Mary Jane and the Monkey
Fear not, callensensei gave me permission to write in the Hunterfic subgenre. In fact, she pretty much challenged me to write a Mary Ann Hunterfic (wisely or unwisely is yet to be determined). Thanks for the encouragement and I hope it's worthy. And, look, I got the rest of the characters in it too!
If you can't sleep, I'll be there in your dreams
I'll be there in your dreams if you can't sleep at all
And in your dreams, I'll touch your cheek
And lay my head on your shoulder
Goodbye shadows
Goodbye shadows
If you're far away, if you can't see my face
If the world is cold, but the sun shines the same
Shut your eyes, there are bluer skies
For you're embraced in my heart.
"If You Can't Sleep," She & Him
One
She tore through the jungle as fast as her petite legs would carry her, arms pumping, leaping over fallen logs and ducking under low-hanging branches with a deftness she didn't know she possessed and had never needed on the flat open prairie. The sounds of her three friends screaming after her faded into the distance and under the bass drumming of her heart in her ears. She hurdled over a small stream and skidded briefly on wet leaves, wishing distantly that she had chosen not to wear a skirt that day.
After the Skipper captured Ramoo and liberated the five remaining castaways, he and the Professor went off in search of Gilligan and Kincaid, instructing Mr. Howell to take the women to the cave they used to ride out the last hurricane and to stay put and that's an order!
And yet here she was, sprinting through the jungle, not sure exactly where she was going or what she was going to do once she got there, but nonetheless surging in the general direction of her best friend and a madman with a rifle. She heard Ginger bellow her name one final time, followed by muffled cursing from Mr. Howell, which she was sure was accompanied by frustrated foot stomping. She pictured Mrs. Howell shrieking at her husband, pointing off into the foliage with an opera-gloved hand clutching a delicate handkerchief, demanding that he go after her.
But he could never catch her. She was done feeling useless.
You are braver than you believe... played on a loop in her head, partially for her own benefit, but mostly she hoped the mantra would rise from her consciousness into the ether and alight on an exhausted Gilligan, hiding somewhere in the jungle, if she just concentrated hard enough.
Mary Ann reached out and grabbed a skinny palm tree, using it to propel herself around the trunk and down the path that continued at a sharp angle down a steep hill. She crossed a small clearing in four easy strides, cheerful sunlight briefly blinding her, and plunged deep into the jungle again.
The night before the hunt, Mary Ann snuck out of her hut after Ginger finally fell into a nervous and restless sleep. The movie star had stormed through the door two hours earlier, hurled the empty bottle that had contained the sleeping potion for Kincaid across the room, and proceeded to wash her face repeatedly, nearly scrubbing it raw where the hunter had kissed her.
Mary Ann saw a candle flickering through the window of the hut Kincaid had commandeered and quickly stole across their camp. Ramoo stood guard by the door and watched her carefully as she approached, but made no move to stop her as she knocked lightly.
"What?"
Mary Ann slid halfway into the hut, gripping the bamboo door tightly in white-knuckled hands. Kincaid sat twisted towards the door on a stool in the corner, his rifle in pieces in his lap.
"Didn't your friends tell you how they failed to bribe and drug me? What are you going to do, kill me with kindness?"
"I just want to see him," she whispered, surprised at how low her own voice sounded. She wasn't sure Kincaid even heard her until he finally shrugged.
"Knock yourself out, sweetheart. But he was the unwitting recipient of the sleeping potion your redheaded friend brought for me, so I'm afraid he won't be much of a conversationalist."
Mary Ann pulled her gaze from Kincaid and looked around the hut for the first time. In a dark corner, barely illuminated by the glimmering candlelight, Gilligan lay fast asleep on his side, curled in protectively on himself. Mary Ann could feel Kincaid's eyes on her as she crossed to the small bamboo cot and tugged self-consciously on the Professor's extra shirt that she used as pajamas, realizing too late that she probably should have gotten dressed before leaving her hut.
"Gilligan." He whimpered in his sleep and his brow furrowed. Mary Ann crouched down by the cot and laid her hand tenderly on his cheek. "It's me," she whispered and his features immediately unknotted, his whole body relaxing slightly.
Mary Ann sat down on the cot and slid back until she was leaning against the wall, her bare feet hanging suspended in the air. She gently lifted Gilligan's head and laid it in her lap, his cheek warm on her leg despite the sharp chill in the night air. She took off his hat and set it aside, brushing his bangs out of his eyes, and laid her other arm across his side.
Gilligan immediately caught her hand like a child grabbing unconsciously in a fitful sleep for his security blanket and pulled it to his chest, holding on for dear life. Mary Ann could feel his heart hammering under her palm and pressed down as if she could somehow contain it, wondering how he was managing to sleep at all, even under the influence of the sleeping tonic. But she was grateful too; he needed all the rest he could get if he was going to elude the hunter for twenty-four hours straight.
Mary Ann glanced up at Kincaid, who had been watching them blankly. When her gaze met his, Kincaid gave her one of his most charming grins and turned back to cleaning his rifle. Mary Ann cringed and concentrated again on the sailor sleeping in her lap, running her hand gently over his forehead.
"Don't you have a best friend, Mr. Kincaid?"
"You mean besides Ramoo? I don't want one. Friendships make you soft, dull your senses. I need to be on top of my game at all times." He flashed her another slimy smile, but she wasn't paying any attention to him and he went back to work.
Mary Ann sighed and tried not to think about the fact that after tomorrow she might not have one either. "That's sad."
A nightjar sang somewhere out in the jungle and after a moment Mary Ann began to hum quietly and wildly off-key. Gilligan smiled slightly in his sleep and she swatted him lightly on the top of his head. "Don't make fun of me, Gilligan."
Mary Ann peered up at Kincaid, who was hiding a laugh in the barrel of his rifle, and frowned. She glanced around the hut and watched the candlelight glint ominously on the smooth clean metal of Kincaid's gun. Mary Ann shivered involuntarily and turned back to Gilligan, running her fingers through his hair, wanting nothing more than to comfort the young man somehow.
She had never felt so useless in her whole life.
She suddenly remembered one night when she was seven years old and violently ill with the flu. She lay coiled up on the couch, her head in her Aunt Martha's lap and a dog curled up at her feet, in and out of feverish sleep. Little Mary Ann clutched her aunt's hand as the older woman spent the entire night telling her niece stories in her comforting Kansas drawl.
"Once upon a time," Mary Ann began quietly, "there was a little girl who lived on a farm in Oklahoma named Mary Jane Winters." Gilligan smiled and Mary Ann knew that, if he was awake, this was the point in the story where he would burst out laughing. She heard him cackling in her head, saw him sitting cross-legged on the ground before her like an expectant preschooler, pulling his hat down over his face as he giggled. Mary Ann would plant her hands on her hips and glare at him. "Be quiet, Gilligan!" she would scold, "It's a good story. Now, listen!"
"Mary Jane had lots of animals on her farm," she continued, "but her favorite was a little monkey, whom she loved more than anything." This was the point in the story where Gilligan would interrupt her to ask what a monkey was doing on a farm in Oklahoma. Mary Ann would sigh and ask him what difference it made and explain, if he must know, that as a little girl she really wanted a monkey so Aunt Martha would put them in her stories and she told him this every time she told this story, so would Gilligan please just keep his mouth shut and let her finish?
Every so often when the castaways were gathered around the fire after dinner talking and singing songs, thousands of tiny stars glittering brightly overhead, Gilligan would ask for a Mary Ann story and before anyone else could place a request, he would demand to hear about Mary Jane and the monkey. Again. The other castaways would groan and one-by-one wander away to turn in for the night, Mr. Howell remarking under his breath about Gilligan's assured short-term memory loss. As they disappeared through their red-curtained French doors, his wife would pat him on the shoulder and sweetly suggest he donate one of the pills he takes for such an ailment to the poor boy and Howell would thunder that he takes no such thing and that his memory is perfect and would Lovey please remind him where he left Teddy this morning? Eventually, Gilligan and Mary Ann would be alone by the fire, she regaling him with the ridiculous stories her aunt made up for her and he occasionally falling asleep sitting up in the sand.
"He wasn't the bravest or the strongest or the smartest and he was always falling out of trees, so the other animals made fun of him. Especially the beautiful red-feathered chicken and the two old goats," Mary Ann quickly inserted this unscripted addendum and she ignored the short laugh from Kincaid's corner.
"But he was fast and he was clever and Mary Jane loved him dearly. When the other animals taunted him, Mary Jane would take him in her arms and remind him, 'You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.'"
This was the point in the story where little Mary Ann would interrupt her aunt to inform her that that quote was from Winnie the Pooh. Martha Summers would sniff once, offended, and notify her niece that A. A. Milne stole that gem of wisdom from her. Mary Ann and her cousins would roll their eyes at one another and decided that from now on they'd be better off if they kept quiet.
"One day a mean old bobcat showed up on the farm and threatened to gobble up all the animals, but especially the monkey." Mary Ann pointedly glanced up at Kincaid. He was still focused on his rifle, but a self-satisfied smile played on his features.
"The bobcat chased him all over the farm until the monkey had an idea. As he ran past the house, the bobcat stopped and asked Mary Jane where the monkey had gone. The little girl shrugged and said she thought she saw him go behind the barn. 'Be careful, Mr. Bobcat,' she added, 'There might be lions.'"
At this point Mary Ann would interrupt herself and demand why Gilligan hadn't interrupted her to ask about the lions. Gilligan would give her a lopsided smile and shrug and say that if she wanted there to be lions in Oklahoma, then that was good enough for him.
"But the bobcat knew there were no lions in Oklahoma. And even if there were, he surely could defeat them. He laughed uproariously at the idea and ran confidently past the barn where he was promptly eaten by a lion."
The first time Mary Ann told this story, the other castaways met the ending with deafening silence, much as her cousins on the farm had when she related it to them. The oldest boy laughed, used to his mother's dreadful attempts at storytelling. The others stared at her incredulously until the littlest Summers planted her hands on her hips. "That's it?" she demanded and promptly apologized to her dog for making him sit through that.
The Skipper and Mr. Howell exchanged sidelong glances before the millionaire leaned forward on the table diplomatically. "That's it?"
"Oh, dear," was all his wife could muster.
"Geez, Mary Ann," Ginger sighed, "I've been in some real stinky movies, but that story takes the cake."
"What? It's about not underestimating the little guy. It's not that bad."
"I liked it," Gilligan beamed from the other end of the table.
"You would!" the Skipper shot back as he pointed emphatically at the first mate, clutching his hat to his head when it began to abandon him.
The Professor merely shook his head, lost, words escaping him as he attempted to justify what he had just heard.
Mary Ann crossed her arms defiantly across her chest. "It's a fable. It's not supposed to make sense."
"I liked it," Gilligan repeated somewhat less enthusiastically as the Howells rose to their feet, she shushing him as he muttered something about Aunt Martha dipping into the moonshine and then chortling at his own joke.
"That's it?"
Mary Ann's head snapped up at the question. Lost in her story and the memories that accompany it, she had almost forgotten that Kincaid was in the hut.
Mary Ann bristled, frowning. "It's a fable. I wouldn't expect you to be able to find the moral of the story."
"Oh, I get it, don't worry. Now get out. I have a long day ahead of me and I need my beauty sleep." Kincaid finished reassembling his rifle and gave it one final wipe with the cloth, admiring the way the bright shiny metal caught the candlelight.
Mary Ann ignored him and continued brushing Gilligan's hair from his eyes. Kincaid stood and advanced on the two castaways, rifle and ire raised. "I thought I asked you nicely, Mary Ann. Out!" he suddenly yelled.
Mary Ann flinched violently and froze, gaping at Kincaid as Ramoo peered through the window for any sign of trouble. After a moment, Mary Ann slowly slid from the cot, gently laying Gilligan's head back on the thin mattress. She tried to slowly pull her hand free, but Gilligan held on tight, both hands clamped around hers in a death grip. In two quick strides, Kincaid was at her side and roughly wrenched her from him. Gilligan gasped in his sleep and tightened his arms around himself, pulling his knees protectively to his chest.
Mary Ann shook Kincaid off and stood up straight, fixing the hunter with a steely glare that rivaled his own. Kincaid almost had to turn away, but she whirled from him first and crouched down by the cot, laying a tender hand on Gilligan's cheek.
"Gilligan. Gilligan, listen to me," she whispered. "Tomorrow when we're not together, there's something that you must remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than –."
"That's enough."
Mary Ann closed her eyes and took a deep breath before bravely plowing ahead. "But the most important thing is, even if we're apart, I'll always be with you." She took her hand from his cheek and pressed it to his shirt, his heart pounding into her palm. "Right here. We all will."
Mary Ann suddenly felt the barrel of Kincaid's gun on her back and she froze. "I said that's enough," he growled. Mary Ann slowly stood and, keeping her back defiantly to the hunter, she turned not towards the door, but to retrieve a blanket from the foot of the cot and spread it over the first mate's sleeping form. She affectionately tucked the blanket around his shoulders.
Mary Ann leaned over and pressed her lips to his cheek, leaving a lingering kiss near the corner of his lips. "Everything will be okay, Gilligan. I believe in you."
She tore through the jungle now, running on sheer adrenaline. She had no idea if everything would be okay. She highly doubted it. Even if everyone made it out alive, no one would ever be the same.
But she did believe in him. Though it was often a lonely position to be in, she still believed.
Mary Ann had just crested a small hill when she suddenly saw him. A bright red blur a few hundred yards in the distance was running perpendicular to her, still artfully dodging trees and leaping over rocks, but significantly slower than Mary Ann knew he could run under normal circumstances. She could tell he was exhausted even from this distance. Mary Ann collected whatever energy she had left and surged forward, flying down the hill toward him.
Mary Ann was trying to determine the easiest and safest way for her to get his attention when a gunshot rang out.
Mary Ann's heart nearly stopped, her breath catching in her throat.
A throng of birds collectively abandoned the jungle canopy.
And then deafening silence.
It took Mary Ann a moment to realize that her legs were no longer beneath her and that she was heading straight for the ground in what felt like extremely slow motion. The world was absolutely still as she reached desperately into the air in front of her, feet kicking out fruitlessly behind her as she hovered for a millisecond completely parallel to the ground.
Mary Ann caught sight of Gilligan again through the tall jungle grass. He had stopped running too. He saw her and his eyes widened, mouth opening in a silent yell.
Their eyes locked for a split-second before they both hit the ground.