Here's chapter 10 for you all to enjoy and review.
This story is sucking my soul and breaking my heart to write.
Chapter 10: Why Won't You Leave?
Jayne sets the weight bar back on its stand, grabs a towel and wipes the sweat from his face; He sits up, his legs straddling the weight bench. He knows she's there.
"Come out girl," he calls.
She pokes her head over the railing. "I'm not here."
He rubs a bead of sweat off the back of his neck as she walks down the stairs like she's floating. She reaches the bottom and stops her hands folded primly in front of her. "I'm not here," she repeats.
"Sure," Jayne drops the towel on the bench, stands and grabs his orange knitted hat, which he jams on his head.
She's wearing Mal's brown coat, and Jayne wonders what he'll say when he catches her. It swamps her tiny frame. She starts doing pirouettes, the coat whipping around her. She spins faster and faster until Jayne starts to feel a little dizzy.
"Stop it," he snaps at her.
River stops twirling and starts to dance around the cargo bay. Ballet like. Her hair lashes around her face. Jayne can't pull his eyes away from her, from every pointed toe and every curved arm. He knows when she stops dancing she will die and that scares him. He wills her to keep dancing. She stops dead in front of him, her chest heaving with exertion. Jayne sucks in his breath in fear.
"Do it Jayne," she says softly licking her pink lips.
"What?" he frowns.
"Do it for me red tin soldier." She holds her hands up to him, and the cupped palms are full of water. "Drink," she orders him and forces her hands to his mouth, pouring the water down his throat. He chokes and splutters, and yanks himself away.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Kwan yin! Look." She points to a shape in a dark corner of the cargo bay.
Jayne looks at it and his eyes go wide. It's Simon. Lying on his front, head turned to one side, eyes open and blank. His lips are slightly blue. There's a puddle of water around his nose and mouth.
"Did you kill him?"
"No. Yes. Maybe." Her eyes bore into his until he falters and looks away. "He drowned. But you can stop it…"
Jayne jerks awake and stares at the ceiling, her voice echoing in his ears. He lies there breathing hard and it is a long time before he sleeps again.
"Doc! You dropped you…your…" Jayne squints at the label of the plastic pill bottle in his hand that he's just picked up off the floor. "Dio…Dioex…how do you pronounce this crap?"
Simon snatches the bottle back out of Jayne's hand roughly.
"Dioexiotimal," he says irritably.
"Meaning?" Jayne has been told to play nice, but he's not sure how much of this new attitude he can take from Simon.
"I've got a headache," Simon growls softly, before turning on his heel and leaving the dining room.
Jayne flashes his back a vicious glare and goes back to polishing Vera at the dining table.
Book enters the infirmary slowly so as not to startle Simon. The young doctor is putting a selection of syringes back into a drawer, but he's shoving them in haphazardly, in a hurry. He turns quickly.
"Can I help you?" His voice is professional, a doctor's.
Book moves further into the room. "I just came to see how you are."
Simon sighs softly. "I wish people would stop asking how I am."
"Its because they care about you."
Simon leans against the worktop and shoves his hands into his pockets. "I'm fine," he insists.
Book lays a hand on his shoulder. "Take faith son that your sister is watching over you from Heaven."
Simon fixes him with a steady look. "I don't believe in God preacher. My sister is dead. She's not in Heaven. Her body is lying in some government lab somewhere."
Book feels a shudder run down his back. Simon's voice is so hollow, so empty, so clinically detached that it hardly sounds like him at all.
Simon shrugs Book's hand away. "If you're finished I've got work to be done."
"Of course." Book nods and leaves the infirmary.
Through the windows he sees Simon bow his head and he's sure that there is a glint of tears splashing onto the work surface. He's prayed hard for the soul of River Tam, maybe its her brother who needs praying for.
"Wheredoyagowhenyoudie?"
"What?" Book looks up from his bible at Jayne's strung together sentence.
"Where do you go when you're dead?" Jayne asks again pausing in his food preparation.
Book lays his bible down on the table and steeples his fingers. "Well that depends. Most people go to Heaven." He sees Jayne's sceptical look. "God is very forgiving."
"So when you're dead you're just gone? You don't hang about or nothing'?"
"Well some people believe in ghosts. Usually it's said to be a restless spirit with unfinished business…"
"So they don't…talk to you?"
"When you die your soul belongs to God. It would be for a very special reason that someone would pass up the chance to walk at his side in the Kingdom of Heaven and remain in limbo. Why do you ask?"
Jayne shifts uneasily. "River…she…she talked to me."
"Before she…"
"No, after." Jayne swallows and knows he sounds as crazy as she was. "I hear her whispering in my head."
"Jayne you realise that it is highly unlikely that she's talking to you. You did hit your head. Maybe you need more sleep…"
"But…she talks to me. Tells me things. I think I'm going crazy"
"Its natural to grieve and feel confused when someone you care about dies…"
"Care about? I don't ruttin'…" Jayne trails off knowing that somehow the Shepard is right. "She's just a girl…"
Book looks at him. "If River is talking to you then there is a reason. God has a plan for everyone Jayne."
"Then what's his plan for me?" Jayne mutters under his breath to himself as he goes back to his food.
Kaylee finds Simon fast asleep in the common area at about midnight. She's been fixing a leaking pipe in the atmo-system so has missed dinner. He is sprawled across two seats, his feet up, one arm dangling and his head hanging just slightly off the edge. She smiles to herself. He looks peaceful. He needs all the peace he can get at the moment. She leaves the room and returns a minute later carrying a blanket. She lays it over Simon and tucks it in around him, carefully so as not to wake him. As she gently moves his arm to tuck it under the blanket he mumbles something. She freezes, her hand still holding his arm sure she has woken him. But he mumbles again and she knows he's not awake.
"River…" A flash of pain cuts across his face.
Kaylee feels like her heart is breaking for him. The pain in that one word is so raw. She wonders what he is dreaming and wishes she could stop it.
"Oh baby," she whispers softly, tucks his arm under the blanket and smoothes it over him.
Simon soothes a little at her touch and lies still again. Kaylee sits back and watches him sleep. She thinks about the last time she saw him asleep, in someone else's bed. She never spoke to him about that, she'd meant to, but…how can she now? It seems so petty. Simon is mature enough not to hold a grudge. He'll forgive her without a formal apology, she knows he will. She silently stands and leaves the room, her stomach forgotten. Let him sleep. He needs his peace.
River leans over him. "Wake up my swan prince."
Jayne opens his eyes and she skips back a couple of paces. "I ain't no swan."
She's standing on a black square. He sits up groggily; he's sitting in a large white square. Where the hell is he? There are hundreds of squares, all black and white stretching away into the distance.
"Just a game," she calls sweetly. "Male swan. Cob. Jayne Cobb."
Jayne growls under his breath and stands up.
"Are you playing the game Jayne? King and Queen. One step sideways and two forwards." She smiles again. "The dam broke. You all got swept away. But he'd drowning."
"Tell me it straight," he growls at her. "I ain't got time for a mind-fuck girl."
"Not a girl anymore. I'm dead."
His blood runs to ice in his veins.
She smiles at the expression on his face. "Its alright. I flew away. They trod water. You swallowed some. He's going to go under."
"Simon?"
She nods, a pained expression on her face. "She can't help him right."
"I'm sorry." The words stick in his throat. "I wasn't quick enough. Even you didn't deserve…" Jayne steps forwards into her square.
"Tin soldiers don't move that way. You're not playing by the rules…"
"Never do…" he leans into kiss her, and wakes up alone in his bunk.
He lies on his back for a long time staring very hard at the pictures of naked women stuck to his wall, but he can't shake the image of the crazy girl from his mind. She's just a girl. He rolls over and pulls open the curtain that covers his weapons.
From the centre of the display he selects a small slim black pistol. He grabs his sharpest knife and with the tip of the blade carves the words 'River Tam' round the base of the handle.
"I name you River," he says solemnly to the gun.