Dislaimer: None of the characters contained herein belong to me. I am making no money from this fic.
A/N: Originally posted for the Last Fanfic Author Standing Challenge. This is officially unbetaed, but I did apply the concrit provided by the challenge.
"Serenity talks to me."
Mal smiles a half smile at her, in an indulgent of his albatross way, and reaches up to toggle a switch or seven over his head. A light goes on and two go off and they both feel the shift of the hum of Serenity as she settles in, floating through space like an atomic titanium ghost.
River knows Serenity talks to Mal too, but sometimes he's too much of a captain, too distracted about his crew to listen to his boat. So, Serenity talks to River.
Not in the way she talks to Kaylee; River knows that is the way a child talks to its mother…cries and noise and sight and sound. If Serenity doesn't feel right, Kaylee knows; feels it like a mother wakes from the dead sleep of deepest night to hurry unbidden to the side of a babe, feeling a sudden fever, wiping away a sleeping tear. Intuitive, Simon had once called River, but Kaylee was really that one. Reads the boat, feels the boat, knows the boat. And she does it all on her own, because nobody messed with her brain pan and made her crazy.
But Serenity does talk to River. Like a friend, like a lover. She whispers secrets in River's ears and tells her how to fly her in the day…the zoom, the slide, the glide into the black…flying, hurtling, sailing through the black. And at night, she sings in Rivers veins, hums in her head, soothes the dreams of the others, shelters her to sleep without the voices of the others--sweet and sad and loving and happy and crying, Zoe always crying, in her head.
They are the same, River and Serenity. Full of dreams and energy and secrets. Too much to make sense of when it comes tumbling out. It's all right, but you have to know how to read it. Have to know how to read River, have to know how to read Serenity.
'Most everybody has their ways of reading her now. Even Jayne Man. But sometimes the other things get in the way. River reads them all…Mal fretting about the crew and Inara. Inara worried about Mal and being a Companion means being on Serenity but not with Mal and being a teacher means she gets to be with Mal but can't be on Serenity with Mal. It makes River's heart and head hurt almost as much as hearing Zoe cry. Or knowing how much Simon loves her and gave up for her because the blue hands cracked her head; but he has Kaylee now too and they settle into each other like an in breath and an out breath and River thinks maybe bliss is Kaylee's legs on Simon's lap while they tell each other stories about all the breaths before.
Serenity knows how to be strong and she is teaching River, too. When River walks she walks careful inside of Serenity…places her foot lightly, delicately. Serenity is made of metal and metal is made of molecules and molecules hold together by attraction and she doesn't want to break the attraction by the force of her steps, doesn't want to hurt Serenity, ship or crew. If she steps gently, the attraction will hold and so will her home.
But Mal needs to know here and now, "Serenity talks to me." Her voice is firmer, more serious, almost stern.
"So you said, little one." He adjusts the nav system and smiles at her again. "What does Serenity say?"
River extends an arm, up and up and stretches to the right, pointing at a fast moving dot of light headed toward them. "Reavers."
