Hope Dies a-Borning
After the shopping trip, Darwhen's clothing hung in River's bunk and her fairy tale had a place in a box there. River kept saying 'no' to people who said they would 'give the little one a home'. Every time they left a planet behind Darwhen was in the cockpit beside River. Then she'd leave, creep down to the bunk they shared, and stare at her clothes hanging there beside River's.And she'd hope a little more.
Then one day Mal pulled River aside.
"Look River, this ain't fair to the kid. We've passed up at least three decent homes for her, all for to your undue fussin' about somethin' or other. It's gettin' old. She needs some security, some root-putting so she can get on with growin', like any kid. All this runnin' about and not knowin' where she's gonna end up … it's just not good for her."
River was torn, because she knew he was right. She remembered that feeling, how it was to not be welcome on the boat and to wonder when she'd be tossed off and where she'd end up. But she was conflicted – a concept she'd been very proud to have mastered, a few years back. She wanted only good for Darwhen. But she also, selfishly, just wanted Darwhen.
She wanted to keep the little girl. When she realized it, she went to Inara in distress.
"Oh, sweet," Inara soothed, patting her hand, "You're nearly twenty-two years old. Many women your age have given some thought to children, or have actually given birth, by now". Her own face was a bit distant for a moment, and River put extra effort into not Reading her, as she always did at such times. "There's nothing wrong with these feelings. What you need to do, though, is to think about what's best for Darwhen. Is life on this boat what a small child should grow up with?"
River supposed not. She didn't want to consider it that closely, and one night soon after that talk she found herself outside Jayne's bunk. The rest of the crew was abed, and Darwhen had been asleep for a few hours. It was late. She stared at the hatch in front of her, telling herself if she put the moments of tension from the past few months behind her she could have what had been before. There had, after all, been the merry moments, the working moments; normal times, interspersed with the awareness and heat that had crept up on the two of them.
She could get it back, the normalcy, the friendship that she treasured. She was purposed to do so. She knocked, and the hatch swung open. Jayne was on the other side.
He had no shirt on. River swallowed and nearly stepped back. The sight of all that muscled chest was almost too much.
Ridiculous. She firmed her shoulders and dropped down to Jayne's level. She'd seen his bare chest enough times that she ought to be immune to it. At one time, she had been immune to it. She just needed to get a grip, as he'd told her to do often enough in the past. She nodded to herself.
Then she wanted to kick herself, scoot back up the ladder and to the other end of the boat. She stood in a too-small space with a too-large mercenary who was making no move whatsoever towards covering up a muscled torso she was once again finding completely impossible to ignore. No matter how many times she'd seen it before, scar and all.
Jayne didn't say anything, just nodded to her. He turned toward a corner where he had a bottle stashed for just such occasions.
After that time with the fancy not-good-enough-for-her snob, River'd been a drinking buddy a time or two or ten. She paced herself at approximately half his imbibing speed and they usually ended the night at about the same buzz level. Or, very rarely, the same soused level. After awhile she was his preferred … well, just his preferred.
The first time Jayne and River went out, together, it was to a place a bit more upscale than his usual fare had once been. He'd felt off-kilter, but now those types of places traded off with his rough-and-tumble bars, and he had to admit he'd gotten accustomed to the classier grade of alcohol and of woman to be found there, even if brawling and whoring weren't quite as regular as he liked. They were places to which even Simon became gradually resigned, especially as he found that the partners looked out for one another in that setting, too.
If, for example, Jayne judged River had had too much to drink to get back to the boat on her own, he always made sure she had a safe way there, even if he was otherwise occupied. Or one night she'd steered him away from a little lady who she said she sensed a 'wrongness' from (she felt freer about intentionally using her abilities with strangers than she did with family, and that came in right handy at times). Later they'd heard that particular woman had been arrested for the serial murders of four of her bed-partners. Watch each other's back, that's what they did. The crew had come to accept that things were just that way, with Jayne and River.
Jayne doubted any of the crew knew about these little late-night, for-two-only parties in his bunk, though. He felt no need to fill them in.
Not their business.
In his bunk this night they seated themselves on the floor, and passed the bottle back and forth at an accustomed pace. Neither spoke. Once, the silence would have been easy, filled with camaraderie. Now, though, there was an edge to their companionship. The quiet of the ship and the shading of the light made the cozy space intimate in a way River couldn't remember from before. The air was tinged with a taughtness that spoke of possibilities she didn't want to label. They passed a length of time without speaking before River made a comment about a training program she'd heard of on the planet they were approaching. Jayne made a noncommittal grunt in reply.
"What're you really wantin' to talk about?" He asked, capping the bottle they'd passed desultorily back and forth. If they weren't going to enjoy it, he'd save it for a time when it wouldn't be wasted.
River's head tilted forward but she didn't deny ulterior motives in coming to him tonight. He stowed the bottle while watching her think.
"I don't know," she acknowledged at last. "I'm wanting … things not to change." She laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. "Just before the dam broke, I had been thinking we were too comfortable on this boat. That some change would be fortuitous. And now …" She tilted forward over her crossed legs, avoiding his gaze.
Jayne laughed too, though he wasn't terribly amused either, and it drew her eyes. "Now you know to be careful what you wish for, huh?"
River gave him a rueful smile. "Got that right." The smile vanished, and for a time the moments were marked only by the slight flicker of gazes caught together. Finally, she wrenched hers free and with a breath, stood. "I'll leave you in peace," she said.
"It's not peace I've been wantin'," Jayne returned. Just to say it out loud. To make her hear it. River froze to stillness for a moment. Her eyes darted about the room, everywhere but at his face. He let her get away without answering. He paced around her, close but not touching, and opened the hatch.
River was definitely not soused, not even buzzed when she left Jayne's bunk. But he went with her to her own anyway. Mostly because he didn't want to be in his bunk alone after she left. They were quiet, walking down the corridor with that silent tense awareness between them.
When she turned at her bunk she found him up close again.
"I'll stay if you want." He said it clearly and calmly. Her eyes were huge as she looked up at him, like she couldn't believe he'd said it out loud.
She should know him better than that, by now. But again, he let her get away with not meeting him point for point. It wasn't like her. But maybe she was right in her hesitancy. This was his partner. Best one he'd ever had. Even for sex – did he really want to change things?
Well ... yeah. If she wanted the sexin', too.
And she did want it, on several levels. He knew that. The pulse at her throat was hard and fast. But she was also unsure, he could tell that too. So he sighed. Reached out, got her shoulders between his hands, and hauled her up close to him, letting her feel every inch of what she was missin'. Then he stepped back and left her there. But he listened as he walked away, and knew it took a few moments before she was able to move.
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Avoiding thinking about Darwhen's situation hadn't been productive. So River bent her mind, the next morning, to considering it. Most obvious of the problems with the child staying on Serenity was the still not-exactly-legal nature of much of their employment. But River didn't see how such an upbringing could be any worse that her own had turned out to be. Then there was the uncouthness of some of the crew. Well, of Jayne. Again, River didn't see that as a great impediment, given how well the child and man interacted.
Darwhen wouldn't be able to go to school. But neither could a lot of other Rim children. River could teach her anything academic she needed to know; there was Simon for social skills. She knew he'd be willing to do that much.
Darwhen wouldn't have much contact with other children. At least not until Simon and Kaylee reproduced. River didn't really see that as being very far off in the future.
Her home wouldn't be stationary. River shrugged. As long as the plant's roots were strong, who cared if the pot was moved?
It came back to herself, to River. She was the only one even considering parenting Darwhen. She entertained severe doubts about the viability of that. She took those doubts to her brother.
"I still can't always trust my brain. Prob'ly won't ever be able to. Won't ever be 100." River sat on the floor with her legs crossed, facing his seated position on the couch. They weren't alone in the room.
Simon squinted at River. His sister's years with the firefly's crew seemed to be impacting her subconscious speech patterns. In some of her open moments, a Rim accent occasionally touched her words or her grammar. It wasn't as pronounced as Mal's or Kaylee's and certainly not as much as Jayne's, but he assumed time would strengthen it. He wondered if his own was doing the same thing, without him noticing. Now didn't seem the time to ask River about that.
Across the common room at the table that had been installed in the corner, Jayne and Kaylee had heard River's statement; he could tell by the way their backs straightened, although they didn't turn towards the sibling pair.
"No," Simon agreed from where he sat on the couch, quiet. He let his sorrow leak into his words. "You've made some amazing accommodations and adaptations. You function very well, and the end result is usually within the norm for human behaviour patterns. But the actual processing that your brain does will never be the same as other people's." He wasn't sure where she was going, with this.
River frowned down at her hands, twisting into the cloth of her cargo pants.
"I am not a likely candidate for parenthood," she murmured.
Oh. Simon darted a glance around the room. Darwhen wasn't there – she must be off somewhere pestering Mal or Inara. It went without saying she wasn't pestering Zoë.
"No," he agreed quietly, knowing the lowered volume didn't soften the blow of the words. "I don't – I don't know that you could ever do that on your own, River."
River nodded at the floor. She got up, her skirt swishing in about her legs softly. Simon watched with concern, and made to follow her, but she laid a steady hand on his arm to stay him before leaving.
Across the room, Jayne had dropped polite pretense and was glaring across at the doctor.
Kaylee was making shushing noises, but Jayne batted her away from him.
"What's wrong with you?" He finally burst out. "Tellin' her she can't raise a kid because she'll never be all there? You've been tellin' and tellin' us how well she's doin', how she ain't crazy no more. You been lyin' to us?"
Simon leaned forward over his knees, and rested his chin on his palm. He smiled up at Kaylee when she crossed over to sit beside him, but his face was sad as he returned Jayne's angry gaze calmly. "No longer crazy? Did I ever say that? Crazy doesn't go away, Jayne. You can't cure it. You can help, you can make it better. You can win all the battles – but there's always another to be fought. They took out sections of her brain, do you understand? Removed them. Parts of her mind are just missing. They will never, ever, be there. The remaining parts have compensated, remarkably well. But she'll never be normal. There will always be . . . episodes. Do you truly think she should be a child's primary caregiver? The sole support of a young, helpless, impressionable being?"
The merc's eyes were slitted, but there wasn't anything he could say. He truly didn't feel River would ever hurt Darwhen physically. She'd been with all of them for over four years, all told, and except for those few incidents before Miranda, had never intentionally injured any of them. 'Intentional' being the key word, there, because he had to admit he'd had some mental flashes of bad possibles. Of River having a fit with only Darwhen about, and no one to help either of them. Of afterward the little girl being scared of River, too scared to handle the closeness that was between them. River would be destroyed, and Darwhen would have some not-small problems too. How did one teach a child that no, she should never behave like mama did in certain circumstances, but yes, she should always respect and believe in her? And that was just for starters.
He really didn't know. It showed in his face, he knew, 'cuz Simon twisted his up into a grimace.
"She would need a lot of help, Jayne. A long-term commitment from another person. Who on this boat would do it? I would be willing, if I didn't have Kaylee, but …" he trailed off sheepishly, flicking a behind-his-lids look to his wife.
"You do got her, and that's prob'ly as it should be," Jayne muttered, standing and stretching his shoulders. Kaylee gaped up at him from where she'd gathered Simon's arm in to comfort him; in all the years since she'd fallen for Simon at first sight, Jayne had never yet admitted that the mechanic and the doctor were for each other. Not even at their wedding.
"Will wonders never cease," Simon murmured, following the mercenary's stride out the door.