Title: Storms

Disclaimer: This universe is not owned by me and I have no right to it.

River felt odd: Thrumming with quiet. It wasn't a satisfactory description, she knew, which was why she didn't voice it, though Mal's mind searched silently for the answer several times since they'd set their course back to Serenity: Is she okay?

The information had not come as a shock to her, it had been the influence of the messengerwhich had made it so difficult to hear. She had not wanted this man to be a part of her, she had not wanted to be a part of the scientific machine that had cut into her so deeply. But what was, was. And what was done, done.

Mal was trying to give her time, accepting without judgment that she may need to resolve it all to herself before she was able to share the scars that had been ripped open and mended over all in the course of a few hours. He'd been there, after all. And his patience with her, for her was as wide and deep and beautiful as space. She'd never thought of patience as a kindness before Mal had given it to her.

Ideally, River would have preferred to pilot. It would have kept occupied this part of her mind that went around and around with... nothing. River sighed - so strange to feel this emptiness, this lack of connection with what she'd ended tonight.

Mal would have indulged her, though he still fret over her bruises and tears, he would have trusted her with the controls. However, River knew it would have driven them both to distraction: Mal to have to sit silently by with no purpose but to wonder over her mental and emotional state and River having to listen to the non-stop stream of worry through the air they shared.

So River sat in the other chair, her battered knees drawn up to her chest staring out into the black while Mal was the picture of strength and calm. River turned her face away from him, let the thoughts that slipped from him flow to and through her. It wasn't an invasion, she simply had no barriers left and these wisps of him gave her solid ground on which to focus her mind.

He was worried. River understood. He'd seen her much closer to the assassin they'd made her than he'd ever witnessed before... and he'd seen the other side as well - the tearful little girl that had come to them long ago; coming to Liu this time for explanations she'd been searching for her whole life - and for closure.

She'd known that would require killing him. But she'd hesitated. He'd talked, oh how willingly he'd told her how the project staff had found Simon and encouraged her parents to try again - this time with some... scientific help to intensify the results. A gift to the project they'd been in their naive hopes of glory; A gift to the project River had been in her pride and vanity and ego - accepting unquestioning the unnaturalness of her abilities.

Liu had followed her every move from birth. She remembered him now, of course - an uncle that came to call with no clear tie to their relations, a man whose visits had always caused tension in the house and the hairs on the back of her neck to rise.

His involvement in her life had quickly turned to hungry obsession, which Matthew Warner had picked up on. And exploited. He'd helped River escape, all right; with the intention of picking her right back up and blackmailing Liu for every brick he owned.

Liu loved her; in his own words, as a father and a soul mate. The intensity had distorted with absence, with imagination- so much so he'd been prepared to kill her - just to finally possess her. He'd hired the man to trigger her at Simon's wedding. River had seen the dark sludge in his mind turn and excite as he'd recalled waiting for the call that his man had her body a year ago - how he'd planned to follow her to death... uniting them forever. Then with bright, thirsty eyes fixed on her, he'd recounted how he'd been given renewed hope with the idea of sending Warner after her; how it had all worked out more beautifully than he could have planned.

And this is why her trigger finger held steady. Liu desperately wanted her to kill him. If he could not have her alive, he would attach himself to her in death, as her victim, as a shade among the shadows for the rest of her life. Still, she could not leave him alive...

She didn't hear the shot - she saw Liu slump, felt in her mind a sort of wailing frustration, failure as his life was yanked to silence. River frowned, she hadn't even felt the kick from the gun. And finally, with Liu's demented presence shattered and dissolving she'd felt Mal again; His grim determination and the smoke coming from his gun.

He'd only needed one shot, though he kept the gun level just in case for a moment before looking over to River. What he had read in her face at the moment, even River did not know. But she knew he had misunderstood.

In the moment that their eyes met, his heart was open to her. She could see it all as clearly as if it had been printed for her. He'd gone in with her fully expecting that it would be a bullet from his gun and not from hers to finish this man off. He had prepared himself long before he'd fired his weapon that she would resent it, would feel betrayed, angry. He'd brooded and worried since the night of Simon's wedding how intense the voice she'd recited had been in it's obsession with her - whoever had filled her head with those words would love and hate her beyond all comprehension and there had been no way he was going to leave her vulnerable to it... him. Mal believed she would harbor remorse for the death of this eccentric, horrible man... Mal believed she would doubt his intentions, judge his decisions, hate his actions... She still found it amazing how little he expected of her heart.

But there had been no time for explanations. The guards had heard the shot, had felt trouble brewing minutes earlier. All three had connected to Liu the first phase of the project, like Warner. They would be coming. Not for revenge or loyalty to their fallen employer; but for the chance to fight and kill River Tam.

And at that moment, River didn't mind the chance to use her skills. She took them on with relief, using every blow, every move as an opportunity to release what was building in her. She took their ambition, their greed, their ego, she echoed it against them and sent it away from her. She'd never had a fight in which her emotions were so blended with the pain she felt... the pain she inflicted.

She hadn't gotten away unscathed, but they hadn't gotten away at all. She hadn't necessarily needed to kill them, but she had... there would be no more loose ends. No one to knife them in the back as they made their escape, she would take no more chances from her past. And Mal had seen. And for the first time, she had not been able to read his face.

She searched his profile now. Underneath the layer of worry that filtered all his thoughts there was rest. There was peace in him like there hadn't been for a very long time. River closed her eyes thoughtfully, sought the unsettling quiet feeling in her mind now and compared it to what she felt from him. River opened her eyes in surprise, looked at Mal as if he may have seen the embarrassing realization dawn in her mind. The shadow behind her, her mind her own, her course set for Serenity, River felt peace.

Morning after the Wedding:

Not having the advantage of one of Simon's sedatives, Mal did awake to the knock on his door. He opened one eye to see the morning sun still trickling through the blinds...which meant it had not progressed far enough in the sky for it to be acceptable that he was conscious.

He stumbled to the door, knocked the chair away with a grumpy kick, and opened the door a crack prepared to send the offender to the third level of Hell. Inara greet him with a smile, looking more beautiful, more perfect than she had ever looked. She laughed softly, "You look like you've had quite a night!"

Mal blinked at her, his mind too bleary and his muscles too sore to respond properly.

"I thought you might like to join me for a walk to breakfast. Kaylee says the proprietor down the road sets an excellent table."

Mal let the breath leave him, opened the door just slightly more to avoid being rude, "Ah, thank you. I - I've.. I'll have to take a rain check. But-"

"Oh. Well. Okay, I didn't mean to disturb-"

Mal shifted, uncomfortable with his sudden need to hide whom laid in his bed. But, too late, Mal realized that while he was blocking her access into the room well enough, she now had a fairly good view into it under the arm he was using to keep the door half - closed. Mal swore as her dark eyes changed abruptly; he looked back to see what she was seeing. The room was a mess, no less, certainly than Mal himself, and in sleep the sheets had shifted around River and quite an expanse of smooth thigh was visible amongst the well tousled linens. Mal swallowed hard, taking a moment before he turned back to Inara, "No. Nope. No way."

Inara nodded very carefully, and looked Mal hard in the eye, "Quite a night."

"I'm telling you it is not what you think." She rolled her eyes and shook her head at him.

"Oh, Mal."

Mal saw the tears in her eyes - could have drawn her into the room and forced her to believe him, convinced her to listen to him, but he was bone - weary of letting his character take beating after beating for things he wasn't sorry for, "I'm not defending myself to you 'Nara. I haven't done any wrong here."

"Of course you haven't," Inara refused to meet his eyes this time, "You're a man and she was there - worshiping you like you wish everyone -" Mal drew himself up, the warning in his eye, in his stance, clear. Her tone deepened earnestly, "Mal, how could you - haven't you seen the way she looks at you? Follows you as if you hold the keys to the universe? You've taken advantage of a poor, love-sick girl for one night of reckless passion-"

Mal could feel the blood gathering at his temples, the wounds he'd sustained last night from the so-called love sick girl, which Inara seemed not to notice, throbbed with his temper. He held up a hand, "Before you say something else you might regret later, I'm going to shut this door. If you want to continue later- after I've slept a day or two, I'll be at your disposal. But right now I'm just too damn tired."

He closed the door with a distinct bang, the impact of which was only slightly marred by the fact that the door wouldn't stay closed and it took him some moments of fiddling to get the chair back in place, "My God, Mal, what happened to your door?"

Mal glared at the door separating him from the woman he had once wanted more anyone else in the world, he spat "Passion!" Mal sighed, kept going loudly, "Just like you said, Inara, a night of reckless gorram passion-"

He rounded away from he door only to jump at another thudding sound. He let out a string of curses that would have made his drill sergeant blush. River, still drugged and tangled in sheets had stumbled out of bed wobbling on her legs trying to get her footing like a newborn foal. Her eyes wide, she whispered, "Inara! Coming here. I'll hide... she'll think... she won't like it."

Mal dragged his hands down his face, "Yeah, even I got that." River ignored him, looking around - the wardrobe was too small, the watercloset folded in - when her eyes fixed on the window Mal yelled loudly enough to make River jump guiltily, "River, you go near that window and I'll have you cleaning Jayne's bunk for a month, get the hell back in bed!"

River looked at him, her bottom lip quivered, "She's already been here. I'm sorry. I'm so -"

Mal pointed a finger at her, "Stop apologizing for the wrong damn things." River was still frozen, a trembling statue, Mal pointed toward the bed, "Now get back in bed until those drugs wear off. You don't have to sleep, but I sure as hell am and I don't want you wandering around without me, dong ma?"

River took an unsteady step toward the bed, let herself collapse on it. She covered herself with a sheet and lay obediently still. Mal nodded authoritatively and followed. He grabbed the blanket she'd cast aside some time during their sleep and covered up, determined to be comfortable this time just to spite the 'verse and everyone in it.

to be continued...

A/N: Hope you don't feel cheated on the 2nd hand action account. I needed some quiet time ;). And I left out a plot point from the last chapter and fit it in here. Will revise to fit in previous chapter when I've archived it. Thank you, thank you for the reviews - they give me such a boost.