Disclaimer: Firefly was created by Joss Whedon
Author's Note: I wasn't happy with the way this was going or I'd have had it up sooner. Then I talked to my usual beta reader and she gave me the idea for how to fix it so this is all her fault (btw, thanks dear).
Jayne Cobb was less than pleased when he was woken by someone banging on his door. The fact that this banging was accompanied by the moon-brained girl's voice calling his name did not improve matters. He was even more annoyed when sweet little Kaylee's voice joined River's, but he didn't get up. Making noise like that they'd wake Mal and he'd get rid of them right quick. He was a little shocked when the sophisticated Inara and usually reserved Simon started calling for him too. He was fully awake now and very annoyed. He threw back his covers, sat up and shoved his feet into boots, determined to make somebody, probably the doctor, pay for disturbing his sleep.
At this point, the door to his bunk opened and Mal shouted down at him. "Jayne Cobb, you get your pigu up here. We got a guest on board and I apparently ain't getting any explanation until you get out here. So move it!"
Everyone stopped shouting his name and started moving away so when Jayne actually emerged from his bunk, only Mal was standing there, glaring at him. "Just how soundly do you sleep?"
Jayne glared back and went to join the rest of the crew in the mess. When he got there, Zoe was leaning against the counter, Inara was sitting at the table with Simon and Kaylee across from her, and they were all watching River and some blonde playing with a cat at the head of the table. Jayne dropped into a chair on Inara's side of the table and Mal stood at the opposite end from the two girls.
Jayne considered the girl for a moment. She was cute, if a little short, but not worth getting out of bed for as far as he was concerned. And besides, the way she was cooing over the damn animal with River, she was probably crazy.
Mal put on his best captainy look and nodded at the girls. "Right, we're all here, so explain. Now. Startin' with your real name."
The blonde girl took a deep breath and sat up a little straighter. "I have been Cassandra for several years now, but I was once Annika Wetzel."
"Wetzel?" Mal repeated sharply. "As in, member of Parliament Wetzel?"
It was River who answered. "He was a bad father."
Mal shifted uncomfortably. "Alright, go on then."
"The whispers began when I was a child. I was their echo and those who cared for me did not like to hear. I went through nannies very quickly, and my mother was at her wit's end for what to do. My father was no help. The voices whispered nightmares to me when he was near, though he not often was." She looked up and realized everyone was staring at her blankly.
"I'm sorry, I cannot...the words do not come right."
"She can't fight all the shadows in her mind, only some," River added helpfully. Everyone but Simon continued to look blank and Jayne fought not to roll his eyes. He couldn't believe Mal had dragged him out of a perfectly good dream about Helen to listen to some new crazy babbling.
Simon didn't look blank, but he didn't look like he entirely understood either. "River, what do you mean?"
"She has light in her mind, but it can only stay if she doesn't turn out the dark bits," River explained.
Simon seemed to run this through his head for a moment, frowning in concentration. "Are you saying she can make sense, but not about this?"
River nodded, beaming proudly at her brother.
"So, the only one who can understand Cassandra, or Annika..." Mal paused and looked at the girl who was watching him with her head to one side. "What do you want us to call you?"
"Annika is gone, she died with her mother."
Mal paused again, blinking at her. "Ok. So, Cassandra then. The only one who can understand Cassandra is River, and the only one who can understand her is the doctor." Simon nodded slowly and Mal sighed. "This is gonna be a long explanation isn't it?" Simon glanced at the two girls and the looked helplessly back at Mal. Jayne's mood did not improve. "Alright, get on with it then. Translate that first bit she said and let's move on."
"She said she couldn't hear the words but saw the colours when she was a child and it frightened her nannies, worried her mother, and her black daddy didn't notice."
Everybody looked at Simon. "I think she means Cassandra is naturally empathic. She could sense other people's thoughts without actually hearing them."
"And the bit about her father?" Zoe asked.
"I think they're just saying he frightened her but otherwise wasn't really involved." River and Cassandra both nodded.
"Right, next part then. Go ahead Cassandra."
"Our mother died when we were 12 and we were injured too and nearly followed. When we woke up, the voices were singing gentle songs until the dark sun came, then they sang horror. She tried to hide the voices, but couldn't keep them inside and he heard at last what there was. He sent her away to hide in the realm of death and called me to come. Annika was to die but I couldn't kill her so she hid in the realm and whispers to me.
"The dark sun summoned other dark suns and they tried to make the voices sing their songs to them, but we were frightened by what they sang and would not. They poked at the music until we broke. We could not think in lines, only waves." She cuddled the cat up to her face and looked at River.
River looked at her brother. "The doll-maker died when the doll was 12. The other doll-maker finally remembered he had made a doll and realized what a special doll she was. Her head was cracked and the music leaked out. He tried to make the doll sing to him but he couldn't understand the music. He tried to delete her program and put in a new one, but the first one did not disappear and the new one did not work as he wished because of it. Then he and the others tried to fix her program and broke her more."
"Ok, doll-makers are parents. And she already told us her mother died. As for the rest of it..." he trailed off for a moment, staring at the ceiling while everyone waited. "Ok...there was an accident when she was 12, that's how her mother died. Her father finally had to remember she existed and suddenly realized that she was different. More different than before, I think. The accident must have caused some sort of head trauma which moved her from empathic to truly psychic." He paused and glanced at the girls for confirmation; they both nodded and he continued. "Her father talked to other members of Parliament and they started studying her. While this was happening...well, it must have been traumatic enough, losing her mother and falling into the hands of a father like that, but add in the stress of hearing other people's thoughts and her father and the others trying to break into her mind, she developed a sort of alternate personality, Cassandra."
"The dark suns helped form her, but she did not come out as expected." Cassandra clarified.
"Dark Apollo made a seer because she didn't love him or obey."
Simon took a moment to add that into his translation. "Ok, um...Cassandra was Parliament's creation. At least, she was supposed to be. I assume that Annika was being uncooperative, so they tried to sort of get rid of her, reprogram her, sort of like they did to River. But it didn't work, the obedient personality they were trying to create took form before they had completely broken Annika and they two sort of melded, but are still, I guess, separated. Did that make sense?"
"Sense enough," Mal said. Jayne didn't agree, but everyone else was nodding at least a little and he didn't want to look stupid. "Did the doc miss anything?" Mal asked the girls. They seemed to consider this for a moment then shook their heads.
Cassandra put the cat back into her lap. "The voices sang and sang but we could not sing anymore, so the dark suns tried to coax the voices away. But the others did not have any ears and the sisters laughed and cut their strings for trying to hear what was not theirs to hear. But the darks suns are gods and only the mortals died.
"Eventually they found out who else could hear the voices and taught them to hear and echo back. But many joined Hades' feast and all of them suffered the curse of the siren song. They gave them swords still, and tried to tame them, but they too could think only as the waves do, and the sun gods grew frustrated. Then the hero came and took one of their prophets away. They sent the furies and the monsters to bring them both back, but the first warrior of the shadows failed them for pity, the second for darkness, and the blue firies could not find them."
"Their doll broke so they took other dolls and tried to make them like they'd wanted theirs to be, but they kept breaking too. They found dolls who would not shut down when the program changed, but still couldn't install the one they wanted. Then Simon stole me and they sent them; Two by two, hands of blue, and others who I could not hear. The ones who live in the shadows, even their minds. The hands of blue could not find us although the shadow warriors could. The first one they sent felt sorry for the doll and her brother and did not take them away when they told him too. The second was changed into nothing by the captain." Everyone looked expectantly at Simon who was staring in shock at his sister, who was starting to look upset, though she'd been calm before. Mal, Jayne noted, also look very disturbed.
"Tell me that didn't mean what I think it meant."
Simon glanced worriedly at Mal then turned to his sister. "Are you saying there were two operatives? That the one who came after us wasn't the first?"
"The second did not come until the first one failed. I did not see him but couldn't think to see what wasn't there, only that it was maybe quieter than it ought to have been."
"I don't understand," Kaylee said softly.
River was starting to get more upset and Simon hurried over to her. "I'm sorry! I didn't see! There were so many other voices I didn't notice that one was missing!" she started to cry and Cassandra gently put the cat into River's lap where it began licking her hand. River patted it on the head in time with Simon stroking her hair.
"Doc?" Mal prompted. There was a dangerous edge to his voice that made Jayne nervous. He looked around. Kaylee was upset and as confused as Jayne was, although he had an uneasy feeling about where this was going. Zoe looked hard and Inara worried. Jayne turned to frown at the girls and the doctor and waited impatiently.
Simon swallowed and stared fixedly at the table. "You already know that Parliament set up the academy to create psychic assassins. And you obviously know that I found out from River what they were doing and went in to get her out. Cassandra said they sent an operative after us. Not the one we ran into just before River told us about Miranda, but another one who came first."
"When did we ever run into another operative?" Kaylee asked, her voice shaking. She looked around as though asking someone to tell her it wasn't true. Mal was staring silently at Cassandra, Inara looked at horrified as Kaylee, Jayne didn't want to follow that train of thought and Simon was busy trying to calm River. It was Zoe who said what was slowly occurring to the them all.
"Book. You're talking about Book, aren't you?"
"I saw glimpses of the light behind the dark, but I didn't understand what I saw. I never knew what was real and what wasn't and he pretended to be a shepherd so well I never realized he was a wolf. But he became a sheep!"
"It can't be!" Kaylee said firmly. "Ain't no way shepherd was an operative. He was on this ship for near on seven months with Simon and River. If he were an operative, how come he didn't bring 'em in? Why'd he help stop Dobson from catchin' 'em?"
"The Alliance knew Simon was suspicious, they could hardly fail to notice. They knew he knew more than he could have learned from River's letters too. They wanted to find out who was helping him, but he moved before they thought he would and managed to get River out from under their noses even though the were expecting him. They freaked out. The academy sent one of their feds to find them; Parliament sent an operative. They were especially panicked because they realized that the stolen psychic was the one they had visited only a week before. But the program was failing, and Parliament is nothing if not pragmatic. When the operative reported that he'd found them, but that the fed had as well and asked for instruction, they told him to get the fed out of the way and let Simon and River be. They had wanted Simon as either a student or a member of the team of doctors, but circumstance prevented either from being possible to arrange discreetly, and he specialized in the wrong area of medicine.
"But they still knew he was brilliant, and they knew he was motivated. It occurred to them that Simon might just be able to spot something they'd missed, improve on River's lucid periods. And he never would if they had River, so they let him keep her, but told the operative to watch, and report."
"Book was spying on us the whole time he was here?" Mal demanded. Jayne didn't think he'd heard Mal sound so cold since Miranda.
"He sent occasional reports to Parliament. They knew River was doing a little better than she had been, but not as much as they wanted. Even though he sent them a full report on the Early incident, they didn't think she'd come far enough. They decided to cancel the academy program and told their operative to bring her in; with Simon and the rest of you understanding more and more of what she said, there was too much chance you'd learn what they knew she knew. But he refused, so they sent another one to kill her." Jayne decided crazy people were even creepier than normal when they suddenly went sane.
"And he failed too. So why are you here?" Mal asked.
"Damage done, as he told you, Miranda's out. But they're still angry. I was sent to kill them, and you, captain Reynolds."
Jayne, Mal, and Zoe all reached for their weapons, but only Jayne drew it.
"And are you planning to?" Mal asked.
"Cassandra is Annika and Annika is Cassandra. They do not obey the dark suns for they see what they are." River whispered.
"Sent but didn't come," Mal said. "So, I'll take that as a no." Everyone but River and Cassandra looked oddly at Mal. "It's what she said earlier," Mal said irritably when he noticed them staring at him.
"So what now?" Inara asked. Jayne was surprised at how shaken she still sounded.
"Well, now I'm sure she ain't planning to kill me, I ready to go back to bed and come at this in the morning." Zoe looked a bit sceptical but didn't object. Inara nodded and Mal turned to Simon. "You wanna set her up somewhere so's she can sleep too?" Simon nodded and began shooing the girls, River still sniffling, out of the mess. Kaylee and Inara hurried to follow him.
When they were gone, Zoe turned to Mal. "You actually going to sleep?"
"I think better when I'm rested." Zoe snorted softly but didn't say anything more. Both of them moved back to the crew bunks and Jayne decided it was safe to sleep. He'd find someone to complain to in the morning.