Title: I Go Blind
Disclaimer: All hail Joss
A/N: Angst alert! Inspired by the amazing song I Go Blind by Hootie & the Blowfish. If you've never heard it I suggest checking it out, but it's not necessary to understand the story. Hope you enjoy, feedback appreciated!
River started awake and sat up with a jerk, turning to gently lift away Jayne's arm that had been draped over her belly. He grumbled in his sleep, but didn't wake. She smiled at him affectionately; even in his sleep he was ornery.
She'd had the nightmare again, the one where everything was gray and everyone walked around without faces, saying nothing and being nothing. Few others would have found it as unsettling, but it shook her to her core. It was too close to reality. Except in real life there was one person who was always in color.
Looking down at the slumbering man beside her, she allowed herself to bask for a moment in the gentle turquoise glow of his dreams. The corner of his mouth twitched up in a half smile and she wondered if he was dreaming of her.
He cared about her, she knew that he did. The last time she had tried to end things with him he had enumerated all the reasons he loved her, utterly unprompted. Jayne being Jayne, as soon as she had talked of breaking up he had assumed that he was to blame. Holding onto her hands fiercely, he had told her that he loved that he made her stronger on her bad days, that he loved that she made him less angry. That he loved her smile, her laugh, the way her hair smelled. Even her broken brain.
Just by looking at him she had known that even he was taken aback. She'd heard very little of that floating about his mind before, much less in speech. The words, combined with the broken expression on his face, had shattered all of her resolve. She had let him kiss her, let him take her in his arms, and spent the entire night apologizing and never telling him why.
After Miranda her poor, battered psyche had almost crumbled. The weight of thirty million deaths had come close to crushing her, the cries of thirty million voices deafening her to the rest of the world. She had worried her poor gege terribly, but all of his tests came back inconclusive and his medications were useless. She had been mute for twenty-three days when she had suddenly laughed at one of Jayne's off-color jokes told around the dining table. He had sought her out every day after that, talking to her about anything and everything until her face remembered how to smile and her hands to feel.
When he had kissed her, weeks later, she'd felt alive for the first time in years. He was like a drug; her body and mind craved the way that he made her feel when he spoke with her, kissed her, made love to her. Even Simon had enthusiastically supported their relationship, beyond ecstatic to see a glimpse of the old River he used to know after so many years. These days he was even encouraging her to marry Jayne. It was only proper, after all.
Sitting on the edge of his bunk she ran her hands through her hair. She knew that Jayne didn't think he was good enough for her, never would regardless of how much she protested otherwise. It was clear in his thoughts. He was rough and mean and old and uneducated, while she was beautiful and smart and young and one hell of a fighter. He was grateful every day for the chance to be with her, even if he never told her so out loud.
Would he still feel the same way if he knew? If she ever had the courage to tell him?
With a grunt Jayne turned over on the bed, rolling onto his stomach and throwing out an arm where she should be. She could wake him now, tell him at last of her horrible selfishness. Would his eyes still light up when he saw her? Would he pawn the ring that he kept secreted in the bottom of his sock drawer? Or was it irrelevant, was she too much of a coward to ever find out?
She wanted to do right by him, it wasn't fair to keep up this charade. Every morning before she opened her eyes she promised herself that today would be the day, but by the time he gruffly muttered a good morning all of her determination evaporated.
Every time she looked at him she went blind. Blind as all the pain she had ever felt was soothed, the ghosts were quieted. She was just a woman, lying with a man in a too small bed.
When he was gone on a job or had to stay up to take the third watch she would lay there in the morning for hours trying to get up, trying to feel alive and always failing. Only when he came down to their bunk could she find the strength to sit up, smiling at him when he teased her for being a lazy bum. Then he would hold her and she was lifted up from some internal pit deep within herself. She would wrap her arms around him, soaring until she was ultimately on his level where normal people walked and talked.
She knew that the normal people had normal worries, normal cares. They had purpose, even if it was just their own miniscule portion of the galaxy. River would never have that. There was no plan for her, she would never be free of the imprint of the blue hands.
She had witnessed the world through others' eyes, felt all the feelings and emotions of planets and moons, knew the history of the recorded 'verse. But all this knowledge didn't make her feel wise; it made her feel hollow. She had seen everything, but in the end it wouldn't matter. The overwhelming apathy was more terrifying than any Reaver and when it started to drown her she would inevitably reach to Jayne. Even as she told herself that this would be the last time, she knew it was a lie.
It was why she needed to walk away. She was the true mercenary in the relationship. He loved her unconditionally, even her flaws and imperfections, and would never leave her. She loved the way that he made her feel alive again. He was a good man; there were many things to love about him, not least the way that he cared for her. She hypothesized that had she not been so irrevocably cracked she could love him as he loved her.
But she was and so she couldn't. She would always be using him, holding onto him to get higher and higher.
He deserved so much better. He deserved a real woman who could reciprocate his affection wholly and fully. Instead he only had her.
Blinking back the tears that threatened to fall she laid back down. He instantly shifted in his sleep to accommodate her, wrapping his arm around her waist and nuzzling into her hair. She reached up to tentatively touch his face, caressing his cheek and wishing more than anything she could be the woman he needed. Closing her eyes she allowed herself to snuggle against him, to feel his warmth against her back and his breath on her neck.
There was always tomorrow.