Carving Out a Future
By: Dreamfall
Summary: Her crew doesn't know that Serenity's new passenger, a carpenter with an 'unusual upbringing', is a relic from the past. Xander says he's not looking for trouble. But, then, neither are they. Not usually, leastways. It just always comes calling anyway. Gen. Canon couples mentioned, but definitely not the focus of the story.
Written for: NaNoWriMo and TTH100: Xander/Firefly
TTH100 prompt: 043-Castle
Rating: FR13/PG13/T
Disclaimer: I own neither Firefly nor BtVS.
Spoilers: Takes place post Season 7 for Buffy, and post-Objects in Space (and post the comic books, for that matter), but pre-Serenity for Firefly.
Author's Note: This is the story I started in November for NaNoWriMo. I'm thirty or so chapters into it, but since there's going to be at least one hundred chapters (since it's for tth100), they're mostly pretty short. If you're coming from this from my HP fanfics-- it's very different. Way less dark. It's also an incredibly fun story to write, and I do intend to continue with it to its conclusion. And no, it's not taking any real time away from Cat, now that I'm not working obsessively on it, like I was in November. I'll be posting every couple/few days at least till I'm caught up with my livejournal (username dreamfall(underscore)nnwm). Hope you enjoy!
Review Response: Responses to any reviews will be posted in the same livejournal as my other review responses-- username dreamfall(underscore)ff
Chapter Twenty-Two
Uninvited Guests
Xander watched as Jayne, Mal, and Zoë started off in the mule, heading towards River's Bend in a roundabout way that wouldn't give their location away, and murmured, "Bye-bye. Have fun storming the castle."
"Think they'll make it?"
He looked over, surprised at the soft voice, and grinned as he saw River standing beside him and waving. "It'll take a miracle." He was almost used to her chiming in on his movie quotes from his own time, but it never ceased to send a wash of warmth through him. A sense of not being completely cut off from everything and everyone he ever knew or cared about. It didn't last long, but it was great when it happened.
She grinned. "Yellow ocean waving at the sky," she pointed out.
Xander blinked. "Never seen it myself, but if you say so, you're probably right."
"Wolf pack -- always attack the old and the weak, never the fighters," she added, smile fading.
"They're not planning on attacking anyone," Xander pointed out. "Just picking up a package."
River rolled her eyes, an expression Xander recognized through long experience as that of a teacher unimpressed with a stupid answer, and turned and walked away, leaving him to stare after her uncertainly.
She usually seemed pretty okay in his company. Not a normal seventeen-year-old girl, but then, of the dozens of them he'd met, trained, and taken care of over the years, he'd never known a 'normal seventeen-year-old girl', so that wasn't too big a deal. River was just a bit further from typical than most. He'd talked to Simon about her some. Heard about how the government had seduced her into a special school and then trapped her in some sort of sick experiment that included cutting into her brain and breaking her mind. He didn't know how long Simon would be able to stay ahead of the government, but hoped for the best.
With a sigh, he turned and headed back into the cargo bay, whittling a stick without giving much thought to what he was making. Just playing. They shouldn't be over an hour, and he'd just as soon be here when they returned. Not that he didn't think they could take care of themselves -- he had faith in every one of them. But at the same time, Xander wasn't much used to letting people go off into situations that could well be dangerous without going with them. He knew that this was different, that what they did had nothing to do with him, but at the same time, he just hated watching them go while he sat here doing nothing.
With a sigh, he shaved another curl off his stick, most of his attention on the view outside the door, which was left open in case the others needed speedy entrance. A flicker of motion caught the attention of his left eye, and he sharpened his gaze, hands falling still as he stared out into the high grass.
There. A patch of grass that moved against the wind. And another. A third. He watched carefully and saw the three of them moving slowly towards the ship and one more staying still about a hundred yards away. That one he'd almost missed until a glint of light drew his eyes, and he figured it was probably either a gun's scope or some kind of binoculars. Xander stood up and stretched, carefully non-threatening, and moved towards the side of the room, out of sight from the door. Then he very quietly hit the button on the wall to get voice connection to the bridge, and, before Wash answered, murmured, "Be very quiet. We've got company. Four. One hanging back, probably a sniper for cover, three coming in slowly. How do you want to handle this?" he asked, picking up a roll of packing twine and slipping it into one of several pockets in his trousers.
A vaguely panicked whisper answered, "How do I want to handle it? I don't handle. Zoë handles. Mal handles. Even Jayne handles. Did you close the bay doors?"
"No. Don't want to give away that I saw them. Okay, stay calm and I'll see what I can do. If I signal, you have to close the doors, and take off, move to another spot, and contact the others." He looked around for anything else useful, saw an old sheet half tied over a chrome box, that had been used for protection from scratches, and started methodically tearing it into long strips.
"Why don't we just do that now?" Wash asked.
"Because if this is as far down the list of good landing pads as Mal figured, they've probably got people all over, and these ones-- at least we know where they are. And they might be monitoring the radio," Xander explained, wadding up each of the strips and shoving them into another pocket.
"How're you gonna signal?"
Xander sighed. "If I have to signal, I'll make sure to do something that'll get your attention. Sh. Make sure the others stay put, I don't want anybody coming in in the middle of whatever's going down. And don't radio the mule -- they could be monitoring radio waves."
"Right," Wash said, voice still a hint panicky. "That would be bad."
"Just stay put. Might wanna lock the bridge, just in case they do get onboard. Letting them have the controls would be bad. Can't talk longer -- I'll be back." Turning off the intercom, Xander strolled across the bay to the other side, carefully nonchalant while he examined the area outside, seeing where his four attackers were now. It took two passes to locate all four of them, the sniper in the same place and the other three about a hundred yards out. Xander ambled down the ramp, stretching and looking up at the sky with a smile as though more than a little sick of being cooped up indoors, and saw all three of the moving ones freeze. He wandered away from the ship a bit, deliberately putting one of the tallest patches of grass between him and them, and then dropped to his belly and began crawling.
He moved quickly and silently, carefully not moving the grass any more than necessary, and the times he knew he'd have to hit it more, he timed it with gusts of wind so it wouldn't be quite so obvious. He moved about fifty feet from his starting point, and stopped, perfectly still, listening. For a minute there was dead silence, but then he heard a soft whisper of, "Go," and then the sounds of three people crawling through the grass, spreading out, probably with the intent to attack the position they'd last seen him from three different directions.
Closing his eyes and bowing his head, he concentrated intently on the sounds, and singled out the one closest to him, then focused on the path he was taking. Cautiously, he moved himself to a position where the man should pass straight by about ten feet in front of him. He pulled out the twine, cut off a length, and wrapped both hands in it, making sure there was enough space between them that he could crawl easily. Then he waited.
It didn't take long. The sound drew closer, and he waited, eyes locked on the grass, ears straining for any hint of surprise or change of direction from the man. There wasn't one. He continued on, Xander just barely catching a hint of movement marking his passage. A grim smile on his lips, he waited for the man to pass, then crept out behind him, not quite as careful about the grass, since movement could be blamed on the man he was following, though he still worked to be silent, hardly breathing as he crept forward, gaining on the other man.
When he was close enough, he leapt forward, keeping his body low, and landed on the man's back hands up and around to pull the twine tight against the windpipe. He heard a strangled noise of surprise, hardly louder than the whisper from before, and felt the man clutching at his throat, trying to get air. Quickly, before the man had even begun to struggle beyond the instinctive need to get the twine off his throat, he brought his legs down and around, wrapping them under the other man's so he could unbalance him and keep him on his stomach. He held on grimly as the struggles grew first more frantic and then weaker. At last, the man fell limp, and Xander, taking no chances, transferred the garrotte into his left hand so he could keep pressure on it while still freeing up his right. He used the free hand to reach into his pocket and pull out a wad of cloth, which he stuffed into the man's mouth. Finally releasing the throat, he used another strip of cloth to tie it in place, and drew back out the roll of packing twine, quickly and methodically tying together the man's wrists and ankles, and then the two together in hopes that when he woke up he wouldn't thrash too much.
He quickly checked the man over, took a pistol and a hand-held radio from his belt, a rifle from his shoulder, and two knives, one from his belt and the other from his boot. Then he began crawling along the same trajectory his victim had been following.
"Carson, Gladun, you in place?" a very quiet voice came through the radio.
"Yeah," another voice answered, just as quietly. "Don't see the walker, though."
"Can't see go se, but he's there. Bowler says he ain't moved. Gladun?"
Xander lifted the radio to his lips, and said in a deliberately strangled whisper, "Nearly."
"What's wrong, Gladun?"
"Fightin' off a cough."
"You cough, and I will personally strip the skin from your bones, you hear me? You give away our position and I will take you down."
"Won't," he whispered again. "Nearly there."
"Good."
Xander closed his eyes for a moment, visualizing the area, and, given where he was, worked on figuring out where the other two would be. If he were them, he'd wait about thirty feet or forty back from where they figured he was, until they all got to that point, and then all move in at once. Probably arranged like a Y, so each one could shoot clean and not hit either of the other two, and the person at the center was neatly surrounded. He changed his direction, going to about where he expected the next one of them was.
Just before he got there, he heard his radio murmur, "You there yet, Gladun?"
"No," he croaked, then stuffed the radio into his pocket, muffling it.
"Hurry the fuck up, he's gonna move," he heard the thread of sound of a radio about ten feet ahead and to the right, soft enough that there's no way he would have noticed it if his own had been on.
A grim smile touched his lips, and he approached cautiously until he caught sight of the man stretched out before him, eyes intently focused forward at the clump of grass he had first disappeared into.
Xander wrapped a length of twine around his hands and crept forward. He looped it around his victim's neck and pulled it back tight, putting his knee with most of his weight behind it firmly between the man's shoulders as the man's fingers clutched at the twine. It didn't take long before he could truss the man as he had the first, and he started moving around again to about half way between where he thought the last man would be and the trees. Then he raised the radio to his lips. "Ready," he whispered, again muffling the radio.
"Finally," he barely heard the whisper, but moved a bit so the man would be passing in front of him. "Go."
It took only a few seconds for the man to pass in front of him, and Xander jumped on him as he had the previous. This one fell without a murmur and the crack of bone breaking sounded loud in the careful silence. Xander's eyes widened as he began carefully binding the man, forcing himself to secure him before trying to figure out what had happened. Please, not the spine. Tell me I haven't broken this guy's back. He began to carefully prod the area. The man's foot jerked spasmodically against the bonds, and Xander closed his eyes for a long moment, just focusing on breathing as relief washed over him. It had just been a rib or something.
Quickly gathering the man's gun, knife, and radio, Xander started to make his way cautiously back towards where the sniper was. About halfway back, he heard a frustrated whisper of, "Did you get him?"
"Yeah," he wheezed into the radio.
"Good. Get as close to the ship as you can without giving up cover and wait for my signal to converge and enter."
"Will do," he breathed, slinking through the tall grass.
After a pause of half a minute or so, the radio whispered, "Okay-- go!"
"Carson's not ready -- one sec," Xander whispered into the radio, buying a bit more time.
An impatient, wordless mutter, and he kept crawling as quickly as he could without giving away his position. When he estimated that he was about thirty feet from the sniper, coming in at an angle from the ship, he heard another whisper of, "Go!" A pause as he closed another five feet. "Go, gorram it!"
Then a quiet curse that he heard only through the air and not the radio, and the sound of grass rustling. The man looking around, gun first, Xander figured. Well, it was a lot to hope that he'd be able to sneak up on this one as well. He heard a frantic whisper of, "We got--"
Xander threw himself forward, knocking the man over, the radio flying from his hand. Xander rolled over, coming up still moving so the man's wild shot missed him, and leapt forward again, catching the hot rifle barrel and shoving it up and to the side. The sniper's spare hand came up, grabbing it just above Xander's hold, and they struggled for possession for a long moment before Xander kicked his opponent hard in the groin. He grinned as the man's eyes crossed and his grip released as he sank to the ground, and changed his grip on the rifle slightly so he could slam its butt down on the side of the man's head, wincing at the sickening crack. He smiled as his victim fell limp, then heard the sniper's radio whispering, "Bowler? You got what? You need assistance out there?"
Quickly moving to it, he turned it on, coughing artistically several times, and then saying in a strangled whisper, "We got the ship. Full possession."
"The crew is under control?"
"Bound and gagged. They won't be able to radio the others as they return," he whispered before starting to cough again.
"Good! Just wait, then. We've got no cause to be thinkin' they'll be there long. Just hold for their return."
"Will do," he agreed.
Quickly he moved over to bind and gag the last man, checking his pulse to make sure he hadn't struck too hard. It was a bit fast and thready, and he'd have a helluva headache when he woke up, but he should be fine, so Xander grabbed him by the back of the shirt, and stood up to drag him back towards the ship. He dumped him with the first one he'd caught, and quickly went back to get the other two, taking the most care with the one he'd hit last, trying again to figure out exactly what had happened.
Finally, he boarded Serenity. "We're good," he notified Wash. "Situation's been dealt with. Any reason to bring them on board?"
"Dealt with?" Wash asked, voice still a bit panicky. "What the hell is dealt with?"
"Means that the gentlemen who were sent to take over the ship have been bound and gagged and had the more dangerous of their possessions confiscated, and the people who sent them have been reassured that they're all set, don't need any help, and are ready and waiting for the others to return so they can take them prisoner and return them to their boss. Or possibly kill them. I thought clarifying orders might give me away, so I didn't really ask any questions. Besides, since they're not doing it, it doesn't make much difference what they're not doing, does it?"
"You -- you -- how?" the pilot demanded.
"Snuck up on 'em," he said easily. "You think Mal'll want 'em on board? I figured I'd just stack them off to the side outside where I could keep an eye, make sure they don't do anything stupid when they wake up, but if you think the captain'll want to question them or something...?"
"Leave 'em outside," Wash said. "If Mal wants 'em on board, he can deal with it when he gets back."
"Sounds good," Xander agreed. "I'll stay in the cargo bay, but where I can watch them, once I get 'em all in one place, so call me if you need me."
"Yeah," Wash said weakly. "I'll do that."
"Oh, hey," Xander added, thinking of something. "Could you send Simon down?"
"Are you hurt?" Wash asked quickly, concern coloring his voice.
"No, but I hit one of these guys harder than I meant to, and want to make sure he's gonna be okay."
A long moment of silence, and then Wash replied, "He's on his way."