Disclaimer : I don't own …you know that ….
NOTES: Thanks ( you know who you are!) For reminding me to get my muse off her lazy ass and back to work! I ripped straight from her grubby little hands! Also , thanks for still reading and enjoying my stories so much! Honey, you´ll never have to get on your knees to keep me writing! But it means a lot that you would! THANK YOU!
REPOSE
Mal blinked once, shaking his head to chase away the last remnants of sleep that were desperately clinging to his mind.
She did not just say that, did she?
Naw …she couldn't have.
"Come again?" Mal mumbled, rubbing his eyes furiously.
River tilted her head to the side slightly, looking at him from behind the dark strands of hair falling over her face. Frowning, she thought that they didn't really have the time for an in depths discussion, so she opted for the short version.
"Marauders on Serenity, Jayne and I tricked them, but you should come and be in charge …"
She said, already turning away from him. "You might wanna bring a gun." She added almost like an afterthought.
Mal's eyebrows shut upwards as he lunged off the bed simultaneously, grabbing for her. He ended up on the floor at her feet with a sliver of her nightgown in his left. River froze, one foot already up on the ladder, staring at the captain with a furrowed brow.
"What are you doing?" she asked, her voice sounding neutral and calm enough to make Mal wonder…..really wonder. Gathering himself up off the floor, Mal squinted at her from under lowered eyelids. He pursed his lips, looking her over once more.
Something was definitely not right……
"See now, I think at this point I should be the one askin´ that kinda question. So, before we do anything else you might wanna give me a hint as to why you suddenly speak in full sentences that I can actually understand."
For a moment she just looked at him and then the strangest thing happened; Mal could watch her whole face light up like candle and something close to amusement crossed her features.
"Oh ...you mean, why am I suddenly not crazy anymore?"
Mal looked at her, a little taken aback at how forward she was on the subject of her mental status, but he recovered quickly.
"If that's the way you like to put it. Yeah …that'd be a good start."
"Actually …" River frowned slightly, biting her lip. "Actually I'm still crazy, if that's what you want to call it ….I just…." She stopped, her brows knitting together in her attempt to find the right words. "I just recently found a way to stabilize , at least for a certain amount of time. I do not know for how long I will be able to keep it up, but at least for certain periods of time …I think I can bring order to the chaos, if you will. It's kind of strange because the answer was there all the time …"
"Well, shiny …so what answer might that be?" Mal asked a little confused.
"Ohh ….basically it's …Jayne." River answered with a little shrug.
Jayne …Jayne Cobb? It took a moment for the information to register.
" JAYNE?" Mal sputtered. Now drugs, that would've made sense, but Jayne? River Tam definitely was crazy!
"You might wanna elaborate on that one."
"We really don't have the time now..."
"Oh, I think we'll take the time for you to explain to me how exactly Jayne Cobb is the answer to your mental stability problem, River!" Mal said, a deep furrow developing between his eyebrows. He could feel a massive headache gathering itself being his eyes, almost like a storm cloud.
She sighed, stepping down from the ladder. On equal ground, she had to raise her head to look up at Malcolm Reynolds.
"It's hard to explain, really. I guess you could say I'm borrowing some of his stability, his mental capacity to back up mine. You could say, I'm leaning on him to sustain my sanity …kind of like a crutch."
Mal could help but chuckle at the idea of Jayne being compared to a crutch, but managed to disguise it as a cough. Judging from River Tam's facial expression, she didn't buy it one bit.
"Borrowing from Jayne's mental capacity, ha?" Mal finally said, trying to hide a snarky smirk "Now I don't wanna burst your bubble there River, but you really think it's a good idea to be leanin´on Jayne of all people? Don't get me wrong, if this really helps with you bein´crazy and all ….I guess I should say that's a good thing, but Jayne ain´t really the smartest person on this ship. If you catch my drift…"
River looked at him silently for a few seconds, thinking very carefully about how to phrase her thoughts. The smile on her face was gone, leaving a serious, glum look on her features.
"Have you ever eaten an orange, captain?"
Mal frowned at her in renewed confusion.
"It's been a while, but… yes…."
River nodded, taking a deep breath. "To get at the fruit, you have to get rid of the peel first. In a way, our mind is like an orange. It has its own …peel, to protect the interior from being chewed up. What they did to me ….at this place…"
"The academy?"
"Yes." River nodded, gnawing her lip, looking at her feet. Suddenly her voice sounded much smaller, less collected. "They ripped that peel from me, you know, to get at the juicy bits …to get to my mind. They ripped it from me piece by piece, slowly, deliberately, until there was nothing left between me and the world."
She took another deep breath, looking up, straight into Mall's face. Her voice became a breathy whisper.
"Can you imagine what it's like, to not be able to stop thinking? What it's like to have the entire outside world cave in on you, come rushing down like a waterfall without end in sight? To see everything, feel everything, to know …everything. And it never stops!"
"River …" Malcolm said quietly, in what he hoped sounded like a soothing tone of voice. There was something in her eyes, something frantic and haunted that made him weary. He reached out a hand for her shoulder, but River shrank back from his touch, stepping out of reach. She shook her head.
"No…" she said, calmer than before. " Drugs cannot put that peel back together, nothing can...it is gone. It does not grow back, just like the orange's peel will not. But I think I found a solution …for periods of time, at least."
River crossed her arms in front of her chest, hugging herself tightly.
"You say Jayne is not smart, and that is true …but only in certain terms. In fact he has a very strong mind, strong enough to give me this edge. He thinks differently, in some ways …I cannot explain it, but….I can use a part of his mind like a wall. It shields mine from the outside, filters the noise and the emotions ….it keeps them from me, so I can sort through. It helps me think."
Mal pursed his lips again, looking at River Tam long and hard.
"It really works for you?"
She nodded slowly, not taking her eyes off him.
"What's Jayne thinking about you hijacking part of his brain?" he asked, trying to hide a smirk again.
River countered with a mischievous smile. "He's not too happy about it. He thinks of it along the lines of me leeching him dry, until his brain is mush."
Mal couldn't help laughing about that idea, shaking his head while reaching for his gun-belt.
"That'll be the day…" he muttered. Then he became aware of the girl's interested expression.
" Somethin´wrong?" Apart from the obvious preposterous situation …he added in his mind.
"Jayne wouldn't give me a gun…" River told him, the amused smile back on her face.
Mal's eyebrows jumped upwards again.
"Well ain´t that a comfort? Seems you haven't leeched away all his sanity so far!"
