Disclaimer: Don't own Firefly - that belongs to the almighty Joss Whedon.
A/N: This takes place during the BDM, but there aren't any spoilers, so if you haven't seen it you can still read this if you want. But I really think you should go see the movie, because if you like Firefly, you'd love Serenity, and I think you're a strange Browncoat if you haven't seen it. Oh, and if you don't recognize the character, that's okay because I made him up.
Jake Sammi.
The name itself brought images exploding into her mind; a young teenage boy, dressed all in white, with short black hair and green eyes, and a smile that couldn't ever be mistaken. He was reading, sitting, talking, sleeping - but always smiling. No one could ever bring him down. He sat in the dorm across from hers, passing messages, silent, invisible messages during the night. He shared her dreams and they would splash through puddles, climb over mountains and jump through clouds together, their special time during the night, the only place where the teachers couldn't find them.
They had the same schedule. Together they would kick, scream, and suffer, but still he always smiled. Together they would endure forced nightmares, clutched against cold glass, trying to avoid the monsters. Together they ate. Together they would lay separately, using the other's warmth across walls and hallways to bring a smile to the other's lips.
They both sent the same message back home, the same code, with letters. They're hurting us. Get me out. Again and again, both of them, holding on to each other while they waited.
Only one person received the message.
She tried to rescue him as well, but her brother wouldn't listen. She reached her mind out toward him, tried to grab on to him with intangible arms, screaming silently, fighting uselessly. He smiled still. We'll be reunited, one day.
She cried as she thought of Jake Sammi. Because she knew he never escaped; she knew he died in the Academy as she almost had. He didn't smile anymore.
She knew because she was looking at him.
She cried. Her tears drowned out everything. She touched, gently, her mind to his, but he recoiled. He showed his teeth at her. He frowned and growled and snarled and spit. She cried for him as she looked into his eyes, his changed green eyes.
She didn't realize she was on the ground. She didn't realize he was a mile away. She was looking at him, and he at her, but all he saw was flesh. All she saw was a corpse. She was surprised that her face wasn't wet, that her tears hadn't drowned her, that her friend's death hadn't penetrated her outside.
Even as she looked over him, at his scars, at his blood-soaked hair, at his empty eyes, she knew she had to warn them. He was coming. They all were. And she had to tell them, or else he would - he would do things - she couldn't bear to think of it.
Before she spoke the word she reached out to him. She wanted to warn them but she tried to embrace him, tried to smother him with his past, tried to remind him who he was by force.
All he did was snip at her, bite at her mind, thrust it out of him with a yell and a growl, a dark hungering that she never thought he'd be capable of. She let out a gasp of pain as she realized. Jake Sammi was dead. There was only one thing left behind, one thing she had to tell the others before he found them.
"Reavers."