Disclaimer: I own nothing! I just like to borrow them all once in a while and rearrange the pieces.
Author's note: Thank you to everyone who has reviewed and come to read the story. I appreciate your interest and welcome any and all input.
Thanks to Mistress of the Knight, my supportive and wise beta who puts up with me and is terribly kind with my work.
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Chapter 3 – The Nature of Love
Approaching Pandora, 7th moon of Providence –SerenityFor River Tam the world was a sensory overload. Not only were smell, sight and touch intensified, but the emotions pouring out of people without cessation clamoured at the gates of her very tired psyche. It had been so for a long enough period of time that River herself had started to believe that she knew no alternative. But sometimes, meeting the eyes of her own reflection or recollecting something about her childhood, she would remember with painful clarity the life she had before. Before the time when perpetual confusion and violence took her over. Before… This one word became her personal mantra. A magic incantation to call up peace. Before the academy. Before the medical procedures. Before Jubal Early. Before the beginning of these dreams where the blood of little girls coloured everything in creation and drowned the world in its viscous, odorous red.
She did not tell Simon about the dreams, did not have the patience to explain in words he would understand, did not have the words.
However, he pressed on with his questions, always careful to be gentle and kind, trying to get her to tell him what had happened to her.
"River, I need you tell me what you remember. I need to know mei-mei, so that I can help you."
Simon is using his doctor voice, as if she's just another patient whose history he needs to get. He is awkward with it, as she knows he always was. Not one for an endearing bedside manner. But he means well. And because he means well, she will try to answer in terms that he may comprehend. Because he loves her enough to have given up his world for her and she loves him enough to know what this sacrifice cost his soul.
The thoughts come, but the words are more stubborn. Unwilling to slip from her tongue in any pattern that could be presented as explanation.
"Took a girl. Plied her with sweets…naïve. Let the wolves in. Didn't know them for wolves." Her eyes flit up to his, desperation and pain shining at him. "Cheaters. Tried to run. Wolves ran faster. Sharp claws. Sharp teeth. Knives and needles. No more running then. Mind ordered…." She stifles a sob, closes her eyes, her slight body shakes with the memory. "Mind ordered; feet did not obey."
His expression shows the true pity he feels. She does not want the pity. Wants to strike out at it, wants to scream that he cannot feel sorry for her, because she can take it. She can take a lot more. But it is like there are two of her. The one within, strong and whole, ready to go and chomping at the bit. And there is the other, the one without, the awkward child with the mixed words and eyes that taste and lips that see and skin that prickles at every sound. And the two cannot be reconciled. Because the one without is the River that has always been, only slightly battered. The River within is the darkness that woke up one day when their needles got too far-reaching and their cold eyes cut her flesh, and this darkness won't go back, no matter how hard River tries to pacify it.
Simon's hand reaches under her chin to lift her eyes to his, his love reaching out to her, tenderness in the curve of his mouth.
"Mei-mei, it's all right. They gave you drugs? Because you tried to escape?"
Her annoyed glance scathes him and she casts her eyes down again, fingers playing with the bed sheet.
"Drugs, like ropes. Hold her down. Tethered… Do as they please, always have and always will. Feast on the sorrow and tears of the helpless. I did not want…" her voice falters again, tears streaming down her cheeks. "To be like them." And as she says that, the ire in her eyes is palpable and raw.
Her anger-pain is a sharp taste in Simon's mouth and he swallows quickly to get rid of it. It does not help. Her sad eyes search his out; the anguish in their glistening darkness holds him in thrall.
"Didn't want to be a wolf. Just a girl." Her voice finishes in an almost whisper.
"Did they ever tell you what they were doing? Why they were doing it? You telling me will help me figure out how to help you."
Her laugh is absolutely mirthless, a cold and bitter sound, brutal in one so young.
"Can't help. Took a girl and thought it was a puzzle. Took it apart. Could not put it back together as it was. Pieces missing all over."
He tries to keep his face blank, but cannot keep the horror away. Her hard eyes soften at the play of emotions across his features.
"Maybe I can put the missing pieces back."
He tries for hope, any hope, but the unshed tears in her eyes tell him her answer before she speaks it.
"No pieces left to fit. Dropped on the floor. Stepped on and they vanished into the dirt." She shrugs her shoulders as if explaining a bad grade, or a boy she has been caught kissing.
He wants to wrap her in his arms and carry her away from all this, as if she were still a small child. Her hand reaches out to touch his cheek. Just fingertips brushing skin. A very tender smile lights her face and she tilts her head to the side like a sleek, thoughtful cat.
"Don't be sad, Simon. Not lost, just adrift."
He understands her, understands the staccato pathways of her thoughts, the legato of her seemingly unattached ideas. Filled with tenderness and love he smiled against her touch.
"When did you get so wise, mei-mei?"
Her soft gaze falters for a moment and flits away from his.
"The instant cannot be…defined. One moment alone in the dark. And then… She came from the desert where she has always been. Gave me the darkness to keep. Armour."
She scoots off the bed, and standing on tip-toes prances to the door. She is so delicate and fragile, looks as if a small wind could tumble her over and carry her away. It is the steely steadiness of her stare that makes Simon shiver and truly realise the hardness that now lives in her. She is back into the undecipherable, the dusky interior of her own logic, where he cannot follow.
River twirls on her toes, sending pearl grey skirts in a dance around her.
"You don't want to follow." Her hand reaches to touch her own forehead, a gesture of an almost-surprise. "It's not very pleasant in here."
She does not give him time to answer, picks up her skirts and starts running in the direction of the common room and the cockpit. She makes no sound, and Simon's footsteps following her seem ever more menacing in their dull, echoing thud.
He finds her in the cockpit, huddled on the floor by the window. The bridge is empty since everyone is still not up. Not wanting to startle her he leans again the doorframe, fingers threading through the loops of his pants, feet crossed at the ankles.
There is an expression of grim concern on his face. His eyes are focused on the one being in the entire universe that he loves, for whom he would do anything. But he cannot help her. No matter how he has tried, he cannot help her. It has finally settled in his head that she will most likely never get better. She will probably spend her life drifting from one period of lucidity to another, never lingering long. The cruelty of that strikes him deep and he winces as if the turmoil of his heart is a physical pain.
She had been a lovely child once. A gift, she had been a gift. That was what he had told the crew, and that is what she was. Is. He must never forget that she is. A gift. The tenderness wells up inside of him and he has no outlet for the vastness of this pain. Trying to dispel the gloom falling into him and filling him up, he glances towards her and just the simple sight of her warms him. There she is, this tiny thing cuddled to the glass of the cockpit window. She is looking out into the black in utter rapture; her trembling hand traces some unidentifiable patterns as if performing a dance. Her lips are moving, a fast and breathless flow of words, indecipherable in their urgency. Concerned for her, at the sudden and drastic change in her behaviour, Simon comes close.
"Mei-mei, what is it?"
She stops her litany and looks up at him with her great dark eyes. She takes her time to look at him; perhaps making sure it is really him, perhaps trying to remember where she is. Her hand never stops tracing the invisible patterns. Resting her forehead against the glass, she expels a great sigh.
"Threads in the black. She tries to make sense of the puzzle, but – the threads are being cut off. No blanket to be made from shredded yarn. Comfort for the cold. And the vultures have begun the hunt."
He has no reply, has no words to make things better, so he settles for crouching next to her and tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. The stay like that for a moment, looking into each other's eyes, trying to find answers that are not there for either one of them.
"I love you, River."
He tries to tell her as often as he can. He has come close to losing her far too many times. This need to say the words is lesson number one to the ones who come perilously close to losing those who mean most to them.
Her eyes narrow at him, a sadness as old as time filling them. Her voice comes out fragile and full of anguish.
"Drowning in blood. Shallow cuts. Walking among the stars. Daylight misplaced in the black."
Trying to shake her lightly to draw her away from her thoughts, he slips onto the floor beside her, one arm wrapping around her shoulders.
"Did you cut yourself? Are you hurt?"
The look she gives him clearly says no.
"No. I am… All parts operational. Won't…" There is a desperate sadness in her voice, a need for comfort and hope.
He tightens his embrace around her frail shoulders. All he has are words and he hopes that these are enough.
She pauses and gets up so fast that Simon is left wondering what had just happened. Scoots away to the console, looking at him with something akin to desperation in her eyes. She moves away towards the door, there is something ethereal about her movement. There but not.
"I love you, mei-mei."
Pausing at the doorway, one bare foot over the threshold, she turns to look over her shoulder at him. He is startled to see something cold and… He cannot think how it could be but there is something absolutely feral in her face. From the glint of her eyes to the curve of her mouth, everything makes him feel chilled to the bone.
"Cull a road of death through the verse. Hands stained with blood." Her voice softens, becomes almost pleading. "Love me then."
She is almost out the door when Mal's body half blocks her escape route. Meeting River's desperate glare, he lets her pass and watches her disappear down the corridor in a blur of bare feet and dark hair. Folding his arms across his chest, he leans against the doorframe, in a stance much like the one Simon had taken moments before. Mal's questioning eyes stay as intense as ever, waiting for Simon to speak. At the baleful look in Simon's eyes, Mal only shakes his head.
"Lil' River started talkin' 'bout violence again. Routine is comforting, do not get me wrong. Just not so much when it's about death and blood."
Simon can only shoot him a cold glare. He stands up and half turns away from Mal, eyes desperately searching the obliterating calmness of space that stretches out ahead of them.
"Some days are better than others for River." Even he knows that his tone is too defensive by far.
"So you keep tellin' me. But when the better days are the ones where she only breaks dishes and throws about med supplies, you will pardon me if I see little comfort in that."
Simon glares at Mal, which seems to amuse the Captain. That particular smirk appears on his face, the one that has filled with a little too much arrogance and, if Simon read it correctly, much too much weariness.
"What do you want me to tell you Captain?" he cannot keep the annoyance out of his voice and knows by Mal's expression that he overstepped himself yet again.
The captain's eyes narrow and the smirk intensifies. But the tension escapes his shoulders, hands falling by his sides he walks in to stand next to Simon. They stay like that for a moment, caught in the allure of the black.
"I thought you figured out what they'd done to your sister, thought that our little trip to Ariel took care of that." Mal watches Simon's face from the corner of his eye.
"It's more complicated then that. Yes, I know what they did to her. On a technical level. The evidence is there. Her amygdala is completely stripped. Her brain was opened up countless times. How she survived these operations is a miracle in itself. Even with modern technology, it would take months to heal between surgeries. She would have spent majority of her time incapacitated."
Mal seems to be taking in Simon's words.
"So what you're saying Doc, is that she's not gonna get better." There's no hardness is Mal's voice, but Simon still bristles.
"I don't know…the drugs I keep giving her don't last. Her system breaks them all down. Which only adds to my list of questions. And she…" His voice cracks, because he's tired and frustrated at his inability to do anything. "She can't tell me what happened. After J…after the bounty hunter I thought she was better. More lucid. But that medicine stopped working too. Everything stops working."
There is a charge in the air, a current of desperation that spreads its tentacles directly from Simon. Mal's eyes watch the black and he wonders if his life would ever be as calm as the obliterating darkness in front of him.
"You're doing your best, Doctor. Ain't nobody saying otherwise. I just need to know, seeing as I'm responsible for everyone who's on my crew."
Simon expels an exhausted breath.
"I know. Just wish I wasn't so…inept."
As Mal chuckles at that, Simon turns to glare at him with the cold look of disdain. The look has no effect and only makes Mal chuckle harder.
"Doctor, inept you are not. Stuck up and thick-headed, but not inept."
Simon's look only intensifies and, sending a steely glare towards Mal, he returns to watching the black.
"I'll make sure to put that on my resume Captain."
Mal's heavy hand slams Simon's shoulder and, wincing at the pain, he stares in bewilderment at the captain. Mal's eyes are dancing with humour and a bemused smile plays on his lips.
"We'll be landing on Pandora a little after breakfast. Got cargo waiting for us. Pandora ain't exactly a friendly place. Mean weather, mean folk to go with it. Stay on the ship. Dong ma?"
Simon nods solemnly and continues to stubbornly look out the window. "Got it, Captain."
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Chinese Translation:
Mei-Mei – Little SisterDong ma? – Understand?