structure, recognisably Human despite his sheer size; the hands, their shape no different to any Human male's; the shape of his face, eyes, head. The DNA evidence had confirmed it. And yet, from the outset of their first incredibly violent encounter, she had been painfully aware of just how different he was – how different they were. Every waking moment was a reminder of just how little they had in common despite physical similarities.
And here, finally, there is the introduction of an us. Our kind.
She drew a breath, and pressed pen against paper.
I understand. I believe you. There are things that were said and done during this voyage that make me agree with you.
She had to admit, thinking about the death and destruction surrounding them so intently wasn't doing her composure any favours. There was no reason she should be expected to keep it together as well as she had, especially considering...considering…
No, she was not going to think about what happened just hours ago. It had been challenging enough reassembling herself into a functional Human being; she wasn't going to resume moping and further embarrass herself.
Then when was she going to properly mope?
Damnit, Elizabeth, she chided through gritted teeth, you owe it to everyone to push through this in one piece!
Rolling her eyes upward as she chewed on her bottom lip, she fought the sting of yet more tears, refusing to allow them to well up when she had nowhere to hide. It wasn't exactly a subtle technique, but damnit, it worked – so long as she didn't open the floodgates.
And damnit, she could feel the stare against her skin.
Pity had returned, etched into the concern twisting his pale skin. She scowled, largely at herself.
He scribbled a quick note, then hesitantly handed it to her. The pity remained.
Are you alright?
Of all the questions he could have asked, why that one?
Perhaps it was a genuine question amongst his people. Perhaps there wasn't a thousand-and-one different things it could mean, and twice as many ways it could go; perhaps it wasn't a sure-fire way to reduce the recipient to tears where he came from, the ubiquitous conversation-starter when one wanted to pry back the last tendrils of defense holding a suffering soul in one shaking, fractured piece.
His eyes seemed so much closer to blue than black in the harsh sunlight.
One big, fat tear rolled down her left cheek as she bit down on both lips, refusing to yield to the bout of self-absorbed angst bubbling just below the surface. Reflexively her left jerked up to dab it away, smear the evidence from its trail…
...but, naturally, her knuckles bounced off the polymer shield encompassing her head with a thunk.
"Damnit," she murmured with a splutter of laughter. How absurd.
Sucking in another breath as her nose began to resist her dwindling control over her body, she quickly scribbled a response. From the mess already on the page and from, at this point, constant repetition, she didn't find a need for the tablet.
I'll be alright.
The Engineer offered a solemn nod as he examined the page, gaze lingering for a moment before turning back toward the pad pinched between his fingers. Through the haze of tears she picked at the smallest of details as he poked at the paper with one hand, the other holding the page down against the increasingly brisk breeze; it was becoming easier and easier to read his facial expressions as she continued to discover just how much they had in common. Perhaps this was why he neglected to wear a helmet, she reasoned; he was allowing her to draw more than mere linguistics from their conversation, relying as much on body language as the written word. How wise of him – there was certainly plenty of subtext lost to the medium language neither were fluent in, critical nuance she was robbed of every time he donned his armour.
Curiously, it seemed he could breathe the air out here for extended periods. She had lost track of the time they'd spent perched in the sun, but she had little doubt that if it had been her sans helmet, she'd have long since been stone cold and lifeless.
He did, at least, appear to be breathing a little more heavily than he usually did aboard the lifeboat.
The message he handed her after plenty of obvious agonising was unambiguous. She didn't even need to translate it.
I'm sorry.
Refusing to let her iron grasp on composure slip any further, she resisted the rising, welling wall of heat in the pit of her gut and briefly squeezed her eyes shut, letting a heavy tear roll down each cheek before drawing a deep breath and exhaling slowly as she again raised a hand to mop the mess free of her face.
Clunk.
Predictably, she wound up backhanding the helmet again.
With a defeated, humourless laugh, she instead rested her elbow against her knee and plopped the edge of the helmet in her hand as she thumbed the pen with the other. There was little doubt in her mind she looked the very definition of miserable right now – or, perhaps more accurately, pathetic. It was impossible to tell which his pity was directed at. What she did have, however, was his full attention, and, evidently, his worry – feigned or otherwise.
She dabbled, for a moment, with the idea of musing how little he knew about her; then, regrettably, she recalled how much he did know about her. Her stomach churned as she ruminated on what the android had likely told him while her back was turned. What sort of sordid detail had he gone into to have yielded this sort of response from the alien giant who, by all rights, had no reason to invest any concern into her small, pink existence?
With little left to lose, she proposed she had more to gain by opening up a little further, offering what might be the first truly personal information exchanged between the two of them. For this, she would need the tablet; shifting her left hand from her helmet, she thumbed at it against the deck as she set about organising the storm of thoughts churning about her mind into a coherent sentence.
I'm just lonely. So much has happened since we landed. I'm left questioning everything. It's so hard to talk about it through paper, I fear misunderstandings. And the talking head is no help.
He seemed to gaze at the message for a lifetime, heavy-lidded and solemn, though the final portion of the note elicited a faint quirk of an amused, lopsided smile. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears as he read the message again and again; it was an understatement to say she felt bare, almost vulnerable. Trepidation clawed at her chest as he raised the pen, paused, thought better of it and re-read her statement again. Why on Earth had she said that?
This is not Earth, she mused darkly as he finally wrote a reply and passed it to her. Not even close. Anything goes.
She set to work translating his message through pursed lips.
I feel the same, I understand. It's difficult with no one else left.
Not to put a finer point on it, Za'il, she silently grumbled as she penned a response.
The familiar urge to bank a hug began to tug at her chest; she swallowed, refusing to allow it purchase, and concentrated on the task at hand.
I don't know if I can hold it together much longer.
After a long pause, he offered her a short answer with the vaguest hint of a reassuring smile.
Be strong. The sooner we leave this world, the better.
The urge to steal a hug hadn't faded. In fact, the barely-sapient part of her mind that stalked her psyche under pressure like this was convinced she could draw that strength through his skin and keep it to herself.
She would not shatter the peace they had carefully constructed by violating his personal space!
Drawing another of the many heavy breaths this suit's life support had tolerated, she instead decided to change the subject; the glint of claw-marks against the doors to her left served as a reminder as to why they were outside in the first place.
I told him we were checking the outside of the ship. We should probably do that so we have something to tell him.
The wind almost whipped the pad from his fingers as she handed it to him; blinking away the burst of debris that swirled about them in that last, fervent gust, he opted to offer her a nod instead of a note as he tore the top sheet free and handed the pad back, slipping his feet over the side of the platform as he tore their discussion to shreds and allowed the blustering breeze to claim its tatters.
There was a slight stagger about his landing, and a shuffle about the way he walked from it as he began to encircle the lifeboat.
Tucking the pad and tablet against her chest as she followed, her eyes were quickly drawn to the litany of rake-marks against the dark hull; two apiece, it was readily apparent that something claw-like had pried angrily against the surface, with clusters of scratches and divots appearing along the seams and curves well above her. In fact, many of them extended far above the Engineer's head. The hull wasn't painted, though – the dark, plated alloy was a Weyland Industries creation that could withstand more than just the bombardment that came with interstellar travel. It would take significant impact or incredibly sharp metal to cause it the damage they were seeing.
She scarcely wanted to believe this new damage was caused by anything that could be described as a creature.
Cautiously popping his head alongside the belly of the vessel, Za'il lingered for a significant period as he examined every nook and cranny capable of harbouring any such creature. To be fair, she was certain they would have been quickly overwhelmed by any of its friends as they basked in the sun above, but given the events of the previous evening, one could never be too careful.
He spent a considerably shorter stretch lowered to his belly as he examined the underside of the hull, hands and feet poised against the dirt ready to spring back up at a moment's notice. Crouching alongside him, she stole a glance at what remained of the engines, last night's clattering and banging still ringing in her ears.
It was quickly evident that one of the heat shields had been torn free of its housing and then shredded to pieces, its warped and mangled husk lying several metres from the engine. A few scraps of it remained, blackened tendrils dangling from the pod above. This, she realised, was the most damaged of the engines – they had shut it down during their first flight. Of all the engines the creature could have tried to tear apart, she was relieved it was that one.
A quick scout around the exterior of the ship revealed similar claw-marks at almost every join in the hull, with some of the plating above the external nacelles pared back with apparent brute force. Above some of the bent metal were several imprints that immediately reminded her of a bird's footprint in the sand, only significantly larger and meatier. The inner workings of the nacelles, thankfully, appeared to have survived the attack intact and largely ignored.
The blackened remains of the creature lingered at the very edge of her periphery as they passed below the cockpit; she refused, absolutely refused to look at it, no matter how desperately her curiosity begged for release, knowing it would send her to her knees in agony or, more likely, into a shrieking, flailing wreck as she mindlessly ran from the monstrosity.
Something told her Za'il was in no state to follow her if she did decide to arbitrarily take off in a mad panic. There was most definitely a stagger about his steps at this point, posture hunched below heavy-lidded eyes and, by the time they neared the platform from the far side of the vessel, he was all but dragging his heels.
It was all he could do not to collapse to his knees as they arrived at the platform, gripping it with both hands as he bent over it. Holding the top page down as she placed the pad in front of him, Shaw pushed herself up onto the deck and crouched against her ankles, concern prying at her features. Distantly, she found it rather amusing that she was barely eye-to-eye with him despite his hunched, slack posture against the ship as he stood at the point where it hung the highest from the ground.
Blinking away his dazed expression as he refocused on the pad before him, he scratched at the fresh top sheet with a shaky hand. At this point, she realised just how heavily he was breathing. Despite the increasing, blustering wind, he appeared to be sweating; his face glistened. She had a good idea what he was going to tell her.
He pressed the pad toward her then, as she set about translating, heaved himself up onto the platform breathlessly, pausing on all fours before sucking in a breath and pushing himself to his feet.
The air is terrible.
She smirked knowingly; yes, his decision to come out here without a helmet had been a dubious one. Still, he had lasted an order of magnitudes longer than a Human would have in the hostile atmosphere.
Staggering as he pushed through the airlock, he came within a hair of smacking his head against the upper frame as he tilted sideways. One hand shot out to prop himself against the wall inside as she followed, immediately prying at her helmet as the door slid shut and placing it, alongside the pad and tablet, on top of the crates still littering the entrance.
The sound of deep, laboured breathing hadn't been overlooked by the pieces of android under the piano. "Is he alright, Elizabeth?"
"I suspect the atmosphere has changed a little since he last spent any stretch of time out there," she observed, casting him a quick glance over her shoulder as she sauntered toward the android. "He certainly lasted longer than I would have out there."
The Engineer's deep voice interjected, albeit thin and breathless amongst gasps. David responded in a friendly but matter-of-fact tone after a moment's consideration, and again with similar-sounding words after a second question. Elizabeth watched silently as he sank down against the wall, hunching with his elbows against his knees as he fought to gain control over his breathing. After a stretch, he added a final thought before mopping at his clammy face with the back of one hand.
"You're quite right, Doctor," David mused. "It appears the carbon dioxide levels have almost quadrupled in the time he was in stasis. There is also less oxygen available in the lifeboat's atmosphere than there is outside; it may take him a little while to catch his breath – though it appears his suit compensates for it considerably."
"I assumed as much," she muttered, shifting to her knees alongside the beheaded machine. "Looks like we've got more time up our sleeves than we thought. There's another storm coming. The wind is picking up and there's clouds on the horizon; I don't think we're taking off today."
"How much damage was there?" David asked carefully and deliberately, plainly ignoring Shaw's previous statement.
"Claw-marks at every join, looks like it had a go at several of the engines too," she quickly responded. "Should still fly. In the meantime, I should be able to finish capping your broken wiring."
"Are you sure?" He persisted. "Perhaps if you'd take me outside to see, I could give you a more thorough report."
I don't think he's buying it, she mused grimly as she forced a smile. "It doesn't need to fly far. And I'm not going back out there with the wind picking up as it is."
"Understood, but–"
"David," she interjected as she began to drag him out from under the piano. "Do you want me to fix you, or not?"
"I would prefer to be fully assembled," he responded with a terse tone he'd poorly disguised. Perhaps that was his intention.
"Then you'll need to lead me through." Pushing herself to her feet, Shaw set about retrieving the repair kit with a grunt. "The storm will buy us time, but not that much."
"Yes, ma'am," he eventually sighed.
As he opened his mouth to add another thought, she found herself scrambling for another distraction; the last thing she wanted to do was admit the two of them had been talking about the android behind his back. Though, in retrospect, fair was fair; that's exactly what he had done while she showered.
"Oh, and another thing, David. Whatever did you do with my cross?"
A glint of realisation washed over his steely eyes. "Back pocket. Or, at least it should be, if it wasn't dislodged during transport."
He hadn't even finished before she began fumbling about the beheaded android's rear. He continued. "I apologise, Elizabeth. I should have given it back to you sooner."
"Yes, you should have," she replied darkly, carefully. Finding the small, plastic jar it was encased in, she immediately set about prying the cap off. "I'm just glad it's still there."
"Spot of good faith?" He offered with a smile.
Shaw gritted her teeth. "Sure."
As the morning became afternoon, the wind had swiftly and violently picked up, just as she had predicted; by the time several hours of fiddling with shredded wires and frayed bioskin had elapsed, the whistling about the vessel's curves had given way to a thunderous, persistent roar that brought with it a near-constant clatter of silica and debris against the hull. Their view of the valley had disappeared amongst a brown, horizontal rush of particulate matter as the vessel bounced idly against its fixtures. Still, their present landing spot felt somewhat more stable than its initial, precarious perch upon the rocks it had initially crashed onto.
Za'il had eventually caught his breath, and after a few false starts, had shaken his light-headedness enough to resume being useful. Lunch had been in order shortly thereafter, and while the storm had peaked at its worst, Elizabeth had paused in her repairs to begin packing supplies into a handful of bags as the Engineer disappeared for a shower. He'd certainly smelled like he needed one, given his sweat-soaked state when he'd staggered back on board.
Hours more had flown by as they continued their preparations in relative silence, save the occasional distinctly inert conversation between Shaw and David, and the odd question directed at Za'il, which he predictably rebuffed given half a chance. Though the wind had faded from fever pitch by the time the sun had started to sink below the horizon, it was still far too blustery outside for a safe take-off in her opinion, and David had quickly agreed when shown the most recent scan of the engines. He'd questioned the sanity in flying it at all, to be fair, but had quickly been shot down with a choice few gruff words from the Engineer.
Deliberately leaving the android's neck severed and finding several excuses to leave it as such, Shaw had parked her repair efforts with a mighty yawn and dramatic stretch, staggering to her feet in search of water as Za'il continued to wrestle with the growing pile of bags littering the space between the airlock and the now half-empty crates. He had started off with a fairly extensive list of things to shove into the tall, overstuffed shoulder packs, but had soon realised there was far too much to carry should they need to do anything more physical than slowly, painfully lugging them down the hallway between hangars. There was every possibility they would be ambushed in the process, and realising that Elizabeth, too, had plenty to carry, he set about stripping his supplies back to the bare necessities.
Having watched him pace back and forth between the supplies at one end of the room and the holographic juggernaut hovering over the table at the other, Shaw also came to the conclusion she'd overpacked; leaving David to pester her from the opposite side of the room, she slowly reorganised the packs and whittled the most important supplies down to just one large bag with enough room for David's head at the very top.
By the time they had reduced the cruft to what they could sensibly carry and arranged it by the airlock, the light had faded from the eerie orange of dirt reflecting the sun, to sanguine dust dispersing the last of its rays, and finally to a dull purple as the howling wind finally died to a hushed breeze, toying with the settling dust and debris beneath the glow of the rising, omnipresent Gas Giant.
Shaw thought she would never adjust to the short days on this horrible world, her sleep cycle shot to pieces as it fought for a few extra hours of daylight with the arrival of each evening – but in the shadow of the previous evening, and having withstood a day that oscillated wildly between physical labour and emotional turmoil, she had to admit she would welcome early rest in this instance.
Stars vied for dominance amongst the glint of dust and rock in the immense rings illuminating the night beyond the lifeboat. She knew that by this time tomorrow, she would be among them; this would be her last opportunity to admire the enormous mountains before them, as much as she begrudged them for the foetid slurry of death and destruction they obscured with their icy beauty. Stained pink in the ambient light of the night, they certainly made for quite a story should she ever return to Earth.
The mere thought left her struggling to chew her dinner.
Za'il had joined her for another meal, opting to sit opposite her as he gazed out the window, his own eyes prying at the landscape in a similar, distant manner to hers, though she could only guess as to what he was thinking about. Certainly nothing like her own musings. He had his work cut out for him the moment he reached orbit.
It was the silence of their meals she found so unnerving, she finally realised; no matter how much or how little she herself had spoken during shared meals, it was others that kept the silence at bay. From business discussions to idle thoughts about their day, from intellectual discussions – or arguments – to inane, childish banter, there had always been some semblance of noise about dinner that she had, until now, taken for granted. Without language, it was nigh on impossible to have those discussions, and it wasn't like she was about to repeatedly drop her stew on the table to translate a note in Sumerian and scribble a reply.
Why she had chosen a plain old stew was beyond her, too; with the exception of breakfast tomorrow, this would be her last Earth-based meal in a very long time. She could have chosen anything, anything; of all the options, she chose a feeble imitation of beef soaking in artificial red wine and tomatoes. And yet, the scent and the texture of it reminded her of a home she no longer called home. It was strangely comforting.
David had been quiet for quite some time. When he finally piped up, she was hardly surprised. "Doctor, have you thought of a destination yet?"
"Not yet," she lied, unwilling to allow either of the men in the room to set off another chain-reaction argument. She was too tired for their shenanigans. "I guess we'll figure it out once we're in orbit."
"Understood," he responded brightly.
"In the meantime," she continued, placing her empty bowl down on the coffee table as she rose to her feet, "I'm going to have a long, hot shower. Probably the last in a while. Don't you two have too much fun at my expense while I'm gone."
"Yes, ma'am," David enthused with a pleasant smile she simply couldn't bring herself to trust.
Having soaked for what felt like an hour or longer – certainly enough to leave her fingers and toes wrinkled like prunes – Elizabeth had stepped out of the shower into the gentle trill of a piano being played elsewhere. The sombre thrum of a tune she didn't recognise persisted as she dried her hair, brushed her teeth and climbed into fresh clothing. It continued as she stepped out of the bedroom and into the main lobby, almost tripping over a mass of limbs by the door in the process.
"Terribly sorry," David apologised as she staggered aside.
"Wh–…" she began, glancing between the android and the Engineer; the latter hardly noticed her as he played on. It seemed he'd absorbed several of the techniques she'd shown him as she'd played days ago. His playing sounded far more like what one would hear on Earth, though the tune itself was almost unsettlingly foreign. "Why are you down here?"
Though he had been arranged with some modicum of respect, David's head was cocked off on a strange angle amongst limp limbs he clearly still had no control over. Of course, she intentionally hadn't reconnected any of the cabling required for that. Only his main power cable remained plugged in.
"He shifted me," he responded with a matter-of-fact tone, though there was the most subtle thread of indignation below it. "Apparently my position beside the stool was creepy."
She stifled a laugh. "Your words or his?"
His eyebrows shot up. "I would hardly describe myself as creepy, Doctor."
"I don't know," she mused with a grin, "The Headless Horseman act is a little unsettling. Hardly your fault, though."
Having noted the amused expression on her face, the Engineer paused in his playing with similarly raised brows. After a moment he got to his feet, kicked the stool aside, and reached for the pen and pad that had ended up sitting against the piano's lid. Another moment lingered before he scratched a message into a fresh sheet, gently pushed it toward her, and stood alongside the pile of books nearby.
By now she had little patience left for the translation game, but she decided to allow him one last exception for the evening. She was fed, showered, warm, and feeling generous enough. Thumbing through the tablet, she made short work of the message.
The third song you played.
Apparently he, too, had grown tired of the translation game, and opted for overt laziness. Glancing across at him quizzically, she sought clarification and quickly received it; he simply raised both hands patiently, flicking his fingers as if playing the piano.
What had that song been? The first, he had slept through; she chose to discount that one.
The second, the first he'd noticed, had left him standing slack-jawed at the opposite end of the instrument. The one that followed had gripped him, despite her fumbling with missed keys and damn-near forgetting chunks of the song she'd not heard in years.
Remembering his frozen, entranced gawp at the final she'd played on a whim, she had little doubt it was that he'd requested an encore for.
"What's going on up there, Doctor," David asked from the floor. "Is everything alright?"
"Of course, David," she responded quietly. There was nothing sincere about his concern, she had since decided. His persistence at her supposed defense was wearing her patience thin. "He just wants me to play a song."
"Ah," he purred. "What song would that be?"
"You'll recognise it," she smiled, sinking down against the stool. There was a tepid butt-print already pressed into it, much to her amusement; the warm leather stuck to the backs of her bare thighs.
Za'il had crouched beside her the moment she began to play, staring silently and intently at her fingers as they stroked at the keys. The ice about them was long-gone this time. She could only assume he'd been playing the majority of the time she was in the shower.
This time, the song was a special request. This time, she had doubled her audience. And this time, it would be the last she would play a piano for a very long time. She could not ignore the constant barrages of lasts that permeated the day; there was a finality about it, a finality she had tried to ignore for a number of days, one that had distantly occurred to her as she stepped aboard the Prometheus two years ago and one she now could not help but consider an extended, haunting Last Supper afforded to her before setting off on an unapologetically bold voyage, the likes of which were unquestionably a first amongst her kind.
And for that, she poured her heart into the keys, barely taking a breath as she allowed each repeating verse to gather power, striking the keys with increasing fervour as the words hung about her lips. The noise had quickly exceeded that of her previous foray with the tune as she closed her eyes, allowing it to flow from hard-wired memory.
If only the people of Earth could see this now. – a crashed lifeboat as the only remnants of a failed voyage, marooned on an alien moon with her beheaded android and giant alien companions, pounding an old classic into the fibres of an overpriced and over-engineered piano as if this were some sort of strange, remote cocktail bar at the edge of the Galaxy. She would laugh if it wasn't happening right now; perhaps she would laugh in a few days when she was lightyears from this place.
For now, she was content to make shit up and pound a few extra, rising, pounding verses in where they didn't belong, reluctant to leave the instrument as she knew the moment she did, that would be it, the end, the closing of the book that was this last chapter in her life and the beginning of a terrifying sequel drenched in unknowns. She would cling to that final page as long as she was allowed.
She had never, ever played with this sort of passion. She was loathe to stop.
It was only the silent shuffle of footsteps alongside her that snapped her from her determined playing; the Engineer had stood, face turned away from her, and had begun slowly pacing toward the broad, floor-to-ceiling window behind her.
Her stomach dropped. Had she done something wrong? Was he expecting an exact replica of her first crack at it? Goddamn him and his unpredictable moodiness.
Tailing off her little performance with little flourish, her fingers hung above the keys as the sound faded and plunged the vessel back into silence. With a sigh, she dragged her feet off the floor and crossed her legs against the stool, gently thumbing at the retracted cover as her mind set about catastrophising about the obvious.
"That was quite a performance," David mused from beneath her after a breath. "I didn't know you could play like that."
"You did," she shot quietly. "You've seen my dreams."
"I've seen you play," he corrected. "It's a shame you never continued it, you're quite talented. But you've never played like that."
She couldn't resist a smile; if flattery was the game he was playing tonight, she would concede him this one, small victory. "Pulling out all the stops for a special moment. I don't know when I'll play again, to be honest. It's not like we can drag this thing with us when we leave."
"Indeed not," he responded thoughtfully. "Perhaps we'll have to pop back by Earth sometime and acquire something a little more...portable."
"One day," she mused. Her smile faded to something a touch sadder. "Maybe."
A/N: Life still has me by the throat. But this one is for you guys.
Yes, this is a hurt/comfort sort of fic. I'm oddly a sucker for this genre.
Secondly, I've taken on board the mentions of short chapters – a couple of you have noted now that you're likely expecting a bit more juice. For some reason I struggle to get out more than about 6k words, but this one is over 10k, just to see if I can cover that sort of ground. It took all damn weekend to get it to this length, but hopefully this is a bit more to bask in.
Extra shoutout to sugarskull3 for inspiring the crap out of me. Amazing how a single word can set off a chain reaction – you've stoked the fires that were dying back to mere embers in your PMs, so I guess we can credit you for this huge chapter arriving early!
Also. I'm sure it would have legitimately killed the Prometheus writers to, you know, do some research. The levels of CO2 on LV-223 wouldn't have done immediate damage to a Human being, and the lethal levels are almost four times what they depicted it as. For the sake of sanity, I'm subtly doubling the readings and writing the ship off as borked – and giving the Engineers a higher resistance to hypercapnia than Humans.
And finally: normally I like to drag the suspense out a bit, but I'll hand this one to you guys. Za'il is FAR too macho to let a lady see him tearing up over a mere song. So he's put himself in time-out.