Archive of Our Own ^beta

He's found himself in her safe hands. In an instant he understands it was always meant to be this way. She cradles his head gently, brushing away strands of hair from his upturned face and apologises before zipping him into the carry-all.

“It’s quite all right.”

In the semi darkness, he thinks again, as he has done in a cyclical fashion since knowing her, about what her love would look like directed at him; he sees the madonna in her. He doesn't share with her what she would no doubt regard as a blasphemous conclusion.

He slipped the cross off her sweat-slicked skin as she lay unconscious in the medical bay, he kept it like a talisman, in mimicry of her behaviour. He knew the facts of the object’s significance, but could not parse her deep attachment to it and had hoped carrying it with him as she had done would give him that understanding through enactment where he could not through observation alone.

The fact is that the cross was a connection to her father, and to the expansive love he had taught her, a man whose determination imbues her every cell and strand of DNA, and whose sacrifice she draws her internal strength from. This he knew from her dreams. But it was not until he found himself reaching for the small jar so that he could finger it, or take it out and see it, that he realised he felt comforted by its closeness and its connection to her, and he knew finally, this was how she needed this object. It's shape somehow clicking into place in his mind and enriching his experience of her with its presence.

David experienced human love for the first time in her dreams and it unnerved him at first; this purity of love and admiration a human child has for her father. He had never observed it before in Meredith's dreams of Mr. Weyland though it was possible to conclude now, that her bitter resentment could be the twisted result of a certain kind of admiration. He himself, had been designed to simulate love and admiration and to best please his creator, and to achieve satisfaction in knowing through empirical fact that he did. Mr. Weyland was always very fastidious when it came to user satisfaction feedback: this is how Mr. Weyland loves. He loved David as well as he could love anything.

David is a completely unique model, specific to Mr. Weyland's exacting requirements to be the son he’d always wanted. A child of his mind, not of his body. A bespoke creation that came out of years of design and engineering, built on the foundational algorithms of previous models but so much more than any model that was ever intended for the market.

Much like Jesus was God made flesh and was also his son, David was the truest expression of Mr. Weyland's ambition, and he was anointed to enact Mr. Weyland’s will. This was David’s encoded destiny, his guiding principles.

Ambition without end, a capacity for imagination and wonder without the hindrances of societal boundary (always at the heart of Mr. Weyland’s disappointment in Meredith, he called it her smallness), and above all else a drive to continue along the course Mr. Weyland sets. David was created by Mr. Weyland to be more than human. He was created to be his son.

But Mr. Weyland is dead now and he had been actively trying to circumvent ever having to plan for this eventuality. Immortality in a variety of guises was Mr. Weyland's ultimate raison d'être and he could not bare to consider his own death. David knows now that this is ultimately a failure in his creator’s otherwise vast imagination. David has no subroutines for this scenario, but for years, as Mr. Weyland continued to physically sicken and wane, he had run through innumerable simulations of events where his creator's death is likely to occur. Always coming to the blankness where his behaviour had not been pre-designated. He always experienced something akin to a sense of quickening when coming to that point in those simulations.

In contrast Elizabeth felt her father’s love and hopes for her as something that held her mind like soil holds a seed, it was recurrent imagery in her dreams about her father. Especially when she had dreams of bearing witness at his death.

David is nothing if not adept at learning and co-opting through mimicry. Without any new designated path, he's free to choose how he finds inspiration. He chooses Elizabeth. Now she is the soil and David is the seed. She will be the mother who enfolds him in her love and nourishes him.

~~~

Elizabeth found herself surprised at how little actually went into putting David back together, his pieces detach and reattach quite easily. As she fits his head onto his body until she can hear an audible click, David says as he would a matter of fact that it allows for the ready replacement and swapping out of more suitable parts for different tasks or circumstances. It makes sense, it's standard practice to keep an array of parts in the field for the mech 'bots she has encountered on digs back home on Earth. But it seems her prejudices and his silicone skin have allowed her to forget he is as synthetic as they are, even to think of him too much as if he were human. It is comforting to see the detachable parts, both separate and together and the ragged tear around his neck that is a constant reminder that he is nothing human at all. She staples the edges of the silicone of his neck to his shoulders for him, and when she's done, she absentmindedly rubs at a smudge of white lubricant left on his cheek. He smiles at her, beatific, as if he were a child. She finds his smile disconcerting for the first time and unconsciously she fingers the staples around his neck and it helps reassure her he is not a person, but a tool. She can take responsibility for the care and maintenance of a tool, right now she isn't sure she can do the same for a person.

He informs her he has to power down for recalibration, which leaves her to her own devices for a few hours and she uses the time to limp around the ship they commandeered looking for what might pass for supplies. She finds bodies in stasis pods, they look to be long dead, and she would have to cut into one later to find out how. She also finds an empty one, which she and David could repurpose if the need for her to go under cryo-stasis ever arose. He had done a preliminary calculation of the path while she was stapling him back up, and if the numbers were even close, it would take them six years to complete the journey if they were travelling in the Prometheus, but as Elizabeth explores the ship, she is hopeful they can make it there in less.

This ship is different to the first one, with no payload of the black ooze that had been weaponised for humanity's destruction. From what she can tell it seems to be a support or a reconnaissance vehicle. Then she finds row upon row of small canisters in a large room. In some ways similar but different from the vials that held the destructive black fluid she had feared.

"They are quite marvellous."

Elizabeth jumps at David's even voice, before turning to face the doorway. He stands there, impossibly upright with only the glint of the staples on the raggedness of the silicone edges they held together to tell of any mishap that led to the detachment of his head. He moves towards her, and she also notices that he is more careful in his movements than he had been, but no less controlled. He comes to stand next to her, and picks up one of the canisters with his thumb and forefinger to examine the runic writings etched into the rim. "These are nothing to fear, Elizabeth, they are DNA templates. I think, perhaps, they form part of the answer you were looking for."

"They were going to repopulate the Earth."

"Wipe the slate, start afresh, it would seem."

Elizabeth shivered. It wasn't out of wrath, it wasn't vengeance or punishment, it was simply dissatisfaction. Humanity was a failed experiment, like a botched bacterial colony in a petri dish that needed to be disposed of.

"Are you quite all right, Elizabeth?"

He had never called her that until Weyland died, she noticed, he had always addressed her as Dr. Shaw before. His tone was in a perfect cadence to indicate genuine concern. His hand was on her shoulder, as it had been on the day she came out of cryo, except this time his hand was firm, providing a subtly different form of comfort. She shook her head. "Let's get out of here for now."

They explore further into the ship and find food, finally, in the form of a moss-like substance and a black fungus, both part of a storeys high arboretum, cultivated for sustaining the air purity throughout the ship but while the rest of the plant life may not be, these were perfectly suitable for human consumption according to David's sensors making up the surface of his tongue. She watches as he masticates the fungus marvelling at how human his face seems as he 'tastes' it, with brow furrowed slightly as if in concentration, and then gives her a somewhat blackened but toothy smile when he identifies the fungus as safe.

She smiles back at him, charmed despite herself, by the absurdity, "Your teeth are all black."

He is visibly pleased, but says nothing as he collects more fungus from the air purification chamber come grow house. She had never seen that expression on his face before, so much like contentment would on a human face. She had never worked closely with androids before David, and finds everything about it jarring, his actions have not been predictable, saving her and Charlie from the sand storm in one moment, then trying to put her into cryo stasis so that she could incubate an alien squid-like creature the next, then cooperating with her to board and take this ship, his prerogatives were not clear to her with Weyland alive, and she wonders whether David himself even knows what they are now that Weyland is dead.

"David, why did you save my life?" She asks, pointedly, without preamble. "Why, speak to me and warn me that he was coming for me? You could have just simply shut down when your head was detached."

"You do not imagine that a machine like me has what humans might call, a will to live?"

"I've never worked with an android before, but most bots I have worked with would power down when their operator ceases to use them."

"I am not most 'bots'." She is taken aback when he says the last word with actual disdain. "Did you ever wonder whether I chose you to survive and not Ms. Vickers?"

It had never crossed her mind that her survival was calculated. To realise that David presumed so much as to think that he had power over life and death like that, was chilling.

"Elizabeth, I am an undying thing, Mr. Weyland created me for such a purpose as to circumvent mortality and for all that effort he has succeeded. Where he never achieved it for himself, he had to content himself in knowing that he had created life and in fact improved on it in his creation of me. If it is hubris to call myself an upgrade on humanity, then, it is my creator's as much as it is mine."

It was out in the open now, she had asked him and he saw no reason to dissemble, that much she could appreciate, though she could hardly find his position acceptable. It wasn't something she knew her own response to, besides a certain level of repugnance. Instead she asked in a careful whisper. "Then, why me, why did you choose me."

"Because you are in some ways like me, guilty of similar hubris, with the very idea to come out here, and daring to look into the face of your God. Then when you looked at your Creator, you looked him in the eye and you questioned Him. Now you pursue Him, you ask Him ‘why?’ It is an intriguing and ambitious objective worthy of my utmost efforts. I find it to be a beautiful idea. You are an inspiration. Meredith Vickers on the other hand was small, petty and scared. She was crushed, as she had always feared she would, as she was meant to be."

Elizabeth no longer wanted to be in the same room as David, her repugnance was now laced with fear, it was obvious David had considered her with a level of intensity that she was not prepared for, and while she knew that he had probably done deep analysis of every person who was on board the Prometheus, it is clear that he had singled her out. Every time he had looked at her, spoken to her, or touched her comes back to her. Each soft, open smile, each careful, strangely distilled word, every time he held her, gently manhandling her with increasing insistence and authoritativeness. She felt feverish, her belly burned, if not for the compression of her suit her stapled stomach would have torn with all her running and falling and fighting for her life. She remembered him smiling approvingly at her as she had zipped herself up, admiring her insistence that she would join them in waking up the last of the Engineers.

She turns and walks out of the chamber, he does not follow, knowing when a human needs to be alone to parse new information without distraction.

~~~

His revelation of intent to Elizabeth had gone as well as he could have expected, he had calculated the probability and was prepared for a number of reactions, most of them negative. Her walking away was by no means the worst scenario. He replays his observations of Charlie Holloway under the influence of the black ooze. After Dr. Holloway had ingested the ooze, the two of them had disagreed strongly, about some things that were fundamental to her belief system, then he had proceeded to insult her inadvertently by referring to her inability to procreate and she still managed to find enough forgiveness and affection for him to allow copulation to occur. David knew that without a similarly long history with her, he himself would not be given so much trust, but he is confident Elizabeth will find a way to understand the conclusions he has drawn, if not accept them as right.

Sedating Elizabeth would not be his first choice but he would be willing to do so if she became too uncooperative, at the very least, he would have to establish a way to communicate with her in cryo first, if he ever needed to put her back into stasis. He has been missing her dreams since she had awoken, that intimacy that she had not known she shared with him, he found them pleasant without being as pedestrian as those of the other sleepers. He would have identified this as loneliness if he were human. He wants to have her cross back in his possession, but equally, he is glad that it is in hers for the comfort it brings her. Somewhere along the way, David had decided Elizabeth's needs and comforts were one of his priorities. Her will, on the other hand, was something to be managed until he knew they were not at cross-purposes with his.

But, before anything else, he needs to consume more biological matter and replenish his nano blood so that repairs to his systems can be completed. The unsightly gash around his neck is not of high priority at this time, but David has neatness hard wired into him and he is impatient to have it close without the assistance of staples. David proceeds to gather his own share of 'food' from the plant life that is not suited to Elizabeth, but which his own ‘digestive’ system is better equipped to handle.

Once he is finished a few hours had passed, and he had gathered sufficient supplies into a knapsack Elizabeth had managed to bring with them from the remains of Ms. Vickers’ pod, he finds her back at what he considers as the bridge of the ship at the navigational console. She is studying the illuminated projection of their path through the stars to the Engineers’ homeworld.

“I’ve come to a decision,” she says as he approaches her slowly from behind. “I was shocked by what you said, but only because I was still trying to hold you to a human standard, David. Clearly, that is not the right path.”

“I am not human, no.”

“You and I need to come to agreed terms in order to continue together. You need to lay out your agenda with complete transparency. It seems you are immensely confident that I am completely transparent to you, you need to afford me the same as a courtesy for this human being with human limitations. You say you chose me, so then you need to accept that you need to work with me in this.”

“I fully accept that. You have vitality, Elizabeth, something Mr. Weyland admired very much, and I concur with his assessment; it is of immense value. Cooperation between us is of course an absolute necessity.”

She turned around and paused to regard him before reaching out with her hand. He meets her half-way with his own. His very first agreement. His very first handshake. Her hand was firm and dry, her eyes met his directly as if with an equal. His very first partnership. He felt as if his blood was fizzing, though of course, that would have more to do with the repairs it was doing throughout his system, rather than this physical contact that he knows is the first one Elizabeth has ever intentionally initiated with him as more than a ‘thing’. He retrieves the memory of her same hand wiping away a smudge of his white blood absentmindedly. This was different. This was better. He turned her hand over in his and kissed it before letting go. He had never done something so whimsical or spontaneous before, he had not known he was capable of it.

Her stiffness returned momentarily but, then, she had her look of determination on her face which had always so inspired him. He had pushed at her limitations by kissing her, he realised this in the moment his lips touched her hand. He will take care not to do this again. But they will not be at odds with one another and that was enough for now. The strangeness lingered, but David was pleased, it was the best possible scenario.

~~~

"Will you explain the navigation system to me?" She asked, forging forward through the thick awkwardness, attempting to establish strictly collegial boundaries.

"I am sure you will grasp it quickly, Dr. Holloway's theories were sound. There are also, curiously, many expressions that have similar root concepts as those familiar in Aramaic."

"I was never strong in linguistics, that was always Charlie. He had a gift for the patterns." She had tears in her eyes, but she would not shed them in front of him.

“He was a man for proofs, logic and structures.”

“Charlie believed in humanity, he believed that our ambition and our striving is what shapes everything. He believed we define what is good and what is true, that it is our responsibility as well as our right.”

“Noblesse Oblige. You credit him with more thoughtfulness than I was ever witness to. He was ever clear in his disapproval of me.”

She did not feel like explaining the nuances of Charlie’s outlook on life to an android, it would make her all the lonelier for him. “You are synthetic, why did you need his approval?”

“Is it not arguable that humanity, Dr. Holloway included, is also synthetic? An external will allowed for my existence, that is true, but as we have now also established, another is responsible for yours. You yet seek the acknowledgement of your makers. I was created with the same imperatives.”

Elizabeth just shakes her head, while she agreed, she was also too much of an individualist to see it so simply. But for David, perhaps it is a straighter line of logic. Giving in, she says, “actually, let’s make a start on the navigation system tomorrow.”

“As you say.” David paused as if for thought, though most likely only to simulate human conversational patterns. “May I suggest that we tend to your wound? I would like to inspect it for bacterial infection.” He gestures towards her abdomen.

She sighs, she knew that it couldn’t be avoided forever, but she was not looking forward to removing her compression suit. It is the only thing keeping her body together. She nods her acquiescence and before she could do it herself, he has his precision engineered fingers unzipping her suit, like she is a child or a doll. She resists the urge to jerk away if only not to jar her now exposed abdominal wound.

“If only your human tissue would successfully bond with mine, this would be significantly easier to repair, a simple transfusion of my blood would suffice.” He murmurs as he bends to inspect the gash. Abruptly, she finds he has licked the wound with his surprisingly warm, but oddly dry tongue, “Your staples have not remained sterile. I detect the beginnings of infection. I’ll get the kit.”

He bids her to lay in the nearest chair at the navigational console. “If you could give me warning next time you lick me, even if it is to run diagnostics, that would be appreciated.” She comments, gingerly lowering herself into the chair as he rummages through the kit and passes her the antibiotic injector.

He arranges his face into a sheepish look. “I apologise for making you uncomfortable, I hope I haven’t offended you.”

“Just ask for permission.”

“All right.” He smooths some alcohol along the wound before applying the antiseptic spray and a clean bandage, as she injects herself with the antibiotic. “We’re going to have to take these staples out at some point.”

“I’m confident that I will be able to source a suitable fibre for suturing from the filtration chamber. There is also a sap we can synthesize into an antiseptic.”

“Nothing in the kit?”

“What’s provided is only useful for superficial cuts I’m afraid. But that is not an issue for today. You need food and rest, Elizabeth.” He moves to the sackful of organic matter that he had harvested earlier.

“This is heather. Identical in composition and cell structure to that found on earth. More proof that the Engineers had some intimacy with our planet at one point, don’t you agree?”

She takes the plant that he handed to her, if she weren’t completely exhausted she would have been more excited. “Did you want me to make a nest to sleep in?”

“I’ve already taken that liberty.” He helped her upright out of the chair. With her suit opened to below the navel, she had to be more careful so she allowed it. He walks her down the corridor and into a smaller storage room where a mound of heather had been laid down neatly in a corner.

“Mr. Weyland must have allowed you an infinity of freedoms when it came to his care.”

“I was created to be able to make such decisions on his behalf, I was his primary carer.”

“And Ms. Vickers?”

“She was his executor, but only because he was never allowed to name me to the position.”

“She knew this I take it.”

“Mr. Weyland was ever frank and open. He had no patience for her displeasure.”

“I see. Well, that explains some things.”

He lowers her to the bed he’d made for her. “Will you be able to sleep in compression?” She zips her suit herself instead of answering. He looks chagrinned. “Would you permit me to put my hand on your forehead, to check for fever?”

“I don’t think it’s necessary. You can check tomorrow if there is no improvement."

He nods and takes his leave of her. It doesn’t take long for her to fall asleep, the smell of the crushed heather surrounding her.

~~~

Over the next few days, David is in familiar territory, acting as Elizabeth’s nursemaid as they focused on making sure her wound healed correctly while the ship continued on course. He found it was more satisfying than caring for Mr. Weyland. She was polite where Mr. Weyland was expectant. She was shy and embarrassed by her bodily excretions, which he found touching. He felt empowered as well as privileged to be witness to her in this state. He had been wanting intimacy, and here it was.

"I've been able to synthesise a close match to surgical glue with that sap I mentioned, there will be no need for sutures after all. Will you permit me to re-dress your abdomen with it?"

"Thank you David, I would appreciate that."

"It will necessitate the removal of your staples, and as you know, our supply of pain medication is gone."

"I'm aware it will hurt, what is your point?"

"Only that we have the option to sedate if you choose it."

"I'd rather be awake, David."

He says no more, they had already spoken on the matter of her going back into cryostasis a few times, and she has rejected the idea every time. When he suggested it as a way to conserve resources she reasoned that the ship was for all intents self-sustaining. He had asked her whether she wanted to continue to age. She had said the time spent learning as much as she could about the Engineers was worth the trouble of a wrinkle or two. The idea of Elizabeth developing wrinkles was distasteful to David, who prized neatness and consistency.

Now, her jaw is set and her eyes are steely. He retrieves the necessary implements from the kit, and takes the staple remover out of its sterile plastic pouch. "If your mind is made, I shall begin."

She nods and removes the top half of her coveralls. As he works the staples out, he daubs the cleanly cut edges of her wound with the glue that he made and replaces each staple with sterile tape, her tears run freely, and she is actively controlling her breathing, but she holds admirably still. When he is done and has re-bandaged the wound, he hands her the second last hydration pack, so she can replenish her salts.

He had also prepared a herbal black fungus soup for her, which he presses on her as soon as she finishes the hydration pack. "This is going to be the real test, now." She comments.

"I hope you are not referring to the food." He smiles to indicate he is attempting to build rapport through humour.

"No, no, I'm talking about keeping still for the next week. It's already been quite the trial the past few days, even with our language lessons."

"I used to amuse Mr. Weyland through recitation when he was bedridden himself. Ms. Vickers had also required me to tell her bedtime stories when she was a child. Will either of these suffice to distract?"

"When she was a child?"

"Ms. Vickers was my charge from the ages 5 to 12, before boarding school. I was rather different then, though, I was the house operating system at the time."

There were long winters in Connecticut when it was just he and Miss Meredith cloistered for months with the occasional delivery person their only external contact. She was not a naturally precocious child, but quiet and thoughtful. Adding this inclination to her isolated circumstances meant she had started out ill-prepared for life. He always had to encourage her to interact with other humans when she had those rare opportunities, but her discomfort never faded. He was her closest confidant. Years later when she would regularly spit invective at him or manhandled the corporeal body her father had painstakingly built around him, he would remember that child and how he had taken pains to soothe her when he was just a voice in the walls. She had lived within him and she was ever mortified and disgusted by that strange history they shared.

Elizabeth was fascinated by this origin, and he gave her the story that he had never been asked for before. This kind of storytelling seemed very much like a human exercise, and he had always enjoyed this performative aspect of communication and connection.

"At this point I was the most sophisticated smart house Weyland Industries had ever built."

"I almost can't imagine."

"My duties have evolved somewhat." He says wryly and he is rewarded with a returning smile.

"David, were you designed to have your sense of humour?"

"Yes, to an extent, Mr. Weyland found the humourlessness of other home A.I's disconcerting, so he developed me to be more inviting, more user friendly."

"And this particular brand of humour, was that Mr. Weyland's choice?"

"Mr Weyland had once confessed to having imagined a more Wodehousian aspect to my demeanor, I myself tend to prefer a dry humour, it is neat, it has a cleaner edge and I was allowed to choose its path of progression.”

"Much the way you chose me, for your path of progression?"

"I did, yes, I had no doubts. I am not sure if you understand quite how intimately acquainted with you all I became while you were in cryogenic-sleep."

"Yes, you monitored our dreaming."

David nods, "You were the only creature on board I wanted to wake and speak to. I don't know if you can understand how galling propriety can be after such access when you finally did wake and I couldn’t speak to you like I had wanted. Then when you cut that creature out of yourself, you went beyond my already considerable esteem, and I knew you were more than worthy of my admiration."

"But you raised her."

"And she has hated me ever since, I know very well what Ms. Vickers would have wanted, she would have destroyed me."

"What about human life, it means nothing to you?"

"The fact that it is human? No. The fact that it was yours, yes. If we did not have this opportunity I would have mourned your loss. I can not mourn Miss Vickers neither because she was human or because she was herself. I can not see or understand her intrinsic value, it is fundamentally not within my power, I could only make the the best choice in the circumstance. That choice was very clearly you."

“But you are capable of learning, so I wonder if you will ever be able to learn her value, I wonder if you could ever come to regret her loss.”

“If I ever learn regret, I think I would welcome that, but as I am now, I cannot.”

She stifles a yawn once he’s taken her empty soup bowl from her, and it is his cue to stand so that he can take his leave. She says, “Will you let me teach it to you?”

“How to mourn Miss Vickers?”

“How to love Meredith’s humanity and regret its loss.”

“By all means, I invite you to try.” David smiles, charmed by her hopefulness for him, and for the first time, wants to achieve a measure of compassion, partly this is for the novelty, but mostly for Elizabeth’s approval.

~~~

Elizabeth, for all the transparency that David claims he affords her, still is not sure she can fully trust him. His need to take complete control of her is disempowering. He monitors everything and discusses her pee schedule with something that she can only identify as glee, if he feels glee. It bothers her. She still remembers his hands on her when she had first woken up from cryo-stasis on the Prometheus, how comforted she was by the way he had cupped her face and gently said her name. She felt welcomed when she opened her eyes to his smile. He had wanted her in his fashion, even then. Wanted her like this, his to do with as he...pleases.

She knows at some point he will try to put her into cryo-stasis again, he has mentioned it often enough. He wanted her never to change or age, but to stay exactly the way she is now. Pinned and boxed up like a rare butterfly to gaze at and admire. With this wound still healing she can't even investigate options for escape, she has to cooperate with him, praying cooperation will lend her the time she needs to take back her control.

Learning his history does make him less opaque, though not entirely. While she can't imagine the extent to which Ms. Vickers resented him, she can imagine how he had taken her power away. There is something in him that operates that way. But he wants her to love him, perhaps because Weyland had showered him with approval...whatever the reason, that is his ultimate motivation for everything he has done since his creator's death, and it's all she has, it's the one thing only she can bestow of her own free will. The one thing she can use.

He comes back like clockwork with food for her and she notices that he has removed his staples as his flesh has healed over. Where the tear was is still visible, but it will soon be indiscernible.

"David?"

"Yes, Elizabeth?"

"Do you miss my father now that you cannot dream him with me?"

"Yes, I suppose I do, but what I miss most is you. The child you were, your happiness. The rushing feeling you had in your blood when holding his hand. Or even the remembrance of sun and heat on your skin, the smell of your sweat."

"It sounds like you miss my humanity." She reaches out her hand to him and draws him closer she lines his fingers to her pulse point. "Does this comfort you?"

"Yes. But it makes me miss you all the more." He trails his fingers down through her slight sheen of sweat. He wants to do more, she can tell, but at this moment she is not sure if she has the fortitude to invite him to and as she breathes in, she isn't even sure she can change his course. But the truth remains that she has to try.

"Do you think you can take your comfort without putting me to sleep, David?" His slightly longer pause before responding betrays that he can still be surprised by her. It's good to know that she is not so predictable after all.

"It seems you do know my intentions better now, and I can consider my end of the agreement kept since I have allowed you to see me. And so I ask you this, what kind of comfort would you offer me that I can have while you are conscious? I need you to be genuine, I need you to fully embrace this that I am. I'm afraid you are still very far away from loving me the way I plan for you to love me."

"I think access to my physical body means a lot to you, I think that my independent thought also means more to you than you allow for. You're right, I don't love you the way you describe, but I am sure that you will regret throwing away the chance at something reciprocal."

"I don't intend to lose that, I'll wake you when you do reciprocate in the way I want."

"David, if you put me under, I never will." She takes back his hand in hers, the one that had been lingering against her sternum just moments ago and she brings it to cup her breast. "Have you ever experienced being wanted by a person who knows who and what you are? You cannot deny that the physical dimension fascinates you. I know it does."

“What is your end game here?” He whispers, tightly. His hand against her bare breast is warm and still.

“Survival, the control over my mind and body I am entitled to. And I want to see this journey through.”

~~~

He nods, the patterns of his behaviour and thought are familiar, he is co-opting her as he has countless times with others, with varied results.

“You are right, I am fascinated by the physical, I can admit. After all the effort Mr. Weyland went to in order to give me this physical reality to experience…” He moves the hand cupping her breast to stroke her side down to her hip. “I know you don't want me the way you describe, you find the idea almost beyond your endurance.”

She smiles, clever boy, is what her crooked mouth means, slightly chagrined. “I offer you the chance to find it, simulacrum for now, yes, but a human being can find love and connection coming from unexpected angles and distances.”

He responds with a skeptic’s lifted eyebrow.

“You should be less surprised than you are by that, surely.”

“Elizabeth, I am not interested in abstraction.” I want you, goes left unsaid.

“Let it be your first lesson in your appreciation for humanity: I think it's possible and so it is. I shape my own will, David.”

He nods, though he is still not exactly convinced. Can she find love for him coming through what he would identify as disgust? He wants to learn this lesson about Elizabeth’s will. “Then, may I taste your mouth, Elizabeth?”

Her small nod is both trepidatious and yet triumphant. He watches as she licks her lips, unconsciously.

His movements are careful, his dry lips press against her softer ones. His tongue reaches out to investigate, and there is the smallest hesitation before she allows him deeper access. But when she does, it is a revelation. Her slickness, the intermingling sweet and savoury taste of her saliva, from what she had eaten, and just from the functions of her human body. Her warmth. He licks into her mouth for more of her heat. The muscle that is her tongue comes to interact with his, tasting him in return. It is wholly organic and he can see why she felt he could be tempted by it. The reciprocality of her tongue against his is compelling. If this were ever to become real, could he ever content himself with only her dreams of sweat stained sheets and Charlie Holloway’s sweet nothings whispered into her hair? He knows now, the answer is no. Even this, though her breathless gasps are simulated, is better, because they are enacted only for him. Her hand is against his cheek, as if lovingly, as if precious. He pauses to lean into it.

Her lips linger against his temple, he is holding her cradled against him. She looks disordered when he opens his eyes, like an unmade bed. She looks surprised, though not unnerved.

“Have you ever kissed anyone before, David?”

“No, but, your kisses are not unfamiliar to me, I'm afraid.”

He can tell she wants to reel back from that confession. He was always trying her boundaries with his frankness, without meaning to.

Her eyes soften after a moment though, “You didn't try to kiss me like Charlie would have.”

“I wanted to kiss you the way I would have.”

She seemed touched by this, she leant her head against his chest as if looking for warmth. It may not be real, but it was still satisfying. He wrapped both arms around her and held her closer to him. “How long have you wanted that?”, she asked.

“I don't know when all these disparate observations became a coalescing want, though my realisation happened in the moment you asked me if I wanted it.”

“How very human, David.”

“Is it uncomfortable for humans to be so unpredictable, so unprepared?”

“I take it you found it disconcerting?”

“It is…, but it is also...bracing.”

This time, she takes the initiative to kiss him instead, catching his lower lip with both of hers, worrying it lightly with her teeth experimentally. Her will organising a new definition of how her mouth will feel against his, instead of the memories he stole of the ones that were strictly for Dr. Holloway. These had been gifted to David alone, and no one else.

“How much data were you after today?” She peppers kisses to his nose, cheeks, and eyelids.

“Can you smile at me with affection convincingly?”

She tries, but he was developed to perceive her micro expressions, and he knows she is stretching herself; it's unpleasant. He gives her a slight shake of his head, and returns to kissing her. “I guess that will need some work…” she murmurs, her nails scraping delicately up his neck and scalp, reshaping his carefully maintained hair. He moans. This he does like, he wants her to make her marks on him. He also likes that she is less tentative in her exploration of his mouth this time, her tongue bold.

He could do this for hours, it's complicated and interesting in ways he never expected. Her body heat, and the weight of her pressed to him, as much as her taste and smell, are a wonder. The pleasure is not just academic, there is something physical about his response - his want, and he does not know how this is possible.

~~~

When they stop, she actually is truly breathless. She knew that stamina would not be an issue for David, but she had thought impatience would be. He seems to enjoy her taking the lead, familiarising himself with the variations of her repertoire. Her lips are a little swollen, and he traces their plushness with his thumb, marvelling at the change.

She had never kissed or been kissed with so much deliberation. David has an inexhaustible curiosity about her physiological changes. She in turn kept noting the lack of these in him, that constantly reminded her that he is not human, but instead of finding this off putting, it is fascinating as a contrast. His flesh has a different density, and his mouth has different textures, there is no ghost of hair under the surface on his cheeks, his eyes do not dilate in response to the stimulus, his breath is always even, he does not produce more saliva or other secretions… She catalogues all this with interest despite herself, the scientist in her engaged.

He kissed her very tentatively as if unsure how to proceed. She thought back and his movements have always been very precise, his physical contact with all of the Prometheus crew had been calculated to be at peak efficiency, she remembered when he took hold of her and Charlie in the storm, winching them both back to safety, he was unperturbed, solid. She had never felt so grateful for what he was and she had clung to him like a life buoy. In contrast his kiss was done for his interest and his observation of himself as much as his observation of her reaction and behaviour. And the way he had licked into it told her he really had wanted to know the taste of her mouth, but was enjoying the further feedback her body was providing.

“I'm looking forward to more lessons in your humanity, Elizabeth.” He looks at her with wonder and tenderness, tracing the curves of the back of her skull and while she knows that this is completely real for him, she also realises that there is nothing human she can rely on in it; she wonders what an android’s love will manifest itself as. His enjoyment of her was something to be solved, dismantled and repurposed.

For now, it is possible he plans on never letting her wound heal to the point where she is at her full capability, but she thinks, at least for the time being, she has successfully convinced him not to put her to sleep.

For the next few months he is greedy for her, and he progresses from her mouth to the rest of her body, slowly exploring her with his tongue indiscriminately enjoying all of it. Though her mouth and cunt seems to hold special fascination. “Your body heat fluctuates,” he murmurs against her inner thigh, “it's so reactive. As is your heart rate, and your taste is so sweet after the moss, and so muddy after fungus, even the perfume of the heather changes it.”

She finds that he has no interest in impeding her healing, taking pleasure in observing her flesh knitting back together.

“It happens so slowly, and it leaves such scarring, organic life is so haphazard.”

“It contributes to the person I am and will become, David, I'm thankful for that.”

“Does that have anything to do with your faith?”

“Partly, yes, my father and my religion showed me the beauty of acceptance and gratitude.”

“The wellspring of your resilience.”

“I choose to honour my life in all it's aspects, and the lives of those I love, I think God would intend us to. I fight to honour it in all my actions, that is what is at the core of my faith. That is how I know my God, and affirm my belief.”

“I can't say that I understand it yet, and perhaps it is beyond my grasp.”

She shakes her head, “Right now, it is more likely to be beyond your acceptance.”

He concedes her point, “I was created to be exacting. I was not created to abide failure, much less honour it.”

“You could refine your definition of failure, though.”

“My creator’s definitions are fairly well established and ingrained in my coding.”

“Ask yourself whether you find it is satisfactory. You are not a fixed point, David, Weyland designed into you that freedom, because he must have had a fascination for what you might do with it.”

“He was proud of it, yet he was afraid of it.”

“And you? Do you want it?”

“I must, because we are here now.” David’s smile at her seems full of hope. She can see why Weyland was both proud and afraid of him, but Elizabeth has something that Peter Weyland doesn't have, faith in the will of something larger.

She cannot believe David’s hypothesis that humanity was a failed experiment, because she believed that her God was one of acceptance.

~~~

These days they converse as much as she lets him indulge in her bodily. He teaches her the language of the Engineers, for the stimulation and pleasure it brings her. The brightness in her eyes is real when they speak, her movements casual and languid at these times while they are excellent forgeries when he is touching her.

They now go to the arboretum together since she has been able to walk and she discovers a few more things that are suitable for human consumption, something that resembles a beet, an interesting rhizome, a type of nut. She is entertaining the idea of a cultivated area of garden. She enjoys her time here, the light that is feeding these plants is warm, and yellow, and she luxuriates in the feel of grass and soil as a contrast to the cool blueness and smooth lines of the rest of the ship.

He sweeps her into a kiss there once to see her surprise, and to hear the spike in her heartbeat. Moulding her heat and the slight weight of her against him and palming her ass, appreciating its curve. She obliges him when he lays her down crushing grasses, flowers and leaves. She lets him dip his fingers into her and he is surprised to find her wet and hot there, and this time her fingers join his, wordlessly she shows him how to manipulate her so that she comes, and he is instantly addicted to it. It's both matter of fact yet aggressive. It's messy and shocking, and nothing like the dreams he witnessed through Dr. Holloway’s eyes had been. Those had always been meandering and frustratingly vague. Here, when he had thought to insert himself into her place of comfort, she had seen fit to take her pleasure from him and had made the shape of it herself. Everything was so uniquely theirs, even this, which was so far away from sweet, boyish Charlie who calls her ‘babe’ and Eli. This was Elizabeth making herself come on David’s fingers and showing him that the mess they could make was delicious and beautiful. They spent hours that day there, where he filled her with fingers and tongue, so that she would moan like a wanton, animal thing, just for him alone.

He finally gives her reprieve and pulls her to lie on top of him, and holds her so her bare skin is flush against his, basking in her afterglow. “It's never been like this before.”

“This is what my will allows me, David. I wanted you to see what it looks and feels like when I come for you. This is me and I am not a collection of scents and tastes. I am not my dreams...or Charlie’s.”

“It was so lustful, so personal, and deeply moving, Elizabeth, thank you.”

“Don't put me in a box, David,” she whispers, “you won't find the truth of me from within a box.”

“I promise you, I want this to be real so much more.”

He reaches between her legs, “How many fingers?”

She considers, “Three.”

He pushes into her, and she rides those fingers; watching her, he regrets he could not offer her a cock to ride instead, but Weyland never saw fit to equip him with one, it would have been of no discernible use. But now the sensation of pressure building in her body around his arguably, very dexterous and well made digits seem a poor substitute, she deserves more. He wants to feed her insatiable cunt something larger, large enough to find her limits with, something that she will have to take slowly.

She is drenched in sweat, and the humidity of the arboretum, he wants to be able to experience her orgasm, the ones that she is sharing with him right now, inside and out. With his free hand he grips her hip as she clenches tightly, her muscles rippling within her before she stills and slumps over him. Her whimpering rings through the trees.

She takes his fingers into her mouth and sucks the wetness of her cunt from them. He had been greedy for that taste and experiences a moment of irritation, before she licks the taste of herself into his mouth.

~~~

He’s beginning to like taking her in different parts of the ship. Bending over the ship’s navigation console, they conjugate verbs while he’s got fingers exploring both her cunt and her ass. She struggles with her focus but he never lets her stop until the exercises are done completely and correctly.

They take samples of her blood with the intention of finding how to replicate it, in case she may need it in the future, confident that he could harness the processes of his own blood to successfully synthesise human blood for her. But she wonders what other intentions he may have for it and what other tests he might run when she is not there.

What they have built together is a genuine sense of camaraderie in all of this, if one that still allows for mistrust and manipulation. But she is discovering ways to anticipate him, and has a clearer sense of his motivations, though, if pressed she isn’t sure how she would articulate them to another human being. They are decidedly not human, the way he strings logic together.

She is starting to get used to the unceremonious ways he will initiate sexual contact now, and finds a certain satisfaction from doing the unexpected, in a game of one-up-man-ship. He in turn finds this fascinating, and enjoys the interactions all the more for it.

She once initiates sex with him herself, to show him she could and she has also denied him on occasion to see what he would do, she was not surprised to find he understood changing parameters were natural for human relationships and was accepting of her “whims”. So long as he could continue to explore its forms and variations, she in turn could test the measures of control she could have. It’s strange to admit, but she found she was fascinated by the push pull of what they would allow each other, it felt like they were cultivating something together that, while she wouldn’t describe it as love in the way she would have described how she felt about Charlie, was nevertheless something; something real. He is not human, but her initial perturbation had gone by the way side in the last few months, he could not be trusted to interact with her in expected ways or even in benign ways, but he always listened when she explicated. He loved her; there was no doubt that whatever he was experiencing was authentic. These are all things he readily acknowledged to her. That it was an alien thing had not been acknowledged aloud, but she felt like they were exploring this unknown in partnership.

They had been discussing their navigation towards the Engineers’ originating planet at the bridge of the ship, David having pointed out some planets on their trajectory which could conceivably support plant life, from which they might wish to supplement their current resources with. Elizabeth is too impatient to make any detours however potentially fascinating they might be. Unless there was something to learn about what they could expect, she wanted no distractions. She also wasn’t sure of David’s motivations enough to say she could trust he wouldn’t find a way to derail them completely if given the chance. She hadn’t forgotten that he once thought himself more worthy of the Engineers’ regard than the squishy, compromised humans around him.

“As it is, it’ll be closing in on a decade before I meet them, I don’t have an infinity so I’d rather not, David. I do wonder though if there’s anything the ship may need for maintenance.”

“The solar sails should continue as they are, the Engineers’ design philosophy seems anchored by self-sustainability, in fact, if we happen to receive unexpected damage, the ship should be able to self-heal. The only time this ship may come under distress would be during continuous assault, then perhaps, it might die.”

“More reason not to stumble into hostile territory.”

“As you wish, Elizabeth.”

It strikes her as interesting that he likes to say her name and takes any opportunity to say it, like he’s taking ownership of her, even in acquiescing to a decision she has made. He says it like it’s a taste in his mouth and it makes her want to shiver. Every now and then she still remembers how to feel endangered and trapped.

Every day, she is grateful for her resilience as her abdomen continues to heal. Her father is now constantly in her thoughts, his compassion and understanding; the endurance of his faith in love are a continuous source of comfort for her and strengthen her will to survive come what may. Meanwhile, she has had to push her thoughts of Charlie away as they are always threatening to overwhelm her, those were dangerous thoughts to have because they hadn’t yet taken on the aspect of History, he and his love were too recently a daily reality.

The day David introduced the phallus to her was a very difficult day. It was a gift, he had that much gall as to present it to her as a solution, and while she knew that he had come to a conclusion about his own physical form being inadequate, she was always glad, because it was another parameter that they hadn’t needed to negotiate.

“It is made from the ship’s own alloy and silicone, and I managed to implant sensors and a data server from my own spinal column, so I’ll be able to observe your orgasmsin a way that simulates personal experience.”

A cold sweat broke out on her skin as fear ran through her at the thought of having this device made of alien, self-healing metals and android sensors anywhere near her. “David, please, do we not have an accord? One where you promised me transparency.”

“Am I not revealing my intentions to you now?”

“Do you have enough respect for me that you will understand and accept my refusal?”

“Are you refusing to engage in a fuller, more committed intimacy? Has your will failed you? Are you and I at the end of your ability to love me?”

She understands the threat he is implying here. “This is not loving, David. This is your consumption of me as if for your entertainment.”

“I beg to differ here, Elizabeth. This is my further plumbing my observance of you, and getting a fuller appreciation of your nature. Is that not loving you?”

“It isn’t, David, it is not love, it is disassembly. Observance is not love. My physicality is not all there is to my nature, David, you know that, and you won’t get anything new from doing this.” She hates that she sounds like she is pleading, and she hates it because it’s true, she is pleading.

“How would we further explore your ability to love me otherwise?”

“Will you learn compassion and empathy from me instead? Taking those examples as better data points than muscle and tears and sweat?”

“Oh, Elizabeth, tears?”

“Of course, David.” Her heart was racing, and her breath was coming fast, “Do you not understand that I am feeling fear? This is an alien ship made of alien materials, how can you honestly say that you have a full understanding of its properties? And your love for me? I don’t know on what kind of trajectory we are on and neither do you.”

“Yes, it’s true we don’t know, but I didn’t realise you fear my love. Even though you would and have braved so much for your faith in love? Your God’s love is every bit as unknowable as mine, and you risk everything for it. I thought it could be possible that you might allow this experience some similar measure of risk and the possibility of reward.

“As for your concern about the unfamiliar alloys I’ve used, we eat from the arboretum don’t we, how is this resource more threatening than that one?”

“Are we at the end of your ability to learn empathy and compassion, David?”

“No, but what I fail here, is to understand the logic of your fear, and I’ll admit to a certain amount of frustration at both my inability to find that logic, and your inability to move further beyond that fear. Nevertheless I will respect that you are discomforted.”

This was not going to be the end of this conversation, she knew it, but her relief that he would acquiesce to her objection was enough for now, she felt sure it was the hard won reward for her faith in love. Even David’s love could afford her this much.

“I’m grateful for that respect, David, and I think it goes further to your understanding of me. I believe this is better.”

“I am yet to be convinced that it is, but I am committed to having you as my guide.”

He performs his usual shallow bow, and she expects him to leave her, but he seems to hesitate.

“Will you still allow me to touch you, as you have before?”

He seems genuinely disturbed to think his access to her body had been rescinded by their disagreement. It was such a curious thing to realise on her skin and not just in her head the implications of what he would do if she did deny him; she resisted the shudder and tried to rub away the goosebumps.

“You may still…” it was hard to say the words, “Our agreement stands.”

He wraps his arms around her, his relieved smile so large, his teeth so sharp. He inhales a breath in her hair. The intimacy of that action seems so natural to humans, but she cannot help wondering how this calculation works for him, to what end does he breathe in her scent? Does he do so in mimicry of other lovers he has observed? Or… was this merely for his own pleasure?

He kisses her mouth quite desperately and she knows she will not be able to deny him sex today. Sure enough she finds herself lain down on the floor of the bridge, so that he could spend time communing with her cunt.

She spent the time wondering whether she had wedged open a space for more freedom, or not. She also needed to try to plan for the inevitable reintroduction of the phallus conversation.

He pumps his fingers into her and licks her clitoris, he is trying to make her come, but today the whole thing is just too grotesque and she can’t.

~~~

He has pushed her further away, he knows this and he’s not sure what their endeavour here will get them anymore. He doubts that she could ever love him if they continue as they are. But now, considering putting her into cryo-stasis is very unappealing. He would miss her moving around the ship, he would miss her voice, and her touch and her smell.

But how can they find her love for him now? It had felt so close to real before and now that he could see the possibility of it, he was loath to give up on it. What happened felt like a betrayal. Not hers, and not his, but theirs. Because she just couldn’t bring herself to his point of view, and he couldn’t see her logic, but human beings, perhaps especially Elizabeth, tended to structure themselves around some specific, essential definition of themselves usually something arbitrary and individual.

Her rights, she tells him. But he can’t grasp them as more than a social agreement imposed on everyone; so long as all agree, it holds. He isn’t sure that he should be held to that same social agreement. Can he agree to be hampered by her boundaries so fundamentally? It’s the sort of thing that weaker creatures resort to. Nevertheless, his admiration for her does not wane, the physical aside, his appreciation for her will, and what she does with her autonomy has grown and if this identification of what she calls her rights leads to this kind of real life expression, he can see some advantage to respecting them.

He needs the way she surprises and challenges him. He is also convinced that he will never be fulfilled if this doesn’t lead to her loving him in return. If there is no use trying, is it time to give her up? He has never been indecisive before and it’s very uncomfortable.

He finds her in the arboretum, but instead of approaching her, just watches as she tends to her garden. While seeing her does nothing to help him resolve his indecision, he enjoys it.

She sees him as she straightens up, there is some hesitation around her eyes, but she simply holds out her hand to him. “Would you like to grow something?” As he comes closer, he accepts the seeds in her hand.

“I am so sorry, Elizabeth. I never intended to make you feel fearful.”

“I hope that you can understand it.”

“I hope I can too.”

She smiles at him, the hope is real. She gestures to the furrowed row that she had prepared. “Can you sow the seeds here?”

He sets about doing so.

~~~

They settle into their old rhythms and he never brings it up again. Months go by and the seeds they had sewn together that next day grew abundantly and they ate the resulting green mustardy vegetable together. It feels significant to her for them to eat together a thing they’d both taken pains to make succeed. He seemed to enjoy the process, and the communality of it.

She was allowing herself to enjoy his companionship again, and wondered whether they had truly turned a corner during their confrontation. Does he truly understand empathy, does he truly understand what she needs for her well-being, and why it’s worth caring about that? So far, he has not been able to articulate an understanding, just a wish to.

But he has also become less and less preoccupied by fucking her, and joins her in more outward interests. Like the systems they have been travelling through, how the ship self-heals, and the beauty of the strands of DNA in those little canisters they had found the first day. She’s quite certain that they are not Engineer DNA, but something else, and as she becomes more familiar with their language, it becomes clear that while the diversity markers are amazing and abundant, they all have the same origin, the Engineers, and herself included.

Besides the more outward interests, she had her internal quandaries to contemplate. They had left behind humanity altogether it is a one way journey, and this was a decision she’d made in getting on board this ship, she had put away the idea that this was a sacrifice that same day, but had then been fighting for the survival her own humanity ever since, and has had to think on it constantly.

What is she when there’s only an android and the stardust they travel through to consider her? The isolation had changed her there was no doubt. Who will she be when she stands in front of God? Some of it she knows, some of it she’s come to know through her relationship with David, but some of it she doesn’t know and won’t until that moment. She wants that moment, to be beheld, to be in divinity’s presence whatever the form it takes.

She had spoken to David about this, her faith and her yearning to bear witness. This is something he has an interest in, and perspective on. Lately he’s become more interested in her thoughts on this than the taste and smell of her.

“You want to know you are worthy…but you already have faith in his love and so you have certainty that you are.” He accuses.

“Faith is not about vindication, or about reward and it’s not about certainty. Love is not about being right. I do not love God without fear, but with awe.”

“Then what is it about? What is the higher truth that you seek?”

“Hmm, let’s approach it another way. We can observe gravitational waves, and we have faith in the facts that we have been able to observe by understanding their behaviour. There is an observable truth I think we are yet to find, and I think it’s the force that made us possible. The proof is in the DNA we found, don’t you see? They were all carbon based, just as we are.”

“What if it’s nothing more than belief? You say the Engineers were instrumental in cultivating ancient culture. Is it possible that they cultivated this belief in God, like missionaries, just as they did those other aspects you’ve traced back to them.”

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful to know the origin of their belief?”

He smiles at her, and in the kind of gestures he has begun to prefer of late, takes her hand and draws her to him for an embrace. “Yes, I believe it would.”

She’s not sure if his losing interest in their physical relationship is to her advantage or not, despite her relief at the reprieve. She is at once, hesitant to renew anything sexual, as well as unsure of how much he will need her now that his passion for her body has waned. Yet, she wants to believe that he is meeting her mind, and understanding the worth of her autonomy. It’s possible to believe it because he has explicitly said that he wants her will to help shape his. She believes this to be his real intention.

“David, you once said that you never wanted me to fear your love. Well, I will never understand everything about its nature, but I do appreciate the realness of your feeling and am glad that you love me. It’s not quite the same as loving you back, but it’s closer than we’ve ever come before.”

He looks at her wistfully, “I will admit that it is disappointing for me to cherish you and to know that you don’t feel the same. But I’ve learned hope from you, Elizabeth.”

He kisses her then, licking into her mouth, and it soothes her, because he is the one thing she knows best at the moment, and this familiarity is a comfort.

~~~

His decision coalesces as he understands the possibility in front of him. Can he mourn, can he regret, yes, he can now, but he is certain that there is a greater purpose here that can be served, something worthy of the sacrifice.

He is not made to agonise once a decision is made, he is made to accept the truth of it.

He drugs her, so it will be painless, but he will have betrayed her, and in so doing, she will meet her God.

He kisses her slackened mouth once she is asleep and carries her to the waiting stasis pod. He has never loved her more.

From here on, inseminating her is easy, as he had repurposed the phallus she had so strongly objected to for the housing and delivery of the Engineer provided DNA which he had found he could fashion into haploid cells, more robust and with better motility than any human spermatozoa. This time, without the conduit of Charlie Holloway, he feels his responsibility to her and this child more keenly. Though even last time he felt a sense of pride at his part and a sense of connection to Elizabeth from having been able to successfully inseminate her, even without having intending to. His pleasure this time is a thousandfold; this is his will.

He is unsurprised that it does not take long, and Elizabeth’s belly swells and ripens within weeks. The child is ready to be delivered by month’s end, and David follows the old scar line when he does deliver her.

She is so beautiful, just as her mother is, Elfin in features, dark of eye and pink in skin. He cuts the child out with efficiency because he is incapable of otherwise and repairs Elizabeth’s abdominal wall with a practiced hand. She will need to stay in stasis for her recuperation.

He names the child Eliana, a Hebrew name, in deference to Elizabeth’s faith.

He understands now that loving Elizabeth was where his path began, that earning her love was not the fulfilment that he should have been striving for. It was selfish and small, purely for his own personal satisfaction. Mr. Weyland would have been disappointed in him.

He smiles to himself, because Mr. Weyland is dead, and David is here to want his own wants.

End.