DISCLAIMER : I do so not own Firefly ! It belongs to Mutant Enemy and Fox ( Weeps) ..if this show wre mine, it would totally still be on the air!!!!
Notes: Please bear with me ! This is my very first fic and I realize that I might have made a mess posting it ! SORRY!! Computers hate me ….
Also I come from Germany so please be gentle on me if the spelling or grammars is totally whack ….again Sorry!
Still hope you get to enjoy it!
She was up there in the dark, moving so quietly that at first Jayne didn´t even realize she was there.
He was down in the cargo bay lifting weights again, nothing else to do for a man if he could not fall asleep again in the middle of the night. His bunk was so small, to him it felt like a prison cell and Jayne didn´t care much for being incarcerated. So he went into the cargo bay to work out …again.
He had been working out a lot lately …since all that had gone down that day the alliance almost got a hold of River. He was not into psychology, he didn´t even want to think about if his working out and the fact that he actually felt mighty bit guilty about that day were somehow related. At first he had been able to surpress it, being his obnoxious self day in and day out……….but he did feel bad about betraying them. The feeling had grown and steadily worked itself towards the surface of his emotions and here it was now and he just couldn´t shake it off. The memory of her face when she had whispered
" They are here!", her expression beyond fear …more like pure terror.
That moment he did not understand , but when he replayed that moment in his mind later he had figured it out….
He heard a rustling sound and looked up to find her up there staring at him.
Jayne put the weights down.
" Watcha doin´here?" he said, still panting from the exercise, wiping the sweat off his forehead.
" Where´s that gorram brother of yours? He´s supposed to make sure that you don´t run around….."
" It´s the dead of night, silly!" her voice was nothing more than a whisper, but her soft voice carried far in the empty cargo bay.
" He is sleeping, dreaming warm and cosy dreams."
She started down the ladder and Jayne could not help but be relieved that she did not have a knife or gun on her. Still the thought of being alone with her in the middle of the night worried him a little. She wore one of her wide flowing dresses, a red one that made her look even paler than she already was.
" You´d better go right up back to bed, girl!" he said, sitting up on the bench he used for weightlifting.
" I have no time for anymore crazy talk.!"
She turned around looking at him inquisitively.
" You are the honest one, never wanted the girl on this ship ….."
Her face was almost hidden from his view with her hair tumbling all over the place.
Suddenly he felt bad.
" The girl?" he grimaced " Mean yourself?"
River fumbled with her dress, her voice was so low that he almost did not hear what she was saying.
" Don´t want to be her." She whispered hoarsely
" She is hurting and confused. Whatever she does or says comes out wrong. They did things to her at that place, the dark place. They made her do things, taught her to do things…things that were scary, things that are unclean, things I know an honest daughter does not need "
Jayne furrowed his brow. He was not sure, but what she said actually made sense. Taking into account what Kayleigh had told them about River shooting three guys without even looking at them. All those experiments they must have performed on her, messing with her brain…
Maybe that was what it was all about, they messed with her head so that she would do what they wanted, so that they could use her…use her, but for what?
He shook his head. Was he really analyzing the crazy girl?
" You talking ´bout that academy place your brother told us about?"
" All the pretty girls can fly away, but I´am still stuck in the pond." She answered, shoving that tangled mass of dark hair over her shoulders, looking at the floor. Her tiny, white feet were naked. Jayne figured they had to be pretty cold by now.
" I still live there, you know?"
" No ya don´t. You live on this ship, no matter if I like it or not. Better get used to it now, I guess."
River looked at him and her eyes lit up as she realised that she was not just talking to herself. He was really listening to her. She wanted him to understand what she was saying, wanted it so much. Her fingers wrung the hem of her dress in an effort to say the things in a way he would understand.
" Simon took the girl out of the dark place, but he cannot take the dark place out of the girl."
Jayne looked at her for a moment, his expression stuck between annoyance and confusion. Could it be that she was making sense?
He did not know what worried him more at this point, that he was having a late night talk with the doctor´s crazy sister or the fact that he actually started to understand what the girl was saying.
" It´s haunting you, ha? The things they did, whatever it was. Can´t get it out of that pretty little head of yours."
Now wait a minute, did he just say pretty?
" Plenty of things bad people could do to a tiny slip of a girl like you." He growled.
Hell he was one of those people! He tried to sell her out, almost let them take her back to that ruddin´ place. He really started to feel bad.
He could see it in her big, dark eyes………she knew.
She knew it all, had known it all along! Even that day she had known what he was about to do. Never said a word to anyone! Jayne let his head fall into his hands.
Did that mean that she had forgiven him……….how could anyone forgive that kind of betrayal?
He was sure he could never forgive such a thing.
" I know you are sorry for what you did, in your own way you are. You got stupid, I don´t think you will ever get that stupid again. Now that you know …"
" Know what?"
She finally let go of the hem of her dress, all creased up as it was. Her fingers raked through her dark hair. She sighed.
" That I would rather die than go back to the dark place."
Jayne squinted at her tiny frame. She looked very lost and fragile the way she stood there. Almost like a child, but Jayne was very aware of the fact that she was everything but………
A real beauty, Kayleigh had called her, and she was. All pale and vulnerable…
" You are .."
" Crazy?" she finished for him, raising one eyebrow.
" …...different."
" Unlike any you have ever seen."
" And not in a good way!" he said. She had shot three men without even looking their way in a matter of seconds!
" Is that what you think or what you feel ?"
" What?" Just when he thought she was making sense, she startled him.
" Sometimes those two are different things!"
Jayne stared at her in awe, she was smiling mischieviously . Maybe those drugs her brother used on her were finally showing some results. He wondered what River might be like if she were normal again.
" You take my gun and wave it around and call it a flower, in which scenario would that be a good thing?" he challenged.
River lifted her eyebrows again, almost giggling.
" You collect them like flowers; Dried flowers to hang on the wall behind your bed."
He did not like the thought of her knowing where he stored his guns, even if it maybe wasn´t the most clever place. He vividly remembered her cutting him with the big kitchen knife.
Her face grew weary and she came towards him very slowly.
" I remember cutting you." She revealed quietly.
Not for the first time Jayne found himself wondering if she could read his mind. She always seemed to know what people were thinking. And the thought of what she would find while looking into his head chilled him to the bone. At the same time it made him blush, he did not want her to know all the things he was thinking about….he did feel ashamed, he realised.
" I did not mean to cut you, but I know I did." She stopped a few feet away from him. Her face looked almost like a fragile mask, ready to break into a thousand pieces at any time. River breathed in deep. She felt as if she could not fill her lungs with enough air to say what she wanted to say.
" Sometimes I get so caught up in the mess in my head, that I cannot wriggle free. This wave drags me out to sea and now matter how hard I try I can´t reach the shore. It feels like water rushing in my ears, like drowning and whatever I learned …….there at the dark place, it takes over. Autopilot." She explained breathlessly.
" It feels like a storm inside of me."
River felt her breathing grow laboured.
No! No, no, no, not now ….she was gonna make him see. She wanted to tell him…….wanted him to know everything. She knew he could understand her if she could just get the words out right.
Jayne turned towards her, still sitting on the bench. She looked like she was about to cry. Great, just what he needed.
" My thoughts are racing like a thousand wild horses in panic, flying over the edge and I loose control of me. I loose myself, they let me …made me loose myself. Stripped me of who I was until there was nothing left and now I can´t remember her!"
" Well it wasn´t so bad." Jayne tried to say in an effort to make it better.
He was not very good at comforting people. In fact he didn´t even know how to do it, so this was his best shot. Hell, he would do almost anything to keep her from crying. Last thing he needed was her bawling her eyes out and everybody storming into the cargo bay thinking he did the –devil- knows- what to her.
Was this the same girl that killed three men not too long ago?
She had saved their butts at least twice; shooting those men, protecting Kayleigh, tricking that bounty-hunter…Gorram , because the damn girl didn´t wake him he had missed all the action!
" Why didn´t you wake me up when that ruddin´ bounty hunter came to get you?" he suddenly demanded to know.
River looked taken aback by his harsh tone, her forehead creased up slightly.
" I could not go to your place. There are guns at your place, I am not supposed to touch guns and you have so many." She said as though she was lecturing him.
Jayne grunted and shook his head in bewilderment. Since when did she do anything they told her to do, or better not to do?
River looked at his bowed head, her facial expression changed.
" He would have killed you."
Jayne looked up, right into her eyes. She looked serious.
" Kayleigh was not a danger…..the captain was contained. He would have killed everyone on this ship, if he thought that they would stand in his way. He wanted to get his bounty. But you he would have killed for sure, because you are dangerous, you are a threat ……always."
There was a tint of anguish in her voice and something else that Jayne could not quite make out.
" So you took him on alone, little girl like you."
" Not as frail as I look and you know that."
Damn, did he know it,…….. girl knew her way around guns and knives …..…if she weren't crazy and her bother not such a pompous ass ……. she would be perfect!
" They all want to protect me…….my brother, the preacher, even the captain……..not you. You don´t. Part of you is afraid of me, because you look at me and you don´t know what it is you see."
Jayne just sat there and stared at her, her magnificent face all lit up, glowing for whatever reason ….he knew he should get out. He did not have to be there, in the middle of the night listening to the ramblings of that little girl, but he just could not will himself to get of that bench.
Instead he kept staring at her staring at him.
" And yet .." she whispered, leaning in as though she was about to share a big secret with him, " …there is a part of you that calls out to me, that draws me in."
Her lips were inches from his. River gazed into his eyes as if she was not quite sure what she was doing. From up close her face was incredibly beautiful, with clear creamy -white skin, her dark eyes framed in thick, long lashes. All he had to do was grab the back of the pretty neck and …….
Gorram! He almost jumped off the bench. He was most definitely going to hell!
River blinked and straightened herself, now forced to look up to him as he was standing right in front of her.
" Funny" she said, smiling her secretive little smile.
He was close enough for her to feel the heat emanating from his muscular body. He was still a little sweaty from the workout.
Jayne breathed in deep, for the first time realizing that the faint lavender-scent he was always so unnerved about came from her.
" You are the one person on this ship I might actually need to be protected from ."
Jayne wasn´t sure what she was talking about. The sheer vicinity of her affected him more than he liked to admit and he wondered when exactly that had started. There were definitely some things going on here that he did not understand. Things he could not even fathom.
" And yet. " River continued softly, looking up into his eyes with a marvelling expression.
" You are the only person I want to be protected by…………there are some things here that I do not comprehend, but I will figure them out eventually."
She pursed her lips, all she wanted she did not understand ……..but she did not care. The voices were silent now, they were silent around him. That had to be a sign.
River took the one tiny step it took to bridge the distance between them and put her palms onto his chest. Jayne looked from her hands to her face. This was spinning out of control, he should stop this …….he really should, but he had no intention to.
" We will find each other Jayne Cobb." He realised that it was the first time she had used his name.
" One day we will find each other and when we do, no power in the ´verse will be able to keep us apart."
Jayne stared at her self- consciously. Now what the hell was that all about? River looked back at him and for the first time Jayne saw the woman that River would be, the woman she was once all that crazy baggage had gone.
Her eyes sparkled as she smiled at him as if she knew a secret that she was not ready to share with him yet. She was magnificent, exquisite…different.
" What is going on?" he asked suspiciously, his voice low and raw.
" The voices are silent." She said as if that could explain everything.
" It will not stay this way, they will be angry…they will come back. But right now they are silent and I ´am here, alone. Just me."
Gingerly River leaned her forehead onto his chest, her arms sliding around his waist. Jayne looked around the cargo bay……..if anybody saw……
Mal would most likely not give him the benefit of the doubt, he would be blown out the airlock in no time.
" Now …come on girl…….stop!" He did not know what to do.
" Just hold me." River answered his silent question. Her voice was so calm and serious that Jayne did what she asked before he even knew it. He put his arms around her shoulders and pulled her close. Her body felt soft and warm against his.
Lavender was not all that bad, now that he thought about it. Almost unconsciously he bent down to smell her hair. No, not bad at all!
He could not help but feel a little uncomfortable, the whole situation was completely unreal und just standing there holding a woman was not a thing he did ……ever!
Except for this time, only this once ………but never again, he told himself. He had to admit it felt quite good, her skin was smooth and soft, where his hands touched her delicate shoulders and he could feel her breath on his chest. It felt right holding her in his arms, almost as if she belonged there.
River closed her eyes for a moment. She felt so unbelievably safe and at peace, a feeling long since forgotten.
No Power in the ´verse, she thought, no power in the ´verse could keep her away now.
She looked up at him, smiling like a contented cat.
" Thank You."
Then she stood up on her toes, put her hands around his face and kissed him. Jayne was so completely stunned, he did not know how to react.
What the ….
Her lips felt smooth and cool on his, it was a soft, sweet kiss. Not too innocent though, he noted as her mouth enveloped his upper lip.
He pulled her flush against him almost instinctively and River let out a tiny moan. Yeah, it probably was wrong, but he did not care anymore. He tried to be good, but he sure as hell was no saint. If he was supposed to go to hell, he could at least go to hell for something that felt as good as this …….and it felt pretty darn good.
" River………River are you here?"
Gorramit! Of course that ruddin´ brother of hers had to come look for her now!
River pressed against him even more urgently and he could have sworn he felt the tip of her tongue probe his lower lip. Breathlessly she wriggled free of his embrace.
" Here .." she called out, not taking her eyes off Jayne.
Her small white hand caressed his cheek for a second, then she turned around quickly, climbing up the ladder before Simon came into sight.
" What are you doing River, you should be sleeping." Jayne could hear her brother say, as he led River back to her room.
Carefully Jayne touched his lips with his fingers.
" What just happened?" he asked himself looking up to where River had disappeared from his sight.
It was as though he could still hear her urgent whisper in his mind.
No Power in the ´verse……