A Precarious Situation
The pounding stopped, almost as abruptly as it had begun. River waited, though, coughing and spitting out fluid, feeling water surging at first and then more slowly lapping past her. Occasionally something solid glanced off her trembling back. It was a bit of time before she lifted eyelids that felt glued closed. It was longer than that before she saw anything real. For a time there she knew she'd regressed, back to a period when only nothingness could block out the pain and everything else that beat at her. This time remission came much quicker, though, as she became aware of herself and what she touched. Her head pulsed with hurt, but the rest of her seemed quite numb. That was maybe good, maybe not.
The canyon was drowned. The water level dropped off some as the minutes passed, from waist-high down to clear a few of the steps she'd climbed. But there it stayed, flowing past, filling the small canyon wall-to-wall, the river back in its place. When it didn't appear to be planning to surge again, River dropped her exhausted arms and unwrapped legs that trembled with fatigue. Bits of things she couldn't identify floated past; some man-made, some natural. River realized that if they hadn't been so high up, she'd never have been able to hold on against the onslaught that had ripped through here.
It slowly dawned on River that the little girl, Darwhen, wasn't making a sound. Wasn't moving. Fear choking her throat, she pulled the small form toward her while twisting around to sit sideways on the narrow stair, her feet in the water at first. Then she propped her left one up out of the wet as the current buffeted shards of pain up it. She checked frantically the way Simon would, for breaths from Darwhen; they were there. Somewhat relieved, she began looking and found a large bloody bump near the base of Darwhen's skull. Her panic ebbing, she was able to sense the energy of life still with the little girl. She pried open the closed eyelids and observed that the pupils contracted evenly. Feeling better, she turned her attention elsewhere; the right arm was very obviously broken, probably from how it had been flung away from River's neck. Bruises were everywhere, from being battered against the same statue that had kept them safe. River knew she was probably covered in them, too, and her own head's aching was intensifying. It was also starting to hurt to breathe, as what she supposed had been shock began to wear off. And her ankle – cradling Darwhen carefully across her lap, she reached down to probe at it. Smarting pain answered her. It was very swollen, and wouldn't cooperate when she tried to make it rotate.
A new fear was starting to rise through her weariness. She was a good swimmer, but with an ankle and a few ribs that were probably fractured, towing an unconscious child, through the rapid current that parted around them? She was unsure.
Darwhen stirred. Heart gladdening for a moment, River looked down as her eyelids flickered open. Pure puzzlement registered on the small face for a moment, and then fear as the water surrounding them was taken in.
"Mama!" she cried, struggling to sit up. River held her tightly and supported her back. She had no idea what to say. So she just leaned back and tried to catch her breath around stabs of pain while Darwhen looked around. River braced for screaming, for fright or anger, but this little human was made of sterner stuff. She stared at the statue whose base they huddled against, regarded the scraggly trees hugging the edges of the watercourse that had been her canyon home, and River could see her mentally sorting the facts.
"Mama," she said again, in a whimper this time. Her large black eyes sheened with water to match that which flowed past them. Rain was coming down, River realized belatedly. It seemed absurdly superfluous to the situation.
"I am sorry," River murmured to her, knowing how absolutely useless the words were, "there was no time to warn them. We barely had time to get above the water level. They . . . would have had no time at all. The river covered them."
Did one talk thus to a child? River remembered false stories told by nannies and nurses, of fat white-haired gift-giving men, of magic and fairies and bright futures with handsome young gentlemen. They had all been lies, and had not served River-the-child well. Of what use would lies be to this child, here and now? None.
Staving off a person's imminent fall for a later, harder one was no favor at all. River knew.
Honesty was always best, even when it hurt.
Darwhen's face was glazed, not entirely comprehending, as she stared out over the changed landscape. "Mama is under the water," she said slowly. River nodded. The movement brought Darwhen's visual focus to her. "We can go get her?" she asked, but River heard the doubt in her voice. In awkward imitation of things she'd seen Inara do, River bent her head over Darwhen's and stroked her sodden hair with one hand.
"No," she said, trying to make her voice soft, "the river smashed everything when it came, and people cannot live underneath water for this long. Your mother is dead." She didn't know how else to say it.
"I know what a flash flood is," Darwhen answered, and River remembered her saying that same thing in a rather more aggressive tone a few moments, a few lifetimes before. Her mental walls weren't entirely intact, right at the moment, and she could sense conflicting emotions in the little girl – were all children so open? – confusion, anger, and a lot of fear. But none of these found expression in the little angular face, only a vague lostness. Perhaps they would appear later, River mused, when there had been time to untangle all those jumbled feelings.
She knew from experience how long a process that could be.
Very carefully, River reached out a hand to blockade them against a piece of wood drifting toward them. It was apparently from an upstream building; she could make out Chinese characters as she deflected it away. Darwhen seemed to recognize it; her brows furrowed as she twisted to watch its progress, then cried out with the hurt that movement caused her right arm. She hadn't seemed to notice it until that moment, just as River hadn't immediately felt her own aches, but now she regarded her arm as though it frightened her.
"You must be careful not to move it," River told her, wishing she'd grabbed that wood to use as a splint. Next piece, she told herself. Darwhen nodded, and then, with an adult-sized sigh, collapsed her head unto River's shoulder and closed her eyes. A soft chest-centered warmth with which River was unfamiliar warred against the hurt her ribs were causing her. In defiance of that ache, she wrapped her arms securely around the ragged but living bundle she held. She had to decide what they were going to do, and do it. They could not remain here.
But at that moment a beloved sound reached her. Hearing it from outside, through a planet's atmosphere, made it differ in pitch and timber than when she was inside and receiving the noise through the hull. But she still recognized it and jerked her head around. She regretted the movement instantly as the resulting pain lanced from one end of her skull to the other, and her vision went to a swirling purple. She closed her eyes and sat very still, and when she opened them it was to Darwhen poking at her arm.
"Lady, you OK? I think someone's here to help us . . ."
"Yes," River managed a smile down at her, though her muscles were tense with agony, "this is someone to help us. And my name is River." She tilted her head back carefully, not increasing the headache by too much, to gaze with fuzzy vision up at an endearingly familiar sight; Jayne, in Serenity's open hatch. He was anchored to a rope and lowering their flight harness. Their kite, Wash used to call it.
Mal's voice was coming out over Serenity's exterior speaker. He was directing her, but River needed no prompting, and it seemed that Darwhen didn't either. Using her left arm to cradle her right, she stood, wincing but not crying out. She looked to River expectantly, and River managed another smile. It was a smile mostly about the child's bravery.
"I do not believe I can stand, right now," River told her, and when the small dark brows furrowed in concern she hastily added, "You go first, and I will come up right after you. These are my family. They will take good care of us."
"You'll come right away?" There was only a hint, but it was there, of a quaver in the bottom lip. River watched in admiration as Darwhen firmed it away. There was fierceness in the expression trained on her, and River wondered if it had been Darwhen's mother who taught her to control herself so. Surely most children would have been more hysterical. It had taken River herself the past three years to gain her current mastery over open emotional expression.
"I will come," River promised. "And we will cry after." That was a promise, too, and she saw that Darwhen realized it in the little nod she gave. Fighting pain-induced nausea, River towed in the rope that had been lowered far enough for her to reach it. Above them, over Serenity's engines, she could hear Jayne yelling at someone that "she's got someone with her, and don't neither one look too good." She grabbed the harness as it reached them and helped Darwhen climb into it, pulling the adjustable straps until it cradled the girl's body securely. Above them, Jayne gave an experimental pull, and River loosened her grip as she saw Darwhen was securely held.
"Hold your arm closely and tightly," she advised, seeing the tears now tracking the small face from the pain of having that right arm moved. "It will hurt. But my brother is a doctor, and when you get to the ship he will take the pain away."
Jayne pulled, and Darwhen cried out as she left River's arms, whether in fear or pain River didn't know. She wanted to collapse down and surrender to the dark lapping at her mind, but she watched until Jayne caught the girl and untied her and handed her off to someone River couldn't see. Then it was her turn. She got the harness around herself, her chest protesting every movement, and tried to relax back against the stone stairs until Jayne was ready. She saw that the swelling was continuing to advance up her leg, then turned her eyes away and up to Jayne, avenging angel turned guardian. When she was pulled into the air by the pressure Jayne exerted on the harness's cord, the clamor of anguish from nerves in her leg, chest and head combined to bring all the contents of her stomach up in one horrendous heave. And then she passed out.
Jayne experienced a paroxysm of fear as he saw River spew and then go completely limp. She's fine, he told himself, putting more muscle into it to get her up faster, if more roughly. Simon, behind him, had checked over the little girl and sent her off to the infirmary with orders that her arm not be jarred or bent. Zoë had carried her. As beaten up as the child had been, Simon judged none of the injuries critical and waited to triage his next patient. Jayne was glad no one could see his own face as he caught full sight of River's. It was a mass of bruising, from her left hair line to jaw, and swollen in more than one place. She was still out cold.
He pulled her up and unto the deck plating with Kaylee reaching out to ease her way just as she had with the first rescuee. Jayne beat Simon to the straps around River's torso, wincing again when she moaned at the movement but didn't come to. Simon crouched beside her, muttering about how they should have devised a raft or something instead of hauling on them with the harness. He was running his hands swiftly over River's skull and peering beneath her eyelids. Jayne had always wondered what that told a body, but now didn't seem the time to ask. He just waited for the doctor's OK, then slid his arms beneath her knees and her shoulders, cradled her head in the crook of his elbow so it wouldn't snap back when he lifted her, and stood. Simon led the way to his work station.
Zoë had the little girl on the counter (having assumed that the apparently more badly injured River would claim the room's only cart), undressed and propped and covered with a sheet, but the very moment Simon was in the room she left with out a word. She must have spoken with Mal, because a few moments later the ship settled down, probably right back where they'd landed when they first arrived. After seeing the flood waters they'd come up the canyon from down stream, and already knew there were probably no other survivors to search for from the little town. But they had an extra, non-paying passenger, so couldn't break atmo till they found a place for her.
Jayne pushed aside the thought of that entire village drowned and focused on River, laying her down on the bed-cart with an unaccustomed softness. Simon was moving about precisely and in his intentness didn't seem to notice Jayne's failure to exit. So Jayne stayed, backed up against the little girl's counter-turned-bed and watched, until Simon began undoing buttons. The doctor stopped to look pointedly in the mercenary's direction.
"Right," Jayne grunted, shoving away from the cabinet he leaned on. But he only turned his back. Now facing the little girl, he frowned down at her. Her right arm was obviously broken. There were bruises scattered about her face, too. And . . . she was looking at him.
"Doc," he said, turning back around, "River gonna die anytime soon?"
"What?" Simon asked distractedly. He'd pulled a sheet over River's form after ascertaining the extent of her injuries. He was pulling open a medication bin.
"This one's awake," Jayne hiked his thumb over his shoulder, "and hurtin'."
Simon's brows rose, but he closed the drawer he was in and opened another. Extracting a vial, needle, and syringe, he walked to his smallest patient to give her his best, if little-used, pediatrics smile.
Jayne heard him talking to the kid as he himself took the chance to look River over. She had more bruises than just those on her face, from the looks of what skin was outside the sheet, and even through that covering he could see that her left leg was swollen up big. She was breathing steady, though. He just didn't like to see her so still and limp, it bothered him.
He was bothered that he was bothered, too. But since Mal had started teaming him and River up on jobs, the time either one of them spent in the infirmary had decreased by a lot. They watched each others' backs and kept each other out of trouble. If they did need Simon's tending, it was usually for something fairly minor.
They may have seemed like an unlikely pair, but this they had in common; the job, and their attitude toward it. This is how you face down violent people and make them do what you want. And this is how you do it well. It's the job, and the pleasure is not so much in doing it as in doing it well.
They were both experts at their jobs, and together they were phenomenal – he thought the word with no hyperbole at all. It was just truth. So he couldn't remember worryin' over River this much in a good while. But he did occasionally, it situation was like this; he didn't want to lose her. River made the word 'partner' mean things it never had before.
None of which meant that he wanted everyone else to be party to what he was feelin'. He swung towards the door, beyond which he could see Kaylee and Inara huddled on the couch. Inara was giving him some kinda look he couldn't understand, soft and compassionate. He avoided her gaze. Kaylee just looked worried, but he suddenly wanted out of there before either of them started tryin' to make him feel better.
'Course, certain ways of makin' him feel better wouldn't go amiss …
"Jayne," Simon stopped him before he reached the door, "I could use some help, since you're here."
"I'll go get Inara," Jayne assured him quickly, making another stride toward . . . well, he didn't know where, but someplace not so open.
Not that he had any reason to hide. Some things just weren't anyone else's business.
But Inara had risen and was gone down the corridor toward the bridge before he could get to her. Jayne gauged Kaylee a moment, then shrugged and turned back. Simon took his unspoken agreement.
"I may have to open and go in later, after a bone scan, and it'll certainly have to be casted. But for now we'll just splint this arm. You've done that before?"
"Course, to myself more'n once."
"So I assumed." Simon dug out a splint, a long length of soft gauze, tape, and a sling. It was better than what Jayne usually had to work with out in the field. The doc had given the kid a pain shot, he saw, probably a strong one; the lines between her brows had cleared and her eyes were drooping. Then they closed, and he was glad not to have to explain what he was doing. She stirred a little as he set the splint against her arm and began to wrap it, but that was all.
"She said her name is Darwhen," Simon told him from where he was working over River.
"Yeah," Jayne responded without turning, "her ma ran the goods store we was in. 'spect she's dead now."
There was quiet in the infirmary after that, except for the sound of Simon going about his job.