A/N: Sorry it's been so long, but finally, I continue. Please, please contact me with any ideas for the title, as the one it has is lame. Thanks and enjoy!
An
Disclaimer: Joss is Boss!
The next hour had been interesting, and River had enjoyed it. She'd especially enjoyed the real story of Earth that Was, the demons, the ever lonely slayers, hundreds and hundreds of years of chosen ones, until one, THE one, River decided, had unlocked all the potential slayers and given them power. It made a good story, and it was better knowing it was true. She wanted to read the watcher's diaries from which the girls had gotten this information about their history. She probably wouldn't understand most of what they said, but she still wanted to read the diaries of Rupert Giles.
It also made River happier that the girls knew about her and Simon now. There was no need to pretend she'd only fallen out of a tree, and as the Captain said, neither party could hand the other over without being turned in themselves. It made her feel less alone, too, that the slayers were hiding from the same thing she was, and Book's guess that people like River had been chosen as watchers made sense to her. Simon furthering that to estimate that the ultimate goal was to create watcher/slayer hybrids did too, though why no one could yet work out, because as far as anyone could tell, there were no vampires in space.
The girls were still talking, though, still answering questions. How each of them had left home, even running out the back door as the alliance knocked on the front to take her to the academy, how they'd all ended up on Allen, when they'd first made contact with Badger, how they'd stolen the money to get offmoon, right up to (at River's insistence) the game of tag and Nova falling from the balcony. For the benefit of Zoë and Wash, they continued the story from after Nova had asked where Ebony was.
Kaylee had rushed over to Simon, wanting to know if his arm had been broken. As he wasn't sure without an x-ray, Jayne had decided that it didn't matter either way, it was Nova's fault, and injuring a crew member made her an enemy, no matter how many times he himself had threatened to break Simon's arms. At this point, the two groups had been more or less huddled back to back, talking and discussing things amongst themselves, with River somewhere in between, trying to listen to both. Despite her protests, Jayne had marched over to Nova, who had her back to him, and grabbed her, pinioning her arms to her sides. Being unaware of the extent of her supernatural powers, he had not expected her to twist out of his grip with ease and kick him in the chest hard enough to send him sailing twenty feet across the cargo bay to land on his ass. He was still ignoring her promises that this had been a reflex action, and she really wasn't intending to beat the crew to a pulp and steal Serenity.
This story had ended with Mal informing the girls that they were being left on the next world they came to, and then getting incredibly peeved when a sullen Nova had replied:
"Well, duh, Captain, that's what we're paying you for."
He had then banished the slayers to the cargo bay, where they had willingly gone, and banished everyone else to their respective work stations. River, however, didn't have a work station, so once she was sure Simon was occupied with instructing the Shepherd in arm splinting (River knew it wasn't broken, and she'd told him so, but he still thought it better to wear a splint until he could reach a hospital with an x-ray facility), she had crept from her room and sidled down into the cargo bay, via the kitchen, where she'd found the girls lounging around on the floor, and rummaging through their bags, which the Captain and Jayne had removed from the smuggling hole. She stood watching them for while, slightly too shy to make the first remark. Eventually, Taban noticed her. River was glad it was her. The cheerful girl reminded her a little of Kaylee, and she and Taariq seemed less threatening than the three taller girls.
"Hey, River," the blonde smiled, causing the others to look up, each give a greeting of their own, and go right back to rummaging through their things. River smiled back.
"Sustenance is key." She said, proffering tins of food. She frowned at them. "Not haute cuisine. Not fresh. Won't be food again 'til it comes out the tin. I couldn't find the opener, Jayne took it again."
With the mention of food, River had grabbed the attention of all five girls, and was immediately relieved of all the tins. Grinning over their exclamations over the "fake chow mein" noodles and tuna flavoured protein and carb, and quickly assessed how long it had been since each girl had eaten, and how long it had been since she'd eaten her chosen meal. She had definitely made the right choices, and was delighted when they invited her to join their "floor picnic". Gracefully seating herself between Taariq and Taban, she watched carefully as a multi-functioned, red handled knife – they were still called Swiss Army knives, as the company had survived long after Switzerland had been left behind on Earth that Was – was produced seemingly from nowhere and used to open the tins. Similarly, forks and chopsticks appeared almost magically and were handed around before the girls dug straight into the cold food. River regarded them, then her chicken-flavoured protein, and followed suit. It tasted different cold, and she wondered how mere heat could entirely change the flavour of something.
After the tins had been emptied and cast aside, Nova produced a bottle of stolen wine, and handed it around. When the bottle had made its way to River, the teenager shook her head firmly.
"Alcohol negates the effects of Niazac. Simon gave her a double dose this morning, to keep her calm. Wine could start a rampage."
As Taban shrugged and handed the bottle onto Taariq, Kaige said:
"See, this is why you shouldn't hang with crazy people." With a mistrustful glance at River.
"Well, maybe we should've abandoned you on Allen, then." Smirked Nova, with a wink at River. "And she can't be that crazy, she turned it down." Taking the bottle from Ebony, Nova had then embarked on a reminiscence of a riot she'd once started by accident, more for River's benefit than her cohorts, as they had evidently all been there, but they still laughed, and carried on with stories of their own, and River had listened and listened, picturing herself there, drenched in the spray of fire hoses, ears ringing with yells and eyes smarting with smoke, and eventually, the smells of sweat and liquor and burning Patrol vehicles had drifted into dreams.