The Miscalculations of River Tam by Lady Cailin

Chapter Title: Thoughts


Disclaimer: Serenity, Firefly and related materials are copyright Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy Productions, and subsequent companies. This Fan Fiction was not produced, and is not intended to be reproduced, for profit. No infringement of said copyrights is intended by the author.

Summary: River miscalculates. PG


It was over. The signal was flying free, and they couldn't stop it now.

Zoe had burned her white dress. The dress she had married Wash in, the dress she had buried him in. Couldn't stand to see it any more. She buried herself down deep as she cast it into the flames.

Captain had found his faith, found what was right again. He was trying to tell himself the price had been worth it, but the weight of those lost fell on him, joining the faces of men and women from the war. He burned to touch Inara, to touch that part of her that called to the emptiness in him. He was afraid that if he reached out, he'd steal it from her, and then her shadow would follow him too. Petty thief, whispered in his brain.

Simon was happy, calm inside for the first time in years. Kaylee's light warmed him and they basked in their own world behind closed doors and within warm covers.

River had found her boundaries. They fluxed, waxing and waning like the moon, but she knew now when other's snuck in to mix their thoughts with her. She was a separate thing, separate from all the world, separate from all Serenity.

All except Jayne.

Her own fault, that.

He'd felt her in the bar. His hands had clenched and unclenched as he watched the fight, the flow of adrenaline through her veins making his fingers tingle, his eyes shine with a kind of surprised admiration. He'd wanted to play.

It had hurt him that she'd turned on him, struck him where his parts were soft.

It was not surprising he had tried to turn on her afterwards.

It made him angry that she was coherent now. It made him angry when she spoke to him in a sure voice and teased him with a girl's charm. He didn't want to like her. Didn't want her to become crew and fill in the spot his friends had left. It was Wash's job to tease them and make them laugh. It was Book's job to offer the needed wisdom and sit with them in silence when words would not do.

She filled the spots she could, and the others grew little by little as well, until the gaps were almost too small to notice. But the little gaps, the empty places, still ate at him. He thought they were the cause of the need inside him to stretch, to grow somehow. The need to somehow do and be more then he had been. Jayne had never felt this itch before, he didn't know how to scratch it away. His frustration burned in hiding, in the restlessness of heavy drinking and hard workouts. It echoed through her in the night and they crossed paths in the darkness of the ship, predators eyeing one another as they passed in the shadows. He did not sleep well, and so she was kept awake.

She could shut most of them out if she tried. She had trained herself. Long hours spent in the cockpit alone, practicing opening herself up to those around her, and gradually closing herself off. It was something the Academy would never have trained her to do. They had wanted her to feel everything, all the time. But the brain was a clever thing, so much of it unused. A simple thing to go from left to right, to reroute away from the wires that were stripped and bare.

She could shut the rest out, but Jayne always remained.

She'd hated him a little for that. She didn't want to hear his thoughts, so base and restless. She didn't want to feel him this way. Phantom hunger, anger, lust. The sting of pain, the electric tingle of excitement. These things weren't part of her, did not come from her. She'd carried too many foreign thoughts and feelings, didn't she deserve to shut them out?

His restlessness, his frustration tore at her, and they began to verbally abuse one another in front of the crew. He liked the release it gave, a new one to add to his other attempts as scratching the mysterious itch. There was a primal satisfaction in his eyes when they clawed at one another.

She began to understand the dance Inara and Mal had been caught in. They might have continued, might have established a pattern leading towards something else, if not for the unpredictable effects of her miscalculation.

Jayne had walked into the kitchen and heaped protein into his bowl before heading to the table to take his seat among the gathered crew.

But he never sat down.

The bowl dropped, and Jayne froze.

River looked up at him, at the horror in his eyes. Mal and his crew looked up at the merc, their eyes taking in the scene, the expression of devastation. Only River understood it.

His thoughts echoed back to her, panic and confusion.

He had heard her voice inside his head.


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