The intellectual, academic elation toward what was about to happen, even though she would be observing it from the first-person, damn near blinded her to the way the Engineer's face fell from one of apparent approval to pensive concern. His hairless brow furrowed after an extended pause, and he murmured something she of course couldn't understand as he pointed at her wound again; when she offered no intelligible response, he gingerly poked at one of the strands hanging free of the rest of its stitch, retracting his hand as she flinched reflexively and gaped at him in horror.

Her head spun just thinking about it, every sound in the room dissolving into static. She had just stitched the bastard back together, there was no way she was going to pry her insides back apart again! The very thought brought back the violent nausea she thought she'd conquered. In fact, she barely caught the enormous, convulsive gag in time, and found herself forcibly swallowing what had very nearly become projectile vomit.

Clearly getting the message, the Engineer forced himself to his feet as he expelled a slow, deliberate breath. He stood before her, one index finger curled against his lips as if deep in thought. She could hardly meet his gaze as the room spiralled above her, shaky hands raking at the rat's nest her hair had long since become. What a choice to be left to make: carve herself up, or face a long and fraught recovery that would likely leave her permanently damaged.

Pursing his lips in thought, the Engineer cast a glance toward the bag he'd brought back with him; she all but ignored him as he resumed rummaging about, drawing deep, ragged breaths to bring her body's response to the suggestion back under control.

Willing calm upon herself, her eyes drifted to the windows behind the couches, no longer displaying their saccharine snowy forest simulation, but the pitch-black landscape of the alien moon. She couldn't see much through them - in fact, she could see nothing at all of the landscape beyond the feeble illumination cast by the interior lights of the lifeboat; the black of night was all that greeted her, starless and heavy with cloud cover. A breeze had since kicked up, howling about the exterior of the vessel and whistling about its curves. Who knew how much time had passed at this point - had she been out for just the remainder of the day, or had it been days?

How many days, weeks, months, would she be sprawled on a couch on an inhospitable planet teeming with death, with only an unpredictable alien giant as company?

Swallowing the aftertaste of her near-miss with emptying her guts, she drew one last ragged breath before gently, painfully propping herself up with her elbows; agonising indefinitely wasn't going to make this decision happen any faster, but she most certainly wasn't in favour of simply ripping herself open again if this wasn't absolutely guaranteed to work. Reaching down with one hand, she brushed the surface of the white substance the Engineer had brought on board with an index finger. Less sticky than she was expecting, it seemed vaguely gel-like and cool to the touch; she brought the finger to her face, more closely observing the mystery goo as it slowly lost its form. The iridescence, she realised, was courtesy of the tiniest of particles suspended in it - the goo itself appeared almost transparent, just laden with fine, powdery material.

She easily found an obvious scratch on her other hand. In fact, she found many - she was in quite a state. Choosing a fairly small but raw, puffy and irritated example on the back of her hand, she set about carefully, cautiously smearing the goo across its length.

Almost instantly she felt a chill against the wound as the particles within the substance began moving; she gasped as the sensation quickly inverted and became one of significant warmth, tugging softly at the skin around it as the goo seemed to evaporate and lose its sheen. Wide-eyed and almost forgetting to breathe in her awed fascination, she tentatively poked at the white smudge left behind; an edge in the thin membrane appeared as she rubbed at it, and peeled off with ease as she pinched it between two nails and tugged.

Perfect, unmarred flesh greeted her as she removed the last of the substance.

The Engineer had since stopped rustling about, having pulled a few more items from the bag but little else for all the noise he'd made; he had been watching her intently as she experimented, that much she'd caught from the corner of her eye. She glanced back at his dark eyes, vaguely wondering just how painful his face was and how he'd managed to ignore the state of it as well as he had, before giving him a knowing, thin-lipped grimace of a smile. It would be ridiculous to waste this chance at cheating the deep gouge in her abdomen, as much as she couldn't bare the thought of messing about with it any further.

There was nothing for it. Reaching down again, she fumbled with the tray of surgical material by the base of the couch until she found the painkiller dispenser. Quickly checking whether there was anything left in it, she wasted little time in pressing it below the incision and injecting a dose, exhaling heavily as the cold wave of relief radiated through her body moments later.

The Engineer had crouched down beside her again, watching with parted lips and furrowed brows as she tended to herself with pointed determination. She'd collected and sanitised everything she needed for the grim job ahead beside her hip on the couch, and cast her guest a final defeated glance before setting about undoing all of her hard work.

Without a doubt she would be having nightmares about this for many years to come.

Pushing every ounce of subjectivity from her mind, she probed the site with a small, sharp pair of snips. As long as she focused entirely on the task at hand, she should be able to get it done without panicking - in theory. All she needed to do was remove everything holding her in one piece, and then the white goo would do the rest.

Not that it was a walk in the park, mind. Snipping the stitches open had been a revolting experience in and of itself, let alone having to tug them free and reopening the wound. The Engineer had let out something akin to a horrified gasp as the wound parted, briefly unable to watch as she moved on to what remained of the staples. She shot him a scowl as he'd turned away, distantly wishing she had the same privilege throughout this sordid ordeal.

Disgust aside, she'd cleaned herself up as fast as she could with the intention of getting this over and done with well before the painkillers wore off again. Carefully dropping the surgical tools over the side of the couch once she was done, she looked up expectantly at the Engineer as he watched her with transfixed chagrin; he'd gawped on at the wound for a little while longer, eventually double-taking as he noticed her staring him down, then finally reached for the jar by his knee. Pausing once more as his hand hovered over her wound, he glanced back at her as if asking permission; resisting the urge to slap it from his hand and do it herself, she simply nodded emphatically and squeezed her eyes shut.

Without further hesitation, he tipped the jar and let a thick string of the white substance pour from the vessel and deep into her wound. She flinched hard as the cool goo hit her flesh, registering only the apparent temperature of it and no more but reacting to the shock regardless. It pooled in the wound and spilled out the far edges, quickly becoming sticky and adhering to the outer edges of the incision, seemingly moving under its own power and reforming, pinching at whatever it came into contact with.

Placing the jar down and covering it with the lid, the Engineer briefly glanced back up at her as she snuck one eye open - his expression, as burnt as it was, seemed almost apologetic. What on Earth for?

In a breath, it felt as though he had poured liquid nitrogen into her wound. Her insides spasmed with enough force to jerk her back off the couch cushion, eliciting an uncontrollable cry of both surprise and pain as she flinched. One hand shot down toward the wound, desperately trying to grab at it, anything to quell the building cold that gripped at her spine, her ribs, everything...

...but she found herself grabbing at an enormous hand instead.

"Stop!" She hollered, groaning again as her insides shuddered under the assault of sensation. Through the ringing in her ears she was vaguely aware he had said something back in a low, patient voice, but she didn't care; she wanted that stuff out!

A second hand made a grab for her furious insides as the cold suddenly became searing heat, unbearable in its intensity and enough to turn her moans into shrieks of agony. Despite her desperate scrabbling, huge fingers had intertwined with hers and had firmly clamped down on both hands, effectively immobilising them, keeping them from grabbing at the wound and keeping the inferno very much alive.

Another scream escaped her as her abdomen convulsed, knees jerking upward and hitting a solid object before she could press them to her chest. She could barely breathe for the next howl began, fingernails digging into the mighty hand that held both of hers in place, digging at the flesh she couldn't see for the tears that had flooded her vision. It hurt, God it hurt, hurt like nothing she could have imagined, and it just kept on going and going and going.

An aeon seemed to pass as the burn yielded to a distinct tug, an unknown force grasping at her with a thousand tiny hands and dragging the edges of her incision toward each other. Her knees fell slack as the tugging intensified, howls having devolved into exhausted, defeated sobbing, her grip on the Engineer's hand akin to clinging to a life raft. Twisting, pulling, her insides ached.

And, as suddenly as it had started, the sensations simply tapered off to nothing; feeling nothing but a dull, gentle, almost soothing chill in the assaulted area, Shaw finally released her grip on the massive hand that held her and collapsed back into the couch a sweat-soaked, tear-streaked mess. Taking a moment to slow her ragged breathing, she grabbed at her hair and closed her eyes, letting the last of the tears run down her face. Still faintly convulsing, her body was clearly as confused and exhausted as her mind was; she was hot and cold all at once, gradually aware that she was completely sweat-soaked and had begun to shiver.

A soft, deep sigh caught her attention; the Engineer cast her an unreadable glance as he stood, murmuring something before trailing off with an impatient huff. It seemed as though they would both struggle with the language barrier for a while yet. She followed his gaze down to her incision, eyes widening at the thick, two-inch wide layer of translucent goo that now covered her; rather than drying to a thin membrane, this time it had formed what almost looked like a pale second skin with a vague sheen to it. It certainly hurt less, and it looked far less gory, but the alienness of it struck her in a way she hadn't quite expected. She barely recognised it as her own flesh.

Momentarily crouching by her, the Engineer plucked the half-empty jar from the floor and paced back toward the bag with it. Surely he should be using it on his own wounds? She cleared her throat. "Are you really done with that?"

He cast her a quizzical glance over his shoulder. Rather than repeat herself, she motioned with an index finger at her face, then pointed at the jar.

Squinting incredulously, he briefly looked her up and down, failing to see any injuries on the tiny creature that might need such repair. She shook her head, pointing at the Engineer's head, then back at the jar in his hand. "Not my, face. Yours."

Still scowling, he raised his right hand to his face, touching his cheekbone with the index finger as he gripped the jar with his other fingers; Shaw immediately made an urgent pointing motion with her own hand, motioning toward his left side. Disbelieving, he humoured her regardless and poked at the other side of his face - and damn near dropped the jar as he hissed in pain, immediately spitting something that must have been an expletive. Wide-eyed, he stared back at Shaw for a brief moment before scowling and glancing about the room, turning on a heel toward the windows behind the couches and urgently marching toward them. A loud gasp escaped him as he finally saw the damage in the reflection, followed by the same sharp, angry-sounding word again strung amongst several others.

Experimentally, he placed the jar in his left hand - and promptly handed it back, grunting and retracting the injured limb back to where it had hung for several hours. Pinching the jar between his right thumb and index finger, his scowl alternated between it and his maimed reflection in the window, before falling back on Shaw. After a moment's consideration he headed back to where she lay on the couch, drew a defeated sigh, placed the jar in her hand, and knelt back down in front of her, mumbling something in his alien tongue. Suspecting she understood what he wanted, she mimed dipping her finger against the closed lid then pointed at his face; he offered a silent, shallow nod, then turned the burnt side of his face toward her, leaning down so he wasn't looming over her to such an overbearing degree.

The lid twisted free with a hollow poonk. Placing the jar down briefly, Shaw rested one hand against the couch cushions and twisted her hips around; it was a battle to perform the manoeuvre with the sort of gentle grace her wound demanded, regardless of how healed it may have become in the last few minutes. Once she was satisfied she was positioned so she didn't tweak the incision as she worked, she lifted the lid and dipped her middle finger into the goop as the Engineer's dark eyes watched.

Where to start? The burn was huge, deep, and without a doubt serious. Without simply throwing the contents of the jar at him in one messy go, this was going to take some time - and if her own experience was anything to judge by, he was going to be in agony. Even if he's likely used to the stuff by now.

Biting her bottom lip, she set about smearing the stuff on his forehead where the burn began. Unmoving, he simply drew a breath as her finger, tiny against his features, traced its way across the edge of the injury. It would take ages at this pace; dipping two fingers into the goo and scooping out a generous amount, she redoubled her efforts as she smeared it liberally from one side of the burn to the other. She had never considered she'd be so close to an Engineer, let alone tracing a finger over his alien - and yet so remarkably human - visage. Secretly, she wished it had been under far better circumstances than this. There was something hauntingly magical, beautiful, about the creature's porcelain, translucent skin, and it seemed such a waste it was so damaged.

He let slip a retrained grunt as the goo began to morph around the edges, his scowl deepening beneath her fingers as they crossed over it and toward his cheekbone. She supposed it had entered the icy-fucking-cold phase, freezing against the burnt skin; she noted, as she slathered her fingers again, that his hand was shaking as he gripped at the deck, and wondered if the sensation was just as horrible on one's face as it was in one's internal reproductive organs.

The silence within the lifeboat hung like molasses, punctuated only by the breathing of the two wildly differently-proportioned humanoids within and the feverish thu-thud of her own heartbeat; occasionally the craft would shudder against its foundations as a significant gust of wind rattled against it, but little of that sound made its way inside. It was at this point she found herself once again aware of the Engineer's scent, given how close she was to him - as alien as it was distinctly male, but hardly unpleasant. In fact, she hardly minded it. There was something old, almost musty about the air in the room, but she supposed the suit he wore was probably to blame. It had, after all, been in stasis as long as he had, and God knows what would happen to man and machine alike with such an unprecedented period in hypersleep. It was a miracle he was alive at all.

Tilting his head as she got to the last of the injury along his jaw, she realised he was holding his breath. He's done this before, she mused, reaching for the side of his head as she dabbed the last of the jar's contents across the burn. That's why he knew I was going to claw myself to death if he didn't immediately intervene. The goo she'd first smeared across him and turned thin and opaque around the edges, but had taken on the same sticky, glossy translucency as it had on here where the injury appeared more serious. Its transformation followed the path her fingers had taken, gradually thickening and tightening against the marred flesh, gripping at the edges and growing opaque where it had finished its work, and hardening where there was more serious work to do.

She wiped her fingers against the bandage-bra she was still wearing after all these days, idly wondering if she would actually fit any of the clothes on board the lifeboat. The Engineer rolled backward and sank into a hunched sitting position as she clicked the empty jar closed, his good hand shaking as it groped blindly for the frame of the couch; the powerful digits creaked against the leather surface as he steadied himself, eyes squeezed shut in apparent agony as he drew deep, ragged breaths.

Patiently waiting for the effect of the medicine to lose its grasp on the poor creature before she considered rolling onto her back again, Shaw instead passed the time marvelling at the intimate details of his face while he was in such close proximity. The heavy brow; the strong nose, its bridge merging in a smooth arc with his forehead; his large, dark eyes, squeezed shut and rippling at their edges as he endured the effects of the sticky substance; the curve of his high cheekbones, so reminiscent of her own; his chiseled, angular jaw, distorted and creased as he pursed his lips shut; there was a statuesque beauty about him that left her mind trailing back to the many exquisite works of art back on Earth, the veins beneath his translucent skin a haunting reflection of the intricate forks of colour through the marble that statues were so often carved from. That was what fascinated her about him; it was as if he were a living, breathing effigy.

In time his breathing slowed, finally trailing off with a heavy, laden sigh as he sat up from his hunched position and opened his eyes. As much as she'd just marveled at the humanity of his features, the black abyss of his gaze, however low-lidded in his exhaustion and hints of defeat, never failed to startle her. Forcing a smile after her initial flinch, she stole the opportunity to cautiously roll back over and tug the duvet back over her, grasping at what little dignity she had left, and snuggling against it to quell the cold that groped at her skin. The Engineer silently scooped up the empty medicine jar and tossed it back at the bag as he stood, once again drawn to the bay windows as the warmth of the blankets gradually lulled Shaw back to the dead of dreamless, exhausted sleep.

---

It wasn't the constant staccato of rustling paper and the soft thunk that followed that roused her from sleep, nor was it the periods of near-constant