Disclaimer: The wonderful characters and the good ship Serenity all belong to Joss Whedon, or Mutant Enemy, or Fox, or whoever actually owns them, and that person or entity is definitely not me. Written for amusement purposes only. No copyright infringement intended or implied.
Rating: T, with rough language warning. May go up for later chapters.
Summary: Eight months after Miranda, the crew of Serenity still struggles to adapt to the "new normal." Constructing, and deconstructing, moments of her life, River attempts to assimilate her new and sometimes painful feelings for Jayne. - - Rayne, but will touch on other pairings. Post-BDM, of course.
Chapter Eight: Dark and Bright
River sat on the darkened bridge, curled up in the pilot's seat. She was accessing the cortex and the flat screen was glowing faintly, casting a green pall over her skin.
She scrutinized the information on the vid, a compilation of works regarding 20th century mathematicians. She'd stopped the cursor at No Dark Shadows: The Life of Yukata Taniyama by Tam, R.
She was still deciding whether or not she was going to access the material when she felt Simon on the way. He was restless and a little agitated about Zoë's last examination and wanted to talk. She turned her head as he approached, ready to give him a welcoming look.
"Busy?" he queried, pausing at the doorway.
"Not really. You wanted to talk about Zoë?"
Simon laughed, a little chagrined, and came in hesitantly. He always entered the bridge as if it were for the first time. These were not the machines or the technology he understood, and he found them intimidating. He turned and leaned casually against the console, his back to the windscreen. Simon never liked looking out into the black.
"She's dilated to almost three centimeters. It's not going to be too long before she goes into active labor."
"That's good news," River smiled. She couldn't wait to meet the baby.
"Ah, River…you haven't felt…can you tell…" Simon shifted his slight weight a little and folded his arms almost defensively. "Is Zoë comfortable having me as her obstetrician? Does she wish… do you think we should head for the nearest sign of civilization and try and find a qualified hospital?"
River shook her head confidently. These were Simon's fears, not Zoë's.
"Zoë is fine with you. She wouldn't trust anyone else, Simon. She wants to have the baby here, on Serenity."
"I've managed to pick up some instruments and a neonatal diagnostic program, but there are just so many things that can go wrong…"
"Everything will be fine." River reassured him.
"Do you 'know' that?" He looked at her searchingly.
River shook her head. "Not yet. But I 'know' you."
"And Zoë is all right with me?" His anxiety brought the conversation full circle.
"Yes."
"You're sure?" He ran a nervous hand through his silky dark brown hair.
"Positive. She does wish that you'd use more warming gel when you do the sonic scans, though." River told him, straight-faced.
"Really?" he blinked in consternation. "I thought I was adequately covering the…" He caught the gleam in her eye and realized she was winding him up. He bumped her chair with his hip in retaliation, grinning reluctantly. "Still a brat."
River suppressed a laugh.
"So what are you up to? How's the hand?" he asked idly, leaning sideways to look at the vid screen.
River glanced at her palm. Jayne had been right; the cut had healed so cleanly and quickly that three days later there was barely a scar. "Fine."
"Oh, my god. Your Taniyama bio. I'd completely forgotten about that," Simon's mouth hung open in amazement as he stared at the screen. He switched his gaze to meet hers. "It was published only a few months after you left for the Academy."
River nodded. "I'd been at the Academy for three months. They had great pride in announcing the work…it added verisimilitude to their claims of excellence and exclusivity." Her mouth twisted.
"Mother and Father were proud, too. I remember Father had copies printed on paper and bound in real leather. He gave them to his business associates as New Year gifts," Simon recalled.
River's smile only had a tinge of bitterness. "Did he read it?"
Simon's face blanked. "I'm sure he –" He began to defend his father almost out of habit.
"Simon." River chided him gently. "I know neither of them did."
"Well, I read it. Never was the hunt for Fermat's Last Theorem so thrillingly recounted!" He tried to lighten the moment. "I finished it at three in morning and wrote to you immediately. Do you remember the letter?"
River shook her head quickly, looking down at her hands in her lap.
"They had a party in my honor the evening it was published. The whole school was invited. Champagne and canapés. I was so happy; I felt so appreciated. The very next morning, I was culled from my class, along with Jean-Luc Marseillet and Argonne Daeta. They told us our genius and creative promise elevated us to an even more selective program," she paused. "I never saw either of them again."
"River…" Simon's voice ached. He radiated a mixture of horror, anger and sympathy.
"It's all right, Simon," she put a hand on his arm. "It's over; I'm here, I'm safe." She gave him a comforting smile. "No more dark shadows for me."
Simon seemed to hesitate. She knew what was in his mind. He was her doctor as well as her brother, and he'd done countless full body scans on her. Sophisticated flesh weaves that were invisible to the naked eye would be revealed there. He'd seen the evidence of her desperation, but he didn't want to admit what he'd seen. She remembered what he had said to her when she wanted to end it all after the incident at the Maidenhead. Simon would never willingly seek death, not unless all other options had been exhausted. By natural inclination and by training, he would always fight for life, especially for those he loved.
"You tried to commit suicide, didn't you? At the Academy?" he asked quietly.
River nodded slowly. She wondered if this was the essential difference between them, why one was so coveted, the other rejected, by their parents. Had they sensed her darkness, even then? She tried to explain.
"I felt my mind slipping away…out of my control. They could make me do things…" she trailed away. Not nice things. "They cut up all my food. One of the orderlies left a plastic dinner knife on the tray by mistake. I tried to gouge out my wrists, and when that seemed too slow, I sawed open my carotid artery. But they managed to keep me alive."
Simon spun the chair out and crouched in front of her, his arms sliding around her protectively. He leaned in and hugged her gingerly, as if she were too delicate to sustain full body contact.
"Mei mei," he whispered against her shoulder. "This is selfish of me, since I know what you suffered at their hands, but I'm so glad they did."
"The orderly… they killed him for that. For forgetting the knife," River added hollowly. Another death on her conscience. It was no wonder she had gone insane.
"That was not your fault!" Simon responded immediately, as always leaping to her defense.
River smiled through a misting of tears. Dear Simon…she stroked the back of his head.
"Do you ever still…" he couldn't seem to get the question out, but she knew what he was asking.
"No," she answered immediately. She had too much to live for now. She had Simon, her newfound family, the baby coming, Serenity, and… her raw and unsettled feelings for a certain obstinate, violent, foul-mouthed mercenary.
"No, Simon," she reconfirmed, and kissed the top of his head. "I'm here to stay."
River closed her eyes and let the reassuring thrum of Serenity convince her that was true.
&&&&&&&&&
The chubby wooden farm animals had come out to play. The little barnyard shapes that Jayne had carved over the last few months were spread out on a tarp that covered one side of the dining room table, and he was painting them various bright colors.
Kaylee was bent over the table, peering at the figures closely.
"Is this a…bear?"
"Cow."
"Giraffe?" she pointed at one with a longish neck.
"Horse!" Jayne snapped, offended.
Kaylee giggled. "Just funnin' ya, is all. These are really cute, Jayne."
He looked at her suspiciously.
"They are, aren't they, Riv?" Kaylee looked over at River for support.
"Yes," River smiled, sitting on the steps leading to the crew quarters and the bridge, her drawing pad on her lap. "Zoë and the baby will love them." She was pretending to be sketching, but she was really just enjoying watching Jayne work on the toys.
Since the pot incident he'd reverted back to ignoring her for the most part, but there were times when River would catch him averting his eyes just as she turned her head, and once when she was coming across the catwalk he had stopped his chin-ups and just hung there, as if he couldn't concentrate when she was near. She vacillated between joy at any perceived partiality in his glance, and despair when he would march past her as if she didn't exist.
"I wired together a little 'com system for Zoë so she could listen for the baby anywhere on the ship," Kaylee said, picking up a little pink pig that had already dried. "I'd like to make somethin' real sweet like these, though. What about you, River? Did you make anything for the baby?"
"I made a mobile for the baby's crib. Clouds and rainbows and dinosaurs." She felt the sudden hush and looked up to see them staring at her. "Is that not appropriate?"
"I think it's perfect," Kaylee said softly. River could feel fond memories of Wash and his dinosaurs flood Kaylee's mind. The mechanic rubbed her thumb thoughtfully over the small pig's snout. "These little guys need faces, Jayne." She picked up a cow and waggled the two animals at each other. "How they gonna talk to each other if they ain't got faces? Are you gonna paint 'em on?"
He shrugged. "Never really thought on it. I was just gonna leave 'em like that."
"River can paint 'em! She's the best artist on the ship. You'd do that, wouldn't you, River?" Kaylee suggested eagerly. River could sense that Kaylee thought there was some still kind of rift between them, and was using this as an opportunity to get them comfortable with each other again.
"Certainly," River said slowly. She was about to say, "I'd be happy to help," but remembered Jayne's knee-jerk reaction to her 'help.'
"Well, come on over here and sit down and get started, Miss Tam," the mechanic sang out. "No time to lose." Kaylee pointed at the chair next to Jayne's on the tarp-covered side of the table.
"The rugrat ain't gonna need 'em comin' down the birth canal, Kaylee," Jayne gave a snorting laugh.
"Yeah, but they'll cheer Zoë up, and Simon says that labor could start any minute now." She pulled out the chair for River.
Simon was correct. River had felt spastic hums of energy from the pregnant woman all morning, and currently Zoë was in the nursery, Simon and River's old passenger dorm, deep in the throes of her nesting instinct: washing the walls, arranging the crib and other baby paraphernalia, stacking diapers, folding and refolding the tiny baby clothes that had been carefully selected and purchased whenever they'd landed at a place that carried a suitable selection. It wouldn't be long before those infrequent contractions elevated into full-blown labor.
River looked mutely at Jayne, checking his reaction to Kaylee's idea. He gave a tiny shrug, as if it didn't matter at all to him. She put her sketch pad to the side of the stairs, stood up and walked to the table, then slid diffidently into a chair at his right. It was the closest that she'd been to him since he'd held her bleeding hand against his chest in the kitchen four days ago.
She picked up a sheep. It really was cute. "Do you want a lot of detail, or should I just keep it simple?" she asked.
"Don't really care. Whatever you think looks good." Jayne was suddenly painting very industriously, as if he wanted to finish in a hurry.
"Well, I'm gonna go check on Zo'," Kaylee said brightly, patting River's shoulder before she left the room, humming.
"Will you pass me a brush and the can of black paint?" River asked nervously.
"I'm a little preoccupied here, genius," he frowned, indicating that he had his hands full.
"Right. Sorry." River half stood and leaned across his workspace to collect the materials she needed. The wave of her long, dark hair swept perilously close to the bright yellow duck Jayne was painting and he twitched back in reaction.
"Sorry!" She repeated.
He shook his head a little and took the opportunity to edge his chair a little further away.
She placed the little can of black paint to one side and used a little angled brush to dab the necessary details to the sheep.
"Like this?" she held it up to show him and he nodded briefly.
They worked together silently for a few minutes, with River adding dots and curves and swirls to approximate faces, tails and other elements on the animals. Soon she'd exhausted the pile of dry animals. Since she didn't have anything else to do but watch him, she indulged herself fully.
He had big hands, but they worked deftly and confidently. The little animals that would be oversized and safe for the baby to play with some day were dwarfed by those hands. He had eschewed wearing gloves, and his skin was daubed here and there with paint. He liked to feel the wood, sanded so carefully smooth, sliding through his fingers, she thought. He liked the smell of the paint and the bright colors. He appreciated the actuality of things. Someday she would ask him who taught him to whittle like that.
Her eyes wandered from his hands up his well-muscled arms to his strong shoulders and neck. He'd obviously shaved this morning, since there were a few nicks surrounding the circle of his goatee. She wondered what he would look like clean-shaven. Not like Jayne, at any event. She liked his mouth, and his nose, too – there was a little dent halfway down, probably the result of some bar brawl. The bruise under his left eye had paled to a vague spidery yellow, still kind of attractive and manly-looking. She hoped the bruises on his body had faded as much.
His eyes were so pretty…bright blue, with so many expressions: disgust, aggression, excitement, amusement, guile, and every once in a while, something that took her breath away. Oh, and irritation. Like right now.
"Want to get a move on, crazy?" he asked sarcastically, jerking his elbow at the little pile of animals. He was finished, and was wiping his hands off with a rag.
River started. Had she really just been sitting there gawking at him?
"Oh, yes," she mumbled and reached for a little yellow chick. Suddenly a wave of energy pulsated through her. "Oh!" She pushed to her feet abruptly, knocking over her chair, only seconds before they heard Kaylee's excited yelp for Simon from downstairs.
She turned to Jayne, beautiful blue eyes now alarmed, her own eyes shining with anticipation.
"It's starting!"
&&&&&&&&&&
A/N: Dark: I find little River trapped at the Academy unutterably sad. Simon is such a hero for saving her. Bright: Major Jayne crushing going on here, lol. Next up: BABY! Thanks for reading and so much for reviewing! Gem