Firefly
"A Little Adjustment"
Summary: After Miranda, the crew of Serenity faces a few "little" adjustments after another memorable visit to Persephone.
Author's Note: Post-Serenity, so both Wash and Shepard are dead.
Warning: Spanking in this story. If this bothers you, DO NOT READ THIS STORY OR REVIEW IT.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters or this concept. I'm just borrowing them for entertainment purposes.
Chapter 2: Awaking
River Tam awoke in darkness.
It took a couple of minutes for her heart to stop racing.
She wasn't back at the Academy, that much she knew; they weren't looking for her anymore…at least not yet anyway.
Taking a calming breath, she focused her inner thoughts and tried to remember what had happened.
Mal had told them not to leave the ship. Simon needed supplies. She knew where some were. They'd gone to get them…her, Simon, and Kaylee.
They had picked up the supplies and had been on their way back to the ship…when her extraordinary abilities alerted her to danger.
Too late, she thought.
She'd felt a piercing sting in her neck and then everything had gone black.
It was still black.
Was she blind?
Where were Simon and Kaylee?
Sitting up, she tried to see in the darkness but couldn't. Sighing, she closed her eyes and reached out with her "other" abilities.
Two figures lay unconscious in the cell beside her, and it was a cell she knew.
The only thing was, the two who lay beside her were children: a boy and a girl. Both aged twelve, but there was something familiar about them. She reached out more, and then gasped.
"Simon," she whispered, recognizing her brother despite the fact that he somehow now looked exactly as he did when he was twelve years old and she'd been eight. She "looked" at the other, and gasped again.
"Kaylee," she whispered, recognizing the necklace the girl wore as the one Simon had given his new lover just after Miranda.
What had happened? Two young adults were somehow now children, but that wasn't possible.
"Anything is possible," she reminded herself, "in the dark."
River had never been afraid of the dark…not until the Academy. Now the darkness…the unknown…scared her. She didn't want to be crazy anymore, to hear what others didn't and see what they couldn't. She wanted to be Simon's little sister, Kaylee's friend, and Mal's albatross.
"Mal," she whispered into the darkness, seeing the captain as clearly as if he were standing before her. "He's coming, and so is somebody else." She lay back down and closed her eyes. Whoever it was would be in for a BIG surprise.
She heard the footsteps, her the lock turn, and then felt eyes upon her. In that moment, calm settled over her. A resolve, almost. She was no longer the girl, no longer River Tam.
She was a weapon.
With speed beyond that of a "normal" girl, she was up off the floor before the guard knew what hit him. She took out his knees, broke his nose, grabbed his gun, spun to knock him in the back of the head with it, and then as he dropped grabbed his knife.
She stood over him, but it was not the fallen guard that held her attention. Light shown in through the open doorway of the cell, causing her shadow to fall upon the back wall. She gazed at her shadow, but something wasn't right? It was smaller than she remembered seeing it before…
Suddenly, her senses warned of danger and she spun to face three more guards.
She was a weapon.
It was time to kill.
TBC…