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The first thing Meredith says when the Engineers’ ship breaks out of LV-223’s atmosphere is, “Fuck. I should have taken my chances with my life-support capsule down on that godforsaken moon.”
Shaw gives her the evil eye from across those strangely flickering, utterly alien control panels.
“Don’t gripe,” she mutters and twists a button, which makes the hologram of Earth disappear in the vastness of the Engineer’s shimmering navigational system. “At least we’re still alive.”
Meredith huffs. “I like griping.”
She knows herself. Ever since she was a kid, she would never be afraid when faced with insurmountable odds. No. She would just be angry. So damn angry, at her unloving father, at the universe and its injustice, at herself. It’s not for nothing that she was able to join the Prometheus expedition, become Weyland Corp’s representative on the ship – or so she thought until her old man had crawled from the last cryotube and then proceeded to get his head smashed in by an eight-feet-tall alien.
If she had to be honest, she would admit that she’s been running on pure spite her whole life.
“So what do we do now? Float through the vastness of space hoping against all probabilities and chances that we won't miss that alien planet of yours by millions of miles – and then what?” She shoots a meaningful glance at David 8’s sorry remains twitching on the floor. “Do we beg your gods not to rip our heads off, too?”
“Something like that.” Calmly, Shaw flicks through planetary system after planetary system, pulls up nonsensical routes and coordinates. Her hand is very steady.
But Meredith knows the woman must be screaming inside.
“We’re both gonna die here, that’s what,” she hisses, and a tremor goes through the holographic projections on the command table when her balled-up fists thump onto its surface, hard. “We’re gonna starve or asphyxiate or go insane and then get raped by that robot weirdo you wanted to lug with you no matter the cost–”
Shaw snaps.
“Get out!” she screams, and her voice trembles with hysterical sobs as tears start pooling in her eyes. “Bloody hell, just– just get the fuck away from me! Your godforsaken pessimism is the last thing I need right now!”
And Meredith gets out. She sneers and strides past that fucking steering console with its fucking holograms, past that fucking wrecked android on the floor – she doesn’t hesitate to give his head a hard nudge with her boot which makes it roll a few inches across the bumpy ground and scowl almost imperceptibly at her – and past that utterly unnerving, naive, infuriating woman in the pilot’s seat who’s looking at her like she just kicked her puppy.
Screw Shaw. Screw David, screw the mission, screw those damned Engineers. Her skintight suit is dirty and icky and pinching all the wrong places and she wants a shower. Now there’s only to hope that such a basic thing exists on this godforsaken alien vessel.
The stars glitter beautifully behind the windowpane she passes in the curved hallway. Meredith hates them.
The Engineer’s ship has clearly been built for Engineers, not for humans.
Elizabeth and Meredith are constantly cold. No matter how many layers they scrounge up from dusty storage rooms and wrap around their shivering frames, the chill of space keeps a firm grip on their bones. They’re also constantly hungry, and constantly tired. The food packages onboard - though near countless - provide little edible rations, and if they do, they’re tasteless and bland and lay in their stomachs like mashed cardboard paper. Sleeping is difficult, either because of the strange, irregular vibrations the craft’s engines are sending through the air and framework or just because of the sheer existential dread the punishing vastness of the universe inspires in them every godforsaken minute they spend out of each other’s sight. And then there’s the issue with navigation – since Meredith and Elizabeth have agreed on refusing to put David back together, they’ve been struggling with pinpointing the right direction, their course now more uncertain than ever.
Their journey through space is indeed a dreary one.
So, you really can’t fault Meredith for being not exactly surprised when one evening (at least she thinks it’s evening, because time has become meaningless and both their sleep schedule must be thoroughly screwed), Elizabeth shows up at the doorstep of her room and asks, “Can I sleep with you tonight?”
Wordlessly, Meredith nods and hopes that her eagerness doesn’t shine through all that much. Elizabeth’s feet – which are squeezed into several pairs of socks – make no sound as she pads over to her bed piled high with pillows and blankets and sits down on the edge of the mattress.
She’s thinner under her layers of clothes than she was when they set off. Meredith knows they’re losing weight by the day – the hunger, the stress, the freezing cold, even the sexual frustration, everything is adding its two cents. She sees it in her protruding ribs when she showers, in her jutting shoulder blades when she pulls her only turtleneck over her head.
“C’mon,” she mutters and lifts a corner of her bedding.
Elizabeth doesn’t say anything when she slips under the covers and presses her body up against Meredith’s. She just holds on very, very tightly.
Meredith holds back. There’s a ceiling window in her chamber, and the stars peek in like tiny pinpricks in the darkness. Meredith is indifferent to them.
All she cares about in this very moment is the sobbing woman in her arms, and her own silent tears searing her cheeks – by far the only warmth she’s felt in a very, very long time now.
Three days later, they make a combined effort to repair David for good.
The android’s body is quickly lugged onto what seems to be an Engineer’s surgical table in an alcove near the command center, and Meredith holds his head steady while Elizabeth plucks at the mangled mess of cables under his composed instructions. David’s voice is quiet as if heard from very far away, fading in and out of existence. Meredith looks Elizabeth in the eye and knows they’re thinking the same thing: It’s pure luck the robot’s battery hasn’t run out yet from the damage.
At least one thing, it seems, is going according to plan.
When David’s head is finally attached to his body once more and he’s sitting up on the cot, Meredith stalks over to Elizabeth and gives her an asserting kiss. Best to put her only rival in his place as soon as possible.
Elizabeth is smiling and shaking her head when they pull apart. She’s grown to be very good at guessing Meredith’s thoughts.
Then, David starts up his nerve-grating prattle.
“It seems you require my assistance after all,” he purrs smugly. The you stupid, insipid meat bags goes unspoken, but Meredith still hears it. She glares, and the android just looks over at Elizabeth and asks, “Shall we begin to plot a proper course, Elizabeth?”
From that day on, Meredith no longer calls her lover Elizabeth, or Shaw. Not when she stands by as the scientist and David feed the right coordinates into the ship’s computer; not when they fuck for the first time and she has the petite woman up against the wall, then on their shared bed, legs spread wide, leaking and hot and wet, sobbing with pleasure; not when they listen to David’s proposition and yell at each other afterwards until Meredith caves and admits to the redhead that yes, maybe spending the next few years of their journey in an alien cryo-chamber instead of awake would seem wiser.
Meredith says, “See you soon, Liz,” as the see-through lid slides closed over the woman she's followed off Earth, off LV-223 and into the unknown of the universe. “This’ll be over in a heart-beat. You won’t even have time to dream, Liz,” she says, and “We’ll be alright, Liz. Everything will be just fine.”
Then, when Liz’ eyes have fallen closed and her breathing has evened out, when her face relaxes – really relaxes – and softens for the first time in a few very long weeks, Meredith turns away and lets David close the cover of her cryotube, too.
She dreams of the stars and their smiles as they burn quietly in the solitude of space. And she knows that right beside her, the woman who has become her whole world is dreaming, too.