Time, sometimes the time just slips away
And you're left with yesterday
Left with the memories
I, I'll always think of you and smile
And be happy for the time
I had you with me
Though we go our separate ways
I won't forget so don't forget
The memories we made...
Leanne Rimes – "Please Remember"
Simon stormed through the ship looking for Mal. He had already checked his bunk, but he wasn't there anymore. He had tried several other places before he finally found the captain in the bridge alone, sitting in the pilot's chair just watching the stars. He turned at the sound of Simon's stomping footsteps.
"What happened?" Mal said rising out of the chair, ready for action. Simon sputtered for a moment before he found enough control to say what was on his mind.
"You have to do something about Jayne. I'll put up with his vulgar remarks about me and heaven knows I put up with his remarks about my sister. But this time, he went too far!" Simon raged, too riled up to just stand still.
"Wait, wait." Mal held up his hands in an effort to calm the young doctor down. "What did Jayne go and do now?"
"He hurt Princess; she is in my sickbay right now with a deep cut in her arm! She was so distressed that I had to give her a sedative so she won't hurt herself." Simon shouted, pointing down the corridor where Wash and Zoë had appeared suddenly, drawn to the sound of shouting. Mal could see Book and Kaylee appearing from their respective areas. But Jayne didn't show up. He pushed past Simon who was still raging on about Jayne and Wash and Zoë quickly moved out of his way as he walked quickly to where Jayne was staying. With a kick, he slammed the door open and burst into the small room and grabbed the startled man from the bed and mightily threw Jayne protesting against a wall.
"You went too far this time, Jayne!" Mal roared in his face and was almost startled when he didn't attempt to defend him self, just stared back at him like a whipped dog. "Whadda have to say for your self?" He growled more softly to him, but no less dangerous and Jayne knew it.
"I'm sorry, Cap'n. She came up behind me and I didn't know she was there, honest!" Jayne pleaded, holding his hands up. "Honest, I didn't know what I was doin'."
"He's right, you know." River's voice suddenly piped up from behind Mal and the others. They turned to look at her quizzical. "Princess' got them ghost feet an' icicle fingers." She smiled at Jayne. "Besides, Jayne gets scared like a little girl with ghosts."
"Why you-" Jayne started to say, but Mal shook him.
"He was just careless, that all?" Mal asked River. She nodded and he looked back at Jayne with an almost dangerous look in his eyes.
"I don't like how you're lookin' at me." Jayne complained nervously. Mal gave him a curt smile and let go of his shirt, smoothing out the wrinkle and clapped him on the shoulder. "You're hereby now the new babysitter of Princess here. You will watch over her and make sure that nothin' like this happens again with her."
"I ain't no Gorram babysitter!" Jayne complained.
"You will protect her with your life or you'll be let of this ship a mite early, Dong ma?" Mal warned, the dangerous look in his eyes was stronger. Jayne visibly gulped and nodded quickly.
"You're going to let Jayne take care of her?" Simon asked with disgust. "The man can't even take care of a pet rock!" He stood defiantly even as Mal turned his eye on him and the others behind him looked everyway but at Mal.
"Then it's 'bout time Jayne learned somethin' 'bout care. Besides, wasn't just yesterday you're tellin' me how you're too tired to take care of River an' Princess and all that doctorin' you need to do?" Mal challenged him, moving away from Jayne to Simon.
"Well-" Simon started to stay, but Wash interrupted him.
"Wait, do y'all hear something?" He asked as he looked up towards the entrance to Jayne's room. They all listened for a moment when Mal suddenly rushed for the ladder and they heard what he heard. They hurried to follow after him and as they got up into the corridor, they could hear somebody screaming.
"Princess!" Kaylee cried out as she stood in shock. Mal was already gone, Simon close on his heels. Jayne shoved past Kaylee and Inara and tore after the others. The two women looked at each other and quickly followed.
Mal ran into the sickbay to find Princess still on the examining table, the force of her screams arching her back off the surface as she clawed the air around her. Simon shoved past him and quickly went to her.
"Quick! Help me restrain her!" He ordered as he pushed down on her shoulders and Mal quickly moved to obey with Jayne right after him.
"No! Please no!" Princess screamed and lashed out at the men who were restraining her. She managed to free her arms from Mal and sat up to claw at Simon, catching him across the cheek with her nails leaving bloody marks. Mal grabbed at her.
"Ah! Hold her!" Simon winced as he touched his cheek, and then picked up the syringe that he had dropped and reached for the bottle of sedatives.
"I won't let you! You bastards!" She snarled at them and lashed out a leg and caught Jayne on the jaw, hurling him backwards. She wrenches her arm free from Mal's grasp and crouched on the table, her eyes glowing with anger and fear. "I won't let you do this to me!" Suddenly she grabbed her head and screamed, arching backwards until she fell backwards on the table. "No! Ahh! No!" Jayne pushed forward and grabbed her arm, catching the other as she lashed it at him. He pulled her in close and head-slammed her so that she fell unconscious against his chest.
"Jayne!" Kaylee said out loud, shocked.
"She won't hold still for the doc." Jayne said defensibly as he laid her back on the table. "Besides, that screamin' was gettin' on my nerves."
Simon moved forward quickly to check her, examining her head first carefully where there was a bruise already forming. Mal looked from Simon and Jayne, his jaw working as he complemented on what he was thinking. Deciding that he won't chew Jayne out for his action, it had served what they were trying to do, even though it wasn't the best method, instead he opted for a different tactic.
"What the Gorram just happened here?" He asked the doctor. Simon shrugged.
"Ask me later, when I have a better idea. But the best I can give you is that she may had a reaction to the sedative I gave her earlier." He looked up at the others. "But the best thing we can do right now is to leave her alone and let me do my work." At his pointed hint, the others slowly, reluctantly left. Jayne dawdled and as the last person, Kaylee, left with a last worried look, he turned to face Simon.
"She ain' hurt too bad?" He asked, looking down at the floor. "I didn't do nothin' worse to her?"
"She'll be fine." Jayne looked up startled at Simon's suddenly more benevolent reply. He was looking at him with a measuring look in his eyes. "She has been in stasis for a long time and we have nothing in our medical records of this. I simply don't know what's wrong with her. With more time, I can figure out what happened to her and cure her. Even the more modern stasis technology has side effects similar to hers."
Jayne nodded and left. Simon looked down at Princess and smoothed her hair from her face.
"What's going on in that mind of yours? That's keeping you so trapped?
A few days later...
"Have you seen that ghost?" Jayne asked grumpily to Zoë and Wash where they were sitting together in the dinning area. Wash shook his head but Zoë nodded.
"Yes, she was heading towards her room." Zoë informed him, smiling as Wash nuzzled her neck suddenly. Jayne scowled at them and moved on, still looking for her. He went to where her room was near where Simon and River slept and rapped on the door and listened. He could hear soft music playing inside and he frowned. He opened the door a crack to look in and saw her sitting in front of a mirror cutting her long curly hair off with one of Jayne's highly honed knives.
"Gorram it!" he swore and shoved the door so hard that it cracked as he rushed forward. He gently grabbed her hand as she raised it to cut and pried the knife from it. Most of her hair was no longer down around the middle of her back, but now around her shoulders with shorter strands around her face. She ignored him as she stared in the mirror, fingering the longer strands that she didn't have a chance to cut. She suddenly looked up pleadingly at him and he sighed.
"Wha?" He complained, in no mood to deal with her mute ways. She pulled the longer strands out and then reaches out and touched his hand where he was holding the knife. He looked from one to the other and put it together.
"You want me to finish cuttin' yer hair?" He asked. She turned to look back in the mirror and he sighed. Looking at the open door, he then started trimming her hair so that it was more even.
"She's starting to remember how to be human." River suddenly spoke from behind him, causing him to jump in surprise.
"Don't go sneekin' up on me when I'm cuttin'!" Jayne growled at her as he moved the knife away from Princess' nape where he was trimming. "I coulda cut 'er!"
"But you didn't." River pointed out with a smile. She came forward and sat down next to the other girl and they both looked in the mirror at their refection, two haunted eyes set in pale faces.
A new song started playing and Princess closed her eyes and tilted her head back as she listened. A soft smile formed as she swayed back and forth to the music. River laughed out loud and stood up and started dancing to the music. Princess had opened her eyes and was watching River dance when she swooped down to her and grabbed her hands and pulled her up so that they were both dancing together. They fell panting on the bed when the song finished, and Jayne shook his head at amusement at their antics.
Suddenly a gentle song came on and Princess sat up, listening intently. She gasped softly as her eyes widened as a couple sang a duet together.
"Say you love me every waking moment, turn my head with talk of summer time... Say you need me with you, now and always... Promise me that all you say is true – that's all I ask of you..." She sang softly with the music, her eyes closed, but her words didn't match with the words in the song. River watched her with bright eyes as Jayne looked from one to the other confused. The song ended and she slowly opened her eyes. For the first time Jayne had seen her, her eyes were bright and clear, instead of cloudy and confused.
"Princess?" Jayne asked nervously. She didn't look at him; rather she was looking deep within herself as she seemed to be listening to something only she could hear. "No, not Princess. Harley." She whispered hoarsely, her voice nearly gone for ill-use. "He died so I took his name." She sighed gently and fell backwards.
"Princess?" He asked again as he stood up, River looked up at him and it scared him when he realized that she was scared too. He quickly touched the side of her neck and found that her pulse was faltering and weak. He scooped her up and with River following, he rushed to the sickbay.
"Simon!" River screamed as she ran ahead and found him just going into the sickbay. She latched onto his sleeve sobbing. "Harley's dying!"
"Harley?" Simon asked confused when he looked up to see Jayne barreling down on him with Princess limp in his arms. He quickly opened the doors so that Jayne could lay her down on the examining table.
"What did you do to her?" Simon asked as he grabbed some tools and started examining her. "She's barely breathing and her heartbeat is next to nothing!"
"Why do everybody thinks it's always my fault?" Jayne complained. "I didn't do nothin'! She heard some song and was talking about Harvey or Carvy when she fainted!" he grumbled as he watched the doctor work. "Well?"
"Well what?" Simon asked annoyed.
"What's wrong?"
"I have no idea and I can't work with you hovering over like this!" Simon complained to him. "Now please, just go away."
"Cap'n put me in charge of her an' I ain't goin' nowhere." Jayne said stubbornly, crossing his arms. Simon looked up at him.
"I'll tell Mal that you hit her in the head again."
"I'm goin'."
Mal stood frowning by Princess' side on the examining table. "What happened?" He asked Simon. He looked up at his captain and shrugged.
"River told me that she remembered something of herself, but then something happened and she fainted. You need to understand, her mind is very sensitive and the shock must've hurt her." He looked over at a display screen and pointed at certain key points. "See? She suddenly had more brain waves than she did normally and that caused her brain to go into shock."
"Is there a way to keep that from happenin' again?" Mal asked as he pretended he knew what the display screen was telling him. Simon sighed.
"Not really. There must be triggers and they're starting to affect her memory, make her recall things she didn't remember before." Simon said, crossing his arms. "But at least with each time, it should get easier for her."
"Ah, good." Mal nodded. "Is there a way to make it easier for her?"
"Yes, I can keep her in a controlled environment, monitor what she is exposed to and make sure that she doesn't get overwhelmed. But you have to realize, she needs to be re-exposed to her memories or they might find some other, more harmful ways to surface." Simon replied as he rubbed his forehead wearily. He looked up suddenly, "Wait, River told me something interesting, I think her name might be Harley."
"Harley? Huh." Mal frowned thoughtfully, and then gave him a quick smirk. "Give me a call when she wakes up." He didn't bother to wait for the doctor's reply, just walked out of the sick bay.
"Sure, I'll do that." Simon said softly to the empty doorway, still slightly annoyed at Mal's rudeness and abruptness, but he had gotten used to it by then. Mostly.
Princess was lying on the examining bed in the sick bay alone. It was mostly dark in the area, except for the light that shone on her as she moved slightly in her sleep.
"No..." She murmured softly, turning her face away from the light. Slowly, her eyes opened and she stared around the room, finally understanding where she was. She sat up carefully and held her hands up, but they seemed unchanged from when she saw them last, although paler. She moaned softly as she closed her eyes and covering them with her hands as she remembered something new. Something about being at the beach and being teased by a friend for having such pale skin.
"It was the first time I've gotten a chance to go out in the sun." She murmured softly with herself in her memory. She slid from the table and made her way to a counter where she found a shiny clean metal tray she was able to use as a rough mirror. She hesitated before lifting it, but then she stared at her refection for the longest time, wild and chaotic thoughts racing through her mind as she finally remembered. She lowered the tray with a groan; a pounding headache was beginning to form and making her nauseous. Tears began to escape as she turned and slumped against the counter, sliding down so that she was now sitting on the floor, hugging herself.
"Mom? Dad?" She called softly, knowing that they would never answer her again. She wailed softly at the painful memories and the excruciating knowledge that she was never gonna be able to see any of her old world again.
"Mom, I want you..." She moaned softly as she rested her head against the cool counter doors and tried to curl up tighter to squeeze away the pain from in her heart and she just cried until she couldn't cry anymore and just stared numbly across the room.
But she started to cry again as warm arms came around her and pulled her close, away from the cold counter and soft words of comfort were murmured as a cheek rest against the top of her head.
Jayne was prowling along the corridors, something was making him restless and he couldn't sleep. He was silent as a shadow as he moved by Simon and River's rooms, pausing where Princess normally slept; the door was still jammed crookedly in its frame. Of course, she wasn't there; she was in the sick bay. With that in mind, he decided to mosey on by the sick bay and make sure she wasn't having any problems, even though he knew that Simon should have everything under control. But Jayne never did trust that pansy doc to do things the right way, his way.
He came to a sudden stop just inside the sick bay when he saw that Princess wasn't on the bed anymore. He looked around quickly.
"Princess?" He called out, not worrying about waking up anybody; most of them were too far away to hear anyway.
"Down here." He heard Simon's voice softly. Jayne came around the bed and saw Simon sitting on the floor with Princess curled up against him. He looked up at him with a quizzical look.
"Did you need something?" Simon asked politely, as if it was perfectly normal to find him sitting on the floor as Princess looked up at Jayne with tearstained cheeks.
"What happened, why is she cryin'?" Jayne asked as he crouched down to see them better and touched her lightly on the head.
"I found myself." She said, hoarsely, but coherently. "I'm not gonna see my family and friends again, am I?" She asked, laying her head against Simon's shoulder.
"That depends, what year did you go into stasis?" Jayne said with a shrug as he shifted his weight uncomfortably as she thought.
"A long, long time ago. We just started using space ships and here, space ships are everywhere, right?" She asked, looking up at Simon, then to Jayne. Both men looked at each other with surprise, they knew she was old, but not that old. She read it on their faces and looked down at the floor.
"The funny thing is that I just wanna go home to Mom and Dad, even though it had been so painful at home since Harvey died." Princess said softly and sighed. "Hell, I'll give anything to see something that I know instead of all of this strange futuristic stuff that I never grew up with like you guys did." She looked up at Jayne.
"And you have your family and friends here with you now, not dead and gone in the past where you can't see them anymore."
"But you do have a family." Simon said, giving her a little squeeze.
"Yah, a new one with us." Jayne chimed in as he sat down on her other side. She smiled at him tearfully as she took his hand and Simon's.
"What is your real name? We can't just keep on calling you 'Princess'." Simon asked after a moment of quiet thought.
"Harley, for my brother, Harvey." She answered. "But I do like the sound of 'Princess'." She said to him with a sad smile. "It's not quite so painful."
"What happened to this Harvey chap anyway?" Jayne asked.
"He died a couple of years ago... well, for me that is, and his death was really hard on the family." She absently played with their hands, each in one of her own smaller hands as she stared at the dark doorway, into her past.
"Harvey was hit by a drunk driver and because I looked so much like him, Mom and Dad couldn't bear looking at me. He was my twin brother, he was the perfect son, and I was the misfit. So I stayed at college all the time, just studying and partying all the time so that the pain wouldn't hurt so much." She said, "And now I regret not spending all that time with them, time that was wasted and I can't get back again."
"Hey, here you can't get away from us. We're always here and the ship ain't that big." Jayne said suddenly as if it had just occurred to him.
"Yes, unfortunately." Simon said gloomily, causing Harley to laugh.
Goodbye, there's no sadder word to say
And it's sad to walk away
With just the memories
Who's to know what might have been
We'll leave behind a life and time
I'll never know again
Leanne Rimes – "Please Remember"
Gildsister: Thanks for pointing out 'status'/'stasis', we competely missed that one! Also thanks for pointing out the anonymous reviews deal, I hadn't realized that it was off, we're new here! ;)
By the way, my muse loves 'em reviews& is more likely to work with me if she gets her ego fluffed up, or fired up, which ever works! ;)