Godliness and Deviltry... Part 2: ~ ONSLAUGHT ~

Half an hour later found the two of them walking through the woods, hand in hand, the day's sunlight pouring down in streams through the tree cover, the soft sounds of nature all around. That idyllic feeling was still with them, and neither of them was saying much by this point.

Kaylee found herself just enjoying the feel of River's hand in hers and she tried to hold on to the peace she felt, wrap it around her.

"We're both scared of the same thing." River said at one point.

Kaylee stopped and looked to her. "Probably." Kaylee gave her a small smile and River's hand slipped from hers.

River leaned back against a tree, dropped her pack on the ground, and met Kaylee's eyes, nothing in them except just plain what was. No expectations, no fears, no hopes, no future, no past... She was just... here, with her, all the way.

"I need to kiss you..." Kaylee told her, dropping her own pack, her heart beating fast.

River shook her head. "Don't."

"Don't?" Kaylee asked, moving up close to her, putting her hands on River's hips, getting close enough their bodies touched, pressed a bit together, their eyes close, sharing breaths. "Why?" Kaylee asked.

"You'd murder for me, wouldn't you?" River asked softly. "Who... Who wouldn't you murder for me?" She asked.

Kaylee felt her heart beat faster. "I was... thinking about that before, sort of... in the meadow." Kaylee told her honestly. "I thought, maybe that's how a zealot feels? Being in love, the way I love you, I mean..." She offered, unable to lie, but unable to tell the truth, unable to tell just what the truth was even.

"You don't like to think about it, I know. I don't like to think about it either." River confessed.

"Why? Who... would you kill?" Kaylee asked.

"Maybe everyone." River told her simply. "Maybe twice."

Kaylee's hands dropped from River's hips and she backed away a small step, her mind going blank.

"It's selfish, isn't it?" River offered. "Or, maybe it is. Maybe I wouldn't really be able to do things like that anyway... Maybe not you either." Her voice was small, then she met her eyes again. "You never can tell things like that until they happen, and you always pray and hope that they never will, but we think about them and wonder all the same, don't we? Even when it could just be useless." Her voice softened again. "I think we think the same things sometimes, but I'm... We're in love, like you said, I know we are."

"We... We are." Kaylee told her, feeling scared, but... still not scared of the woman in front of her, though a part of her said maybe she'd been right to be all that time ago, and maybe she should be now. She just plain wasn't though. She just plain... still felt the need to kiss this woman, same as she had before. "It... makes no never mind though, does it? You can't..."

"What if I can though?" River asked. "What if... What if I can do anything?"

"Can you?" Kaylee found herself asking, feeling like the moment was... all sort of... not all the way real.

"I don't know. Probably not." River allowed. "How would I know that though? Whether I could?"

"...If... if you could, then you'd know you could, because that would be one of the anythings you could do." Kaylee told her.

River looked relieved. "Now that makes perfect sense, doesn't it...?" She told her, pushing off from the tree a little and moving in slowly. "I wonder why it never occurred to me?" River asked in a soft, seductive whisper as she kissed her.

Kaylee let herself be kissed and lost track of everything. It felt like a closed circuit, her body telling her that everything was right again now. That everything was perfect again. Things felt timeless again, like they were kissing forever, and then like they weren't because they'd stopped and River backed away and their eyes met again.

"Sometimes I think I can't do anything at all." River told her softly, in a very intimate way. "Sometimes I think no one can. Not king nor queen, prince nor pauper, president nor clerk, me nor you... Nothing at all." River smiled in such a beautiful, innocent way. "Wouldn't that be funny if it were true?" She asked. "Wouldn't it be funny if all of this around us was... just a play? The worlds a stage, just like that silly playwright said? What if... What if living and dying, and power and it's lack, I mean... those things could only threaten a person if they could hurt, couldn't they? What if we can't be hurt though? What if... the only place we hurt..." River said softly, placing a hand on Kaylee's heart. "Is here?"

Kaylee found herself covering River's hand with one of hers. "If that's true..." Kaylee found herself saying with a little of a smile. "Then I guess that explains why I stopped being scared of you back at Inara's shuttle... Because I found out you'd never hurt me, because my heart knows that you won't." She told her.

River moved forward then and kissed her again, long and sweet and deep and was in no hurry and all to stop. But, when she did stop, she touched Kaylee's face and met her eyes. "I am your wife, Kaylee, for always... We don't need to wait for anyone's say so... If you say I am, then I am." River told her, her emotions all laid bare. "Will you? Will you say?"

Kaylee's eyes widened and her heart beat faster. "My wife?" She asked softly.

River nodded.

She smiled, her body feeling lit up, head to toe. "...Then I better be yours too, yeah?" She asked.

River nodded and smiled tentatively.

"Was this just our wedding?" Kaylee asked softly.

"If we say it is." River told her, devotion clear in her eyes. She smiled more fully. "Am I your wife?"

"You are..." Kaylee found herself saying, no hesitation. "Stars and the heavens between, are you ever." She told her, kissing her because she couldn't not. "...Am I yours?" She asked softly once she found the strength to pull away from the kissing again.

"You are... Always..." River told her, backing her up against a tree and starting to kiss her neck, slide her hands beneath her clothes.

"I... I still want a proper ceremony though... With the dress and... and the cake? I mean... at some point maybe?" Kaylee asked hopefully, her mind fast going to the place where thinking of anything but touching and passion and need... just wasn't done...

River hummed. "That's agreeable..." She agreed softly, still kissing being all about kissing her, which was fine... Kaylee was sure she was all about that right at the moment too.

Married... Kaylee thought wonderingly, her trousers being unzipping at the moment. Her heart was beating fast, her skin was hot, and she felt like she could see and hear everything... The sunlight, the soft breeze through the trees, and things were timeless all over again...

It was a familiar feeling to her by now, like coming home... She couldn't explain it and didn't want to try, but she felt like something was definitely changing with her, and between her and River too. And River had changed too, so much. Hadn't she? They'd both been changing, from when they'd first met to when they'd been stranded here on Opal up to now and on towards tomorrows... Was it all just what falling in love was? Or... was there something more to it?

She remembered a line from a song she liked.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and today, dancing and dancing and turning, just to stay...

It was three hours later now and they'd both been mostly silent the last hour or so. Before that, they'd talked about all sorts of things. Kaylee's fears about the weather control system, their hopes that Lola would be happy and that they'd see her again, sharing memories they hadn't shared yet, those kinds of things. Now though... On the one hand, Kaylee still very much felt high on life from the wedding and the sex, but, on the other... things had just started to feel... solemn. River'd felt it a ways back. Felt something was going wrong for them.

Kaylee'd asked her what it was, but River hadn't known. They both knew now though, sure as anything...

They'd started to hear it a ways back... like another storm coming. Pounding and metal and fire... Kaylee knew the sound. If she hadn't been sure before, she was now. She'd started to smell it too, the smoke and fire in the air...

And sure enough, they caught sight of the smoke next, when they came through the tree line at last, into the rocks and grass, and saw the colony town beyond off in the far distance.

"Well, there it is..." Kaylee spoke, trying to keep her voice steady.

"...They don't like it here. I think the gravity upsets them, even as it sings to us like sirens... I wonder if that's what went wrong with them? That they can't hear the songs right anymore... Maybe it all just sounds like a frightful noise to their ears? Nails digging at a chalkboard..." River spoke in a soft, pensive, sad voice.

"The Reavers, you mean..." Kaylee said.

River was quiet and Kaylee turned to look to her. River noticed and looked back, offering her a comforting smile. "I'll keep you safe, like I did before if I have to." River told her. "I'll try with everything I have, anyway."

"Yeah well..." She hugged herself some. "Just you keep you safe too, dong ma?"

"Shi." River answered, reaching out and offering Kaylee her hand to take.

Kaylee did and was grateful for the comfort of it. They walked on out through the rocks and grass and moss and clover an things, on and through in silence until they came finally up to a ridge and River put a finger to her lips to signal silence. Kaylee nodded and they cautiously looked over the edge.

It was pretty much what Kaylee had thought... Those sounds?

Reavers. Hundreds... and they were repairing one of those toxic monstrosity ships of theirs.

Cobbled together and a hazard to any what lives and they were all crawling about it like ants with a will to them.

All Kaylee could think was that she wanted to turn right the hells around right now and come back for Inara some other time when the... people... down there were done with their workings and all gone off to be someone else's trouble and none of theirs.

...And then a cry sounded out. A scream... And then another, and another and another and another and Kaylee's eyes widened and she realized what was going on. She turned to look at River.

"Now's when we start running, I think." River told her, her eyes also gone a little wide.

Kaylee looked back at the valley below and saw a horde of Reavers starting to head right their way.

"Oh hells yeah." Kaylee said under her breath, letting River pull her to her feet.

And they ran.

Chinese translations:

"dong ma?" = "understand?"

"Shi" = "Yes"

(please note: I'm only getting my Chinese from Google Translate, so I can't guarantee it's accurate at all)

to be continued

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