disclaimer: Bad for me, I don't own them. Good for Joss, he does.
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Serenity had been destroyed. Now as the tears pour down your face just trying to absorb that, I shall tell you how it came to be.
They were in the oldest galaxy ever known to man- the Milky Way. It had been only a decently dangerous delivery of stolen gas and oil drums from some Alliance headquarters far, far away. Their destination was a tiny moon called Pluto. Kaylee begged to go to Earth that Was, and Mal had still been thinking about it.
As they entered the atmosphere, the ship took several jerks Mal wasn't pleased with. "Kaylee, check what in the hell's going on."
She lovingly examined each part of her engine, watching it spin with the adoration she usually did. But something was wrong. There was a clunking, spitting noise she wasn't used to hearing. She leaned in closer to see where it was coming from, hoping it was something that'd last them until they landed. If not, it'd be another bumpy crash course. Her eyes caught a glisten deep in the workings of the complex engine. Something was leaking into the parts. No, not something. Gas was leaking into the parts. Precious, explosive fuel. "Uh oh," Kaylee murmured, getting her fingers into but hopefully not cut off by the machine. It was coming from a small pump, one she'd never had trouble with before. "That ain't good of you," she told it. The ship bumped again, and a tiny screw fell off and down into the engine.
One tiny screw. That's all it took.
The engine, far overheated from working too damn hard, exploded instantly with Kaylee's fingers still delicately tangled inside. The underbelly of the ship became engulfed in flames. The underbelly meaning the engine room, infirmary and guest (River and Simon's) quarters. The heat from breaking atmosphere did not help. Again the ship jerked, more desperately this time. River lost complete control of the wheel. She grabbed it tightly but it would not budge no matter how hard she forced it.
"We're going down," Mal said softly, but those were the last words said in the air. The impact, the fire, the sheer chaos of it all ignited the dangerous cargo. Drums of explosives boomed through the air, sending heat and fire and pieces of ship high into the sky. Serenity hit the icy tundra. Mal was thrown through the glass (despite being strapped in) and landed some fifty feet from his ship. He blacked out for over an hour.
From the point of view of a small child watching the crash from a safe three miles away, the ship slowly floated down to the ground, fire blazing out behind it. The child later told his mother it looked like God falling to his knees.
When Mal came to, Serenity was still ablaze. It had settled some, not that he'd know, but what he saw was tragic enough. There was nothing left of his ship. There were thousands of pieces of a ship that may have been, but Serenity was no more.
Mal had started digging through the wreckage with a limp (his leg was snapped for sure). He'd been looking for crew, but crew found him instead. Jayne came from behind a giant piece of metal that had been the hallway floor.
"Jayne," Mal said gratefully. Someone was alive. "You find anyone?"
The merc's hair was mostly singed off, he had a scar brewing on his forehead and was babying his shoulder. But thank God, he was alive. "Zoe," he said miserably, and Mal knew at once that it wasn't a finding so much as it was a body discovery. "She was still strapped in," Jayne told him softly.
Mal cursed inwardly. He and Zoe had survived just about everything together. But not this time, it seemed. Not this time. "Anyone else?"
"Just you." Jayne looked at him expectantly. He didn't know what he should do now.
Mal patted the man's good shoulder. "Help me lift things," he told him, and Jayne willingly obliged. They grabbed a chunk of metal and heaved it up, turning up snow and rock. Nothing else. "Where were you?" Mal asked as they moved on to the next pile of rubble. Anything to drown the terrible silence that hung between them.
"Been clawin' my way out from under half the ship," he said dully. "Dislocated m'shoulder bangin against the door to my room." He kicked over an oil drum. There was nothing but snow underneath. He looked up and around them. Flaming pieces of the ship littered the snow for at least a mile out. They could turn over chunks for three days and still not cover everything. "You don't think… Kaylee, I mean. She was… she…" God, he couldn't even choke out what he wanted to say.
"She was in the engine room," Mal finished for him. "I don't think so." He sat down on a thick iron bar that once held up the doorframe to the airlock. His leg was killing him and would probably get gangrene fairly soon in this weather. The wind had picked up considerably. It was so damn dark out here in the nothingness, billions of light years from the central sun. The only light seemed to be from the cruel fires that ate at his ship. He was angry, scared and freezing. None of them had been prepared for the cold. He himself was only wearing a thin long sleeved shirt and canvas pants. His boots weren't meant to keep out the chill. Even if everyone had been fine, they all would probably die from the cold.
Jayne had wandered off alone. Not far, he knew better than to get lost in the tundra, but far enough to cry and not be heard through the wind. Kaylee gone, Zoe gone. Who else? The doctor? His crazy sister? It didn't make no sense why he was crying so hard over them all because he hadn't truly liked any of them. Least that's what he told himself. His tears just about froze on his face as they came. "Chi shi!" he screamed into the wind, kicking over one of the large tires to the mule. His scream caught in his throat when he saw what lay underneath. The tears stopped instantly. He stepped back a few yards until he spotted Mal where'd he'd left him over the ridge. "Mal!" he yelled as loud as he could.
For the captain, it was barely a low shout. He looked up, spotted Jayne and got to his feet. "What is it?"
"I found the doc."
Moving as fast as a cold and broken leg allowed, he hobbled toward Jayne. "Well?" Jayne shook his head, and Mal stopped. His face completely fell. "You sure?" he called hesitantly.
"He's only half here," Jayne answered. "Other half's couple feet that way." His hand indicated somewhere in the midst of rubble where Mal couldn't see. For some reason, Jayne couldn't look away from Simon. The man's eyes were wide and pleading, his hand reached up as though begging for help. For one terrifying moment Jayne thought he saw him move, but then everything was still. "Hell," he breathed. "I'm sorry, kid."
"Jayne!" Mal called. The merc looked up expectantly, dashing through the snow easy as a reindeer.
"Find someone?" he asked hopefully.
Mal shook his head, his eyes closed. "Gimme a hand, ok?"
It was then that Jayne noticed the captain's leg. It was bloodied and stiff looking. He slung Mal's arm over his good shoulder and carried him along for a while. "Shit, Mal," he grunted with effort. "You coulda said something."
"Should have," he agreed.
"How bad is it?"
"I didn't look."
Jayne stopped walking. "Well hell, why don't we-"
"No, just, keep moving, okay? I want to find River before we…"
Jayne pulled on, understanding. 'Find River before we give up' was what Mal had been about to say. Either that or 'die'. They made slow progress through a mile and a half of snow, their path lit by dying fires from burning rubble. At one point Mal saw something he thought was a piece of his mechanic, but he didn't want to stop and investigate. River seemed to be nowhere. After two hours they stopped at a cave-like dwelling which had once been the cargo area. It was turned over and sticking into the snow. Jayne placed Mal down onto a hunk of the steps and gathered some of the burning wreckage for their camp. It would be impossible for them to go any further for a while.
Wincing considerably, Mal decided to check the damage on his leg. Thankfully it wasn't a compound fracture, though he could see the bit of bone poking just below his skin. Jayne dumped an armful of broken crates onto their pitiful fire and sat heavily beside the captain.
"How you holding up?" Mal asked.
"Been shitloads better, won't lie to you." His stomach gurgled unhappily. "Hungry, freezing, tired." He touched his shoulder tenderly. "Scared," he admitted as an afterthought. "We, uh… we ain't gonna make it, are we?"
"Don't think so," Mal told him honestly. "Don't have any idea which way it is to civilization. Don't know how far off we are from where we were headed. Don't know if it'd matter when we got there." He hated giving in to the idea of defeat, but he hated deluding himself more.
Something howled far off. It sent a new chill down Mal's spine. Jayne's ears perked up like a bloodhound's. "You hear that?" he asked Mal.
"Yeah. You think… wolves?"
"No, ain't wolves." He listened through the wind, straining to hear it again. He was obliged a minute later when it came again, soft but distinct. It seemed the wind was delivering the message for them because it wouldn't make it on its own.
"What is that?" Mal asked, not liking the all too alert look on Jayne's face.
Jayne ignored him, still tuned in to the sound. It came again, louder this time. His eyes suddenly widened. "River," he muttered, then took off at a full run.
Mal made a grab at him but missed. "Jayne!" he yelled. But his hired man's silhouette faded into the blackness, only illuminated every once in a while by a fire as he passed it. He was left alone. The fire was warm enough to keep him from freezing, but not enough to shake off the internal cold. That wasn't going to go away for a long time. He looked around what was left of his cargo. There was floor sinking down on his head, frozen drips of molten metal stopped before it could make a perfect droplet and fall. It really looked like a cave in here. "Jayne!" he yelled again, not expecting an answer and not getting one. He was going to call again when something caught his eye. There was a crate on the far side of the den, turned over and singed. Gathering strength, Mal crawled over to it and pushed it upright. This was quite a task with two good legs on a full night's rest, so in his current condition Mal took at least fifteen minutes. Once it was unstuck from the snow, he tore open one of the panels to reveal exactly what he'd been hoping for- stacks of canned foods. Some of them had melted together, but the moral of the story was they had food. He started crying with relief, rested a few minutes then grabbed four cans and crawled his way back to where the fire was. He rested again, then recuperated and pondered how he was going to go about heating this stuff up. He had fire, which was step one. Step two was getting the food out of the cans, which he didn't have any way of doing. After thinking it over a good six minutes his stomach gave an acidic, grumbling protest and he decided to hell with it and started banging the cans against the steel stairs. Eventually they dented enough and cracked, so if he pushed and bent them enough he could pull off a piece and make a hole where he could pour the innards out. His fingers got cut quite a few times but there were no complaints on his part. To cook them he stuck the cans right into the fire and when they started melting he'd kick it out onto the snow. It was an in depth process that took close to forever.
Jayne came back forty minutes later, a small heap of a girl thrown over his shoulder. She was moaning and thrashing listlessly. Jayne leaned her against the stairs and proceeded to collapse. Mal stared at the girl as though he were seeing a ghost. "River," he muttered. She looked at him with wide, unknowing eyes. Her whole face was glazed.
"She's got a fever," Jayne told Mal, his face indifferently in the snow. "But the rest of her's freezing. Nasty burn on her left leg, cut on her stomach that's prob'ly infected. Keeps talking nonsense. More than usual, you know." His voice was monotonous and dull. He was clearly exhausted. "She was under what's left of the mule. Pinned her down, took me forever to get her out.""
"I love you, Jayne," River said airily.
Jayne lifted his head a little. "See what I mean?"
Mal touched her face timidly, withdrawing his hand immediately. She was hot, very hot. He probably could have cooked dinner on her forehead. She looked back at him, not comprehending what she saw. Mal looked her over sadly. She was cut up and bruised, and he could see blood on her thin blue dress where she had been cut. There were no sleeves on her dress, no nothing to it. She must be freezing. He was a little surprised she hadn't frozen to death already.
"No, Simon!" she screamed suddenly. "No! Don't you understand, he can't forgive himself for that?" She took a swing at the imaginary Simon in front of her, seemingly missed, and fell over onto Mal's lap. He rubbed her back to try and generate some heat in her.
"You're okay," he murmured to her. "You're all right."
"I love you, Mal," she told him.
"Thanks, River."
"Will we bury Simon?"
He choked back a small sob. It killed him she already knew. "I don't know."
"Okay." She closed her eyes and curled up into him. "I trust you."
"Jayne," Mal said desperately, holding down his tears. "Get out of the snow." Jayne got up, brushing powder off his clothes. "I cooked," Mal told him, pointing to the cans with his toe.
"Figures," Jayne said, grabbing a still warm can of what seemed to be stew. "We lose half the crew but the food's fine." He drank it down, grimaced, and had more. At least it was warm. "I'm tired," he said plainly.
"Don't know if going to sleep's a good idea right now. Might not wake up."
River kicked the air fiercely. "No, no, no," she moaned. "No more needles, no more drugs. No more training. River wants to be herself again." Then she fell limp again. "Simon," she cried out pitifully. "Simon? Simon?"
"He ain't here," Jayne said roughly. "Won't be, either."
River was quiet for a moment. "Jayne?" she whimpered.
"Yeah?"
"Don't let me go."
Mal looked up at Jayne, all resolve lost. He started to cry. It wasn't racking or desperately hard, just soft and quiet. He stroked River's hair, trying not to flinch at the heat radiating from her head.
Sighing from weariness, Jayne pulled on River until she sat up, maneuvering her onto his lap. She curled readily against him, nuzzling her face into his neck. He shuffled over until he was close beside Mal, who slung an arm around Jayne's waist. Mal leaned his head against River's back and she sighed.
"Cold," River said meekly, curling her toes under Jayne's leg.
"Okay, beibei," he said softly, hugging her tighter. "I'm here."
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Up in heaven, Wash was crying silently as he watched the three remaining crew members below him. Zoe stood at his side, holding his hand and leaning on his shoulder. Shepherd Book stood on Wash's other side. Simon was holding Kaylee in his arms, looking down on his baby sister.
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Author's note: I was thinking of writing more to this, but I'm not sure it needs it. Does this need more chapters, or is it good as is? Feedback would be greatly appreciated.