A/N: So, previous chapter didn't get much in the way of reviews because I think most people missed it? seems to be having some issues with logging updates and sending out notifications, which kinda sucks, but hopefully it's been fixed or is getting fixed in due course. Guess we're about to find out! lol
(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)
Chapter 21
Things were askew. River knew it, felt it deep within. At first there was confusion, odd mix of unknowns to pick through. The Companion's latest client a distraction, the act of their feelings overwhelming in its depth and intensity. Then underneath came the darkness, bubbling and writhing. Bad things. Bad feelings. Someone black of heart and bearing ill will floating through the void. He saw them. The cat spied the mice and came creeping, creeping closer, claws out. A lurch in her stomach set River into motion, running to the cargo bay, bare feet hardly touching the surface.
It was Inara who saw her first, having just escorted the Councillor to the door. With concern she asked her friend what was wrong, what had her in such a state of unrest. River was too concentrated on the danger others faced to notice the way Inara held herself, a little wary, as subtly battle ready as such a person ever was.
"Danger!" River yelled out, more than once, muttering in between incomprehensible to anyone else, perhaps even to herself. "Dragon from the sky. Will torture with fire, with ice. Revenge!" she tried in vain to explain, even as Inara gripped her arms and tried to calm her.
"Who is in danger?" she urged her to explain. "Mal and Jayne?" she guessed since they were the two who had gone out on this latest job.
"Strong enough to live, but... but vengeance," she tried to explain, shaking her head, face turning paler by the moment. "Can't see how far he will go."
"Somebody has them," Inara guessed.
"Somebody has who?" checked Zoe, descending from above. "The Cap'n and your husband, little one?" she asked River as she approached.
"Vengeance came calling," she agreed, nodding her head. "Niska."
At the sound of that name, Zoe's blood ran cold.
The women of action did what they did best then. Zoe took charge, as was her place, having Wash take them planetside near to the rendezvous point. There they found the evidence they needed of what had happened. The middlemen were dead, Mal and Jayne were gone, and the most likely candidate for taking them was one Adelai Niska. They all knew the old devil would be back for them if he could. Seemed they was being proved right now.
There was a fight. Kaylee gave in to panic, Simon tried to bring comfort. Wash got thoughtful, Zoe needed to move. Inara went for a different kind of help. That left River, who felt herself begin to flow in too many directions. Losing herself, sinking, drowning. The dark might take her, with no guide to show the way, no light at the end of the tunnel, but for the train coming to run her down. Perhaps it would be better to be rail-roaded, made flat and still. Every cell vibrated with grief and fear, with anger and pulsating fire. To run, to fight, to explode and take others with her in the blast, leaving none but debris. Little bits and pieces, floating in the black. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
"River?" Zoe called into the shadows by the galley entrance.
She said nothing but stepped into the light, showed her grim tear-stained face without a word. Warrior woman understood, would be the same if it were her husband. Did not need to be said, was only known, deep beneath the leather and cotton, beating under flesh and bone, the rhythm of love and devotion.
"We're getting them back," said Zoe, not a promise or vow, just truth.
"Both of them, they're tough enough to have survived this long," Wash added, trying for a smile and failing miserably. "We'll get to them, we'll bring them home."
River nodded slowly.
"They will," she agreed, hand reaching to the table, fingers closing around a shining silver handle.
Before Zoe or Wash could comment on her picking up a gun, Simon and Kaylee came rushing into the room. They had their share of the money to take back to Niska, as well as what they had found in River and Jayne's room.
"We didn't know where you were," he told his sister. "We knew you would want to..."
He stopped speaking when Kaylee's hand landed on his arm. She inclined her head, gesturing to River's right hand. Up to now, it was clear Simon had not noticed the weapon she held. Now he saw, his eyes went wider than anyone had ever seen them.
"Mei mei..." he began, almost feeling his own hands should be raised in surrender, and yet this was River, always his little sister.
There was no need to fear her, even when she looked upon them all with such anger and dark passion in her eyes. She meant to join the battle, perhaps even to lead the charge. It was hard to reconcile this woman with the little girl Simon helped to raise so long, and yet, he knew what she was capable of. If anyone could save Jayne and Mal too, it was likely to be River.
"The plan," she demanded of Zoe.
"Take the money, pay back more'n what we owe to Niska, bargain for the Cap'n and your man."
"The devil will not deal," said River, shaking her head. "Money he has. Vengeance he seeks. The men mean more," she said, her free hand in the bag of cash, fingers trailing through the bills as if they were water. "Prepared to die for them."
Zoe stared at River, wondering if her words were a question or a statement. In the end, she knew it didn't matter either way. The crew would die for their Captain. River would die for her husband, and Simon would go wherever his sister had a mind to wander. Altogether, they were a dedicated team. Not much of an assault force without Mal and Jayne, but they might manage if they planned it just so.
"Won't ask if you're sure. I already know the answer," said Zoe with a hint of a smile she could not help.
"Sisters in arms," said River, nodding once. "Not such a little woman anymore."
Her eyes went to the gun in her hand, forcing herself to steady it. Just an object, doesn't mean what you think, she told herself, and yet, and yet...
Words were pointless, meaningless. Action was the only way. She shot with feet planted and eyes closed, no thoughts in her head but the math, the angle, the propulsion of the bullet. One down, two, three. Forty five degrees, north by north-west, find the second beat and pull. She moved as the dancer she was born to be, barely aware of Zoe, Wash, Simon's voice calling for her to watch her back, Kaylee's fear that echoed like shaking starlight, muddling everything. River kept focus, flowed on and on, found her way and did not, could not waver. Didn't matter what had been said and done. She had her target, had her goal. All else could be mended later, needle and thread, patch up the holes. No good if there was nothing to patch, no-one and nothing to mend.
Precision in the blur, one after another fell, and then in blood and sweat and tears she found home. His arms around her were safety in the most dangerous place, though his weight was heavy and near-dead in her arms. Suffering, a kind of which she could not know as he did. In her head she heard and saw, but nothing like this. Nothing that compared. Needles and pins she knew well, but this had been blades and heat and blood, so much blood. River had dropped the weapon the moment she found her man, trying to forget she ever held it. Easier said than done.
The adventure over, she sat by his bed side. Roles reversed and yet the same. Felt the pain he did, atop her own, crushing down, down deep. One hand held onto husband's own, but the other was before River's own face. Staring, shaking, the fingers that clasped the handle, pulled the trigger. Angel of death, she had been. Necessary procedure, and yet, and yet...
"'M sorry, bao bei," said Jayne, looking to her and seeming to know what was wrong.
Sure'n he weren't no Reader like she was, but anybody with eyes could tell what was messin' with the mind of his little woman right about now. Never had seen her pick up a gun in anger, only on odd occasions to help him clean up his own weapons.
River heard his words but took time to process. A hundred things he could apologise for, though she needed none. Making her shoot bullets into brains was not what concerned Jayne-man. He spoke of their angry discourse, a conversation a million years ago and barely a day all at once. River closed her eyes, breathed in, swallowed hard. Brought mind and body into alignment, here in the room, here in the moment.
"No," she said, at last. "He is not sorry. He wishes only good for her," she said, finding a shaky smile. "Afraid of the bad being worse."
"Mebbe so," Jayne agreed. "Only thing that gorram scares me any is harm comin' to ya."
His hand was at her battle-scarred cheek, eyes narrowing at the sight. Jayne hated to see her hurting in any way at all. His little woman. Ought to be so clean and pure, but he never knew her that way. Every day out here in the black she got more like him and his kind, less like the prissy little girl her parents tried to raise. The Alliance done what they did and made her so she couldn't ever be such a thing. Now she was his bao-bei, she was strong, but she was damaged just the same. Broken, like Jayne was, in ways nobody but the two of 'em could ever understand.
"She agrees." River nodded. "Harm coming to him... to Jayne-man," she said, shuddering at the thought, fingers running so very gently over wounds and bandages covering his skin. "Had to rescue."
"Did a helluva job too," he said, finding her a grin that she had worried never to see again, after their fight, after his capture. "Didn't much reckon on ever seein' you gun in hand like that."
"Hopes not to repeat," River admitted. "Needs must. She can, she did."
Jayne nodded that he understood that. This whole time, she had been so gorram afraid of anythin' that carried bullets. She took one for him, but never fired a gun the whole time he knew her. She fought well enough with her body, wielded a knife if she must, but never a piece, not 'til today, 'til his life hung in the balance and it was shoot or go home without him. She broke all the rules to save his worthless hide, and Jayne couldn't ever tell her what that meant. Lucky she could take them thoughts right outta his head. Saved a lot of confusion, he reckoned.
"Rules made to be broken," she said, leaning in closer. "Works both ways."
Dumb as he was supposed to be and doped up to the eyeballs as he knew he was, Jayne had an idea what she meant. He had rules too, when it come to her, but they was gonna have to be broken to fix anything else. Simon and his experimentin' on River's brain, there weren't no choice in it. Much as he hated the idea, Jayne knew the Tams had it right. Couldn't make a meal without breaking a few eggs and such, and River was strong enough to take on the risk. If'n he hadn't known it before, he saw good and all now. All kinds o' strength in his little woman. Had to be to come this far.
More strength in each of them than maybe the whole crew had ever realised. Even now, Wash and Zoe was clung together in their own bunk, celebrating the life and love they shared after too close a shave with death on the part of all the crew. Inara sat by Mal, watching as he slept off the drugs, the pain, the blood loss. Simon sunk down exhausted to his bed and Kaylee followed, her hand smoothing his hair and trying her best to ease his stress.
"You did good." she promised him. "With Mal and Jayne, and... and when we had to fight and all."
She shook every time she so much as gave a passing thought to the shoot out on the skyplex. Simon knew how scared she had been, how she fired all of one shot and even that had gone so wide as to be of no use. No matter how shaken he felt by the whole experience, Kaylee had it worse. Simon had been strong for himself and River so long, now he must find some comfort for Kaylee, even in his exhaustion.
"You played your part," he promised her. "And it's like the Captain said himself, none of us have a problem with knowing you were unable to bring yourself to use violence in that way."
"River did it," she countered, looking away.
Simon shook his head.
"River is... She's different," he said painfully, reaching for Kaylee, encouraging her to face him again. "She was more like you once, at least similar, I suppose. I could never imagine her becoming as she is now, but I suppose we ought to be thankful for her skills and strength," he considered. "My point is that you are... you're Kaylee. You're wonderful," he told her with a smile that came so easy each and every time he met her eyes. "Every day I fight through what my life has become, for River, but what makes it easier, what makes it bearable or even enjoyable sometimes, it's you."
His hands gently held her face, pulled her closer without either of them hardly being conscious of it. Kaylee kissed him, because she couldn't stand not to be doing it another second. He talked so fancy, so pretty right now. She never thought to mean that much to anybody, much less somebody like him. Simon was like no other man she ever met in her whole life, and she liked him a lot, maybe loved him if she had an idea what real love like that was all about. When they laid down together on his bed she had a feeling they might be gonna find out tonight if she was real lucky.
"Kaylee..." he whispered, the most he could manage to speak right now.
"You want to?" she checked, between sweet, almost-teasing kisses. "Do ya?"
"Yes" he admitted, "but..."
"But nothin'," she replied, kissing him deeply, sinking into a moment worth drowning in. "I love ya, Simon."
"Kaylee, I... I love you too," he promised. "I do."
After that, there was really no more to be said.
To Be Continued...