DISCLAIMER: I don´t own Firefly or any of the Characters on Serenity. Everything belongs to Mutant Enemy and FOX.
NOTES: Ahhh …Finnland. Inspiring ….and very beautiful. Aaanyway……
Thanx again for the feedback and your patience! I hope I made the wait worth your while!!
The quotations come from Jewel´s beautiful song " Break me"
TIDAL
Malcolm Reynolds told himself that he should have known better. There was no way things could be going as smooth as it had seemed just minutes ago.
He had just settled down in the kitchen with a steaming hot cup of very expensive coffee when River Tam had burst into the dining area with Jayne in tow.
She had been talking for quiet some time now, gesturing animatedly. Her voice had carried through Serenity so it did not take long for Wash and Zoë to bustle in too, followed by Kaylee who now stood in the doorway. Simon had given the whole assembly a once over look and was settled for leaning against the kitchen cabinet, his eyes never leaving his sister.
Even though River was apparently speaking to him, not a single word she had said had registered in Mal´s brain.
It was more like some sort of background noise, because the captain´s brain was far too busy taking in all the other ….non-verbal information. And there was plenty to be seen.
River was wearing her purple dress that she had apparently just thrown on out of an impulse, because the cloth was crinkled and creased. Her hair was an even greater mess than usual, with elaborate tresses falling into her face while she was gesticulating. She shoved them back over her shoulders in a motion that seemed both impatient and unaware at the same time.
There was a healthy, pinkish glow to her face, a fire in her eyes…. Mal narrowed his eyes and stared at Jayne.
It didn´t take a genius to figure out what River and Jayne might have been up to before disturbing his quiet time. At least Jayne had enough good sense to look embarrassed. Malcolm Reynolds was not quiet sure how he felt about that …..
Now wait a minute ……..
How did that come about, when River had lost her memory and had just been on the brink of a nervous break down two days ago?
She had just found out that they had been keeping things from her and now…..
How did this girl go from falling apart to her current state in less than 48 hours?
Mal got the distinct feeling that there was something in this whole scenario that he was missing. From the look on his first officer's face he could tell, he had been missing a whole damn lot.
His eyes fixed on River again. Slowly some of the things River said got through to him.
" You did what?" he yelled, standing up so swiftly that he spilled some of his coffee on the table.
River stopped in mid sentence, staring at him. He had not really been listening to her.
" Captain?"
" Yeah…." Mal nodded to her.
" Can you repeat the part about how you got your brother to put you in a coma again, so you could resurrect that thing that nearly managed to get us all killed?"
" The thing the alliance put in my head." River clarified.
" That one exactly! What were you thinking?"
He turned around to throw Simon an angry look.
" And you went along with it…….have you both lost your minds?"
" She left me no choice!" Simon returned angrily.
River sighed.
" So …"
Wash´s eyes wandered between River and the captain.
" Does that mean you are crazy again?"
" No!" River and Jayne said in unison.
Zoë frowned.
" So what does it mean?"
" And why the hell did you not run this preposterous idea by me? The last time I checked I was still the captain of this gorram´ ship!"
" Because you would have said no!" River answered unperturbed.
" Damn right I would have! What makes you think you can just go and disobey my orders like that?"
" Well, technically she didn´t. See …since she never asked you and you never really said that she couldn´t and so…"
Everybody stared at Wash until his wife put a hand on his arm.
" I think it would be safer for you to not bring this up now, honey!" she told him.
" Things are different this time, captain."
" Oh really? I don´t see how."
" She´s got it under control, Mal.", Jayne cut in.
Mal turned, pointing a finger at him.
" Now, I don´t really think that I wanna hear your side of this story!"
" Please, Captain…." River interrupted patiently.
" Let me explain"
Mal stared at her for a minute before he sat back down.
" Please do!"
" I needed to do it, it was the only way open to me, the only way for me to have my memories back."
" You read your brother´s diary, you knew what had happened."
River shook her head.
" You saw what not knowing did to me!"
She sounded wistful, almost anguished. River looked at her feet as though she couldn´t bear to meet anyone´s gaze. She knew they all remembered her sobbing with abandon, hugging herself in sickbay. Cowering like some trapped, scared little animal. A shiver went through her.
Never…never did she want to be reduced to such an insecure, confused thing, that did not know which way to turn…..never again. The alliance had done this to her once……she had fought her way out of it and it had cost her dearly. She controlled her own fate now and she could not let it go.
" You know it´s not the same. Apart from that, my brother did not know everything that happened. There were so many blanks …..reading something, knowing it and remembering it are different things."
She looked Mal straight in the eye.
" I needed to know."
Mal returned her serious gaze, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
" So there was no other way to retrieve them and you could not go without?"
River felt them all staring at her.
She felt Kaylee´s confused scared look. It was almost as though she could taste her emotions like something bitter on her tongue. She was wondering if they could still be friends. The things she could do, the things she was capable of scared the pretty mechanic. River looked down. How could she explain that most of the time she was just as scared.
But she could not, would not feel sorry for what she did. Maybe her head, her mind would have been satisfied with the way things had been. But her heart ……
" No."
" River, when you came aboard this ship some of the things you said and did were stark raving mad. You told me yourself it was this thing that did this to you. You told me that it would do anything to take over. Hell, you even told me that if it won I´d have to shoot you to make sure that you could not hurt anyone."
A gasp went through the people around the table. They had not known, neither River nor Mal had ever mentioned this conversation. Now their looks wandered between them in utter horror.
" That can´t be good." Wash whispered, suddenly wishing he was somewhere else entirely.
Jayne stared down at the back of River´s head, grinding his teeth.
River felt the tension building and closed her eyes for a second.
" It´s different this time." She repeated slowly.
" How can it be different, River. You didn´t even trust that thing when you had a truce!"
Mal didn´t like to put her on the hot seat like this. Apart from that …..he had just obviously put her in a very awkward position with Jayne. He could tell by the look on the mercenary´s face that he did not much like the idea of Mal shooting his …..whatever River might be to him.
Much less her asking Mal to do so.
Malcolm Reynolds liked River Tam well enough. When she wasn´t out of her mind she was a quiet useful member of the crew, there were things she could do that came in very handy. But there was no telling what might happen with her around. So Mal needed to know.
" What changed?"
River lifted her head, meeting his questioning look.
" I killed her." She said simply.
" I killed her and now I brought her back to me. The reason I lost my memory was that ……" she hesitated, not quite sure how to explain things in a way that would not sound very, very bad.
" In each one of us there is a dark side, a violent, dangerous side. We let it out when we fight for our lives, or for somebody who is dear to us, most of the time we control it. In some of us it is stronger than in others. I don´t know how or why, but somehow, when the alliance put her in my head she took up that place, she filled that space. She wasn´t always a part of me, but she is now. If I abandon this part of me, I can never be whole. There is nothing to fill that void. I can never be myself again without that part of me. When I killed her, I lost my memories because I lost a part of me. There needs to be balance, captain."
Mal nodded slowly, as if he was pondering what she said. It always scared him to a certain degree that some of the things she said made perfect sense to him.
" But it is possible for you to live without that thing in your head."
" Yes. But I would never really be me ……I wouldn´t …know."
It was just a tiny gesture. The way her head moved to the right, her gaze wavering just the split second it took for her to look over her shoulder to where Jayne was standing behind her.
Mal caught it none the less and it amazed him beyond compare.
He couldn´t believe that the consideration of not remembering whatever it was they had, could bring so much pain to her face. Jayne still said nothing, He just stood there and looked grim. Despite the length that Jayne Cobb had gone for this little girl, he still hated being on display like this.
Mal knew that Simon caught the look too. It was obvious that the young doctor wasn´t amazed, but severely annoyed.
"Why would you trust this thing now, River? You have to give me something here….."
" She would not try to hurt anyone on this ship because it is not what I want. She is a part of me now, a sort of annoying and independent part, but she belongs to me even so. This is not a truce we have captain. When I brought her back I made the rules very clear. I gave her boundaries and she accepted them."
Mal´s eyes narrowed slightly.
" She?"
River thought about it for a moment, than she simply shrugged.
" That´s the way it presents itself to me. It looks like a she ……like me. What it comes down to captain is that she is not a threat anymore, not to this ship or this crew anyway. She does not want to leave again, so she took what I offered. She wants to belong somewhere and now she belongs to me."
" You trust her?"
River´s steady gaze never wavered.
" I do."
" You sure?" Zoë asked seriously with raised eyebrows.
" Yes"
She thought about it for a moment, then nodded her assent. Zoë had seen River Tam covered in Reaver- blood from head to toe. She had listened to her husband explaining that River had blown up their whole ship and yet managed to escape without so much as a scrape. She had been there when River had cut up Jayne in a move that none of them had seen coming.
She was still not sure how she felt about all this and she didn´t exactly share the girl´s downright disastrous taste in men. But River seemed to quite capable of taking care of herself and she believed that River would not lie.
" Shiny" Mal said , taking a sip of his now cold coffee and frowning with distaste.
" Glad we got that covered then."
" There is something else." Jayne said. After the moment of silence his raw voice filled the mass in a booming sound.
Mal looked at him.
" Now why does that not surprise me?"
" The messages she sent….from the Reaver ship…." River elaborated.
" We figured she signalled the alliance." Wash said.
" Yes, but that´s not the problem."
" Oh …." Kaylee muttered unhappily.
" Somehow I don´t think I wanna hear this."
" Who?" Mal just asked blandly.
" Niska…."
Wash looked up in panic.
" Niska? How …why …..how?"
Mal pursed his lips, staring into his cold coffee….. so much for things going smooth.
" She told him what?"
" Our position."
" You are sure that´s all ….nothing more?"
River shrugged.
" She did not have that much time……"
Wash looked from Mal to his wife and then to River.
" That´s all he needed to know really, if he wanted to send someone after us, someone to track us down." Zoe said wryly.
" All the more astonishing that after all this time, nothing bad has happened."
" So ….does that´s good, right?" Kaylee asked, eyes wide.
" Maybe he did not get the message after all. Or after what happened last time …..he doesn´t want to …you know, get into trouble with us again."
Mal took a hard look at Kaylee´s hopeful face. He knew that she was still shook up about what happened the last time they had encountered Niska.
" Maybe…"
" Sir?" Zoë stood up, giving him a questioning look.
" You never know, Lil´Kaylee might be right. But we should be vigilant…..careful, just in case."
He shot River another look.
" You sure this is the last surprise your little friend will come up with?"
" I promise!"
" Shiny!" Malcolm Reynolds sighed.
" I don´t think this day will get any better!" he muttered when Inara entered the kitchen area.
The beautiful companion was clad in a shiny sarong and midriff baring top, looking as fresh and beautiful as a spring morning.
" I ´ve got a client."
Everybody looked up at her, but her eyes were fixed on Mal.
" I need to be on Remus in less than 24 hours."
" We are not going to Remus."
" Where are we going then, Mal?" Inara asked sweetly, but her voice was laced with impatience.
" Haven´t decided yet." He told her dismissively in a very clipped tone. Suddenly everybody made it their very urgent business to look everywhere but at those two.
" I need to keep my appointment. You make it quite impossible to conduct my business and you know it, Malcolm Reynolds. Maybe if you could make up your mind as to where we will be going…." She sighed, shooting a very foul look his way.
" Listen, Mal. This client is a very important high-ranking official, Remus is one of the few colonies out her that is thriving on trade. I´m quite certain that even you will find a client there who will make this trip worth you while."
" What makes you think I didn´t already take on another job?" he challenged, leaning back in his cair.
" Did you?" Inara asked simply, still smiling pleasantly. When he did not answer, Inara turned towards Zoë, lifting one elegantly curved eyebrow in a silent question.
" No!" Zoë answered truthfully.
Inara´s gaze wandered back to Mal. They stared at each other for a beat.
" Then Remus is where we will be going!" she told him before she turned to leave the mass.
Once Jayne had made sure they were out of hearing distance and quiet alone in the corridor, he grabbed River´s wrist . River turned around with a puzzled look on her face, her own momentum spinning her around to stumble against his chest.
She looked at his grim, reserved expression with a furrowed brow.
"What the gorram hell …..you told the captain to shoot you?"
His voice was very low, dangerously close to a growl.
River bit her lip. She did not want to have this conversation with him now. She was so tired to just explain herself all the time. Every time she thought they were finally done struggling uphill, something else came up.
" Yes." She answered very quietly. She was not going to lie to him. She could feel his tension, his anger radiating off of him like heat.
" What were you thinking, River? What if he had shot you."
"The captain would not do that, not without being sure….."
" And seeing you covered in dried blood like you had taken a ruddin´ bath in it could not have been enough?"
River averted her gaze from his angry face.
" I had to take precautions……I could not let her hurt anyone but me."
" And why the ruddin´ hell didn´t you tell me?" Jayne tried to hold his voice down so as not to yell at her.
His hand was still curled around her dainty wrist in an iron grip. River could feel his fingers digging into her skin, hard enough to leave a bruise, but she did not wince.
I will meet you in some place
Where the light dims itself to soft repose
His facial expression was fierce, bordering on rage. He towered above her, glaring down at her so incredibly intimidating …..still it did not scare her.
She understood.
He had let her sneak through all his defences, had allowed her to come closer than anyone ever had. And she had withheld something from him, not trusted him……..
Every time he thought he understood….things changed.
" And what would you have done?" she finally asked tonelessly, steadily looking into his eyes.
" Would you have shot me if I asked you to? The things she did on that ship, I saw part of it in my dreams and it was enough to make me want to run and hide. Thinking of it makes my skin crawl. She still holds that memory for me. It is hers, she won´t give it up. She won´t share it with me because she fears what it might do to me."
River could feel her eyes fill up with tears and drew a ragged breath to keep from crying.
" Don´t you understand? You, the captain ….you don´t know what she can do, what she would do. And I don´t wish to see it!"
" You don´t know the things I´ve seen, girl!"
River shook her head. She knew that Zoë, the captain, even Jayne had all seen their fair share of pain.
" You don´t understand, Jayne! The alliance made her, created her, but she has never been under their control, like all their other experiments they must have stowed away in that facility. Because I got out! She is not a living thing, she does not think the way we do! She has no remorse, no sense of guilt, of right or wrong. She only knows survival. No matter how much you want the people to think that you have no conscience, that you are hard and cold……you feel guilt. You feel bad about things you´ve done and we both know it! She will never feel that way, she does not feel."
" If she is that dangerous…."
" She isn´t …..not the way you think."
River interrupted him harshly. His fingers were still digging into her skin. His grip had not lightened up.
" She can be, if not controlled there would be no stopping her. But she wants to go on existing. So now she answers to me….remember when she cut you, just like that? She wasn´t going for the kill. She was just testing the waters, seeing if she could do it. If she had taken me over back then, after the Reavers. Would you have wanted her on this ship?"
" You should have ruddin´told me River!"
He yelled at her this time. River blinked, looking up at him with the most fragile expression.
Very slowly she took a step closer, reaching up to touch his face, her fingers running over the stubble on his cheek.
" And what would you have done?" she whispered again.
" Could you have shot me in cold blood? I told the captain because it was his ship, his crew. He could not shoot anyone just like that…..but if he had to do it to protect his own…..
It´s not the same with you and me…..It´s not that I did not trust you, Jayne. You are a big, strong man, a dangerous opponent ….you could pull my arm out of it´s socket if you wanted to and there is nothing I could do about it. But could you really shoot me ? Could you hurt me that way?"
I will let you undress me
But I warn you;
I´ve got thorns like any rose
Jayne stared into her eyes, unmoving.
He had hit her once, he suddenly remembered. He had hit her hard enough to split her lip ….back when she had cut him. He remembered her small frame crashing into a table from the power of that backhand slap.
" I´m hurting you now." He said hoarsely, as if he just realized how tight his grip around her wrist was. She could see the understanding hit his eyes.
" Yes, you are." River returned softly.
And you could hurt me with your bare hands
You could hurt me using the sharp edge of what you say
Jayne stepped back from her, releasing her so quickly that it left River swaying ever so slightly. The shame he felt about hurting her was plain to see. It had shocked him how easily she brought out the things he constantly held in check.
" I´m sorry." He growled.
I´m lost to you now
And no amount of reason could save me
It was as though for a moment he had forgotten that, after all the things she had done, she was still just a delicate, petite girl. She might have a strong mind, she might know her way around weaponry, but she was still a girl.
A girl you could hurt,…… she had once said.
As he looked at her now, Jayne noticed that apart from all the bravado she had shown so far, River was still scared. But she had not shrunk back from him…..had not recoiled, not even as he had hurt her.
I know who you are and it doesn´t scare me.
" I´m sorry too….."
River sighed again.
" Please don´t be mad at me. I need…."
Jayne breathed deep, one hand pulling her towards him.
That gorram´girl did a very, very good job at driving him insane.
" s´alright, sparrow. I´m sorry."
He hated saying it, River knew that. The fact that he had said it twice meant a lot.
She leaned against him, into him, letting his body hold all her weight.
" I´m very tired."
She could feel the rumble of laughter shaking his body, even before Jayne really started to laugh.
" What ?" River asked, her face still buried in his chest.
" Oh nothing…" Jayne answered, suddenly sounding incredibly amused. It always amazed her how fast he could go from one mood to the other without interruption, in a matter of seconds. His emotions, no matter how well hidden, were always simmering right beneath the surface of his self- control. He was not cruel or violent. He was the only way he knew to be.
" I was just thinking. Since we´ll be on Remus anyway, I thought you might want to go buy yourself some clothes that are more suitable for living on a ruddin´space ship. Something different from those flimsy dresses. Maybe a pair of those interesting leather trousers that you like to strut around in …..in some of your dreams."
River´s lips curled into a devious smile as she lifted her head.
" Oh, you´d like that……"
" Damn right I would" Jayne grinned. What made things even better ….Simon would hate it.
