Opus 3

"This is it. You okay, Bree?"

Breezy didn't respond to her brother, just kept her eyes fixed on the large ship that had just set down, raising a cloud of dust. It was old, that was the first thing she noticed. Older than her or Jonah, at least. She turned to her brother, looking up and meeting his eyes. She didn't need to say anything. I'm afraid.

The door to the cargo bay opened, and Jonah saw his uncle for the first time in ten years. He looked a little older than Jonah remembered, but that was to be expected. Mal gestured to the boy, who led his younger sister onto the ship. "All ready to go, you two?"

"Yeah. Come on, Breezy."

Mal got a shock at seeing his niece. She looked exactly like Gracie had at that age. From wavy, light blonde hair that fell just past her shoulders, to wide, pale blue eyes- she seemed to be a carbon copy of her mother. One deviation was her size- even at fifteen years old, Breezy was barley over four and a half feet tall. He shook off the feeling and pounded the com next to him. "Wash, go." Mal turned back to the two teens. "I got a couple rooms ready for you in the passenger dorm, if you wanna go get settled in."

Jonah nodded. "Thanks. I think…Breezy, do you wanna sleep? Are you hungry?"

The girl didn't take her eyes off the floor as she shrugged. Jonah placed his hand gently on her shoulder. "Maybe you should try to sleep. It's safe here."

"I'll bring you back to the passenger dorm," Mal commented. He noticed that Jonah never let his hand leave his sister's shoulder.

"Breezy, you should sleep. It's been-"

Mal couldn't help but smile as his niece rolled her eyes and sighed. He didn't know how, but the girl even echoed Gracie's mannerisms. "Okay, Jonah."

"Good. Are you gonna be okay here by yourself for a minute if I go talk with Uncle Mal?"

She frowned uncertainly. "If I need you…"

"He'll be up on the bridge," Mal responded gently. Breezy nodded and met her uncle's eyes for the first time. She immediately looked away.

Mal walked with Jonah up to the bridge. "So, are you gonna tell me what's goin' on?"

Jonah sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "First, you gotta promise you won't go back down to Vici and kill anyone."

"Got it. So?"

Mal had never seen anyone look as uncomfortable as the boy did right now. "It was our dad. He was hurting Breezy. And when I tried to stop him…well, he's a lot bigger than I am." Jonah was muscular but thin, and stood perhaps two inches below six feet.

Mal could feel fury rising from the pit of his stomach into his chest. He shouldn't have left Aaron with the kids all those years ago. He knew he shouldn't have left Aaron with those kids. But no, he had to go fight in a war instead. "Hurting Breezy how?"

"Just…hurting her," he mumbled. "And I tried to stop him, I really did! But you know my dad, he's huge, and I just…I had to get Breezy outta there."

"Jonah, I want you to tell me what he did to that girl."

"No," he stated flatly. "What's the point? It was bad, okay? It was really bad, that's all you need to know. It's not gonna help anyone for me to talk about it."

Mal swallowed a sigh. "Where do you want me to bring you?"

"Anywhere. I have a friend on Izmir, but I really don't care."

"Jonah, I'm not just gonna drop a couple of kids on a strange planet." Funny, that was exactly what he had threatened Simon and River with when they had first boarded the ship.

"I don't care. I just want her to be safe. Don't tell me you wouldn't have done the same thing for my mom in a situation like this."

The kid made a good point. "You know you both can stay here as long as you need. You think your dad'll be lookin' for you?"

Jonah shrugged. "I dunno. I really gotta get back to Breezy. She…she can't really sleep anymore. I'm worried about her. She doesn't talk to anyone but me, won't eat." The expression on Jonah's face was almost anguished as he turned to go to the passenger dorm. Once he got there, he found himself face to face with a girl. A pretty girl, he couldn't help but notice.

River stared. She couldn't help it, she had to look at this boy's eyes. Her eyes were dark, as were Simon's and Zoe's and Inara's and Book's and Jayne's. The Captain's eyes were blue, but dark. Wash and Kaylee both had lighter colored eyes, but they didn't even come close to this boy's. They were pale grey, the color of ice, sparkling and so light that they bordered on white.

I would see as those eyes see.

This was a boy. A real boy. Not like Simon, or the boys at the Academy…they had been broken like her. She could tell just by looking that this boy knew how to be a boy.

Jonah had gone on dates, even gotten serious with a few girls. But he had never really gone for blondes; he supposed that they all subconsciously reminded him of his little sister. He vaguely acknowledged that the girl standing in front of him had nice, long, dark brown hair, but mostly his thoughts were elsewhere.

River sorted through the jumble of thoughts clouding her mind and forced herself to stop staring and articulate. "Who are you?"

"Uh…I'm Jonah, Mal's nephew."

"I'm River." She smiled, almost lucidly. Jonah smiled genuinely back, for the first time in the past several months.

It felt good to smile.

X

Cambiare Bisbigliando- Whispering change. Oh, an opus is like…a work, any kind of work. So say if you've written 2 symphonies and 3 concertos and then you write another symphony, it would be Symphony 3, Opus 6….random music lesson. : )

Review, please.