Chapter Two: Tough Choices

Summary: Mal's thoughts on River's vision...

Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me, nor does their universe.

Time was tricky. Eight days ago Mal had been leaning against this very railing when River had danced out into the bay. He had watched her with affection - thinking that with all her emotion and grace she blended in with the morning... But then she'd started speaking of tragedy and death and telling him there was nothing he could do to stop it. Unfortunately, Mal believed that what River had was real and what she had the power to see was indeed a truth that would come to pass. But he didn't believe there were anything so solid in the future that it couldn't change if you didn't give up. And Mal wasn't ready to give up, no matter what truths had been whispering in River's head.

There was time still to prevent this future. Serenity's pilot was still alive. A little cranky with a burgeoning case of cabin fever maybe, but alive. The crew knew something was up - or, if they didn't, they damn well should. Mal had taken to walking the ship at night, River had suddenly announced a need for solitude, and he hadn't been this anxious since before the war.

If there was any chance to change this, he was going to do everything in his power not to miss the opportunity. His crew had lost enough; too much. Two of the best men Mal had ever known were gone and the scars had only begun to form. Everyone else coped the best way that they could, but it had been too much for Inara; too much change, too much pain, and in the end, Mal knew, simply too much effort. It had been fitting somehow that the night after she'd left Zoe that had stayed in the kitchen with him; Waiting out that first night just as he'd done with her that anguished first night without Wash. Because the first night was always the hardest.

It had been near three in the morning when Mal shook his head, "It's not the same - it's not what you had," he'd said simply, avoiding actually speaking Wash's name, "I wanted it to be. I did. But it never was."

Zoe had searched his eyes and covered his hand with hers in a rare physical gesture,"Do you remember what you told Kalyee on Beaumonde? Right before River kicked the entire bar's ass?"

Mal's lips had curved in half a smile as he thought on it then he'd lowered his head,"About Simon? I said Serenity was only ever a weigh station for the Tams."

"You said that. And you said that if you loved a woman there weren't nothing in the universe that would stop you from being with her." Zoe had smiled slightly and squeezed his hand, "Did you even think of going after Inara?"

Mal had stared gloomily into his cup and Zoe had answered for him, "It's nothing to be ashamed of Captain. It's okay that she wasn't enough. If you find someone who is, it's like your own private miracle, Sir, and you don't deserve any less."

Her voice echoed in his memories more than he liked to admit because Mal wasn't looking for love. He was just trying to keep his ship and his crew together... that was all he should be thinking of.

Mal turned his head in the night toward River's bunk. River was a miracle. But not the type Zoe had meant for him. No, River was a gift of peace, finally some peace to his crew, to his ship, for his mind. There wasn't a job they went on now that he felt they went in blind. If Serenity was limping, River was her guide and her crutch. When he lay his head down to sleep in the black, he knew no soul nor machine could get past the security of River's advance warning.

But it was more than her gift. It was the way the cockpit was tuned to her now. It was as if the very air warmed by the smile she gave him when he entered - the signal that all was right with their world. Serenity was running and the black was allowing them safe passage, and if something was wrong, he would not have had to ask.

Though he didn't exactly know the extent of her psychic abilities, from the look on River's face when Kaylee had been enthusiastically peppering her for specifics - Mal thought it best not to know. He might not be a Reader, but he knew when someone was hiding something and River had been hiding more than a little something during the interrogation.

She didn't belong here, she was right. She was grace and beauty and intelligence reserved for a life resembling the same - not hopping around dusty planets trying to save a group of smugglers. But she had no choice - pure and simple. And in the absence of that choice Mal thought she fit just fine. She loved the ship, she loved the crew. He thought he was at least a good enough judge to see that.

She wasn't happy. Mal could see that as well... And didn't begrudge her her pain she'd spoken of only once in his presence.

He'd been in the cockpit - he didn't know why. She had been flying as she usually was and he was... well he'd just been there. Out of the silence, late in the afternoon, she'd forced the words out with a pleading sort of calm, "Mothers lying on the floor watching their family die and decay...they survived the longest not because of strength of mind but of strongest need," She'd looked in his eyes suddenly, "It was a mercy that the children succumbed first."

Mal had nodded his agreement, hadn't offered consolation. He knew she'd only spoken because she'd been struggling with the borrowed memory and could hold it in no longer. It had been enough for Mal to appreciate how deep her melancholy could call to her. And enough for Mal to think shielding his thoughts wasn't just a defensive strategy, but a kindness as well. It was a skill he'd been working towards in order to keep her blind to certain things on his mind - things that had nothing to do with being Captain...

He believed her when she said she would fight her death; there was a courage in fighting without hope that Mal respected. And she had the strength for that fight - it radiated around her like the heat of the sun. It called to him when he looked in her eyes - warmth and implicit trust making her seem so much more vulnerable than was safe. A younger version of himself would have gotten lost in her; would have promised to heal her wounds and fight her battles without realizing she had the power to slay her own dragons.

The wings that the Alliance had clipped were still there at River's sides; and Mal knew that one of these days those wings would mend and she would stand and fly away...

For all her sight- River couldn't see that yet. And there was a part of him, a part of him he wasn't proud of, that was glad of it. Because when she did finally take flight again, that same part of himself knew she'd be taking his idiotic old heart with her.