Memories of a Broken Dancer

Category: Firefly
Title: Memories Of a Broken Dancer
Word count: 889
Genre: Romance/Angst
Rating: Fiction Rated: PG-13
Summary: Rayne/implied/Memories after loss and survival/one shot

Memories of a Broken Dancer

The big man sat in the dimly lit room alone. The nights were the worst time. He would take out his treasures to comfort himself.

Two pictures of a beautiful young woman. One of just her face looking at him, long dark hair with expressive green eyes with a kind of half smile. And the second a candid view taken unaware from behind when she was practicing ballet. You could see she had a trim dancers body and the small still picture suggested the joy of her movement even without seeing her face.

A broken musical box, that had a small dancer that had twirled inside when you opened it. It used to play a song the girl in the pictures had loved to dance to.

When it broke he carefully took the workings apart. but could never make the music come back or the small figure dance again. Just like the dancer in the second picture that he could never make dance again.

A pair of worn well loved ballet slippers she had worn. He had never seen her wear them without a smile on her face. And when she had danced joy flowed out of her, he had loved watching her. He felt guilty, promised to make sure she would wear them forever their last day together. But came the time could not bear to part with them and kept them selfishly.

Lastly a small bottle worn on the outside so badly that he couldn't read it's name on the label. He knew it was expensive and it smelled like her, he would buy more if he could find out what it's name was. It held only a few drops. He knew he could sleep and dream of her by putting some on a pillow but he only did that on her birthday now as it was precious smelling, and helped him remember her.

They had only been together a little more than a year. If you wouldn't have seen them together, you'd never picture them together. Large rough older man with a mustache and goatee. And a petite young beauty with a limber and flexible body. When they were together. When people saw them look at each other and observed the brilliance of their smiles, you knew of their devotion to each other.

One day the dancer didn't want to dance anymore. Medicine couldn't fix her and the big man watched helplessly as she faded away in front of his eyes. He remembered their last night together in this room, that very bed. Loving her gently that last time afraid of breaking her like a china doll. And falling asleep with her afterward to wake next to her cool body. He held her a long time before he left their bed alone.

He carried her to the mortuary himself wrapped in a quilt she loved and he had sent on with her. He washed her body and dressed her, unable to let anyone do such a personal thing for her. No one but him touched her before she went in that box and he closed the lid the last time that day. Their few friends came later to support him. And she was buried before the end of the day. A spot with her paid for so he could join her later.

Since then he became an empty shell. Speaking only and just as much as he had to, to do his job. Eating little, drinking more than when she still danced. And laughing not at all. Those around him said words they thought would comfort him like forget. But the man knew she was his world and no other would move her from the place in his heart.

But that word, forget was a curse and it started to come to pass. He stopped seeing her everywhere he looked and didn't hear her laughter anymore. He saw video of a girl dancing like her and he remembered happier times, but the memories passed quickly and the sadness returned. But seeing it moved his broken heart.

He sat there alone in the dim light with tears in his eyes wanting to drink from the bottle on the table until sleep took him. Tired and depressed he picked up the bottle of her scent and put a small drop on a tiny piece of silk kept in the music box for that purpose and put it in his pillow case. Tomorrow he would search again, praying to find what it was. Tonight the broken dancer would dance for him in his dreams. And if God really loved him he would never wake.

And he would be with her forever.