She Always did Love to Dance
AN: I warned you out there, but I'll just repeat, River dies, this story is about the rest of the crew, mostly Jayne, but plenty of Simon, with a little bit of all the rest, and how they deal with it.
PART 1
The job went wrong– horribly, terribly wrong. They were ambushed, which they had been expecting thanks to River. What they hadn't expected were the twenty extra men that dropped out of the sky. Apparently these were very well funded bandits who could afford a shuttle. They had been too far away for River to sense and had dropped down, surrounding them in seconds.
Bullets were flying all over the place and the crew of Serenity would have been finished if River hadn't gone into action and Jayne hadn't been well hidden in the nearby trees. He was able to take them out steadily and the bandits couldn't figure out where the extra bullets were flying from in the commotion. Finally, the last bandit fell gasping and everything was silent.
Zoe went over to grab the money and the crate of goods they had been selling when Mal suddenly cried out in a panicked voice, "River?!"
And then she saw his brown coat streak by as Mal ran to where a few dead bandits were piled. She took off running after him and as she neared the pile she saw what had caught the captain's attention.
A slim leg and a bit of blue silk peaked out from under one of the bandits's bodies. Mal shoved the body off and knelt down next to River, taking her wrist and watching her chest, hoping to catch a movement of breath.
But she was still, as dead as the body that had lain on top of her. The captain looked all over for a bullet wound, a knife cut, something. Finally, he saw the small dart that had hit her on the back of her neck. A tiny thing really, but when Mal pulled it out he could smell the poison on the needle. He'd smelled that smell before and while most poisons are odorless, tasteless, in order to be more easily used, this one was tricky.
This one could be smuggled in mass quantities because if the authorities were to search suspicious cargo, they would just smell the cinnamon and never investigate further. As the captain of a smuggling ship, these thoughts ran through his head. As the former adopted father of the pale girl in front of him, all he could think was that Sinamon killed within ten seconds and there was no antidote.
Mal dropped his head into his hands, trying to take some deep breaths which his lungs were making very difficult to do. A single tear slid down Zoe's cheek, but she stood as sure and straight as ever.
Neither of them heard the heavy footfalls of Jayne's approach, but they certainly heard the quiet, pain-filled, "No," that escaped his mouth.
Mal's head shot up and Zoe turned around to watch in shock as Jayne ran to River, threw himself on the ground, and gathered her to his chest all the while repeating, "No!" Each time getting louder and more forceful, until he was screaming into her face and clutching her head to keep it from rolling back unnaturally.
Then, he started babbling, "No, baby, you can't, you promised, you can't leave me here, this ain't right, now wake up, wake up, wake up!" He had begun to shake and great gulping sobs wracked his body as he continued to hold River tightly to him.
Mal and Zoe stood to the side completely shocked, whether from River's death or the revelation of her relationship with Jayne, neither could say. It took quite a while to collect themselves, but by the time they did, Jayne was no longer babbling. He sat, silently rocking forward and back, River still held limply in his arms.
Mal walked over and carefully placed a hand on Jayne's shoulder. He felt Jayne tense up. Mal said quietly, "Jayne, come on, let's bring her back to Serenity." Jayne gave a tiny nod and stood, scooping River up into his arms.