He was sitting on a crate in the lading dock, quietly smoking a cigarette. In the dimness of Serenity's sleep cycle, the cigarette's glowing light cast strange shadows on the sharp angles of his face. He blew out a cloud of smoke that lingered around him.
River crept forward, her bare feet making no sound against the metal grating of the floor. Her long white nightgown made her look like a ghost as she moved forward towards Spike's back.
"Can't sleep, seer?" he asked, without turning towards her, or moving at all.
River pouted, walking around the crate to face him.
"How did you know it was me?"
Spike smirked.
"Vampire, remember? I could hear you breathing, your heart beating."
River climbed up onto the crate, sitting beside him.
"Why aren't you tucked up in your beddy bye, pet?" Spike asked.
River drew her feet up under her nightgown.
"Couldn't sleep. The dreams were too loud," she whispered.
"Yours or others'?"
"Mine, this time."
"What were they about?" Spike asked.
With anyone else, River would have said something cryptic and half true, but this was Spike. They had spent a week in a cave with nothing but each others' company and the hope that they'd get out alive. She's been inside his head and he'd been in hers and they knew each other. With him, she could tell the truth.
"Dark," said River. "Dark and cold. Hands-of-Blue. Running and killing and afraid. Always afraid." She shivered with the memories of things she wished her mind would forget.
"Cold, luv?" Spiked asked. He put his arm around her and drew her close to his side.
River wasn't cold. Not in the way he meant. But any excuse to cuddle close to Spike was good enough for her.
"You're too young and too pretty to be having dreams like that," Spike said. "Those kinds of dreams should be reserved for the likes of me – old killers who've lived longer than their years."
River cuddled closer to him, breathing in the scent of tobacco and leather and spicy soap.
"You've been a white hat longer than you've been a black hat," she reminded him.
Spike sighed.
"I'm just like him, you know," He said. River saw in his head who he meant – tall, dark, dressed all in black with a black leather jacket over top. "I hated him for being such a poof, and now I'm exactly like he was. Trying to earn my salvation."
Dim memories from a childhood of religious instruction flitted through River's head.
"Can't earn salvation," she reminded him.
"What about atonement then?" Spike asked. "Can I earn atonement? Because I've been trying for 600 years, and I'm no closer than I was before."
"See?" said River softly. "White hat. Black hat wouldn't bother."
"Yeah, I'm a bloody hero."
They lapsed into silence. Spike took another drag from his cigarette. River had always found the smell of tobacco to be repulsive, polluting the already polluted air. But with Spike, the smell was somehow comforting. It hung around him like a perfume, an integral part of who he was. She took deep breaths, breathing it in.
"Do you want to be a hero?" River asked.
"I used to," said Spike. "Back when my soul was a shiny new toy. I wanted to be a champion."
"You wanted to be a real boy," It was all right there in his head. River could see it. "For the girl."
"The things I've done for a girl," Spike chuckled. "The things I did for that girl."
"Do you still want to be a real boy?"
Spike looked contemplative.
"I don't know. When you've lived as long as I have, mortality becomes a pretty abstract concept."
"You like being immortal," River summed up.
"It has its advantages," Spike admitted. He looked down at her, cuddled close to him, her deep brown eyes looking up at him trustingly. He brushed a strand of her dark hair out of her pale face. "Look at you. You're so young."
"Too young?" River asked, pulling away from him.
Spike's lips twisted into an ironic smile.
"Luv, when you've lived as long as I have, you're bound to be the oldest person in the room"
"Everyone thinks I'm a child," River whispered. "Treat me like one. Poor broken doll." She glanced at him. "Do you think I'm a child?"
"When I was a lad, birds were old maids if they weren't married by 20," Spike shook his peroxide-dyed head, amused. "Those were the days."
"I'm almost 19," River said. "Grown up by anyone's standards."
Spike let his eyes rake her form, swathed in the light nightgown.
"Oh, you're all woman."
River felt herself blushing under his scrutiny.
"The things in you head…" she murmured.
"Too much or too little?" Spike leered.
River smiled up at him.
"Just right."
Spike chuckled.
"You're a tease, luv."
River dropped her teasing attitude.
"What if I wasn't joking?" She asked.
Spike surveyed her.
"What if you weren't?"
"Would you take me seriously, Spike, if I said I wanted you?"
Spike leaned towards her, until his face was only a hands-breadth from hers. River could feel his breath on her cheeks. He smelled like cigarettes and incense.
"How serious do you want me to take you?"
In response, River closed the gap between them, kissing him with the pent-up fire that she had been keeping inside her for a long time now. His kiss was hard, possessive, insistent. River closed her eyes and drank it in.
Anticipation curled in her belly, and suddenly she knew what she wanted. She pulled away from him, and smiled.
"Come," she said, hopping off the crate and taking Spike's hand. She gently pulled him along, and he followed, stopping her to steal kisses in the darkened hallways.
"Where we going?" he asked.
River grinned.
"You'll see."
She led him to her cabin, pulling him inside and closing the doors. The lock slid into place with a definitive click.
Spike looked around the small cabin, the tidily made bed, the various clothes and objects dropped carelessly on the floor.
"Uh, luv, this is your bunk."
"Yes," said River. "Thought it would be better than the hold. Don't want Simon walking in on us." She leaned up on her tip toes and kissed him again.
Spike leaned his forehead against hers.
"Are you sure, River?" he asked quietly. "Are you sure this is what you want?"
River entwined her hand with his.
"Grown girl. Strings cut. I want this," she whispered.
Spike's smile was predatory.
"Good," he said. His lips crashed onto hers, and his free hand grabbed fistfuls of soft material, and pulled them up.
"Do you feel any different?" Spike asked, running his hand over her arm and down the curve of her waist.
River smiled sleepily.
"Whole," she said. "I feel whole."