Ghosts & Memories Past ~ Chapter 21

Disclaimer: Y'all know the deal by now. Nope, they ain't mine. Nope, ain't makin' coin off 'em. And yup, Joss is still Boss! Purely for fun, to satisfy the Muse…

Thanks so much for the continued interest and reviews for this story!

Thanks to Kuryakingirl for the rapid beta!

Chapter Twenty-One~

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Aboard Transport Serenity ~ In the Black

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The dining room is quiet, or what passes for quiet on a working spaceship. An almost subliminal thrumming hovers up from the back of the ship, where the engine cycles and turns, propelling them through the darkness toward the backwater moon they tell him is his home world.

Every little while and again, a muffled string of words comes from that direction, the same tone used by a mother gently scolding a beloved child. He smiles, though even if he could make out what the feminine voice was uttering, he doubts he could translate it quickly enough to follow. Oriental languages were never his strong suit.

That glimmer of knowledge furrows his brow, and he wonders if it might be important enough to make note of. Never know what seemingly insignificant piece of data will turn out to be the lynchpin to finding his answers.

For the first time since waking, he's alone. Just himself and his thoughts, and the thin, black hard-bound notebook in his hands. The warm, yellow walls surround him with their cheery hand-painted flowers, speak of hominess, family. In spite of everything, he takes comfort in the growing sense of belonging he feels here at the time-worn wooden table.

He's surprised Mal isn't right here with him, or one of the others, keeping tabs on his every move, his every word. But once the girl lost the bounty hunter's ship, the captain had headed down to check on the doctor's progress. He wrestles with the idea of joining them, but this may be his only chance to dig into the pages without prying eyes watching his every reaction.

If he was smart, he'd probably be with them in that room, listening for what's said and maybe what would be left glaringly unsaid because of his presence. If he's honest with himself, he'll admit that part is a bit worried about the truth. He can't make heads nor tails of the reasoning, but a quiet, persistent voice inside prods him, forces him to add up the pieces, to examine them like a stranger would.

Like the captain should. And likely is.

Too many things point to dangerous conclusions, hint that maybe he really isn't all he'd appeared to be when he first hired on with Serenity. Damned if he knows what other purpose he might have had in joining the crew, if that is the case.

The larger part of him strains impatiently to delve into the notes, the tome that supposedly contains his life. Mal already knows its contents, but if there's any reference or hidden suggestion that he's mixed in with these Alliance bastards, the captain's keeping that close to the vest.

Regardless, Mal did stand firm to keep him from the bounty hunter. It had been a foolish risk, putting everyone else aboard in danger. Surely Mal would've handed him over if he'd seen anything overtly suspicious in the pages. Unless there was something damaging, and the captain felt safer not letting the Alliance have access to him. Keep your friends close… enemies closer, they say, whoever the hell 'they' are. He runs his thumb across the thin hard edge of the bound book.

The first mate is on the bridge, vigilant, just a shout away, but far enough for now to give him privacy. He doesn't fool himself to think she's not listening for his footsteps through the corridor. The woman's a born soldier, always alert, wary, and still not entirely trusting of him, despite the fact she's eased off from the kill-stare. He wonders if this is a test to see what he'll do when there's no one hovering.

River and Inara have headed off to their own quarters. Or so he assumes, until the unusual young woman appears at the entrance of the dining area.

Barefoot and silent, she places one pale foot carefully, purposefully on the steps leading into the mess hall, then the other. Each footfall is fluidly precise, perfectly calculated in placement as she glides toward the far side of the table.

He regards her silently for a moment, wondering if he should say something in the way of greeting, but decides to let her make the first overture. She's skittish, his earlier impression of a lithe, combat-ready young warrior out of sync with the scared-looking girl peeking at him from behind a dark wall of hair.

Circling around to the distant end of the table, she keeps her head dipped low, as if she's not truly aware of him, but she is. She's hyper-alert, watching him warily as her fingers trail across the backs of the mess hall chairs. Biting her lip, she breaks the silence just as he's about to say something.

"He won't remember it," she says in a small, sad voice.

"Beg pardon?"

Her lips move silently, like she's trying the words on before letting them escape. He waits, and after some long moments is rewarded.

"Somnambulant cycle nullifies the perception of his reality."

Sifting the words, he realizes her meaning. "I'll forget again when I sleep?"

She simply nods, still watching him with a look of pity laced with… was that guilt?

"I won't remember everything that's happened today after I wake again?"

"He postulates the correct theory."

"Are…are you sure?"

A tiny half-smile seems to fit her, unlike those dark, knowing eyes that he suspects have seen much too much to be as naïve as she appears.

"Two-hundred twenty-six consecutive nocturnal cycles, sufficient data to predict results." A thin shoulder lifts in a shrug. "Fractional margin of error."

Two-hun – his breath catches as he quickly calculates the nights, approximately the eight months Mal had mentioned. "Every night."

She nods slowly while sliding softly into the chair farthest from him. "She is sorry."

Breath leaves his lungs in a rush as an icy numbness crawls up from his extremities. Stunned, he waves a hand in her direction, trying to absorb the news. "Not your fault."

.~.~.~

"It is her fault. Did not fulfill her contractual obligation. Said she would keep the feline captured," she whispered. "Did not mean to let the beans run away."

"Wha- ?"

"They would not stay put," she said with a bit more force and the beginnings of what looked like tears. "Containment was promised, but she dropped the bag and the beans all scattered away and she could not put them back. Amiable relations are now endangered. She is sorry."

He couldn't say for sure, but judging from his reaction, he must be a real sucker for girl-tears and a trembling lip.

"Hey…hey, now…that's not…it's not your fault," he soothed, easing from the chair and edging toward her slowly for fear she'd bolt. If she knew anything about his predicament, he'd just as soon hear it without several other sets of ears listening in, and this was likely his only chance. If he scared her off, no telling when or if he'd have a chance to talk to her privately again. Not likely ever, if her brother's protective stance was any indication.

"C'mon, miss... River? It's River, right? No need to get upset. You obviously kept the feline in the beans… the cat in the bag, for what was it, two-hundred twenty-some days? That couldn't be easy."

Slipping into the seat nearest to her, he laid his hands on the table in her direction, palms flat to show he wasn't a threat.

"Can you tell me how you knew? Was it something I said?" He'd made that mistake several times tonight, but still hadn't gotten more than Simon's hysterical description of how he was apparently viewed by the rest.

She shook her head slightly. "No. Heard you."

"Heard me? But you said it wasn't something I said."

"Didn't say," she ventured. "Night visions. She tried not to hear, but Jayne's amplitude was too loud."

"Hmm." He nodded. "Talking in my sleep. Make sense."

"Jayne does not talk in his sleep," she said flatly. "Jayne does snore."

That numbing chill crawled through him again as he connected her implication with Mal's earlier comments.

"You… heard… my dreams?" One brow rose in doubt, even as hazy images began to filter across his mind.

A room of people on their knees, hands behind their nervous heads. The girl stands relaxed and alert among them. Her pale, slender arm raises, points a finger to a man with heroic ideas behind his eyes. Zoe leans over the man with a few words. The calculating look on his face fades as he crouches back down with the others.

"Lilac," she whispered knowingly as he mouthed the word.

In the same room, she cries out in fear, falls backward to the floor. He rushes to her, thinking she's passed out, but her eyes are wide open and dilated with fear.

"Reavers!"Their shared, desperate whisper echoes through the empty dining room, sends a shudder down the back of his neck.

A broad sidewalk winds beside the pristine buildings of some large city, wide enough for a dozen men to walk shoulder-to-shoulder. The streets are empty except for the crew. Along the walkway, heaps of tattered clothing hang from the obvious remains of the people who lived here. Dead. Quit living. Just laid down and died. Laid down and let themselves die without a fight. Without a cry. Without a sound.

Jayne shoved away from the table, and dove for what he hoped was a trash can as his knees gave way and his stomach seized.

.~.~.

He retches violently, on his knees with both arms braced against the wall. Images blare into his reeling mind in blindingly sharp relief, scenes he knows aren't just some macabre nightmare, images he can't shut off but that just kept rolling through his head like some horror flick littered with corpses and grotesquely mutilated, snarling faces that lunge and snap at him, reaching with jagged bloodstained nails to latch hold of him, of her, of all of them, drag them down to rend and rape and devour and shred –

"Jayne – " a soft whine cuts through the vertigo, pain and distress pleading with him, pulling him back to the dining room with such abruptness he nearly pukes again.

"Aaghhh!" He chokes out, wishing like hell for the first time since he woke that he couldn't remember, couldn't see it played over and over in his mind. But every time he closes his eyes, the demons are there, and every time he opens them again, he's still drenched in the acrid tang of blood and lust and madness and the brimstone smell of gunsmoke from the hundreds of rounds he fires repeatedly into the horde that keeps pouring into the tight chamber and bullets speed past his head Zoe goes down among the dear God can't let her die like that wading in among them claws tear at his flesh but he grabs her and pulls her by one arm–

"Please Jayne," River moans weakly. "Must stop. Please, she doesn't want to see…doesn't want to feel…doesn't want to remember either."

He raises his head to see her through watering eyes. Her frail body shakes, tears stream down her cheeks as she whispers, "Doesn't want to be there again."

Nodding weakly, he forces his thoughts to abandon the nightmare, taking large, deep breaths, holding them and slowly releasing until he's able to halt the replay, forcibly directs his thoughts away. As his heartbeat slows, the effect on River is visible. In the aftermath of the violent memories, he barely registers any shock that the girl is psychic in some way.

"So… so sorry, River," he wheezes as war boots pound down the corridor toward them. "Didn't know you could see… that you'd feel… Didn't know that I'd remember something… anything like… that."

He hangs his head, panting in exhaustion. "What. The hell. Was that?"

A light touch strokes his hair tentatively. "Miranda." She breathes the name like a curse, the shudder in her voice matching the one that shakes his whole frame. "Reavers."

"What… what are those… things?" He struggles to keep the bile down, squeezing his eyes tight against the images.

"Monsters."

"No such thing as monsters," he offers her a doubtful smile, tries to steady the tremble in his throat.

"Just men," he meets her eyes, determined to convince her so he can begin convincing himself. "Look like men. Just men. Crazed. Savage even. But men."

"You are wrong, brave paladin," she states in a quiet, knowing voice. "Here there be monsters."

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To be continued… Reviews are manna. ;D