OMG Please, don't hate me. I love you guys so much for sticking around, and I know it's been about over 9000 years since I updated. I started my internship with the police department and I've been insanely busy. I would write bits and pieces as I got the time, so I apologize if this is a bit choppy. BUT- it's an update.

I'm alive! Please enjoy and R and R! And Thank you to all of you who reviewed, I still go back and read through them to get inspiration.

[][][][][][]

Large eyes stared up at the pale alien in front of her, his expression looked blank. Those deep eyes were locked on her face as he began to explain the purpose of the bracelet he gave her,

"It will allow you to protect yourself here. Not everyone will necessarily be friendly toward you, and you are very... small."

"Well what does it do?"

Her curious eyes were now on the metallic arm band, she ignored his comment about her being small and twisted her hand around in front of her face, taking a closer look at the metallic joints. Zarek continued,

"This will allow you to harness telekinesis."

The last word made Ellie's eyes grow wide.

"What?"

He blinked in response with no real emotion on his face as he stared down at her,

"It is a Kinesis Module, this particular one has limited capability. But it will allow you to keep others from attacking you in case of an emergency, it's more for defense. It allows you to move tangible objects around you, including living things. The range is around six meters."

"That… That's amazing…I wonder how…"

Her eyes were wide like an excited child's as she kept looking closely at the metallic arm band. The Engineer then motioned towards the door,

"I must take you back home, I must meet with my superior before I accompany you."

…

It had been two hours since she arrived home; Zarek still wasn't back. But as soon as Ellie arrived home, David had a whole plethora of interesting facts to share with her regarding their society and it's history.

Many images of landscapes and Engineers opened and closed on the huge hologram computer screen. Ellie sat like the teachers pet, listening intently and eyes glued to the computer screen.

"Their entire planet's atmosphere is colder than that of Earth, it's atmosphere is also heavier and more dense. There is usually heavy fog blocking most of the sunlight, but still many areas have thick vegetation. And the spring you saw was a prismatic spring, this planet has many of them coming from deep beneath the permafrost."

"So the entire planet is blanketed in arctic winter? What about the seasons? The planet has to experience some sort of seasonal change-"

"It does, but only mild changes. The snow for the most part melts in the spring and summer, but the permafrost gives the planet limited vegetation."

The android shifted his weight back and ran a hand through his hair as he continued scrolling through the pictures and explaining them to the doctor.

"Their species has the identical DNA of that of a human, but their bodies are built slightly different than yours. Their muscles are denser as well as their skin, it allows them to survive the harsh cold of their planet."

A small scoff escaped the red head's lips and she looked down away from the computer screen, and thoughts of how muscular Zarek was came to her mind. Other thoughts began coming back to her mind as she sat quietly beside David, the android took notice of her sudden silence.

"Everything all right Dr. Shaw?"

A phony smile appeared on her lips and she pretended to look back up at the screen, her thoughts still lingered on that night she shared with Zarek. A slight heat lit up her cheeks as she remembered every trivial passionate detail of the encounter. Her response came out sounding far more hesitant than she intended,

"Yeah… I'm all right, just lost in thought."

The mechanical roar of the teleportation pad made Ellie tense up, she felt her heart jump into her throat as she tried to dismiss the thoughts of her and Zarek being intimate. Why now of all times would she think about this? A twinge of guilt twisted at her insides as she thought of sleeping with someone so soon after she lost her previous lover.

The clunk of large feet hitting the steel ground made both of the others look back over at him, the alien officer nodded his head at them and remained silent as he made his way up the steps to the main bedroom. Ellie's curiosity forced her to get up and follow suit; whatever he had spoken to his Elder Engineer about, it had to be important. David sat quiet and continued looking over the multiple screens he had pulled up.

The woman exited the room without a remark and followed Zarek into the upstairs bedroom. The Engineer wheezed a relaxing breath as he twisted his neck in a stretching fashion, the doctor stood quiet across the room from him for a few moments. His head jerked to the side when he realized she had followed him upstairs, but he said nothing. Ellie shifted under his gaze as he turned toward her, the silence was stifling and made her feel cold. Something about his presence made her feel distant, like his mind was far away from here.

"What did you talk to your Elder about? If you don't mind my asking."

The large figure shifted his weight and stared down at her with black eyes,

"Quite a bit."

His response wasn't satisfying to her and made her cross her arms, her eyes were locked on his as she spoke again.

"Nothing you feel like sharing?"

Zarek glanced to the side, avoiding her gaze, something was bothering him. Ellie took a few steps up to him and stood uncomfortably close to the Engineer. His chest visibly tightened at the close proximity of the small woman.

"Something is on your mind, that much I know. Is everything okay?"

Her tone got a lot more soothing towards the end of her question, it made him look back down at her. There seemed to be a mixture of grief and tension in his expression, he took a shallow breath and explained himself.

"There is a mission to go back to Umarak, to recover any other survivors."

The news hit Ellie like a bucket of ice water, she blinked a few times and looked around briefly, struggling to find words. That planet was hell and now the Engineers wanted to go back?

"Ah-And you're going to this?"

Her hushed words made his demeanor change to a form of sorrow as he stared down at her. The woman shook her head and looked up at him,

"You're really going back?"

Zarek slowly nodded down at her, feeling almost guilty for telling her the news. She shook her head slowly once more, not believing what she was hearing. How could he go back to the place he had almost died at to search for others? Couldn't he leave that to a search party?

A small rush of panic at her realization made her shift around and look up at him wide eyed,

"That means you're leaving me here…alone?"

Alone was a strong word, she technically had Morsani and David, but she was too engrossed in the idea of him leaving to really think through what she was saying.

"You will not be alone."

"But you…"

Ellie hushed herself before she said something she'd regret. She still couldn't quite figure out what she was feeling towards him, but him leaving felt like a slap in the face. The idea of going back to LV-223 made her feel sick to her stomach, there was nothing there but death; but she understood why they would go back. It made sense if there were more ships to check for survivors on.

The doctor felt cold, a rift had been put up between them because of him telling her this news. Zarek reached out as she turned away to walk out of the room, a large pale hand firmly grabbed her shoulder and gently urged her back to face him. The two stared at one another for a long while.

A wave of courage rose up in the humans heart as she confronted him,

"I wanted to talk to you about the other day as well…"

Her tone sounded like a teacher disciplining a student, it made him look away in a slight embarrassment. The small twinge of emotion from him made her crack a tiny hint of a smile. This big intimidating Engineer felt embarrassment like the rest of them. His tone was quiet now,

"That was my doing, and I apologize."

His apology caught her off guard, and the woman leaned over to look into his deep set eyes. He knew exactly what she was referring to, meaning he probably had it on his mind too. She huffed and shrugged,

"Your doing?"

"Those events wouldn't have transpired if not for my…convincing."

"Convincing?"

She practically spat the last word back at him, he arched his back up straight in surprise at her sudden boldness. The doctor hated to admit that she had thoroughly enjoyed the experience, even though it was completely a surprise to her. The two stared at each other for a couple moments, and a small chuckle came from the smaller being.

"You didn't convince me of anything, I went along on my own free will."

Zarek seemed to be absorbing what she was saying, a small weight appeared to have lifted from his shoulders as soon as she said this.

"Is that a surprise to you?"

Ellie seemed far more bold now, she leaned in towards him and he slowly nodded.

"I was a bit apprehensive about bringing up our previous encounter with you"

The doctor nodded and seemed to understand his apprehension on the subject, but a tiny negative thought creeped into her mind. The idea that he might have regretted what he had done and perhaps didn't want to bring it up. The sudden silence made him reach out and ever so slightly touch her cheek to get her to look back up at him, she did and spoke up once more,

"Do you regret it?"

The question seemed to catch the Engineer off guard, and his pause made her stomach twist into a hard knot. To his people, she would be a 'lesser' being and not worthy of such contact with anyone of his race, especially not of a royal family. She bit the inside of her lower lip and furrowed her eyebrows together. A huge wave of relief showered down on her as soon as she saw him shake his head from side to side.

"I do not."

That relief made her whole boy feel light and warm, she felt so relieved that the Engineer she was feeling so attached to was somewhat feeling what she was. Zarek tensed up as she reached out and put her arms around his waist, firmly hugging him. A hesitant hand reached up and stroked the hair on the back of her head, a small smile curved the corners of his lips as he looked down at her.

Something about this fragile human brought out a softness in him. She had saved his life and was nearly fearless in the face of a new planet, on top of all this, she was now alone. The robot in his mind didn't count as a human being, and all she had was him. He was the cure to her loneliness. This female harbored feeling for him despite the fact he had destroyed all of her crew; and she still somehow managed to be so fascinated by him and his people that she set all of that bloodshed aside to attempt to save his life while they were escaping the planet. A tiny soft spot had developed in his heart the moment he allowed her to live, but now he was feeling far too attached. It wasn't just pity he was feeling now, the night of their encounter brought out a desire in his heart that had been in a slumber for more than the two thousand years he had been at rest. Having feelings towards someone wasn't the first thing in his mind when he woke up either, but it was starting to become too noticeable for him to keep shoving aside.

"I'm glad to hear that."

Ellie said as she released him, looking back up to her pale friend. The large alien leaned down and pressed his lips against her forehead, and then leaned back up to meet her gaze. Her soft voice questioned him once again,

"But… Could I go with you to planet Umarak?"

…

"Are we having one of your associates take care of this or shall I have someone do it? I have someone in mind already if you don't mind."

A sigh escaped the lips of a frail old Engineer with a bright yellow collar, lazy world weary eyes glanced over at the fiery younger male in the spiked orange collar. Crayyik smirked a most malicious smile back at the older Engineer as he continued,

"I can handle the entire situation if you wish, she wont have Officer Zarek around to babysit her once his mission starts."

"It's ludicrous anyway, they won't find any others on that rock."

The ancient Engineer shifted in his chair and blinked impatiently at the orange collared male as he scoffed in response.

"That's the point Imaji, he will be off for a couple days on that spit of a planet and we can take care of that damned human and her machine before they rile up more trouble than they already have. All she is here doing is stirring trouble and making our people question what to do about the humans once again. Hell, I've heard talk about steps we should take on our other experimental planet too, its ridiculous. That fight is over and the humans need to be left out there alone like the waste of space they are, same goes for Pandora in my opinion. We create these two races like they will be useful or further our existence and we are still here, we will probably out live them anyway… By the way, I also personally think that human-studies scientist of ours may need to be dealt with as well, I feel she may try to contact the humans. Ugh what a thought…"

Imaji reached out with a fragile hand and patted the forearm of the talkative male,

"Take care of things as you see fit Crayyik, you're old enough and in a position of power now; it's your right to do so and I support what you're doing for our people. Leave Morsani to me, her family used to be very close to my own. And I agree with you, we wouldn't want her pushing for us to go out and meet an old failed science experiment that got left out in space to fend for itself. What a waste of time…"

[][][][][][][][][][]

Thanks so much you guys for sticking around, I really hope this was a good enough update and I'll really try to update more if I can. Promise I didn't give up on the storyline!

R and R!