DISCLAIMER :
I still don´t own Firefly ( DAMN!!!!) , they still belong to Fox and Mutant Enemy…..though I wish Joss had sold this GREAT show to a more deserving station, where it would have stood a chance! Fox ….would it be To much to ask if you could just show the rest of the episodes instead hiding them in your vault?
Notes:
I try to stay on track here, but sometimes the characters seem to develop their own ideas about where this story should go, even though this chapter is just an interlude …..…..so tell me of you like where they are going ! Thanx!!!
SURRENDER
River woke up in her own bed, feeling cold and sick. She had only vague memories of getting out of his bed and making her way to her own room on unsteady legs.
Shivering she pulled her blanket tighter around her shoulders. There was a dull, throbbing ache in her head. The dream- walking had cost her too much strength, too much energy that she needed to resist the voices……
How do you do this? She could hear his words echo in her ears.
River wished she knew how she did anything…..knowing things, seeing things before they happened, feeling what other people felt, thinking their thoughts……anything. She wished she knew how to control these abitlities.
But were they really hers? Did she always have them or were they somehow implanted ? Or did she always have the potential and all the tests, the procedures and the experiments were done to her in order to unlock this potential?
The world stated to spin around her as she tried to sit up in her bed. The voices had stopped screaming at her, they were whispering now……whispering maliciously and River could feel her grip on reality slip.They wanted to take over again….
She closed her eyes, swallowing hard. She could feel her whole body tremble uncontrollably……she was loosing it, loosing control, she could feel it.
The storm had started raging again, all her feelings tumbling over each other until she could not tell them apart anymore.
River laid back down, desperatly fighting for breath. She heard the door open and opened her eyes slowly.
Simon knelt down next to her, his hand touching her forehead.
" Hey Mei-Mei…" he whispered affectionally.
She could read worry in his eyes, so River mustered up enough strength to give him a weak smile.
" Not a good day?" Simon asked her softly, still caressing his sisters face.
River shook her head slightly and closed her eyes again.
" Tidal wave has swept me up again ……and I cannot swim anymore, too tired." He could hear her whisper hoarsly.
Simon carefully kissed her forehead, trying to not look as worried as he was. He feared that would only upset her more. In fact, he was almost too shocked for words, it had been a long time since she had been this sick. After the last few weeks he had begun to hope her condition was slowly improving. She had been calmer and at times even playful and …..somehow happy. Seeing her reduced to this pale, trembling bundle was almost more than the young doctor could bear.
He wanted her to get better, he needed her to get better!
All the different medications and drugs he had been experimenting with had to show some results……what was all his studying, all the things he had learned and worked for worth if he couldn´t even help his own sister?
The whispering grew louder and more persistent…….they were laughing at her, telling her that they were a part of her forever. No way she could ever escape them.
" Fear…." She whispered " …dark, nasty bats clawing at my back and I can´t shake them off. Pushing and Pulling me back into the woods where there is no light."
Simon shook his head. He wasn´t sure what she ment to tell him, but it was obvious to him that she was in distress.
There were times when Simon thought that he understood what she was saying, that he could somehow decypher everything……there had to be a logical pattern! But most of the time the meaning of his sister´s words eluded him.
" They want to force me to swim, but there are sharks in the pool……sharks in the dark out there." Rivers breath caught in her throat.
No! No …no, no there was something out there, something bad, something evil, she could feel it. She needed to warn them, warn Simon…….something was …..chasing them from far away. If she could just hold on to that thought, but before she knew it , it was swept away and she couldn´t remember. All she knew is that there was danger and she ought to be afraid.
The voices laughed again.
She felt Simon hold her hand.
" Don´t worry Mei-Mei. It´ll be okay.....we will find a way."
River had to open and close her eyes several times to to see clearly, as she felt the cool alcohol swap Simon used to clean her armpit.
Her eyes caught a glimpse of the syringe in his hand and she shook her head frantically.
" No..please…no sticking, no needles."
He was going to inject her with a new drug designed to help her. It could help her , but River feared that it might also render her even more helpless.
" Shhhh …River, it´s ok. I´m trying to make you better."
She could see his pain, his sadness at seeing her like this. Simon was afraid to, she knew that…..she could feel his fear like cold fist squeezing her heart. He was afraid that he might not be able to cure her, afraid she would stay like this.
River lifted a hand to his face.
" Poor Simon" she thought," what have I done to you?"
Her brother kissed the inside of her hand, before he injected her with the new medication, hoping and praying that it would show the desired result.
River closed her eyes, ignoring the quick, sharp pain when the needle pierced her skin.
She felt a flood of warm tears flowing from under her closed eyelids, streaming over hear face.
She felt so weak, so sick…..so powerless and sad.
" I´m sorry this sparrow can not fly for you …..but she will try."
Simon just smiled and held her hand.
" It will be alright , River!" he said.
He only wished he could make himself believe it.
How many nights was he gonna spent cleaning his weapons over and over again, Jayne wondered. There he was – again, in the ruddin´dead of night- again, unable to fall asleep- Again!
He was quite fed up with it by now.
He needed to keep himself busy, keep himself from thinking. He had not seen her for almost two days and as much as he hated to admit it, it had started gnawing on him..
When he had woken up, after that gorram disturbing dream, she was gone. But he could still feel her warmth were she had slept and he could smell her on his pillow. That faint lavender smell still lingered in his bunk, as though she had left a part of herself…..
Jayne still hadn´t come to terms with everything that had happened between them. He had never been one to analyze the emotional workings of his mind. He was not into that stuff, he had told her that !
And yet…he had found his thoughts wander her way lately. He just couldn´t help it.
That crazy little girl had strung a side in him whose existence Jayne usually conveniently denied
And now he sat at the table in the common area, where they usually took their meals, and cleaned his guns for the hundreth time….hoping the routine would calm down his racing thoughts. Gorram crazy girl……doctor said she had a relapse…
Suddenly he looked up, squinting into the darkness, thinking he heard a familiar rustling sound in the corridor.
River emerged from the shadows like a ghost. She was so much paler than he remembered, wearing a very old-fashioned , white nightgown.
She put a hand over her eyes, blinking into the dim light.
" We have to stop meeting like this, ya´know." Jayne said in an effort to set a light mood.
He could tell by looking at her that she was in very bad shape.
River looked at him with a flustered expression on her face.
So much for the joke…..
" You ok?" Jayne asked a lot more roughly than he intended to. He just couldn´t help it. River looked so very pale and sick, it unsettled him.
Somehow this girl had found a way to move him…somewhere along the way of their strange encounters he had started to feel protective of her. At first that realisation had bothered him, but they had come to some kind of understanding and now …seing her like this, so distraught…it made him feel powerless. He hated that.
" It´s all amiss." She answered softly " I can´t see, too many clouds in my mind ….like fog. He added to it. I felt so very weak, like a little mouse……they made me weak, were so angry. They let the waves bury me, when I was to exhausted to swim."
Jaynes forehead creased up slightly.
" Back to that , are we now?" he muttered.
She had warned him abot that, he had to give her that. At first he had not been sure if the dream was real……but it felt real and it didn´t fade away from his memory like dreams ususally did.
She had told him to remember all the things she said in his dream, the things he had seen….remember that whatever was haunting her would get worse after that.
" Wanted to make me better, stuck me with his needles again. Helpless as a puppy he is though, poor Simon…….cures only add to the mess sometimes. Confusing me, so I can´t see the pattern anymore. He makes me so sad…. Makes me weep for him like a willow." River rubbed her arms absentmindedly.
" He made you cry?" Jayne asked " Somethin´he said or was it another one of his ruddin´drug experiments? "
River slowly descended the stairs, raising her eyebrows at him in surprise.
For some reason she had thought that he might be angry or annoyed with her….running to him in the middle of the night again, like a cry – baby with her thoughts all ajumble…
She gingerly shook her head, fingers raking through her long hair.
" Not just the needles, not just the drugs…….he gets so angry and sad and desperate….feeling so helpless."
Jayne looked at her face, she frowned as if she were in pain. He tried to figure out what she was saying, not sure if he gave her words the right meaning.
" Your brother got angry with you? Made you cry?" he tried again, unable to completely surpress the fierce look that stole onto his face. He wanted to ……hell he didn´t know what he wanted…….just to make her feel better.
"See…cause I could hurt him, you know….just a little, if he did …make you cry, I mean."
Gorrammit! He was really not very good at this comforting thing.
Was this how she felt, trying to say something and then have it all come out wrong?
River rewarded him with the faintest smile.
" You would?"
Jayne grinned back at her.
" ´Course I would."
Hell, he´d take any excuse to rough up her fancy brother!
Their eyes met, Jayne couldn´t resist giving her a wink.
River put a hand to her forehead an squeezed her eyes shut.
" Not his fault. He is still sweet, loving Simon, still on a crusade to save his little sister…..find a cure to make her as she was."
She smiled sadly.
" He does not know that she does not exist anymore…….he does not understand that even when I get better, that girl will never come back! She saw too much , too many things nice little girls should not have to see or do …….she left and when all is over there will be just me!"
River sighed, shaking her head.
" He wants to help me so badly…..big brother tries to hold on to the reigns, to stop the horses from runnig away with me……when he is not even driving the carriage!
It´s not how this will work. He can not fight for me, no one can….got to do it all by myself."
She could not focus, no matter how hard she tried.
She felt like crying, the voices whispering in the back of her mind like the rustling of feathers.
Simon´s drugs were pressing her down, making her weary…like walls closing in on her.
She could almost hear the voices laughing again and it made her furious.
You will not win this, she hissed at them in her thoughts.
Jayne looked her up and down, his eyes lingering on her bare feet for a moment. She caught his look and smiled weakly. She knew he remembered holding her feet in his warm hands …how cold they had been.
He honestly didn´t know what to do.
" The sparrow tried to fly for Simon and now it´s caught in the storm with no place to land……storm swept her up and I got carried away….".
Jayne put the gun he had been cleaning onto the table.
Never, never had he been good with this ruddin´feelings stuff….
" C´mere…" he finally said quietly, holding out his arms. It was a simple, almost ordinary gesture….but River knew that for him it was a giant leap of faith.
She walked straight into his arms, burying her face in the crook of his neck.
Jayne noticed again how fragile and tiny she felt, as he pulled her onto his lap. How could something so vulnerable and small possess so much strength and determination?
River felt his arms close around her, one of his hands moving higher to slide under her hair, to rub the back of her neck.
She took a shuddering breath….she was so exhausted, but at least the voices had stoppped……Silence…Safety.
She could feel tears of relief stinging in her eyes. She bit her lip, she didn´t want to cry. His body was warm and hard, like a wall around her, shielding her from everything that made her sick and sad. Here she was just River.
She closed her eyes and let go…..Jayne heard a gasp escape her lips, felt her heaving and struggling for breath until he realised that she cried.
And River cried like she had never allowed herself to cry before.
She let it all go…all the pain and desperation, the fear breaking free in painfully violent sobs that shook her whole body. It felt like she could never stop, now that she had started there seemed to be no end….
Jayne tensed up for a moment. This was just too much for him, no situation he had ever encountered before, nothing that could have prepared him for this moment…..no experience what-so-ever to draw from….
He did not know what to do, a part of him wished he could just leave, but he couldn´t …..he wouldn´t turn his back on her now.
Somehow he felt the need to prove to himself that all her trust was justified, that there was good in him that she had seen…..
So he just sat there, caressing her back, holding her tight……hoping she would calm down because …..
Gorramit, he sure as hell did not know the right words to soothe her pain….
It scared him …..he couldn´t believe that she had this much pain in her, that she had carried it around with her for so long.
He only hoped that her sobbing wouldn´t wake the others.
" It´s ok darlin´…..stop crying." He whispered into her hair, she finally started to calm down.
River nodded.
Her arms still clasped behind his neck she looked up at him. Her eyes were red from crying ….as was her nose, she was still pretty though, Jayne thought to himself.
He cupped her face in his hands and looked into her eyes.
" It´ll be alright ……you will beat this thing!"
" You don´t know that."
" Yes I do……look what you did to me!"
" Sometimes I think it would be easier if I just…."
" Gorramit, River! Stop talking like that ……don´t be so ruddin´stupid. You survived whatever it was they did to you! Now you wanna just lay down and die ? You are stronger than that und you are a smarter than that! Never knew anyone as stubborn as you ….well maybe me….
I honestly don´t think there is anything you cannot do once you set your mind to it!"
She furrowed her brow.
" Won me over, didn´t you ?" he growled.
River chuckled against her will. Did she…? Sometimes she wasn´t sure.
She felt his thumb move over he cheek ever so lightly and closed her eyes.
Now this did not go so bad, Jayne thought.
He actually had done the right thing here….and holding her, that always felt good.
Her heard her sigh and lean into him, instinctively he pulled her close.
Weird though……he marveled as he stroked her back, even though he was undeniably attracted to her physically, there was no desire in his embrace now ….
He felt ….at peace just sitting there with her on his lap. This was not like him at all……
Jayne planted a carufull kiss on her forehead, he could feel her smile, squeeze his shoulder slightly.
Rivers eyes fell on the assortment of guns on the table.
" Ruber& Decker 4/95 , caliber 45…" she recited, looking at the one he had held in his hand when she had entered.
Jayne looked at her in surprise.
" That´s right …..how do you know?"
River shook her head . " I´m not sure ….but I also know that if you would take it apart, I could reassemble it in less than 6.5 seconds….."
Jayne laughed out loud.
" Oh really?"
River looked at him earnestly, nodding her head.
" Now, we´ll have to see about that, won´t we?"
