My Serenity

WARNING: Rated M for some violence, language, and sexual situations. This fic contains (eventual) femmeslash and sexual situations between two female characters. Do not continue if this is not to your liking.

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Chapter 18 – She Can Tell Me Herself!

"Let's get the hell out of here." Korsak grunted as he closed the shuttle door behind him.

"What do you mean 'get out of here?!'" Maura demanded as the old pilot pushed past her.

"Where's Jane? What's going on?" Angela insisted. "I thought we were just waiting here until—"

"There's no time to explain," Frost interrupted as he saddled up to Korsak in the pilot seat. "We've got to get out of here before the Alliance Cruiser catches up with us."

"Where are we going to go?" Tommy said excitedly, looking expectantly at Frankie as if his brother knew anything about what was going on.

Frankie shrugged his shoulders. "Whatta ya asking me for?"

"You told me to get on Maura's shuttle!" He frowned, "I thought you…"

"I was just doing as Maura said." Frankie said, starting to look anxious.

"Where. Is. Jane?!" Mrs. Rizzoli repeated furiously.

"What is going on?" Maura demanded from the two at the helm. "What is Jane planning now?"

"I have absolutely no idea." Frost muttered as he frantically started flipping switches.

"What the hell do you mean?!" Maura shouted at them.

"You might want to hold on." Korsak said as he engaged the engines.

"No!" Maura shouted, diving towards the shuttle door. "We're not leaving her behind again, you hear me!"

But it was useless. The shuttle doors were locked as the engines had already engaged. The helm had released the shuttle the moment Korsak stepped into it. Still, Maura tugged at the door ferociously, fighting back angry tears.

"What is Jane doing?" Tommy frowned, spotting the Serenity as a passing shadow across Georgia's bright starlight.

"Please, Vincent," Angela pleaded, her arms around Maura, trying to calm her. "What is going on?"

"She's headed straight for it." Tommy muttered, peering over Frost's shoulders to scan the monitors.

"Straight for what?" Frankie and Angela said simultaneously.

"She's insane." Frost whispered, shaking his head solemnly.

"Vincent Walter Korsak you will tell me what the fuck is going on right now!" Maura hollered, suddenly pouncing on the old pilot, her face red with rage.

Everyone was absolutely silent. No one, not even Jane, had ever heard the Doctor curse, no less drop the f-bomb.

"Wow," came a comical voice behind them, "I wish I had some popcorn for this."

"Shut-up!" Frankie said, slapping the teenager upside the head. Everyone had completely forgotten the kid was even on board. He rubbed his head and cussed at Frankie under his breath.

The distraction was enough to give Maura the chance to push Frost out of the way, nearly knocking him out of his seat. Maura squinted out the forward window.

"She's headed right for the Alliance Cruiser."

"She is?" Angela said worriedly, trying to peek around the others. "She's going to get herself arrested!"

"Exactly." Korsak and Frost said together.

"What the hell for?!" Maura demanded.

"To get that shuttle back." Frost replied.

"Why?" All the Rizzolis and Maura said in unison.

"There's something on it she can't afford to lose." Korsak said, having just come to this conclusion himself.

Xxxx

"What the hell are you doing?" Jane muttered to herself.

Her heart was beating wildly in her chest, adrenaline pouring through her veins. Her thoughts were racing through her mind at a mile a minute.

"This is insane." Jane continued, I guess I'm just going to be talking to myself now.

She was headed straight for the Alliance Cruiser that she had only just escaped only a few moments ago. She looked on the monitor to her right. Maura's shuttle had finally altered course, arcing around the rubble the Alliance Cruiser had made of a group of asteroids and heading straight for the bright light of the twin planets Ithaca and Priam.

"Good, they'll need a nice swing around them to make it as far as Athens." Jane nodded. She then shifted her attention to the colossal obstacle in front of her. She would only have a few more minutes before the Alliance Cruiser would be able to pick up Serenity's signature.

"Shit." Jane cursed as a blip came up on one of the monitors.

"Unidentified spacecraft, cut your engines and prepare to be boarded."

Jane faltered. She hadn't anticipated being in range just yet.

"I repeat: In the name of the Union of Allied Planets, you are ordered to cut your engines. Prepare to be boarded."

Jane flipped the switch to open her radio signal.

"Fuck that!" She shouted, engaging the thrusters and flipping on the gravity drive immediately.

Xxx

"What do you mean?" Maura insisted, grasping Korsak's arm as he engaged the autopilot. "What's back there on that shuttle?"

"Answers." Korsak said cryptically.

"Answers?" Maura prodded, following at Korsak's heels as he stepped down from the pilot's chair.

He gestured to Frost to take up the first shift, "We'll swing around and then make our way to Athens."

"Athens?" Frankie retorted, "Without a gravity drive that could take weeks!"

"That's why we'll do the slingshot." Frost replied.

"But what about supplies? Water? We don't have enough air to…"

But Maura wasn't listening anymore. She followed Korsak to the "living area" she had arranged in the middle of the shuttle. Korsak plopped himself down on the couch with a heavy sigh. The Rizzoli clan were bickering back and forth with Frost at the controls in the background.

Maura was about to berate Korsak again when she caught sight of the exhausted look on his face. Before her anger and confusion could overcome her, Maura's empathetic side made her pause. She sat down next to him.

"I'm getting too old for this." Korsak moaned, putting his face in his hands.

"You can't be more than 65, Vincent."

"I'm 67," he almost laughed.

There was a long pause as Maura tried to think of what to say. She wanted to be positive. She wanted to believe that they'd figure something out. That Jane would escape the Alliance—or at least they'd figure out how to rescue her. They had to. Maura had to believe she would see her again—and in one piece. She had to believe she would get to tell her… Tell her she was sorry.

"Jane's recklessness is going to kill me!" Korsak said indignantly, smacking his fist on the arm of the couch. He winced, but shook his head when Maura instinctively reached out to check his injury.

"And this obsession of hers is going to kill her." He stood up, muttering to himself as he paced back and forth. He continued to think aloud, not really explaining anything as he spewed his thoughts.

"Ever since I saved her from that psycho, she's been obsessed with revenge. You'd think the first time was enough, but she turned right around and tried to find him again. 'I have to stop him,' she said. But at what cost? She wouldn't sleep, barely ate. She spent every spare note tracking him down.

"But then she met you," Vincent smiled, looking at Maura for the first time since they'd been on the shuttle. "She met you and she started sleeping again—living again. I've barely heard her mention him since. All she talks about is…"

Maura blushed. For a moment she forgot how angry she was with the brunette. She imagined her alone there on Serenity—flying by the seat of her pants as Jane described it. She would cuss and swerve, perform impossible stunts—like landing a giant ball of fire on a desert planet. But would she make it against an Alliance cruiser?

"She loves you, you know." Vincent said, seeing Maura was clearly afraid for Jane's life yet again. He couldn't do anything to change Jane's reckless nature, but he could at least tell her what was so clear to everyone else.

"What?" Maura whispered, for a moment she couldn't breathe. "Did she say something to you?"

"No," Korsak admitted, "not in so many words. But she does."

"How do you know?" Maura murmured breathlessly.

"She told me to tell you…" Korsak started.

"Tell me what?" Maura asked eagerly.

Korsak knew what Jane had meant. It was clear in her eyes. He knew her that well. But Maura needed to hear her say it herself. It wouldn't be fair to either of them. Jane was so close to trusting someone—someone special like Maura—with her heart. It didn't feel right there to be a middleman.

"She said she was sorry." Korsak said with a sigh. It was close enough to what she meant anyway.

"Sorry?" Maura said, her heart dropping. "That's it?"

"Sorry she didn't trust you. Sorry she had to leave again."

That was when it hit her. Jane had left her. Again. She had pushed her away and gone off to save the day yet again.

She could hear Angela arguing worriedly with Frost at the helm. The exhausted mother was pleading with him to turn back around. Frost tried to ignore her pleas while Frankie tried to explain how turning back would do no one any good. Tommy was berating his brother for not telling him what was going on when they first boarded the shuttle.

"Sorry?!" Maura shouted, anger bubbling up from her gut and boiling over. She stood from the couch, clenching her fists. She did not know what to do with herself. She had never been this enraged. "Sorry she -had- to leave?

"She should be -sorry- for abandoning her family." Maura yelled, unable to stop the geyser of rage and hurt from overtaking her. "For leaving us to pick up the pieces every time she hatches some crazy plan! Leaving me to patch up the bits of her that are left when she comes crashing back!"

Maura's voice cracked as she stumbled back. She fought back stinging, outraged tears as she turned to her bedroom.

"If she's so sorry…" Maura yelled, her voice growing hoarse, "she can tell me herself!"

She slammed the door behind her.

Xxx

Luckily, Jane had startled the cruiser's pilot just enough to allow her to gun the engines and cross the distance between Serenity and the cruiser before they could fire. Any onlooker would have been convinced that the firefly class spacecraft was going to hit the giant cruiser head on. Surely there was no way that the relatively small craft would do anything other than crash right into the bow of the Alliance's craft.

But Jane knew better—or she hoped better. By the time the Alliance cruiser's crew figured out what she was doing, however, she was too close for them to safely fire without risking causing an explosion that would cripple their ship.

"Rizzoli wouldn't—?" the radio crackled. Apparently, the line had been left open. Jane would not realize she knew that voice until much later when she had far more time to think about it.

"Halt your engines!" a scream came over the radio.

"Too late for that!" Jane shouted, mere meters between her ship and the giant spacecraft.

In the last split second before the collision, Jane yanked the controls back, sending Serenity hurtling up the front of the cruiser, making a near 90-degree turn. The turn was so close, in fact, that the brand-new landing gear they had installed just a few days earlier scrapped up against the cruiser's hull.

"You can do it, girl." Jane winced, gritting her teeth as she heard metal being scrapped from the bottom of her ship. She just prayed that the cargo bay's structure would remain intact—that had cost a pretty coin to remodel nearly from scratch.

"What the—" the radio signal cut in and out again as Jane rounded the top of the cruiser and slammed the controls again, crashing through one of the external radio antenna's as she brought the ship down 90-degrees and skimmed over the top of the cruiser at neck-breaking speed.

At this point, the Alliance had had a chance to send out gunships to pursue the Serenity. However, no Alliance pilot was quite as daring—or reckless—as Captain Jane Rizzoli. They skimmed over the cruiser's surface, but did not follow her dive over and around the aft tower. She was able to dodge most of the incoming fire as they tried to follow her around the curve of the ship.

Finally, the Serenity came spiraling out into open space. She was within a few kilometers of her destination the moment she sped away from the cruiser. She didn't know if she would make it, but she had to try.

Think Jane…what next? Jane thought frantically. Her plan had only extended this far. Here she was and there the shuttle was. She couldn't just force them to surrender, and she had no way of gunning them into submission. The only choice was to trick them. But how?

Suddenly she remembered rather vividly a memory of playing with Frankie and Tommy when they were young. She couldn't remember what planet it had been, but she must have been about ten or eleven. That would make Frankie eight or so and Tommy about five. They were messing around in the salvage yard, just as Angela had forbidden them to do. Jane had been pushing Tommy around in a wheelbarrow and he was giggling as they ran around Frankie in circles.

Frankie had grown dizzy quickly, shouting at Jane to stop, but all she heard was Tommy laughing. Out of nowhere she stopped, nearly tossing Tommy from the wheelbarrow and causing Frankie to nearly topple over. Quickly, she thrust the wheelbarrow forward and scooped him up, Frankie cursing and groaning as he was plopped on top of his little brother.

"But is the wheelbarrow big enough?" Jane muttered.

Xxx

Maura collapsed onto her four-poster bed. Her anger and frustration had worn her out in only a few minutes. She buried her face in a pillow, wanting to sob, but while tears burned her eyes, she had no energy left except to just let them fall down her cheeks.

Then, of course, she noticed the distinct smell of Jane's hair. It would be like her to immediately burry herself in the one thing that Jane always left in Maura's shuttle.

"I don't need it in my bunk anyway." Jane had said, shrugging her shoulders when Maura asked why she had left it there instead of taking it with her.

"You don't use much of -anything- in your bunk."

"Of course I do," Jane winked, "that's where I keep my 'stinking, old boots.'"

"I thought you said you'd get rid of them!"

"I never said that. -You- said that!"

Maura had decided to address the boots topic later. Instead, she returned to the subject of the pillow. "I thought you said you wanted to keep to your own bunk, for now…"

"Yeah, I do."

"So why would you need your pillow here?"

"Cause I don't -sleep- there. I sleep here."

Maura frowned at her. "Oh… you mean literally."

"Yes." Jane said, "What else would I have meant?"

"Well," Maura chuckled, "it's usually me that is literal and you that is figurative."

"What else could I have meant?" Jane blinked, then she put it together. "No, Maura I—"

"It's okay," Maura whispering, putting her hands in hers, "Jane, I was only teasing."

Maura tipped up on to the balls of her feet, pressing a light kiss on her lips.

"I didn't think you were capable of being facetious." Jane smirked.

"What can I say?" Maura bit her lip, watching Jane's pupils dilate, "I have a good teacher."

But that was before they had started to argue. That was the brief moment she might have told Jane everything she had learned about Paddy Doyle—about her father, her biological father. But looking into Jane's eyes all she could think about was the butterflies in her stomach and the smell of Jane's hair, and how she thought she saw in Jane's eyes everything she ever wanted. Everything she couldn't lose.

If only she hadn't given in to Jane's hands on her hips, and her lips on her neck. If only she hadn't pulled Jane into bed and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

"I want to." Jane had muttered, her breathing uneven, her hands grasping desperately at Maura's hips. Jane stared at the freckles on her chest, avoiding her eyes. Maura could feel Jane's hands moving haltingly at the hem of her blouse. Suddenly, Jane looked deep into her eyes. "I -really- want to. I'm just not ready yet."

"It's okay." Maura had whispered back, running her fingers through Jane's raven hair. "I'll wait for you."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

And then Jane had closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Xxx

Only a few minutes later, Jane had done the impossible. She had captured the shuttle in Serenity's newly remodeled (and previously empty) cargo bay. Well, "captured" might not be the right term. It was more like swallowed—maybe melded with? However it could be described, the feat would surely go down in history as one of Captain Rizzoli's most miraculous achievements.

Having taken advantage of a faulty stabilizer on the shuttle's starboard side, Jane was able to use a quick burst of thrust to cause the small craft to spin like a top. It wasn't enough to stop them, of course, but it was enough to disorient the pilot enough that once they regained their bearings and went to move forward, Jane had positioned Serenity in just a way that they went barreling towards the open cargo bay doors. A brief second burst of the thrusters pushed the wheelbarrow right under their knees, so to speak, and swept them in.

A loud crash told Jane that her plan had—somehow—worked. She slammed the cargo door recall the second she recovered from the jolt. If she was lucky, the cargo bay doors would close enough that she wouldn't immediately get swept out into dead space the moment she entered the cargo bay.

Xxx

"Maura?" a soft voice came from the doorway with an equally soft knock.

Maura sat up, wiping tears from her face. "Yeah?"

"You okay, honey?" Angela said, sitting at the edge of bed.

"No." Maura shook her head. She would have sobbed, but the tears were gone for now.

"She'll be okay." Angela reassured.

"How can you know that?"

"I don't."

"Then how can you say that?"

"Because I don't have any other choice than to believe my baby girl will come home. It's like this every time. And every other time before, she's made it back."

Maura didn't have the heart to point out the faults in her logic. She did, however, add an important point, "She's going to need our help if she wants to make it back this time. She's a wanted criminal. The Alliance is not going to just let her go. They will send her to prison for sure."

"Well," Angela said, "I guess we'll just have to figure out how to break her out."

[To Be Continued]