Author's Note: Not my characters, obviously, except for the ones you don't recognize. This was a 10-minute ficlet (accomplished in about 25 minutes). Enjoy, and please review!
The Virgin Mary on a Birdbath
She doesn't like being sick. She can remember too much the sicknesses when she was smaller – the odd, tumbling feeling she got in her head when walking around in a fever, mucus gumming up her nose and running out all over the dresses and blouses she goes to so much trouble to keep clean, hacking coughs that made her wish for air, throwing up, which she felt was sort of like eating, except in reverse, and a lot worse. Then she remembers being in bed, the sheets cool and the pillow firm but comfortable behind her head, and coming in and out of sleep, sometimes awakening to find her mother sitting on a low chair near the bed with a waiting glass of something cool and maybe slightly fizzy and a good book to read. Sometimes it was Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, but she felt Rebecca was a tad too prim and proper and a little bit of a wuss. Rebecca would have been better as a pilot. She thinks Wash would have approved of Rebecca.
On Serenity being sick is nothing like that. She had started feeling tumble-y after what passed for lunch. She stumbled when she got up and nearly fell flat on her face. Kaylee caught her arm. "You all right?" her friend had asked, and she'd had to nod. She couldn't worry Simon, not now. They'd pulled off a job in another bit-of-nothing world, and the Cap'n and Jayne had been shot up pretty well. He was busy.
"Yer eyes are all funny. Shiny-like."
"Eyes. The window to the soul," she'd said, which had the effect of being both slightly odd and slightly off-putting. Kaylee had given her an odd smile and a nod, as though to say "All right then," and moved off to tinker with the engine.
She stumbled in the direction of her bunk, growing dizzier with each step. Her head was pounding; it was like having her heartbeat in her head. She tried counting each step – one, two, three… but lost count. She closed her eyes and leaned against the wall.
"River?" she heard Simon say.
"Too hot," she said. "Pyrexia. From the Greek – purexis, from puressin, from puretos, to have a fever. Going to boil over like a tea kettle forgotten."
"Oh," he said, and a cool hand came down on her forehead. "You are hot."
"Sleep. Cups."
"Cups?" Simon asked, and she opened her eyes to look at him. He was wearing an apron, only slightly blood-stained, and a concerned look.
"You know," she said blearily, but before she could finish the sentence, he had a hand around her waist and was leading her towards her bunk, her feet somehow not comprehending what her brain wanted them to do.
"You sleep for awhile," he said, and she curled up on the bunk without bothering to take her boots off.
When she woke up the ship was silent, except for a drip-drip-drip sound that echoed in her brain. Drip-drip-drip, only a million times louder, each drip replacing her heartbeat in loudness and intensity. Slowly, she got up, putting one hand on the wall to support her. Her head was very heavy, and it took a minute or two before she found enough energy to walk. She was very sweaty, her hands especially. She tried to blot them on her dress as she stumbled out into the corridor.
The infirmary was dark. Simon must be sleeping, or with Kaylee. Either is probable. And Jayne, who was in there last, might still be there, sleeping. Everybody's in bed, except for her. And whatever's making that drip-drip-drip sound. She's going to find it. And maybe stop it, if she's that brave and it's not that scary.
A wave of dizziness hit her, and she closed her eyes. When she opened them she was on the merry-go-round at the park, her best friend Meg sitting next to her, both of them holding on the bars as Simon pushed it, their heads back, their mouths wide open, hair streaming out behind them. Meg had the prettiest golden hair River had ever seen. She always wore it braids with ribbons on the end, satin ones or gingham ones or velvet ones at Christmas, always specifically chosen to match her outfit by her overbearing mother. Meg was, after all, an only child. "Faster, faster!" Meg was chanting, and Simon obliged. He always did.
River closed her eyes again and reopened them. She was standing in the darkened corridor of Serenity. The dripping sound had gotten louder. It was pulsing in her ears. She swallowed thickly, fighting down nausea, and took another step or two forward. The dripping noise was coming from the cargo hold, she was almost there. Just a few more steps…
She fell forward onto her knees, her hands scrabbling at the doorway for something to hold. They found nothing and she hit the deck, swallowing back whatever was threatening to escape from her. She was breathing heavily, dizziness swamping her. But there it was, taunting her – drip-drip-drip. She had to get up. Something was calling her.
She grabbed the railing and pulled herself up, scraping hair out of her eyes. Why didn't she wear braids like Meg? Too much work, probably. Simon had no idea what bows were for anyway; he'd probably pick out white ones. White. White bows were for the littlest girls at school. Maybe, after she was all done being sick, she would buy bows for herself. Never mind that she hadn't worn bows since she was little. Some things always stayed a good idea.
Drip-drip-drip. She pulled herself closer. Then, suddenly, there it was. It wasn't what she had been expecting – a simple leak of water from one of the pipes, maybe. It was much, much worse.
A birdbath. They'd had a birdbath at home in the backyard. This one looked just like it – a carefully carved wooden stand with the faces of dryads peeking out and a shallow hammered-copper pan, liquid glinting in the pale light of the ship.
"Birdbath," she murmured. "No birds on ship. Such light, happy souls. Happy. Not a happy birdbath here."
She stepped closer. The liquid was red. Oh, no, not red. Red was bad. Not quite as bad as blue, but bad nonetheless. She braced herself on the lip of the birdbath and took a few deep breaths, which she hoped would help her focus on the problem, but which only served to increase her dizziness. Her knees buckled and she slid to her knees. She realized only seconds later her boots were gone. Someone had taken them. Maybe Simon. Maybe someone else, someone with sinister motives. Yes, because there were many sinister boot thieves aboard Serenity.
Or were there?
No. There was only the ship's own heartbeat, and River's heartbeat. And something else, the drip-drip-drip, followed by something else, something eerie, something River couldn't define yet. She tried to pull herself up and one hand slipped into the birdbath. Her feverish, sweaty hand instantly cooled, she yanked it out of the birdbath and stared at in horror.
Blood. Her hand was covered in blood. And the blood was dripping down the grating above the birdbath. River felt her gorge rise, and before she could remember or stop herself, she put her hand over her mouth in an attempt to control her nausea. She breathed in the taint of blood, then fell back to her knees and vomited, retching and heaving until she was finally empty of everything she'd eaten that day and tears were in her eyes.
The birdbath was still there, looking at her, and the blood was still dripping down the grating. But where was the blood coming from? Usually, in the logical part of the world where everyone else seemed to live, when there was blood, there was a source for the blood. She wiped tears away, which probably smeared blood across her face as well, but she was too out of it to care. She backed away from the birdbath, looking up, eyes hot, streaming tears blurring her vision. There was a man slumped on the stairs above her. At least, it was a body. There was an arm, white, dangling out of his sleeve, his hand pointed down to the birdbath, the palm facing outwards towards River's eyes. At the wrist was a very real, very red slit. Maybe three inches. Too much empty space, red dripping out of white, red dripping down the grates into the almost-full birdbath. What would happen when the birdbath ran over? Blood, blood, everywhere, but not a drop to drink.
She swallowed hard, really not wanting to vomit again. She took a step forward towards the man's body. She could see his head, wedged in between rails of the banister. His hair was dark, even in the dim light of the bay. She realized too late that she was having trouble breathing. "Dyspnea," she murmured. "Air hunger. Not enough air. Unconsciousness."
She was close enough to see the man's body now. His head was at her chest level, eyes closed, looking upwards though it was obvious he could see nothing. Confused, the room spinning around her, she stepped closer. "Simon?" she asked, but he didn't open his eyes. "Simon?"
Drip-drip-drip into the birdbath.
"This is the part where you get up," she informed him, laboring to breathe and to hang onto the railing. "You get up and say, tricked you, mei-mei. Thought I was dead! Don't you know I'll never leave you… mei-mei. Simon?"
He didn't move. The only thing moving in the room was the blood down the wall and into the birdbath.
She let go of the railing and tried to step forward, trying to move towards him, but stumbled again and fell on her knees. She looked up towards the birdbath, the dripping blood, the almost-full birdbath. She could taste the blood on her lips. And then suddenly there was a woman there, standing on top of the birdbath. It was a woman not unlike Inara, graceful like Inara, wearing a beautiful blue dress like something Inara would wear, but with long golden hair in braids like Meg's, and a ring of roses on her head. She was smiling benevolently down at River, then she held a tulip out to the dark-haired girl kneeling in her own vomit and her brother's blood. The woman said, "A fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi."
River swallowed against nausea. "From the Latin. A cliff in front, wolves behind." She closed her eyes and let her head hang; it felt so heavy and she could feel her heartbeat it, in time with Simon's dripping blood. "Wolves. Wolves eat. Wolves eat… people."
The woman smiled benevolently down on the girl, unconscious in her own vomit and her dying brother's blood.
"River! Oh, my God! Sir? Bring the doctor!" Zoë knelt next to the girl and put her hand on River's cheek. It was hot. The girl opened her eyes, and Zoë could see they were glassy. River looked up at Zoë in confusion.
Simon ran in and Mal stumbled after. Simon knelt next to his sister. "I told her to stay in bed!" the doctor said mournfully, wringing his hands. "Hey," he said to River. "How are you?"
"Dead," she answered.
"No, you're not dead."
"You're dead," she clarified.
"Who told you that?"
"The woman," she answered breathlessly. It was taking too much effort to breathe. "The brilliant blue woman. And your blood was in the birdbath."
"What birdbath?" Simon asked, looking around. The grating was bloody and covered in vomit, but all of that was River's, from her scraped knees and nausea. "There's no birdbath."
"Rebecca was the dumb one," she said through a feverish haze, and then she slept.
She dreamt of her mother, cool and calm and pretty in her long beautiful skirts and pressed blouses. She dreamt of her mother's hands, slim and white and appealing as they smoothed the blankets and sheets, put a straw in the cool and slightly fizzy drink, turned the pages of some book with a plot line better, stronger, more appropriate than illness.
And then, upon awakening, she cried all over again, for the mother she had lost, a mother who could never be here, could never exist here on Serenity. Never again would there be sweetness during sickness. And she cried herself back to sleep, as a worried Simon looked on.
"She all right, Doc?" Mal asked, standing next to Simon.
Simon shook his head. "I don't know…"
"Anything happen to her lately?"
Simon thought. He was about to say, "no," when a thought hit him. "It was our mother's birthday two days ago. I don't know how she remembered."
"I think that girl knows more than she's tellin'."
"She usually does."