Disclaimer: You know the drill ...I own pretty much nothing while Fox and Mutant Enemy own pretty much everything
Notes: Once more with feeling ...hihi......
Thanks again to all you kind reviewers!!!! I feel really, really honoured that there are people out there who enjoy this story so much and I am very proud that you guys like it! As long as you are interested I will continue to write ...still got plenty of ideas!!! So thanks again and again!!!!
Also my undying gratitude goes out to my best friend Franzy! Without your support I would never gotten this far .....
Spoils of War
„ So ……she doesn´t remember anything?"
Simon let his gaze wander over the people who were assembled around the dining table in the common area. To his right sat Zoe and Mal, to his left Jayne and Wash, Inara sat alone at the far end of the table, mirrowing the captain´s worried expression. Kaylee and Book had volunteered to stay in sickbay to watch over River while she slept, so that Simon could brief the rest of the crew on her status.
Simon sighed.
To be honest he didn´t really know how to answer the captain´s question.
He had examined River very thourouhgly, careful not to explain the whole situation to her before he hadn´t completely dertermined how much his sister remembered. As it turned out River was still dehydrated, but otherwise healthy and the last thing she remembered was Simon smuggling her out of the academy.
" She´s lucid, a little agitated and obviously exhausted from whatever she must have gone through. " he explained cautiously.
" Shiny!" Mal said with a distinct undertone of impatience in his voice.
" But how much does she remember, doctor?"
" Well....." Simon hesitated for a moment.
" So far she does not remember a thing after I gave her the injection to make her sleep so she wouldn´t panic in the transport- pod......the one she came on board in, remember? It seems as though River has no recollection whatsoever of anything that happened beyond that exact point of time. She doesn´t even remember waking up on Serenity when you opened the pod. What you saw in the lab was her thinking that she had just come to ......after she escaped. "
Mal´s eyebrows rose high enough to make contact with his hairline.
" And the rest? Ariel, the Reavers.....almost being burned at the stake....and everything else?"
Jayne felt his crewmates´ looks settle on him, but he didn´t look up. He didn´t mean to make a show of how this news affected him, so the mercenary kept on staring at his boots, his face set. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Mal giving him a quick once over look to see how he would digest the facts.
Simon shook his head, avoiding to glance in Jayne´s direction.
" So far she remembers nothing......the trauma she suffered from whatever the alliance scientists did to her is gone, completely. She´s not confused or drifting in and out of an altered state. She is a little shaken, but the most important thing for her seems to be that she has escaped that place ......she´s almost happy."
Simon couldn´t help but smile.
" She´s almost the girl she was before all this happened .....older but still..."
Mal looked at the young doctor with a furrowed brow, it was obvious that Simon was more than pleased with the surprising outcome of his sister´s escapade. A part of Mal could understand that......not only didn´t they need to worry about a ship filled with Reavers chasing after Serenity anymore, but the doctor also had his little sister back safe and sound, without any of the nasty baggage the alliance had bestowed on her.
Another part of him however didn´t trust the sudden resolution of their problem..........he didn´t doubt for a second that the girl sleeping in sickbay was really River and not the thing she had warned them about, the thing that wanted to take over .......but that didn´t mean that the conditioning she had received, her knowledge, her precognitions were gone too.
Obviously River Tam had won the war with her inner demon....and now it was plain to see at what price that victory had come.
" It makes sense..." Mal finally said into the silence, giving Jayne another glance.
The mercenary still ignored the attention the others were giving him, waiting for his reaction. He just sat there, staring at some point on the wall behind Simon, his face not betraying his feelings. It didn´t surprise Mal that Jayne didn´t want to make a display of his thoughts or feelings on this matter.......he would have kept that to himself too.
Though Mal suspected that one of the things that went through the mercenary´s mind was the wish to punch Simon straight into his face.
Mal understood the young doctor´s happiness about the result of River´s struggle, but there was a bitter taste to Simon´s glee that even Mal couldn´t deny.
" What do you mean, Sir?" Zoe asked curiously.
" River was fighting that thing the alliance had implanted in her mind, told me that she needed to kill it in her thoughts in order to free herself from it´s interference and influence."
Mal eloborated, remembering the dream he had had of River.
" When she told me which drugs to use on her, she also mentioned that she wasn´t sure what would happen to her if she managed to kill it...... in her mind. She had a nifty plan, that´s for sure and it seems to have played out the way she intended it too but......."
" But what?" Simon looked at the captain in confusion, a hurt expression on his face.
There was still a little voie inside of him that chided his sister for not confiding in him.....
Mal looked Simon straight in the eye, knowing exactly what Simon´s problem was.
" Your sister wasn´t sure if she´d survive. And if she did, as I said before, she didn´t seem to know what might happen .....what that thing might take from her. I guess now we know....."
" But is that even possible?" Wash cut in, looking at his wife for support.
" I mean.....people who get hit over the head or have an accident sometimes loose their memory, I´ve heard about that, but can you wipe out someone´s memory of only a certain period of time?"
" Yeah .....selektive amnesia, does something like that even exist?" Zoe enquired.
Simon made a face, not quite sure how to answer the question.
He shot Jayne an uncomfortable look. The fact that the tall men to his left didn´t even participate in the discussion made him a little nervous. After all Jayne was the one person who this development would affect the most, but he just sat there, staring off into space with an unreadable expression on his face. Simon feared that the tall man would simply explode sooner or later and probably try to just ......strangle him on the spot.
He had never made a secret about his thoughts on the idea of his sister having ........some connection with that man.
" I have to admit that a trauma like that is not really my field of expertise. I don´t have a lot of experience with amnesia- patients, but from what I could deduce from the tests ......it´s gotta be something like that. However I cannot determine to an absolute certainty that my sister won´t regain her memory of the past few months......."
" How likely is that , doctor?"
Mal shot Inara a surprised look as she joined the discussion at last.
" It´s extremely hard to say .....as I said I don´t have a lot of experience..."
At Mal´s impatient glare Simon interrupted himself an took a deep breath.
The moment of truth had come. He knew that he owed the captain and the crew,- even Jayne- the truth after all the times they had put their lives and security on the line for him and River........
But he had just....finally gotten his sister back, not the scared, confused girl that made his heart ache with all her pain, not the girl that drifted in and out of sanity, but his real sister......
" In cases such as these...." he answered diffidently,
"I think that it partly depends on us if River regains her memory or not. It depends to some extent on the question if we want her to remember or not."
Simon risked another glance at Jayne. When he didn´t react Zoe spoke up.
" Explain..."
" People who suffer from a condition like this sometimes regain their memory if it is triggered by something specific. One usually stimulates the memory with details of certain events.........say we would have repeated talks with River about what happened, recounting the last months from our point of view. That might help her to remember......but I´m not entirely sure. It might work. The question remains if we want River to go through all this again....the escape, her altered mental state .....the men with the blue gloves."
Mal nodded, understanding where Simon was headed.
Did a young girl like River really need to remember all the pain and suffering she had been through?
Did she need the memories of being haunted by evil scientists, of being controlled by some science-project in her mind..........of slaughtering a whole ship filled with Reavers?
Mal would have bet Serenity that these were the exact things going through all their minds ......even Jayne´s, though his expression was still unreadable.
But there were also good memories ......the way she had talked about Jayne, Mal could tell that there were feelings there. She had seen something in him that nobody had seen .......she had fought for it, stood up against him and her brother.......even against Jayne himself in order to hold on to whatever it was they had.
Mal cleared his throat.
" So what you are telling us is that it really is our decision?" he asked into the pressing silence that had fallen over the assembly.
" In a way...yes." Simon answered, giving Mal an almost pleading look.
" We can decide what is best for her......with all the things she has been through she might actually have a chance to find peace now."
Mal could tell from the uncomfortable looks Zoe and Wash were exchanging that they´d rather not have anything to do with that decision. It was something Malcolm Reynolds understood perfectly.
Inara´s eyes lingered on Jayne for a second, before they fixed on Mal.
" Don´t you think that River should have a say in this ?" she demanded to know.
" You can´t just decide for her if she should remember a part of her own life or not! She´s not a child and I think she should have the right to choose for herself ...."
" She can never know!"
Jayne ground out between his teeth. Everybody stared at him as he finally spoke up. His voice was completely controlled and his stony expression didn´t give a hint at what he was feeling.
He could almost sense Simon´s relief at his words and surpressed the urge to punch River´s brother in the gut. What was the ruddin ´use, anyway? It would make him look like a sore looser........
" Leave the gorram girl be, ok?" he told the people around him as he got up from the table.
" Her brother is right, she deserves some ruddin´peace after all the crap she´s been through.......she´s free now. No more voices , no more fighting for control ......"
Jayne could tell from Inara´s expression that she didn´t like the idea one bit, but he didn´t care.
" Any of you think she needs to remember that she killed all those ruddin´ Reavers by herself and in a gorram massacre from the looks of it ? Just leave her be......that´s all I gotta say about it! Just make sure that nobody tells her about anything, got it? I´ll be in my bunk!"
Mal watched Jayne´s broad back as he retreated into the corridor and finally was out of sight.
Then his eyes returned to the doctor.
" You heard the man ...I think that´s the decision you were leanin´towards, doctor. Looks like you got it."
Simon nodded at the captain.
" Thank you ....I´ll go and check on River now."
" Right....." Mal looked around.
" So we´re all clear on the plan? We keep that whole River thing under covers......no talk about killing or crazyness ot shooting Niska´s men, right? I´ll tell Kaylee and Book....."
Zoe and Wash nodded before exchanging looks and heading towards their own bunk.
Suddenly Mal found himself alone with Inara.
The companion stared at the table with a sad expression as though she was pondering something new.
" Who would have thought ..." she muttered after a short while, her eyes meeting Mal´s.
" The ogre seems to have grown himself a heart."
Mal shook his head with a bitter grin.
" Oh ...I think it was always there ......something about lil´River Tam just brought it out in the open .....seems to have dragged his conscience out from it´s hiding place too while she was at it!" Mal mused.
" Never thought I´d see Jayne Cobb do something so darn selfless..........he really had something with her, I didn´t get it but ......there was something and he just gave it up and walked away because he thinks that´s the right thing to do."
Inara looked at him, her face serious.
" That´s why this won´t work ,Mal! I meant what I said.......so you might want to go and talk to Jayne and Simon. Reconsider this stupid idea. No matter what Simon or Jayne or you think is best for River, it will not work out the way you want it to."
Mal returned Inara´s stare, lifting an eyebrow at the incredibly beautiful woman at the other end of the table. In the dim lighting of the common-area her perfect skin shone like silk and only the faintest trace of her perfum lingered in the air. She smelled clean, sweet and yet spicy, an exotic and doubtlessly exclusive scent that never failed to enthrall him. Of course he would never admit how much it affected him.
" I think it might be better this way, Inara. Just imagine she would have to cope with whatever she did on that Reaver ship .......it ´s better for all concerned that we don´t know. The things she must have done ......all the blood, she was completely drenched in it!"
" I cleaned her up!" Inara reminded him gravely, still not taking is point.
" All these bad memories ......I htink she might be better off that way. Even Jayne thinks so."
Inara shook her head, sighing under her breath. She wouldn´t persuade him, but she needed him to at least think about some things.
"That may be so, but there are some things that people don´t forget ......your body, your senses, your blood doesn´t forget. Feelings are more than memories, Mal .....you can´t forget what you feel for someone, it´s out of your hands. Emotions have a life of their own."
Inara got to her feet gracefully, before heading towards her shuttle she turned back to Mal who was still watching her.
" There is one thing I have learned in my life, Malcolm Reynolds; there are some truths that noone can sweep under the rug or smooth over with lies or even amnesia. No matter how hard you try to cover them up, no matter how deep you dig to bury them ......these truths will always fight their way back up to the surface, back into the light. Some truths never die, Mal.....they want to be told."
To be continued ...
