Something Borrowed by Agape Love

A/N: Well, another self-insert fic :). Fanfiction, for me, has always been a way just to have fun, so I do a lot of self inserts. Nothing serious, just some fun. if it's not your cup of tea, you don't have to read it. But I DO want to be very clear- THIS IS A SELF INSERT FIC.

Summary: All the crew of Serenity wanted to do was bury their dead and mourn in peace. But nothing can ever be simple for them, can it? Four girls with a secret not even they know, a government conspiracy stretching half a millenium, and just a hint of magic- it's almost enough to make someone miss the Reavers.


Chapter One: The Dead and The Dying

Jayne Cobb wasn't exactly what folk would call the most virtuous of men. In fact, most would say he was downright crude, and they wouldn't be lying.

They were stopping by some deserted moon or another- Jayne had already forgotten the name- to bury their dead and try and move on with whatever kind of broken existence they could piece together with two of them gone. Dead. The ramp had lowered into the sand and Jayne stumbled out, anything to get away from Zoe's silent tears and Kaylee's stifled sobbing, away from Mal's stony face and from River's quiet brokenness. He stumbled out into the bright sunlight, a hand thrown up over his eyes and then he tripped over something solid and soft. Staggering around to see what it was, expecting something dead or dying, he saw the body of a girl and then another girl and then a third girl, and still another girl, so many girls, all next to each other but not orderly, eyes closed but clearly breathing. There was a blonde girl and a redhead and two brunettes, both with long- ridiculously long- hair and all of them with pretty faces and curvy little bodies all spread out over that sand.

Jayne's first thoughts weren't the most honorable- he was what he was, after all, and what he was sure wasn't a saint. But then he looked closer at one of the brunettes and realized that she was nothing more than a kid and although that'd never stopped him before, he saw the Shepard's disapproving look in his mind and any dishonorable thoughts were replaced with a sadness that Jayne found entirely unwelcome.

The dust from the landing had started to settle, much of the sand falling into place over the girls. They looked like they may have been out in the sun for a while, their skin turning pink and their lips dry and chapped. The least he could do, Jayne figured, was get them out of the sun. And that's what he was doing- hefting the first one, a tiny brunette with freckles all over her pretty little face- into his arms easy as anything when Simon came striding out of the ship, stopped in his tracks, and stared at Jayne. Jayne stared back defensively with the girl hanging limp in his arms.

"What?' he asked rudely. The doctor's mouth opened in that way he had, like a codfish, only he wasn't surprised. Just thinking.

"We've been here two minutes," said Simon in what he clearly thought was a tactful way. "What have you managed to damage already?"

"I didn't damage nothing. I found 'em like this." And he nodded to the other girls. Simon followed his gaze and Jayne watched his eyebrows lift.

"Well," said the doctor. "In that case."

"Figured I'd move 'em into the shade," said Jayne, nodding at the shadow cast by the ship and Simon shook his head.

"No, no- they're probably dehydrated. Bring them to the sick bay."

"What?"

"Bring them to the infirmary," said Simon, very slowly, "and I'll try to keep them alive."

"Captain ain't gonna like that," muttered Jayne, hoisting the girl up higher as he slowly ascended the ramp. Simon turned his back the mercenary but Jayne just barely heard him say:

"Mal doesn't want anymore death around him."

And it was true.

Turned out, Mal didn't very much care who was in the sick bay with the bodies of Wash and Book as long as he wasn't. So Simon went about his work, hooking the girls to IVs, watching their faces slowly fill with color and their lips return to normal wetness and Jayne waited with him, though he wasn't sure why, cause he sure didn't care for the doctor's company (liked him well enough but not enough to be around his dead buddies) and he didn't even know the girls and they weren't alive enough yet for him to want to screw them, so he figured it must have been the stress of the past few days messing with his head; he just wanted to know that someone as weak looking as those little things could live.

"How long till they wake up?" he grunted at Simon after half an hour, trying not to look at the lump under the sheet that was Wash or the other lump under that other sheet that was Book. Simon didn't even look at him, just went about the business of drawing blood from the blonde girl.

"I don't know," he said, holding the red vial up to the light, his brow furrowed. "Soon, hopefully. I'd like to know what they're doing on a moon that is famous for being unable to sustain life."

Jayne just grunted, arms crossed across his chest, and decided to stare at the blonde one. He'd have thought she was dead, that one, if it wasn't for her chest rising and falling slowly. Jayne then decided to watch her chest instead of her face.

There was strained silence until a few moments later. The blonde girl whose chest Jayne was watching made a noise that may have been either a moan or a groan but either way both Jayne and Simon started and stared at her. She started to turn, in the chair, her eyes still closed, her face very colorless. Simon grabbed a silver pan and held it up to her mouth just in time- she turned onto her side and vomited and both Simon and Jayne winced. When she'd finished retching she rolled over farther, off of the chair and onto the floor and Jayne, more out of reflex than actual kindness, moved to help her. She took a few stumbling steps forward and then tripped, reaching out blindly, and grabbed the sheet covering Wash and then his arm, dragging the sheet down with her as she fell to the floor. Simon knelt next to her quickly and Jayne froze, staring at Wash's ashen, lifeless face.

"I can't see," the girl was saying from the floor, her voice weak but insistent. "I can't see."

"You're in shock," said Simon as calmly as he could. "Your vision will probably return in a few minutes, but I need you to tell me how you got here."

The girl's head turned in his direction, her eyes red and wet and looking somewhere past him. Her face was very pale and a little green.

"I don't know," she said. She tried to stumble to her feet again and this time made it two steps before falling onto the body of Shepard Book. Jayne felt an irrational surge of anger but the girl reached out a hand, touched the Shepard's face and tried to stumble on, but fell again on the next step and this time Jayne caught her and lowered her to the ground. She was heavier than she looked; solid was the word.

"Help me," she was saying now. "Please help me."

She was on the ground, leaning back against the base of the chair containing the body of Shepard book, her head tilted back against the base as though her neck didn't have the strength to support her.

"Can you tell me the last thing you remember?" asked Simon, crouching next to her, a hand on her shoulder. Her head rolled in his direction and she blinked several times. Her lips were completely colorless.

"I was- I think I was in a car. I was going to school."

Simon exchanged a look of alarm with Jayne- cars were antiquated technology, something you read about in history textbooks. Only collectors of Earth That Was memorabilia had cars, and they certainly didn't drive those.

The girl turned and vomited again with a horrible sound on the floor, her body racking with violent spasms and she didn't seem to have the strength to sit up again when she was done; Simon had to pull her back up and her head flopped on her neck like a rag doll, her face covered in sweat and tears. She was blinking slowly, eyes roving around the room; Jayne noticed their extraordinary blue color as he crouched next to her. He was close enough to see every line, every curve of color in those eyes, and noticed that there was no gray or green, only blue, like the oceans he'd read about in old storybooks but had never seen for himself. She groaned again.

"Are you alright now?" Simon asked slowly. She gave what might have been either a cough or chuckle or wheeze and started to say something, but was cut off by a loud gasp followed by Wash sitting bolt upright and looking around wildly.

"Where the hell did those reavers go?" he shouted, his eyes crazy and his hair crazier.

Simon and Jayne, though they would deny it later, both screamed like little girls.

TBC...


Quote is from Doctor Who.