Somebody That I Used To Know
She is in the market place, perched at a small, ornately-carved iron table, a solitary island in a sea of noise, watching the people stream past in a river of loud chattering color.
They rush and scream and shout and hug each other, say goodbye hello how good to see you again. They wear dirty rags and bright cloth and shimmering silk; some carry baskets filled with fruit and milk and bread, others have arms full of tottering protein.
They are black hair and blond; eyes of green and blue and brown; laughing mouths and bright smiles and angry frowns.
All of them are going somewhere; walking with a purpose even as they greet others. Dodging around tables piled high with silver candlesticks and cinnamon scented incense, weaving expertly through a thicket of traders shouting their wares.
The man across from her stops in his narrative, and although she finds the break from his nasal voice relieving, she puts on an interested expression and smiles at him.
"Do go on," she says, her voice one of avid fascination, and he smiles, satisfied she is properly attending his story of self-heroism (one where he rescued a cat or a dog or something like that off of a house for a cousin or niece).
Once he is properly engrossed again she returns to her contemplation, letting the rush of voices and clanging pots and tramping feet drown out his voice.
For the life of her, she cannot remember his name. Harvey? Harold? Horace? Something like that. Honestly, she is unsure why she even chose him; with his weak chin and watery blue eyes it was hardly for physical appearance, and ten seconds of time spent with him was ten seconds too long.
But still, she had a job to do. Perhaps that was why she was here, in this market, instead of locked in her room burning incense and watching cortex vids over and over and over until she is mouthing the words along with the characters themselves.
Perhaps, perhaps. She does not care, not really, and a bitter smile touches her face. She does not care. Oh, the irony. The first lesson she learned, the first one she forgot. The reason why she is here, with this man, bored to tears and searching the market for a distraction.
Her eye is distracted by a flash of red and she turns slightly, still pretending to be interested (although she doubted whether anything short of a riot would stop his incessant talking).
The flash of red is a bolt of silk, and she watches the owner throw it up in the air, watches it come rippling down, catching the currents of air and twisting, dancing really.
Twist, flow, ripple; the red blurs in front of her eyes and her vision tunnels, goes fuzzy, and there is only red, still twisting and flowing, flowing across green that shouldn't be this color and someone needs to stop it, stop it now, but it just keeps on flowing and flowing and someone somewhere is dancing because she can see whirls of pink flying but the red is still going and now she can see brown and a scream rises in her throat, choking and clawing and she opens her mouth to let it out-
and she's back in the market at the table with the crowd, watching as the silk settles in a beautiful heap on the table. Across from her Harvey? Harold? Horace? drones on and on.
She swallows hard, forcing the thoughts back into her head as deep as they can go, and rips her eyes away from the red pile, eyes scanning the marketplace restlessly.
There is nothing there, nothing to offer her relief (on another day, any other, she could have watched for hours; but now, now there is nothing) and she begins to focus on Henry, (that was his name, she was sure of it) when something flickers in the corner of her eye.
This time it's not red but black, glimmering at the very edges of her vision, and she turns almost subconsciously, wanting to rid herself of the annoying flicker.
At first she cannot spot anything in the crowd of riotous color, but then she spies it again, and then again, and her eyes track the movement to a more deserted corner of the market, where the shadows are deep and cling tightly to the wall for protection. And there she sees a girl, and the sight stops her breath.
She jerks, her knee banging the table and almost toppling the wine glasses perched on top (when had those gotten there? She can't remember).
"Inara?" Henry sounds almost concerned, if slightly annoyed at the interruption.
"I'm fine," she gasps out, and her voice is almost stable, even to her own ears. "Just thought I saw something. Please, continue."
He hesitates, weighs her sincerity against his own desire to continue, and begins again.
The moment his attention lapses her eyes fly back to the corner, the shadows, the flash of black and the girl.
She stands there, almost submerged in the shadows, her face turned away from Inara, covered by a veil of long brown hair. She is waiting for something, or someone, that much is obvious by her stance; the way her face is turned, searching.
She remembers that stance, remembers her standing there, standing in all that red, and her eyes roving, her hair flinging as she whirled circles, and her dress was pink, yes, and she was dancing dancing the day the red came, dancing for everyone, dancing because she was happy, and then there was that red, that unstoppable flood, and she had stopped, had just stood there, waiting. And they hadn't been able to move her, the others, and she had stood there, in all that red and the patches of brown and just waited. Inara was the only one who knew what she was waiting for; the others could guess, almost knew, but still, she was the only one that knew. She and the girl and they had stood there together, in that red, and waited together.
She tries to turn away, really she does, but she can't quite manage it, cannot quite remember how to turn her head away.
That's why she's still looking when the girl looks her way, and their eyes lock, black on dark brown, and ice flows through Inara's vein.
Why is she here? Is the first thought through her brain, quickly followed by I was never supposed to see her again, quickly followed by a flood of red waves and pink skirts.
I wasn't, wasn't supposed to see her, I wasn't. She wasn't. She'd made a promise and she'd followed through, had kept her word till the bitter end. (That bitter end tinged with pink and red and now, now she remembers his hands, encased in white, intruding, tugging on pink and shoving back the red). Serras always kept their promises.
"River." It is a choked whisper, yanked from her mouth against her will. It is soft, quiet, swept away by the pulsing rhythm of the market, and not even Henry, two feet away, pauses in his narrative.
And yet the girl, River, tilts her head to the side like she was the one two feet away, like she heard.
Dark cold eyes hold her gaze, pin her to the seat, keep the red flowing all around her, around and around and around in dizzying circles, following the path of pink that had been there only moments before, and now the hands come back, white gloves grabbing her, trying to pull her, pull River. Run, run now! Inara! River, River we need to go mei mei, we need to go now. Come on, come with me. Inara! Inara help me! We need to move, we need to move now!
She sucks in a shaky breath, trying for air, but she sucks in a breath of thick copper and she almost gags, choking, feeling like something has her by the throat, and then River glances away, like it is nothing to her, like she is not skewered, paralyzed, and she is free to suck in another breath, to breathe once more, and the dark spots fade, although the white pink red brown stays.
She cannot help it though, and she cannot look away, and she watches River turn, relax, step forward to greet a person still hidden behind the crowd. And then the person steps clear, and it is like she is standing in that puddle of red all over again.
It is Simon, but not Simon. His face, once so sympathetic, so kind, is worn and drawn; dark bruise-like shadows under his eyes heightening the paleness of his skin.
She remembers that coloring, remembers it from way back, back before Before, when River had fallen from the box, screaming and shaking and crying.
It is the coloring of one who has been inside for a long, long time, the coloring of someone who has not seen the sun for months, for years.
And the way he blinks, squints his eyes, takes a rapid step back into the shadows confirms it.
Simon Tam.
Inara, Inara run! Help me with River, come on we need to go! Don't just stand there, do something! Take her, help her, I need to help him. Move! Come on, move!
Dark eyes set in a white face and he looks so much like his sister then, his sister standing there, eyes staring off to the side, waiting and watching and knowing. His sister, standing there in her soft pink skirt, from where she was dancing, hair still disarrayed, music still playing.
His sister, standing there in the blood spilling across the floor, white dancer's feet turning red, smudges on her ankles and calves, standing there waiting and watching and ignoring her brother's screaming, his pleading, and waiting watching standing in that blood, that damn blood that never came out, no matter how many times she washed her dress, waiting for those people and standing in that blood and watching.
Watching her, with those dark eyes, so like her brother's like his sister's, watching her and judging and knowing.
It wasn't possible for that girl to know so much, but know it she did. She'd had so many questions about her; who is she, what is she, is her brother telling the truth, should I believe it?
But now? Now it was different.
Psychic? She believed it. Assassin? She believed that too.
The only question she had left regarding River Tam was why she hadn't snapped her neck the second the blood had come and she'd seen her there, waiting, watching, and standing in the blood she had known was coming and had done nothing to prevent.
Inara? Inara, go, damn it! Run! Take River! Take her! GO!
Another breath, another wave of copper, another explosion of color and memory and sound. Another sip of wine.
Across the market River takes Simon by the hand, points him another way, and gives him a gentle shove. She watches as River stands there, waiting and watching as Simon starts away, down an alley, his gait slow and unsure, pain (from the lights or the sounds or the people she cannot tell) on his face. He pauses, turns, sees River still standing there; a parent watching her child off to school for the first time. And then he turns right and the shadows swallow him, and River turns so fast she can hardly register the movement and is coming towards her, twisting her way through the crowd with the grace of a dancer and the fluidity of water.
She wants to run, to scream, to do something, but she is still trapped, locked in her seat, and across from her Henry drones on and on.
River stops a foot away, and the crowd parts around her, like sheep when a wolf is among them. They can sense the danger on her, in her; can see it even though she is only a girl, barely eighteen, wearing simple black clothes, long hair hanging down her back in a wave.
But there is ice in her eyes and predator in the way she stands, and Inara can feel the panic rising, rising like the red, and she cannot push it down, cannot push it away, and
"Please excuse me," she says; and again her voice is steady, again she is every inch the perfect Companion, and she leaves the table before Henry, looking affronted, can protest.
There is music, and she follows it off the ship, out into the field, traipsing across grass for several hundred yards, until the ship is far behind and she is standing there, in that green green field, just like she said, like she'd promised, but there is something wrong because these other people, they shouldn't be here, and this is wrong so wrong and she watches as River spins, hair whipping around and around, her pink skirt flying, and her brother, her brother is there clapping and smiling and there is music, and it all blurs into a smear of pink and green pastel set under a cloudless blue sky.
"River, so good to see you," she says, and the words are forced; awkward and insincere, but her Companion training is there and cannot be ignored.
River stares at her, and there is nothing in her gaze, nothing of that girl of pink and green left. She has become ice.
She stares at her and says nothing, and Inara can feel that panic, rising and rising and overpowering her brain, blotting out everything and everyone.
"I haven't seen you for-"
"One year, five months, two weeks, three days, seven hours, twelve minutes, nine seconds. Ten. Eleven."
River's voice is flat, but each word bores a hole into her, another hole and another and another and that fear, oh god, she should not be so afraid; the market place was crowded and this was the girl whose hair she brushed, whose stories she'd listened to. The girl with the small smile and the tears that never seemed to stop; the girl who'd rubbed soup in her hair and called her brother a boob and run through the ship with Kaylee and an apple.
"You shouldn't be so afraid." River's voice is still without inflection; still that blade of ice, completely perfect and flawless.
She frowned, pulled back, re-evaluated.
"You made a promise," River continued, and her voice changed cadence, became that of a young child's mocking sing-song. "You made a promise."
And she had, she had. She'd made a promise, weighed the pros and cons, and what could she have done?
"Your family's life for the fugitives. We won't even touch the rest of your crew; we'll just take them and go."
She'd known they were lying, but she'd convinced herself, she'd been so sure that somehow, everything would work out in the end. It hadn't.
"You should go back to the ship," she tells him, trying to be calm. He looks at her, a frown starting, and behind him Simon laughs as River dances.
"Why?" Blunt, to the point. Exactly like him.
"I think Kaylee's looking for you," she floundered.
"I think she can wait a bit longer," he says. He smiles then, looks at her. "Relax 'Nara, it's vacation. Sit down, rest yourself for a spell. You've been too stressed recently; watch River. She's a real good dancer, doc wasn't exaggerating."
Behind him River completes a move that should be impossible, or at the very least excruciating, yet she makes look effortless. Simon laughs again, his whole face animated like she's never seen it before.
"She said it was important," she blurts. He turns to look at her, and she fumbles again. "Something, something about the engine." It's a weak excuse, and he knows it.
"Is there something the matter?" he looks at her, searching. "Is it the Guild? Because you know, if it's really that bad, we can take a job somewhere closer to a core planet, where you can get your job done."
She almost starts crying then and there; he hadn't even taken the obvious jibe he could have made about her and her profession.
"Just, I think Kaylee is really worried. She seems very upset." She is desperate now, but he doesn't seem to notice much.
"Upset? How bad?" He shoots a glance at Simon, who is attempting to follow River as she tries to waltz. "Doc didn't something, did he? Cause if my mechanic ain't happy, the ship ain't happy. And if the ship ain't happy, ain't nobody happy."
"No," she blurts. "Mal, please, just go. I think something's really wrong."
That's when her memory fails and there are only fragments, only bits; the flood of red, River's pink skirt; Simon's white hands and dark eyes and River standing there and the similarity of their faces and him screaming, screaming at her to run, to take River, he'd hold them off, it was her they wanted, but they'd take him too, and River standing there, in that lake of never-ending blood, not saying a word, not moving, standing there waiting and watching and Simon's confusion, his horror, and those men, with their guns, and the men with the blue hands, and River's face when she saw them, the way her legs simply gave out and she fell down into the blood and Simon screaming at her, and the blood, and the screaming, and the way everything smelled of smoke and copper.
"Are you going to kill me?" She means it to be brave, defiant even; she has been expecting this for more than a year. But her voice wobbles as it comes out and it is little more than a weak quaver.
"No." River's voice is flatter again; only a tint of mocking left. She steps closer, and Inara almost shrinks back, almost, but holds her ground, staring into River's eyes, pits of black ice in her face, and wonders whether Simon's eyes look like this; she is afraid of the answer, more so than what River might do to her.
"No, I'm not going to kill you now. Do you know why?" The sing-song quality is back, and it makes her words all the more terrifying. "Because you made a promise," River continues. "And Serras always keep their promises."
River turns to go and then pauses, her back still to Inara.
"But you know what?" she asks, and her voice is whisper quiet, cutting through the air like steel. "So do Tams. And I made a promise to Simon. Do you want to know what it is?" She turns back around slowly, carefully, her feet landing precisely on the cobblestones.
"No," Inara chokes out; and this time she takes a step back.
River's hand whips out and grabs her wrist and she bites back a yelp; her fingers are icicles, belonging more to a corpse than a living breathing girl.
"I promised him I'd kill you, slowly and painfully. I promised him I'd make you suffer." She smiles, and in her eyes there is cold, utter joy; a gleam of utter and complete madness.
"But I'm not going to kill you now. I'm never going to see you again. But I'll keep my promise. I'm going to leave you here until the blood crawls out of your brain and into your throat and you choke on it; and nobody can help you because it's not there, not to them, but it's all over your hands, and it will never go away."
Her fingers, cold as death, twine with Inara's and pull her hands out in front of her, examining them with detached interest.
"Never," she says again, and then she is gone, vanishing like smoke into the crowd.
Inara walks back to the table, where Henry is sitting, looking confused and put out.
"Who was that?" he asks crossly.
Inara hesitates, watches the market crowd ebb and flow.
"Just somebody I used to know."
Then she turns and throws herself back into the conversation, and if her companion notices her smile is too forced, her laugh too high, he doesn't comment.
In the afternoon light, her hands look red.
A/N: Yes, I know, Inara is a bad guy. River is a bad guy. Simon is a bad guy. Simon is OOC. Inara is OOC. River is NOT OOC.
And yes, MAL IS DEAD. (No, sister dear, I don't care that he's your favorite.)
So please please please don't write me a review cursing me out for any of these said facts. You can PM me if you want, but don't share the hatred with everyone else.
Of course, if you loved it, review review review.
Okay, to make everything crystal clear: Jayne/Mal/Kaylee/Wash/Book/Zoe/Mal: dead. Inara: eaten alive by guilt. River: captured by Blue Hands and turned into a weapon. Simon: captured by Blue Hands and like what River was in series, on way to becoming weapon of Blue Sun.