New chapter new dangers. I'm not letting on who dies its all part of my brilliant yet evil plan to keep y'all reviewing! ;-) You know you want to. Plus I love reviews!
Title Competition is still running and so far I've had not a single guess messaged to me! Come on guys!
Italics are flashbacks.
Enjoy!
Chapter 6: Never Want To Let You Go
Reavers. The word makes her blood run to ice. She looks up from her seat on a wooden bench. And her eyes meet the ones of the man who is staring at her, another woman in his arms.
She is on her feet in an instant and moving towards them. That word in probably the only one in the entire 'verse that can destroy everything she is so desperately clinging to.
Inara's hands grip onto Simon's arms and she stares at him intently. For a moment Kaylee hates her. She wants to be in his arms, have him holding her while the world goes to hell.
"Kaylee!" His yelled word startles her and he reaches out a hand and grabs hers. In his other hand is Inara's hand and he is dragging them both towards the barn. "Run!"
Wash uses his full weight to hang onto the iron handle on the inside of the hatch but still his feet are dragged clear of the floor as the hatch bows upwards and outwards. Simon hauls down on Wash's body, trying to keep the man from being dragged upwards when the hatch inevitably breaks. Kaylee is screaming. Inara has her arms around her and they, along with River, Lisa and Ellen are pressed into the furthest corner from the hatch.
"Let go," Wash insists
When I die it's going to be better than this. I'm going to matter.
"What?" Simon yells at him over the screams of the Reavers. He surmises that there are at least four up there by now. And even one in this tiny pit will kill them all. The pistol is jammed in his waistband as he hangs on grimly to Wash.
"Let go. You've got the gun. You know what you need to do." His voice is harsh.
Simon lets go and steps back, as Wash continues to hang desperately onto the shaking handle. Only the thick oaken timbers are keeping the Reavers from tearing them apart. Simon's hand finds the pistol grip and closes around it. He turns to face the others while Wash fights with the hatch, his feet kicking and scrabbling on the floor.
"What are you doing?" Kaylee asks him fearfully.
Simon lifts the pistol slowly, calculating angles and if any of them will try and stop him. "What I promised Mal I would. If I had to."
River crosses her arms across her belly. She could stop him. She knows she could. Or she could let him shoot them all. It wouldn't be any messier than the Reavers getting down here. Quicker too. Simon knows where to shoot to kill a man. Not like before – two by two hands of blue – when Simon's gun didn't shake, when he stood there bloodstained and he let that man die a silent agonised death. Now she can see the muzzle trembling as he aims it at Kaylee. River had wanted this once upon a time, listening to the piano as he played. She had closed her eyes and waited for this that time. Let his song overwhelm her. She can feel the crashing of her big brother's emotions all around her. He just wants to spare them that. But he doesn't know if he can shoot them all and turn the gun on himself.
"Simon…" Inara starts breaking River's reverie.
"I'm sorry," Simon says, but his eyes are fixed on the mechanic as his finger flexes over the trigger. "I'm so sorry."
Mal sits huddled in the pilot's seat and stares very hard at the big red button Wash had installed last time he ordered them from his ship. His crew must be waiting for him to press that and call him back. Truth be told, he'd disconnected it a long time ago. Just enough so that it wouldn't do anything but that neither Wash nor Kaylee would notice that he'd done it. If Malcolm Reynolds ordered his crew to leave him and Serenity then he had a damn good reason. Like this time. He wouldn't call them back into space where Reavers were roaming. He might have killed those on Serenity but the Reaver ship had gone chasing a shuttle. Mal balls his fists underneath the rough grey blanket over his shoulders and frowns deeply.
Yesterday seems such a long time ago. He reaches forward, grabs his glass, and takes a deep slug of the cider in it. He is pretty sure that he shouldn't be drinking when swallowing the doc's pills. But since he can't read half the names on the bottles anyway except to know that they help for pain he isn't too worried. So long as it takes the edge off.
His leg throbs painfully. Mal winces.
"Mayday mayday," he says into the comm. "Monty where the good gorram are you?" he glares at the staticy screen as his words echo back to him mockingly from the empty ship. "Reavers Monty! Please come in!"
The shadow suddenly slides from the doorway. Mal feels his knees try and buckle beneath him in relief. He locks them and leans his head back against the wall behind him. The Reaver is still out there he suddenly realises. He can smell the stench of blood on it. The loud Reaver battle cry behind him through the wall sends him flying across the room and behind the large wooden dining table that has been overturned. Mal pulls his knees up to his chest and sits there shaking, his brown coat puddled around him.
"Not again, not again," he mutters to himself. "Kwan Yin watch over me."
He cradles the rifle against his chest, the barrel pointing vaguely in the direction of the door. His gun becomes the only solid thing, as the room seems to swim around him.
"No mercy," he mutters under his breath. "No mercy, no mercy."
He doesn't want to think about what will happen if that Reaver gets its hands on him. There comes the sound of rapid gunfire and Reaver war cries nearby. It sounds like it is underwater, distant and unreal. Something comes flashing through the doorway and thuds into the table. Mal jumps and almost fires his gun. He looks at the object, a four bladed throwing weapon, which is dug into the heavy wooden tabletop. Mal winces; there is blood on the blades. Fresh and bright red. "No mercy." Can't let them hear me. They will finish me this time. Mustn't. Gonna die if I do.
A large shadow falls throw the doorway and enters the room.
"Don't be stupid!" Lisa Cobb steps in and cuffs Simon roughly round the back of the head.
He isn't expecting the blow from the side; his attention was so focussed on Kaylee; so he jerks his arm upwards pulling the trigger as he does so.
Kaylee screams loudly.
Simon stands there staring wide eyed at the bullet now lodged deep into the wood above them. "Oh god Kaylee I'm…"
"A little help!" Wash yells cutting in.
They all spin to see Wash fighting to keep the hatch down. There is the sound of splintering wood as the bolts start to come away.
"Grab that ladder!" Ellen suddenly says, reaching for it. "We can break off the rungs and jam the pole through the handle."
Simon rushes to help her, bringing his foot down on the old wooden rungs repeatedly until they break.
Finally they get the ladder into pieces and are passing the six-foot pole up to Wash, when Inara calls out, "Simon!"
He turns to see her crouched next to River who is sat on the floor looking pale and holding her stomach.
Inara looks up at him. "I think the baby might be coming."
Simon blinks and stares in horror at River. "It can't be."
Inara shrugs. Simon drops to his knees next to his sister and puts his hands carefully against her stomach.
"Mei mei are you sure?"
River shakes her head looking like a scared girl.
Simon stands and draws Inara out of River's earshot. "Her waters haven't broken but that sure as hell felt like a contraction." He frowns deeply. "But it's too early. If we have to deliver a baby now she could die."
Meanwhile the others have manoeuvred the pole so that it can be jammed through the metal handle on the hatch. Wash takes a deep breath and reaches for the pole with one hand, still hanging on the hatch with the other. That is the moment when the bolts give way simultaneously, and Wash finds himself hauled upwards. He yells and finds himself face to face with a Reaver. It has startlingly human blue-grey eyes that are looking at him. Wash screams. "Shen sheng diyu!" He, Hoban Washburn is staring at the tattooed, pierced, mutilated face of a Reaver and it's licking its destroyed lips.
Translation Notes:
Kwan Yin - Goddess of mercy
Shen sheng diyu - holy hell