Chapter 10: Lifeline
XXX
Max's POV
I watch as the strange old crones load the one armed woman into the side car of one of their bikes before turning to drive the rig and follow them. The wives had piled into the rig quickly, the red head helping the ghost up and into the back seat holding her close and whispering in her ear. The war boy sat with me in the front as we followed in the rig towards their camp.
The entire ride took less than ten minutes, but the silence and reality that there was no green place weighed heavy on everyone in the rig.
The camp is nothing more than a few makeshift tents tucked into an alcove of the sandy hills overlooking the salt plains. The very edge of where anyone would venture.
I watch as the old women park their bikes and help a calmer Furiosa to lie down in one of the tents to rest. The wives behind me and the war boy beside me are quick to exit the rig and make their way over, but the ghost remains in the back. She doesn't look like the warrior that killed the Bullet Farmer, she looks like that fractured mirror… like a fragile doll about to crack into pieces.
It makes me uncomfortable. And something stirs inside of me. An intense desire to do…something. Because I didn't want another person to break on my watch.
But the minute our eyes connect the fragile girl is gone, and the ghost is back.
XXX
River's POV
For once there were no voices plaguing her mind. There were no outside thoughts, no buried secrets clawing their way into her brain, nothing threatening to spill from her lips if she couldn't control them. No, now her mind was painfully plagued with only her own thoughts.
"I should have done something more… said something."
"But how do you break someone hanging on by a thread? Hanging on to a memory that doesn't exist?"
"How do you kill hope?"
"No." She whispers to herself before her eyes connect with his in the rearview mirror.
"She'd rather breath her last breath before killing their hope… their better life."
"You with me?" He asks her after a minute of silence.
The tail end of his thoughts creep into her mind. "I didn't want another person to break on my watch."
"She won't break."
His eyebrow quirks at her words. "She can…" The question begins to form in his mind. But she's done hiding what she is, done running from her past.
"Hear you, yes. They took parts away, left her empty, easily filled with thoughts and secrets that weren't her own. A reader, a witch, a telepath. It's all the same."
She expects his eyes to show alarm, to show some type of worry. But he doesn't, they show interest and curiosity. "So how'd you know the whole time… about the green place?"
"It was one of the things they left behind. They burned the land and boiled the seas. They escaped. But they left many behind when they fled."
"And where did they go?"
"The sky."
XXX
Serenity's Bridge
"Wash, tell me something good!" Mal barks as he walks onto the bridge of Serenity.
"You're lookin' mighty Captainy?" Wash offers up tentatively.
Zoe sits next to Wash, but her normally stoic face has a small hint of worry. But only Mal would know that from the years in the war..
"I don't like it Sir." Zoe says as she looks over the nav charts to the small blinking light they are tracking. "Something just feels… off."
Mal regards his first mate seriously. "You think it's an ambush?"
"Not that, t's just the nav… why would anyone venture out this way? Let alone River?"
Mal turns and studies the charts more seriously. Zoe was right. There would be no reasonable explanation as to why River would come out this way.
"Maybe we get the Doc up here, maybe he can make some sense of his crazy sister's antics." He says as he walks over to the comm system. "Doc, need you on the bridge."
"You think he knows something we don't?" Zoe asks barely above a whisper. No need to go making accusations just yet.
"I aim to find out." Mal says as Simon sticks his head into the bridge, Kaylee shortly after him.
"You said I was needed?" Simon asks as he walks towards the Captain.
"Need you to take a look at these charts. See if you can figure why your sister would have come this far out." Mal says as he pulls up the nav charts on to the larger screen.
Simon steps forward, his mind looking over where the faint signal originates from. He narrows in on something, making the charts zoom in further.
"This doesn't make sense." He says as his brow furrows with concern and concentration.
"What doesn't?" Mal asks as he looks at what Simon is studying on the nav charts.
"The signal's location. If you zoom in…. the planet…" Simon says as the planet in question is singled out on the screen. "The topography looks like Earth-that-was."
"But if that's true, then why would River have come out here? It's a dead planet. Used up?"
Simon's face pales as the realization of why River would have picked that planet, and Mal comes to the same realization when Simon does. When Mal looks Simon in the eyes, they share a sorrowful, knowing look. He glances at Zoe and the same understanding sits etched on her face. There is no reason to say it out loud. No reason to let alarm the others that River didn't aim to come back.
Mal's fists clench as his hatred for those that try to meddle where they don't belong flares. "Doesn't matter. We don't leave crew. Wash you boost that signal and land as close as you can."
XXX
Max's POV
I watch her closer than before. Watch as the twitches of her head when she gets close to the others. See certain things… understanding flash across her face. It makes more sense now. The way she moves, the way her eyes dart around as if they are chasing voices. She hears everything.
The others are broken off into smaller groups here and there as the sun sets on the horizon. I can make out the muffled voice talking. But they aren't as loud as the ones in my head.
"Where are you, Max?"
I shake my head trying to keep the voices at bay. Keep them from creeping up on me. but it's like I can feel them grabbing at my skull. Feel her tiny hands grabbing my hand. I look down to my side and see her
"Come back, Max." Glory's ghost says as she tugs on my hand.
Come back to where? The land of the living? There is barely anything living in this wasteland anymore.
The ghost shakes her head and points to the living ghost. "Help her. She can help you."
How? How is she supposed to help? I ask the voice in my head. But Glory doesn't respond. She shakes her head, not willing to give me the answer so easily it seems. She places a hand over my chest before I watch her fade into nothingness, and I place my own hand over where I could swear I just felt hers.
I let my hand drop and look back up to see the ghost slipping back towards the edge of the camp, away from the bonfire the others have started and closer to the back of the rig.
"Alright." I say as I follow in her direction.
XXX
River's POV
The sand shifts and moves as she trudges up the nearest hill to the rig. She sits down as she reaches the top. She fishes the pulse beacon out of her boot and turns it over in her hands.
"Just an object." She says as a single tear rolls down her cheek. She throws it out into the night, quickly losing track of where it might land as the inky blackness of the night settles in.
She hears him come sit beside her, feels him just at her side. But his mind is blissfully blank, as if he's trying not to think around her.
She smiles. It's nice to have some silence in her brain for once.
"So… what was that thing anyways." He asks her aloud.
"Pulse beacon. It should have led them here. If it ever worked, that is."
"Who's that?" He asks her while she feels his eyes shift to her.
"Her family. She ran away. Wanted to protect them. Stole away on borrowed wings and borrowed time. They were hunting her… two by two. The one's that liked to play and meddle with her mind. She didn't want anyone else to get hurt."
She can feel his anger flare and she surpasses a giggle. Old habits die hard for him. Even if he didn't want to think of himself as inhabiting the land of the living. "What happened to them, the one's that were hunting you?"
"They clipped her wings, watched her fall to the dead planet. And they wrote her off. Case closed. A lost asset. They had already spent enough time and enough resources chasing me… they wouldn't land here. Too afraid of their own demons."
"Afraid to see what they did?"
She shrugs her shoulders. "Maybe… Afraid to see what would have happened to them if they had been left behind. Or maybe they were afraid to be reminded of their humanity."
He doesn't say or think anything after that. And they sit in silence for awhile, just watching the dusk fall over the salt plains.
"Thank you." She says as the last few rays of the sun fall beneath the horizon line. She feels him looking at her even without turning to look herself.
"For what?"
"Not many people know about… what she can do. Things get loud, crowded, and confusing a lot of the time. It makes it hard to be around people for too long. It's nice… to have someone know. To be around someone and not have it be loud."
He doesn't say anything, but reaches a hand over and sets it on top of her own hand resting in the warm sand. He gives it a light squeeze. As his hand stays there long enough for her to feel the heat pooling in his stomach… feel the emotions he long thought dead begin to stir inside his mind… even if he doesn't know it.
"We should head back. It'll get colder soon." He says as he lets go of her hand momentarily to stand up, before offer her his hand again to stand up.
His thoughts are cloudy now. She does her best to block them out as she smiles softly and takes his hand as she stands.
XXX
Max's POV
I hesitate the moment her hand takes mine and she stands up. Standing on the small sand berm like this almost puts her at eye level with me. I glance down at the small flush of her cheeks and the way her lips look. She looks so much like… no. She's not her, and it's not fair to compare them. I cannot keep holding on to ghosts.
Her lips turn up into a small smile, and I find myself wondering what her lips would taste like. Was this what the voice meant? She's my reminder? Reminder of what it feels like to be alive, and not a walking corpse dead to feeling anything? Is she supposed to be my lifeline?
"There you Raggedy Man." She says shakes my hand she's still holding. "I'm River. River Tam."
I chuckle as I look into her brown eyes and return the handshake. "Max, my name's Max."
She smiles brightly at me now, and I can't help but think how pretty she is. I wonder what I have to do to keep her smiling like that. She drops my hand and turns to walk back to the camp.
I hesitate a moment before following after her. Maybe the voice was on to something.
XXX
"Can I talk to you?" Furiosa asks quietly as Max gets up to the perimeter of the camp. He glances at River who has moved to sit near the wives around the small bonfire in the center.
Max doesn't say anything to Furiosa, but does nod his head and move to follow her closer to the War Rig.
"I've talked with the others. We're never gonna have a better chance to make it across the salt. If we leave the Rig here, and load the motorcycles up with as much as we can...we can maybe ride for 160 days." She says as she motions to the small cluster of bikes near the tents.
Max doesn't say anything, but waits for her to continue.
"One of those bikes is yours. Fully loaded. You're more than welcome to come with us." She offers up cautiously.
Max glances at Furiosa before looking back over at where River sits. She's looking directly at him, a small smile barely visible. He shakes his head no slowly. "We'll make our own way."
"We?" Furiosa asks.
"The girl… River. We'll make our own way."
Furiosa's lips curls ever so slightly as she glances over at the girl now. "Suit yourself."
XXX
River's POV
She turns her attention back to the fire in front of her and watches the flames dance. She doesn't blame Furiosa for feeling the way she does. She has to blame someone, something, for the death of her home. It doesn't matter that the girl didn't have anything to do with it. She was a scapegoat. And that was okay. In time her anger would lessen, and dissipate. And they'd be one gone by then.
"Look." Capable says as she points towards the sky.
She glances up and watches as the small light arcs over the sky.
"That's what you call a satellite." One of the older women says from the other side of the fire.
"Miss Giddy told us about those. They used to bounce messages across the Earth." Angharad says as she rocks Euron in her arms.
"Shows. Everyone in the old world had a show." Another old woman clarifies.
"Do you think there's still...somebody out there? Sending shows?" Cheedo asks hopefully from the other side of Angharad.
"Who knows?" The first old woman says with a soft chuckle.
They all chuckle now, laughing at the absurdity of what they think is impossible. But it's like a punch in the gut to the girl, and it fills her with dread. Should she tell them? Tell them about a life beyond the stars… Would they listen, or would they just write her off as crazy? Or would it just make them hate her more?
"Look another one!" Someone beside her says, but she's too conflicted in her own thoughts to look.
"No, that one's different. It looks like it's falling."
Her head jerks up at the words. Watches with rapt attention on the small flickering object falling. And it hits her like a ton of bricks.
"That's not a satellite." And she breaks into a run for the rig. She needs a sign… can't take any chances the signal will hold. She vaguely registers that people are calling to her, barely hears his heavy foot falls behind her in the sand. But none of that matters right now.
She rips open the door to the rig and grabs for the old carpet bag. Her shaking fingers grasping at the flare gun as fast she can. She doesn't have time to make a mistake.
She's barely out of the rig as she lifts the gun and fires into the air. Her eyes trail upwards as the red bloom of smoke visually announces where they are.
Again she hears more voices, more shouting. Feels hands grabbing and prying her fingers off of the flare gun in her hand. But all she hears is the sound her heartbeat makes hammering in her chest.
Her eyes zero in on the flickering light, watches it grow. And when it finally lands 100 yards away… when Serenity's cargo bay doors open and the lights of the bay illuminate a group of people walking with guns drawn down the ramp, she finally lets herself breathe.
XXX
AN: Well, I updated much sooner than last time. I really hope you guys liked this update. I had a couple different ideas for it, but I am really happy with where we ended up. I think it hints at a few things to come quite nicely. Anyways, until next time, stay shiny ;)