Okay so usually I ship Rayne but I thought the ending scene of the movie was really sweet, and this came out. Set sometime after Miranda. Just a little snippet of a thing.
She sits in the copilot seat, her knees drawn up to her chest. Blue light pulses from the controls and settles on her legs, her arms, her face. She likes to think of it as starlight, moonlight, something sacred, something special.
She lifts a hand, turns it, noting the shadows she casts on the dashboard. One finger touches the window. It keeps out the space, blocks the blackness. Keeps us from true serenity.
She hears a voice and the words he doesn't speak and smiles.
Mal.
.
He likes looking at her. The way her skin looks, white and cool and smooth, the way the dark clings to the belly of the light that she seems to absorb, the way she's barefoot even when it's freezing. For a second he looks only at the curve of her neck as she twists to look at him. He likes that, too, and the way her hair curls and lights up like a halo. And he likes her smile, soft and sweet, her lips cherries in the snow.
And even though he wants the moment to last he has to say something, so he does. "Can't sleep?" She nods a little, and he moves to sit opposite her.
"Serenity sees everything," she explains. (And he likes her voice, sweet voice, bird voice, why-does-it-always-seem-like-she's-singing voice.) "Simon and Kaylee together, skin on skin, River shouldn't look. Zoe dreaming, Wash and babies, Jayne alone but not alone, dreams bottomless." She cocks her head. "But-where is she? No one holding her, who knows she's there?"
Is that a request? (Yes yes yes.) But he plays it safe. "You're right here, next to me." Is it a statement or does it mean something more? Even he doesn't know.
"Do you miss her?"
"Who?" She doesn't say anything; he knows she knows he knows, she always does. (And he couldn't lie to her anyway.)
"Sometimes."
"When?"
"I dunno. Just... sometimes." (When the bed is so cold and sleep is so far, when it's too quiet and every breath I breathe whispers her name ((Inara Inara Inara.)))
"Me too." She leans forward, her words misting up the window. "I miss her too."
"Mm." The silence is good. He leans into it, and tries to forget (that when he sits in this seat it should be Wash in his place, that he liked hearing about a god, the God, Book's God, even if he didn't believe, that she is a river and beautiful and he wants to love her and make love to her, that how can he love both of them at once? ((Though does he, really? He knows and he doesn't know and there is only one.))) He tries to forget all this and wears the silence like a shield.
She breaks it, gently; slow-motion, he can see it falling, snowflakes, leaves in the wind.
"What am I?" she asks.
"Moon," he says. He doesn't think. And then: is that the right thing to say to a girl? To a woman? But she smiles at him and he knows she understands.
"Pretty," she says. She draws a circle on the window and he watches it fade.
"Yeah," he says. "Pretty."
They sit there until Simon comes in and tells them it's morning.