A/N: Thanks for all the feedback, peops :) Rewriting 'Serenity' to fit this 'verse is not easy!
(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)
Chapter 24
There was an uncomfortableness in Mal when Serenity set down on Haven. He had good reason enough for heading there, and didn't mind Shepherd Book knowing he was. Weren't nothin' Mal could put his finger on that bothered him so, just knew there was something. Such he told Book when the two men were left alone to consult together.
"Ain't like me to come lookin' for a sermon, we both of us know that. Truth to say, ain't exactly what I come for now. Seemed to me that if anybody had an idea what we're about to face, might just be you."
Book had been there on Beaumonde. He saw River lay waste to folks at The Maidenhead, and Mal had a notion he understood more as to the why than most anybody else could. The doctor studied his sister's brain. Cobb laid along side her by night and fought alongside her by day. Nobody knew River Tam better than they did, including her ownself, but Book just might know more of what she was than who, somehow.
"She is of interest to them still," said Book, not even looking at Mal as he cleared away empty plates and scraps of food from the meal he had shared with the crew. "To their mind, they want back what she took from them. Knowledge is power. It has always been so."
"You talkin' 'bout these Hands o' Blue fellas I been hearin' so much about?"
Book didn't answer the question. Mal had a feeling he didn't need him too.
"They'll come at you sideways. It's their way," he explained instead. "You'll have to have your wits about you. All of you."
Mal knew that was the truth. Honestly, he knew how the most of this conversation was bound to play out, and yet he had to have it anyway. Maybe just to have a man he trusted to know better agree that he weren't bein' a damn fool for following his gut into danger and the unknown. Inara had said a certain trip he was plannin' could be suicide, and Mal knew that to be the truth. Trouble was, he had half a mind he could justify that risk. He just needed one other to let him know his mind was still sound. There were days of late, Mal seriously wondered.
"And Miranda?" he checked.
"Dangerous place to be headed," Book told him, finally done with his tasks and forced to meet the Captain's eyes straight on, "but it might be the only way to end it all."
He spoke with finality but also with hope. Mal had a feeling they weren't just talking about River, about ending her suffering in all manner of ways. Wasn't so foolish as to think they were talking about the end of the Alliance neither. That'd be too much to hope, too much for even the Preacher to put his faith into. Might be a start though.
"Won't ask if you're comin' back aboard my boat, Shepherd," said Mal, getting to his feet. "Seems to me a man like yourself is better served in a place like this."
"Seems to me perhaps my function amongst your crew has already been completed, son." Book smiled.
"You think you brought me back to looking for the Lord to guide me and mine?" asked Mal, a fight ready in his throat that Book was ready as ever to extinguish in a word.
"I think you found faith and hope amongst good people," he told him, a hand on Mal's shoulder. "If you won't let God guide you, Malcolm, let them."
"Waste of gorram time!" Jayne complained, crashing about in the room like a caged animal.
The imagery would please River any other day. The barely-tamed beast in Jayne was more obvious than the dark power in herself, and it brought comfort in her, never fear. Such thoughts led to activities that wiped her mind of all else, calmed and excited her all at once. Today was not such a day. Dark clouds were in Jayne's mind and heart. He grew restless and she knew why.
"He knows better," she told him definitely. "If a brother lay slain, he would see him taken care of. Such the Captain does now."
She spoke sense, even if the words did seem a jumble. Jayne knew well and proper what she meant and more then that how true it was. One of his own was in the same jam as Tracey, he'd help out, do his best by him. No person by the name of Cobb would be disrespected, abandoned, put down wrong. Mal fought a war with the boy in the box, so they had to do right by him, no matter what. Course not a one of 'em expected him to come back from the dead like he did.
"Expect the unexpected," said River, words she had spoken before and not so long ago.
Jayne turned fast to stare at her.
"You knew it before?" he checked. "You knew he was gonna leap up like he did and not be dead?"
"Not exactly." River shook her head, staring into nothing a moment. "Lines were blurred. Life, death. She sees enough."
A shudder accompanied those words and Jayne didn't have to wonder as to why. Sure'n his little woman weren't thinkin' only of Tracey when she talked about life and death. What come next for them was likely to be walkin' that fine line between living and not. Jayne weren't looking forward to it none, but it was as it was, and he weren't shirking no responsibility to his bao-bei nor this crew. The worst happened then it did. Weren't no turnin' back, not now they come this far.
"Captain hasn't made a decision yet," said River then. "Soon. Very soon."
"Hey, he says he won't go where you need to get, we'll find some other way, little woman," Jayne told her firmly.
His hand at her head turned her gently to look at him, eyes meeting hers.
"You hearin' me, Mrs Cobb," he said deliberately. "You and me is tied and bound. Where you gotta go, I go. If'n the rest don't wanna make that trip, we will. Somehow."
"She hears, husband." River smiled. "Understands, comprehends."
She leaned in close enough to kiss him, sealing the promise between them one more time. They were in this together, come hell or high water, and River was expecting both before long.
She knew it amused him on the surface, but deep down there was sadness and pride combined. Captain Daddy was the best of names River could give to the man who ran their ship and kept their family safe. Did his best as a father should, not like he who created her, sent her off to pain and torment. Malcolm Reynolds was a broken man, but righteous. Believed in doing what was right, if not best for all. Would lay down his life to prove his way was better, that independence was king.
The same good-will and faith had Mal visit Book, had him bring aboard the coffin from the post-station they visited after, the body of a comrade in arms. Battle of Du-Khang was bloody, as may battles before and after. Serenity Valley sealed it all, but Mal thought of other moments now. Other battles, and not all from war, some still to come.
Tracey had dragged up too much, too many memories unspoken for so long. Made Mal think. His thoughts ran so wild and deep and every colour of the spectrum that it was almost overwhelming to the little Reader even half the ships length away. She come to seek him out, to speak the words that could calm the erratice patterns of thinking in the both of them. It was the only way, after all.
"He was a son, long before she was daughter," she said from the galley door.
Mal's sad smile proved her words to be the truth, not that River needed confirmation. She never did.
"You put yourself up in charge of folks, they come to trust you. Put their lives into your hands. You make one mistake..."
His voice trailed away, eyes focused on literal hands on the table, his own fingers through which so many lives had slipped up to now. River could feel it, the pain, the heartache, the torment. Could never understand it as well as he did, nor feel it as deep and true, but it was there. Dark, clouded, swirling inside a heart that tried so hard to be stone, but failed at every turn. One of few things at which the Captain always failed, to harden himself so far as to not care at all.
"'Bout time we got out of here, I reckon," he said of St Albans where the ship had sat until now out of respect for Tracey's family.
Past two days or so had seemed long and drawn. Mal had aged a decade in his mind, he was certain of it. Looking to River, he knew she had an understanding of how that felt. A girl of eighteen, ought to be barely more than a child, but she knew so much, felt so much, had been through as much in her short life than some the age of a hundred would never had to endure. If Mal could wipe away her pains and troubles he would. When she smiled all of a sudden, he knew she read that thought right outta his head.
"Guess that's why you've a mind to make me your Daddy."
"More worthy of the title than any other," she admitted, shrugging her shoulders.
Her hands held the hem of her dress and swinging it back and forth like a child might, but she was no innocent, no little girl. Mal had seen her, gun in hand, and maybe more dangerous in a bar where she fought unarmed. Her body was a weapon, her mind might just be worse, but none of it was River, the girl, the woman. If the Preacher had it right, if the Doctor knew what he was talking on, there was a chance Miranda could cure River, or at least undo some of the damage done. Might give them the chance to hit back at the Alliance too, and Mal did like that idea, more today perhaps than yesterday.
"When you can't run, you crawl," said River suddenly, eyes barely focused as she quoted what she had heard both from Tracey and Zoe, "and when you can't crawl, you find someone to carry you."
"Sometimes wonder," said Mal then, "if I'm carryin' my crew, or if they carry me."
He met River's gaze and saw a smile quirk one side of her mouth.
"All relative," she noted.
"Reckon so," he agreed. "You ready for what comes next, little one?"
"Are you?" River countered. "They aim to stop her, him, all of them."
"Well then, let 'em try," said Mal, standing up from his seat with a look in his eye that meant business. "I aim to misbehave."
To Be Continued...