DISCLAIMER: Not mine, not mine, not mine........

Notes:  The Poem referred to is of course " Stopping by woods on a snowy evening" by the brilliant Robert Frost. There is also a quote from Chriastpher Marlowe …..

I hope you still enjoy! Thanks for the kind feedback!!!!

BEST LAID PLANS

River opened her eyes, sighing almost inaudiably. She was still basking in the golden feeling that made her body feel like it was glowing. Her head rested on Jayne´s shoulder, her breathing in rhythm with his. For the first time since she could remember her sleep had not been filled with turmoil and dread. Her rest had been peaceful.

She carefully lifted her to look at the man laying beside her, one arm casually thrown over bare shoulders. She knew she would remember this night for the rest of her life. He was a rough man, but he had proven to have a gentler side, even though Jayne Cobb usually tried his best to hide it most of the time. Once she had kindled that fire, there had been no holding back….

River still relished the feeling of his warm skin against hers……she sighed again, remembering a line from a poem she once had to learn by heart for a recital back in school.

When she looked back on things it seemed like a lifetime ago.

But I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.

Right. Her face fell, taking on a very serious and hardened expression. There were things she needed to do, things that needed taking care of.

River breathed in deep, laying back down and closing her eyes again.

The other thing bared it´s teeth in her mind, as River reached out and connected.

It took her a moment until she found what she was looking for. The captain´s dreams resembled her own in many ways…..there was grief, hidden pain and conflict. Like her, Malcolm Reynolds was unable to simply let go of his worries….even in his sleep they shaped his dreams. The was fear there, fear for the safety of his shp, his crew……and more than once River could see the picture of Inara´s incredibly beautiful features flash through his mind.

Is this the face that launched a thousand ships and burned the topless towers of Illyum?

In River´s own eyes Inara´s beauty had always been beyond compare and in her confused state she had often felt the urge to touch it…….to make sure that this beauty could indeed be real and not just a mirage…..

It was time ….

" Captain!"

Mal could feel somebody shake him and opened his eyes unwillingly. What he found in front of him was more ……unexpected than anything he could have come up with. Mal sat up in his bed, looking around. In front of his bed stood River, dressed in something that was definetly not her usual fairy-princess get up. In fact she looked more like Zoe than herself, with those leatherpants and that tight shirt.

A thick, shiny braid hung over one shoulder and she also wore a leatherholster complete with a set of handguns.

" Now what the gorrram ….." he stopped mid-sentence when he realised that this was not his cabin.

He stared at her.

" Now, where the hell am I?" he inquired.

" This is a dream captain."

River explained quietly.

" Dream, ha?"

Mal looked around his surroundings again.

" Looks an awful lot like Jayne´s bunk if you ask me!"

" It is …..in a way."

Mal lifted an eyebrow at her, clearly not satisfied or comfortable with her explanation.

" I created this place, it exists in my mind. It looks like Jayne´s bunk because I want it to. Because this is the place the voices in my mind could not reach me. My thoughts give this place form. It is my safe place, my shelter from the storm raging inside of me ……everything that made me crazy. I took you here because I needed to talk to you without her overhearing."

She finally eloborated.

" So this´s what you did to Jayne, took him here,ha?  …. Shiny "

He nodded, understanding.

" I thought you had this truce,….. what is it that you need to talk to me about?"

" I know you felt that I did not tell you the whole truth earlier and you were right. There are some things I cannot tell you…….I have this truce, but I don´t trust her."

Mal nodded again, now that was something he did understand, something he could relate to.

He would be lying if he said that this whole dreamwalking- thing did not irritate him ……

" Correct me if I´m wrong but ….us being in your mind, doesn´t this mean that she can hear us ……with her being in your mind too?"

River gave him a sincere smile, leaning forward like a child that wanted to share a naughty secret.

" I tricked her!"

Mal could not help but grin back at her. She might be a genius and most likely a powerful reader, since she was able to do all this weird stuff but …..Mal felt that there was also a mischievious girl inside of her.

" How?"

 He found it hard to believe that one could trick something that was part of that person´s  own mind.

" This is the place she cannot go……also she most likely thinks I am here with somebody else…..that I´am here with Jayne."River said. 

" Wanna tell me how that all happened? I hope you don´t mind me sayin´ …I still can´t seem to understand how that came about."

River smiled again, allowing herself to reminiscent  about the past hours for a second, her pale skin blushing a little.

" I don´t really know……One night I snuck out of my room. I couldn´t sleep but I …….I could sense him in the cargo-bay. He couldn´t sleep either. That night I realised that the nearer I came towards him, the quieter the voices became. Something about him made them stop."

She fumbled her braid self- consciously.

" She must have known way before I ever noticed anything, that´s why she made me cut him, I think. She saw the threat……… Jayne is something……an unknown factor that she cannot comprehend."

" How´d you mean?" he asked  a little confused by her explanation.

" Whatever she is……she is artificial. She knows logic, conditioned behaviour- patterns, obedience. She was not designed to think in the ways our minds work……creativity, she does not think in ways she was not taught to, not conditioned to. She can evaluate situations, but she does not really think. Feelings she cannot comprehend ……that´s what it was. He is something,…… someone unlike anybody  I have ever encountered before. He is force….pure, absolete and raw….very straightforward in his speech and in his thoughts as well."

" Yep, sounds like Jayne…" Mal commented.

" He is not  a bad man, captain!" she emphazised

" He can be very sweet…..he doesn´t really know how to be that way, but …he makes the effort."

She giggled, remembering his face when she had pulled her dress over her head.

" Even though he would sooner die than admit it! I have seen it, deep down he has a gentle side. And because she does not comprehend feeling ….this is the place she I cannot go! That´s how I tricked her. She cannot follow me here."

Mal furrowed up his brow.

" See there is something I still don´t really understand here, River. What is that she-thing you keep talking about…I mean, I know that the alliance- scientist put her in your mind and all, but …..what is she, really?"

River looked at the captain, considering her options. She had still problems to put her thoughts and feelings concerning her inner demon into words. On the other hand  after all that  he had done for her and Simon, Malcolm Reynolds deserved to know…

" I´m not sure if I can really answer this…..I mean, I don´t really know the answer to this question myself. I can only tell you what I think…"

" That´s good enough for me…" Mal said, still a little taken aback by how different the girl looked in that outfit.

He figured it had to do with what she wanted to represent on this plane. Even though he had been laying in bed, in River´s dream …or mind , he was fully dressed.

River took a deep breath, nodding.

" What is she then?"

" She is me." River answered this time.

 " She is me,….stripped of all my dreams, hopes, emotions, my opinions or memories. She is River, devoid  of everything that defines  somebody´s personality."

She hesitated a moment before she continued, her face set.

" She is a killer…..a soldier, she could be anything they would want her to be……a spy, an assassin……anything. She does not question, she just acts. She is an entity, not a person……she will never become me. She is a weapon, a drone…….and she wants to go home!" 

River sighed, shaking her head again, still unsure if she should just tell him everything.

" And that is the scariest   part about it…….that she wants to go home, back to that place where….."

River swallowed hard.

" She wants to return to the facility where she was born or conceived, or whatever you want to call it! She wants to go back there…….almost like there is some kind of homing-beacon. I can feel it´s pull…….it´s calling her. She wants to …."

" Why?" Mal interrupted her.

River looked at him very earnestly.

" Because she thinks it´ s home! She would do anything to get back there."

Something in River´s face made the arms on Mal´s neck and arms rise. She ment what she said and it was obvoius to him that he knew what she was talking about.

" You mean she´d kill to get back there…."

River nodded, averting her eyes.

" We have a truce now, but when this thing with the Reavers is over……only one of us can stay in this body. She knows that there is no other option."

Mal could her her sigh, before she fixed her dark eyes on him again.

"  Maybe I can beat her."

" How?"

" I know something she does not know, something she is not aware of!"

Mal pinched the bridge of his nose unconsciously.

" What?" he demanded to know.

" She is incomplete, unfinished. Whatever they tried to achieve by cutting into my brain…..I guess it was done to eliminate my control over my own emotions, so that my mind would be caught up in battling this confusion and overwhelming conflict. All my defenses were down, my mind exposed …..so she could take over. She was not designed to just dwell in some part of my mind and struggle for control, it was supposed to be one quick, clean strike. She should have taken over completely in a matter of days….take over body and mind , anihilating every trace of personality there was."

River´s malicious smile was enough to make Mal´s blood freeze.

" But that never happened. My treatment never progressed that far because Simon saved me from that place. She could not take over without their help, the conditioning remained incomplete…..so she needed to find another way. She tried to find a backdoor, a loophole, but I was fighting her already, fighting the voices."

Mal stared at her, finally understanding.

" So that´s why they want you back so desperatly, these blue-gloved freaks?"

River shrugged her shoulders.

" I think so……I have all her knowledge, her training, the abilities and skills they programmed her with. Everything they spent years to condition her with is in my head, at my disposal even though I don´t really know how I make things work… I´m not under their control, beyond their reach …..and it scares them."

" And you think this thing they put in your head does not know any of this?"

" She is not aware of all this from what I gather. That´s how I´ll beat her! But right now …I need her. I´have a plan to get rid ofthe Reaver´s ……"

" Shiny!" Mal said mockingly, but still interested. This girl was indeed full of surprises, he could see where the attraction between her and Jayne came from. If she really knew all this stuff about guns and warfare and strategy the alliance taught that drone, she was a perfect match for the grumpy mercenary. Everything Jayne Cobb could have ever looked for in a woman in one pretty little package.

Mal found himself wondering if River could also cook…..

" Why don´t you tell me about that?"

She shook her head apologetically.

" We need to talk about something else first!"

Mal cocked an eyebrow at her. This dream was definetly more interesting than any conversation he had had in a very long time.

" Oh, do we? Well, spit it out than so we can get back to that plan of yours!"

" You remember what happened in sickbay….when I shut down?"

" You mean with your eyes rolling back into your head and all the screaming and yelling? Yeah, I remember!"

" There is something I need you to do if that happens again…..there is a combination of drugs in Simon´s posession that you´ll have to inject me with."

" Shouldn´t you have this little talk with your brother, he´s the doctor after all. Don´t you trust him?"

" I do….but even if I asked him, he wouldn´t."

She explained calmly.

" Why not?"

" He would think it might kill me!"

" Oh …..would it."

" Hopefully not."

" Well now that´s not  very reassuring!"Mal returned, still staring at the girl that had changed so much since he first saw her.

" Please, captain! Whatever Simon might think….these drugs could help me fight her."

" I´m not a doctor River, I wouldn´t even know the correct dosage…"

" Oh, don´t worry, captain. You´ll remember when the time comes."

Something about that unsettled Mal even more, than her appearrance, but looking back at her he suddenly couldn´t remember why that was.

" There is something else…." River continued hastily.

Time was growing short, she needed to speed things up. There were so many things she needed to do before….

" Now, why doesn´t that surprise me!" Mal shot back.

" If ……in case that she wins, if she takes over, I need you to kill me!"

Mal gaped at her, not sure if he had heard her right.

" What?"

" I need you to kill me."

" River ..I" Mal searched her face.

" I couldn´t."

" We both know that´s not true." She answered calmly.

" If I posed a threat…..if she takes over…"

River sat down next to Mal, facing him. Her expression was serene and serious at the same time.

" You need to understand this captain. If she wins, I will be dead. She will kill me, not my body because she needs that, but she will kill me in my mind. My personality will be gone, there will be nothing left of me…..no matter what she looks like it will not be me. We both know if there was anything that posed a threat to Serenity, to her crew….to Kaylee or Inara, you´d do anything to eliminate that threat."

" River…."

He tried to interrupt, but she cut him off.

" You´ll have to kill me ….kill her. You´d have to! Believe me captain, this thing  doesn´t know emotion. She has no feelings, no conscience…..no scruples. She´d kill whoever stands in her way."

" Why do you tell me this? Why not Simon or Jayne? You told me you believe in him, trust him."

" I do believe…" River whispered, her face and voice becoming soft.

" I ……trust him, but I cannot trust him with this."

She looked Mal straight in the eyes.

" I trust him with my heart……but we both know that ….I don´t think he could.."

" What`?"

" Shoot me."

Her head jerked up, she looked around.

" I need to go…"

" First we´ll have to discuss this plan ….I wanna hear all about that…."

She turned back to him, smiling again.

" I cannot tell you about that captain…" she whispered to him.

 Mal felt a strange pull towards the floor, a feeling he had never experienced before. He suddely realised that his vision was getting blurry… he squeezed his eyes shut, blinking several times.

" What are you talking ´bout? ….´Course you can , why wouldn´t you?"

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Malcolm Reynolds realised that it was a very stupid question……he thought he knew the answer already and didn´t like it.

" The plan does not involve you ….." River told him calmly.

It sounded as though her voice came from far away. Mal realized that he was laying back onto the bed against his will.

" …..neither you nor Zoe, nor Jayne …..not even Serenity. Sleep…..it will be alright."