DISCLAIMER: The brilliant characters of this ( now emmy nominated …yay…..) show belong to Mutant Enemy and Fox. I just like to …play.
NOTES: First of all thanks for the feedback and SORRY for letting you wait!
A big Hurrah ..for the impending release of Firefly on DVD. Can´t wait till December!!!
So here goes the new plot……I hope you´ll like it since I´m just getting started. There will be no updates until 9th August since I´ll be in Finnland on holiday . But since we´ll be in the middle of nowhere with ..ahhh …NOTHING to do I think I´ll have updates galore for you when I return .
That is if there are still people who wanna read this!!
Thanx so much …hope you enjoy. The ride is still a little bumpy but I got some good thinks still up my sleeve.
EROS AND PSYCHE
That gorram´girl!
Jayne´s face grew solemn again, sombre even.
He let her wrists slide from his grasp.
Sensing the sudden change in his mood, River became very still. She couldn´t quite explain the sudden change in his expression.
But she could feel his arms winding around her back very slowly, tightening around her, encompassing her in a ring of hard muscle and sinew.
Jayne looked down into her upturned, puzzled face with slightly narrowed eyes and swallowed hard.
This little girl could yank his chain when other people would run for cover. He knew he had done a whole lotta questionable things in his life, made a lot a bad decisions …..wrong choices and she knew it. She did not care.
He had tried to push her away but she just kept on coming, completely deaf to any sort of objection he had thrown her way.
Most people would have resigned; most people would not have made the effort to see another side of him. So far the only other person to make this effort had been Malcolm Reynolds. Mal had given him a second chance after he screwed up on Ariel. But even Mal had his limits.
River Tam didn´t seem to have any……it didn´t even compare……
She had no boundaries, no confines. Everything she did was governed by instinct and emotion.
A part of him still could not believe that she would go through so much trouble…….for someone like him …..who could not be more wrong for a girl like her.
" What?" River asked finally as the silence dragged on. His grave expression made her more than nervous.
She felt him pull her a little closer, taking one deep , shuddering breath.
Following a strange impulse Jayne could not quite explain, he bent down to touch his forehead to hers.
" It´s good to have you back, darlin´."
River sensed the tension leave her body and relaxed, leaning against him completely.
" So you missed me …a little?"
Jayne couldn´t help grinning, he could feel her breath on his face. One of his arms moved up, his right hand weaving through her hair to the back of her neck.
That gorram´ stubborn, unpredictable, dangerous girl…..
" You bet your ruddin ´life!"
Her dark, knowing eyes were afire with hundreds of different emotions, taking his breath away.
Jayne laughed again.
No woman had ever been able to hold his interest the way she did. And she wasn´t even a woman ……she was a girl, a stubborn, dangerous pixie.
He frowned.
How did she do it?
" That´s a strange ruddin´stroke of luck I´ve been having with you, sparrow. Don´t think I don´t know that!"
River could feel her forehead crease up just a little. There was an odd mood about him…….he had never been like this before. Like he wanted to stop talking, stop saying all those things, but somehow he could not stop the words from spilling out of him.
" Your brother, Mal, Inara, even Kaylee…..they all don´t get how or why ……Gorramit, I don´t even know myself. But I know they all look at you and tink that you´re the best ruddin´ thing that ever happened to me…….that I don´t deserve you- even when you were crazy. And I know that your gorram´ brother still thinks that one day, you´ll just wake up and open those pretty eyes of yours and see it ……and then you´ll have a change of heart."
River sighed, leaning her head against his chest. His arms were still around her, so strong and safe. She knew he had just spilled his guts to her, involuntarily. She did not need to reach out with her mind to know that he had meant all that and that he could not believe that he had said it. She knew this was as close as Jayne Cobb would ever come to telling her that he felt what she felt. And it was enough.
She did not want anything else from him, it was already more than she had expected.
" Listen …." She whispered softly, her lips so close to his neck that they grazed his skin as she talked.
" My feelings for you wouldn´t even change when I could not remember, they just won´t …….I love you. I said it and I meant it. It told you ….no power in the verse…."
Suddenly it was so very still, all she could her was their breathing. He lowered his head, his lips on the top of her head.
Suddenly that simple, almost brotherly gesture felt incredibly intimate to her.
River felt her heartbeat quicken. This was a side of Jayne Cobb that not even River had encountered before.
Jayne closed his eyes and smiled. She still smelled like lavender.
" Why?"
River wasn´t even sure if she had heard the question with her ears or with her mind.
She answered it anyway.
" Because that night in cargo-bay…….the world stopped being a shrill chaos to me. It was like waking up from this nightmare that night and I could start to live again. You were like an anchor and I will never let go of that. You told me …that night when I cried like a baby, that everything was going to be okay. And that was all I needed to hear. Simon must have said it a thousand times, but he lacked conviction. He was as helpless as I was and I felt it. But you I believed. You told me I would be alright and I believed you. You are that person for me ….."
Jayne felt her breath run out in a deep sigh that made her chest rise and fall against him.
His eyes still studied her face as she looked up at him again. Almost as though he tried to memorize it.
This gorram´ girl made him so gorram´ mushy inside and part of him hated it. But the thought of not having her around to aggravate him was simply gut- wrenching.
It was River who finally leaned into him, closing the distance between their lips in one swift move. She was surprised how utterly still he was, only the tightening of his arms behind her back let her know that he wanted the kiss as much as she did.
Only when she started to pull back Jayne slid one hand up her back in order to cradle the back of her neck.
River smiled at him, her face only inches away from his, as the familiar tingling sensation spread through her. The warm, golden feeling was back…..running through her veins like her blood, making her skin flush and her heartbeat quicken.
It was her, no doubt about ……Jayne thought, balling his hand into her cool, sleek hair.
There was that mischievous sparkle in her eye again….
" I think we´ve talked this through enough.. " she breathed.
Jayne just nodded and kissed her again, eliciting a small mewl from River when his embrace swept her clean off her feet.
Her arms locked behind his neck.
" I think ….." she whispered, giggling under her breath,
" …I think you should take me to bed."
Jayne laughed soundlessly into her neck, nuzzling her smooth, pale skin. The only way she could tell that he was laughing was the rumbling in his broad chest.
" I can do that…."
Simon woke up in a chair to find his bed empty. He must have fallen asleep while watching over his sister in her artificial coma.
River must have regained consciousness because she was gone. But she had covered him with a blanket before she went, she had not woken him.
Simon figured that her plan must have worked out and he wasn´t quite sure how he felt about that. It didn´t take a genius to figure out where his sister had disappeared to and Simon wasn´t
quite sure how he felt about that either.
His little baby sister ……..Simon still couldn´t quite see her in the young woman she had turned out to be now. There was a dull ache inside of him…..there was a part of River that was lost to him.
He loved her dearly, but he missed the darling girl he remembered.
So what was he supposed to do now…tell Malcolm Reynolds the truth?
He did not know……
He wanted to talk things over with River so very badly, make sure she would forgive him.
River did not open her eyes, drifting through her warm, comfy dream.
" What is it?" she whispered in her thoughts.
In her mind her replica cocked it´s head to the side like a curious pigeon. The move was completely inhuman ….seemed unnatural and frightening.
" I don´t understand …this."
River smiled, gliding into the dreamscape.
The thing had left the dark desert and was now sitting on the bridge in the Japanese Park.
" What ?"
" You and this man …."
Against her will River felt that she blushed.
" You are not supposed to! That part of my life is mine and mine alone! It will not concern you."
" Why?"
" Because it is something I cannot share with you…..ever. That part of my life is closed to you."
The thing stared at her for a moment, thinking.
" I just want to know …"
" What?" River asked impatiently.
She had no patience for this now. She wanted to go back to basking in the afterglow, to sleeping curled up in his arms.
" What it´s like ….emotion. To feel this strongly…..can you share that? Not always …just this once so I can understand why you do the things you do."
River looked into her mirror-images eyes. There was no betrayal there …..just mild interest and something like confusion.
She swallowed hard, thinking about the request. After a while she nodded, holding out her hand.
The thing got to it´s feet, taking River´s hand.
River felt herself take a deep breath, closing her eyes she let go…….remembering everything she had felt since she had come aboard Serenity.
She let it all flow through her like an electric current, washing over her in waves……the hurt, the pain, the guilt, the anger.
The other thing gasped.
River concentrated on other things ……the good things. She pictured Kaylee´s face in her mind and let her affection and the friendship she felt for the young mechanic flow through her.
She recalled the things she had seen Wash and Zoë do when they thought nobody was paying attention…..the little things like a touch, a smile, a shared joke, a kiss….
She thought of Inara and how often she had marvelled at the companion ´s beauty and grace……..but also about her good, well guarded heart. In contrast to a lit of other people Inara´s beauty was not just skin- deep. Inara was beautiful inside and out.
Jayne ……
River felt she had to be glowing, that her feelings would seep through every pore of her body…illuminating her from the inside out.
River felt the other´s sharp intake as she broke the connection. She opened her eyes.
The thing stood in front of her, swaying slightly.
" Oh…." It whispered quietly.
" I never knew."
Jayne opened his eyes, looking down the length of his body. River was lying beside him, head resting on his chest, one leg casually thrown over his thighs.
He was in the process of weaving one hand through her hair when all of a sudden River jerked upright.
" Gorrammit!" she yelped breathlessly, turning around to look at Jayne.
The mercenary crossed his arms under his head, a grin spreading across his features.
" Looks like I have a rather bad influence on you" he commented on her choice of words.
River´s eyes widened as she remembered…….
" We need to get up, we need to wake the captain ….", she told Jayne, jumping out of his bed.
" Darlin´….not that I don´t enjoy the view …but you might wanna put on some ruddin´ clothes first !"
When he saw the look on her face he grew serious. The time for banter was obviously over.
" What is it , River?"
" I just remembered …..the messages she sent."
Jayne nodded.
" Yeah ….we figured she signalled the alliance bit so far …"
River shook her head.
" She sent two messages …..one to the alliance and another one. I just remembered to whom."
Sitting up, Jayne moved a hand over his face and neck. He could tell from the expression on her face that he was not going to like this …..and neither would Mal.
" Tell me …"
River looked at him apologetically. None of this was really her fault, but she still felt like it was.
" Niska…."
