The Resistance

Firefly Crossover

Summary: Follows my other fic, Spinning In The Dark. Posits a large conspiracy against mankind, the lampshading of demons and other monsters into the series, and ignores shared actors between the shows (as that would just be squicky). Spinning In The Dark gives away the twist.

Chapter 2

1.

The Blade was a different kind of ship. It was like a solid wall in front of them, approaching the little dry dock station that would encompass one part of it like a glove for repairs. There was so much of it that as it approached the human mind automatically tried to scale it down, to understand it as a tiny model of what it actually was. Like seeing a planet from the outside.

River's mind couldn't filter out anything. She stared out at the monolith, forcing her mind ever larger to handle the blunt reality of it.

It hurt like opening her mind to the full reality of a Reaver, letting them in, unfiltered and unvarnished. She could feel the edges of her mind cracking under the pull.

Blood flipped the blind over the viewing port closed, cutting off her view. "Stare too much into that abyss, and it won't just stare back at you, love," he said. He wasn't entirely unkind about it, but it made her aware that he noticed her little frayed moments, the lapses when she was losing her grip.

He was terribly observant, and usually in an overtly unkind way. It felt like a violation, somehow. Like mind-reading, which he might actually do.

She tested that, imagining the most vile curses she could think of—which, thanks in large part to Jayne and Mal, were quite extensive—and aiming them at him.

He didn't even twitch, a sure sign he couldn't pick up on the invisible realities she walked in.

How odd.

She leaned against the wall, wondering just where a man like this began. She could see Mal's beginnings in his eyes, the honest labor working under his mother's tutelage. She could see the many surrogate fathers teaching him about hunting, and fighting.

She could see the war, which had pounded a hard new set of rules into him.

"You weren't a Browncoat," she said to the pirate. He sneered at her.

"Pick that up in my brain, love?" he asked derisively. It was strange the way he used the word; there was no affection in it, no actual love. Turning the word against itself.

"No, in your friends. They follow you, but they don't respect you," she said, nodding at the apparent contradiction. He shrugged.

"They're short-sighted. Think I was a coward because I sat out that war. Wasn't bloody well my war, was it?"

"No, it wasn't," she said thoughtfully.

"Thought it wasn't, anyway. Turns out I was wrong."

She looked into those icy, cold blue eyes, which told of a man who knew hatred and pain beyond any reason. He had fought in wars, and she knew that without reading anything off of him. But what his wars could be was completely beyond her.

"Do you not like fighting hopeless wars?" she asked.

"Spend all my life at that game," he replied. Off-handedly, not wearily at all. It was a war beyond all comprehension, and he didn't even care. It was a war against reality that he fought. A war to change things to the way he wanted them.

She supposed he would never win that war.

"How much time?" he asked the radio at his side.

It hesitated, then the tall woman, Yoko, spoke. "Just a few more minutes. They're docking now; we'll be setting the gift bag shortly."

Blood grinned.

"Why did you want me with you?" asked River, the question she'd wanted to ask ever since they'd split up from the others to come here, to this viewing port.

"Seems to me that you wouldn't be much use blowing things up; you're a survivor, like me, aren't you?" he asked, and it was only mostly rhetorical. "I'm good at getting out of jams, and I think you are too. Together, I reckon we can get everybody out of here."

She sighed. "Secrets are kept too well in your head. You're a closed book."

He laughed. "It's been a while, but my crazy speak isn't that rusty. You can't Read me? Hilarious! I was afraid you'd be overturning every rock in my head—pick up everything!"

"And you still invited me."

"Well, you would have got ample chance anyway, later on in the plan, during the running part," he replied logically. "Because we'll all be trapped on that little Firefly of yours until the rendezvous with this new, all-brilliant plan…"

The sarcasm in the words was cutting. He didn't trust his own superior's plans. It surprised her. He had stepped in lockstep with Liam, as if they were one person. That he had disagreed fundamentally had never occurred to her.

She examined the smooth, alabaster skin of his face, the lines of his cheekbone. He was almost pretty when viewed a certain way; but it was all a hard, dangerous beauty. He could kill her, she understood, and hardly feel bad at all about it.

He frowned, looking away from her. "Easy, pet. Look at me like that too much and I'll think you aren't a dangerously unstable killing machine… or, worse, I'll remember all the many relationships I've had with those."

"You like that part of me?" She tilted her head, appraising that. "You would, of course. You like violence."

"Lots of men do."

"Not as much as you. Even Jayne—poor, simple Jayne—would much rather give than receive. You don't really seem to mind, do you? Being on the receiving end?"

"Well, there's some pleasant memories there," he replied, giving her a smarmy leer loaded with about as much foulness as he can fit in. But she could see the put-on. He wanted to shock her, to make her drop it.

"You're talking about a specific woman, aren't you?" she asked him, crossing her arms. "You pretend to be all tough and mean, but you know about love and things like that, don't you? You know, Jayne doesn't really believe in love—not that kind of love, anyway. But you do, don't you? For all that you don't care about your friends, your crew, or even yourself. You believe you can care for one person more than yourself."

His face fell, a little bit at a time. "Aw, hell," he muttered. "I'd forgotten what it was like to be on the receiving end of an unpleasant dose of truth, I guess. You're good at it; you were even coherent, this time."

"Avoiding, avoiding," she needled, in a sing-song voice.

He grinned at her, and it was the first time she had seen his face without malice. It was shocking how it peeled the years off his face. "I believe in a love so pure and true it can make a monster want to be a man. I believe in a love that, even unrequited, will burn you down to the depths of all that you are, and make you something new. I've known many types of love—a twisted, codependent love, that dragged me down. An unhealthy love. Pure love. Sweet love. Even a father's love. Believe in it? Like I believe in gravity, or the blood that flows in me. I've seen it, felt it, experienced it."

She wouldn't have believed that the hard, mean, blood-thirsty mercenary could admit to tender feelings so easily. Couldn't have believed he would smile while doing it.

She was blown away by the genuineness of it, as well. He wasn't just claiming to believe in it, he meant it. She knew that Mal didn't believe. Zoe did—but she had loved and lost, and it was a bittersweet belief. Jayne believed in a world where family was everything, but refused to let anybody else into that place in his heart. He had learned to be as mean as he knew the world could be.

Kaylee, sweet Kaylee, believed that love and sex walked hand in hand, romantically, and there wasn't much deeper or beyond that. Simon believed the same.

The Shepherd and Inara shared strangely dualistic views, where love and sex sometimes, but rarely, intersected.

But this man believed in love in a way that put them all to shame. In a love that burned and consumed, according to him. A love that dominated his world.

She believed he would do anything for love.

"Are you and Liam lovers?" she blurted out.

He blanched, insofar as his pale complexion would allow. "What? No! That's preposterous! That's… why do you ask?"

"If you believe in that love, why are you here, with him, instead of somewhere else… with her?" asked River, shaking her head. "What is he to you?"

He closed his eyes, frowning slightly. "I'm afraid the girl in question is dead and buried, love. And even if she weren't, I poured everything I had into making it work, and in the end, it wasn't enough. Love unrequited, when you push it onto somebody else, turns ugly. I couldn't do that to her, nor to anyone else."

He opened his eyes, pinning her with that piercing gaze that could tear right through her. "You see," he continued. "Liam is family. Always has been. I've hated him, I've loved him, I've wanted to be him—usually all at the same time. But that's a different sort of love, and it's one I believe in too. Don't you?"

And she thought of Mal, who was so many things to her. Who believed in her, and who had killed for her, and was willing to do so again. Mal, who had protected her when she was at her weakest. Mal who had picked her up and carried her out of Maidenhead as gently as a father or a brother.

She thought of Simon, who was willing to sacrifice his life, and even his love, to do his duty as a brother. Who had destroyed his career and left everything he had known.

"I believe in that," she said softly.

Sometimes she got confused. She wasn't sure what she knew, and what she was borrowing from other heads. Mal was the same way, most the time. He filled his own gaps with his crew. They were his heart, his belief. Everything he had lost.

But this belief was hers, something she had learned from life and from her family, as odd as they were.

Blood chuckled, a low, amused sound that should have been like salt in a wound. It was knowing. It was slightly condescending.

But it also was something good coming out of him. A shared chuckle, rather than laughing at her, as he had been doing since they met.

It occurred to her belatedly that this connection would not be taken well by, say, Mal. Or Simon. Or Zoe, or Jayne, or even sweet Kaylee, so quick to see the good in other people. Because he didn't want them to see the good in him; he wanted them to fear him, to run away from him.

And he would show them all the worst parts of himself. The unashamed glory for violence. The terrible appetites for blood and sex. And while there was better things than that in him, none of those would be shown.

None of his belief in love or family. Because these people weren't his, and wouldn't ever be.

So why had he been so open and free with her?

She cocked an eyebrow up, giving him an examining stare. Mal would assume that he was making a pass at her—that it was all sexual. Perhaps Simon would as well. Was it?

He grinned a little bit. "What's that for, love?"

"Just wondering. You're not at all like me, are you? I thought you might be, but nobody cut in your head."

He grimaced. "Well… not for a long time, anyway. And not the same crew. Did you think that was why I knew about you?"

"Why did you know?"

He smiled. "Do you really think your brother could just find a group of mercs who would jack somebody out of a prison like you were in? Nobody's that gutsy, not even for the money we got from him."

"If you knew… why not just grab me yourself? A handy weapon in hand? Or, if you're as nice as that story makes you… why not try to protect me?"

He grimaced. "Because I'm a little nicer than I seem, but not that nice. Protecting you would have been nice. If I'd had you in hand? Then? While you were broken and incoherent? I would have killed you myself, pet. Torn your little head right off."

It was her turn to blanch. She backed away from him, and remembered for the first time that he truly was as terrible as he wanted everybody to believe.

He looked at her with eyes that weren't troubled at all by his words, but there was a bit of apology there. "Best I could do, pet, was let you go, and hope you found your own way. I can't nurture something hurt and broken—I've already got a full-time job doing just that. Speaking of which, we've been docked for five minutes; the fix is in, the bomb is set, and the rest of them ought to be coming right now."

A guard came running down the hallway, screaming, drawing River's attention away from his words, which were cold, calloused, and so oddly truthful.

Behind the guard came Liam.

She hadn't been scared of the big man before, but that was because she hadn't realized just how scary he could be. How much of a predator he was.

He was stalking the guard, a smile on his face. His long hair was tied back in a ponytail behind his head, giving him a halo. He was a killer with the face of an angel; a dark champion who was reveling in the darkness, not the championing. He was loping along in a jog, easily keeping up with the short guard's panicked run with those long, lethal legs.

He grabbed the guard, twisting his neck in one, long stride, letting the dead body fall behind him as he came up to Blood and River. "And how are you two doing?" he asked. "William, we have our path clear?"

River flinched. "Blood, Blood. A name to disassociate, to take away his humanity. He doesn't want it. You force it back, naming him William. Every time."

He frowned. "I hope you aren't listening too much to our dear William; he has a habit to say things he ought not to say."

Blood let out a ragged sigh. "Like telling her we ought to have killed her? Yes, I'm a prat. Ready to go?"

"Ready," said Liam, rubbing a hand over his face.

Blood turned and headed back the way they'd come, towards the shuttle. Liam fell in beside him, while Yoko, Brian, and the dwarf fell in behind them. River followed, wondering why she had bothered to come along.

"I hid Reynolds in the aft bay, with his little ship," said Blood, in an undertone. "I also hid about fifteen pounds of the heavy stuff… to cover our tracks."

Liam grunted. "Keep your head clear on this girl, William. We may need to go with the nuclear option yet."

Blood scowled at him, glancing back over his shoulder at River. Those piercing blue eyes could hit her like a blow, she discovered. "I know," he muttered, and apparently he didn't think River could hear him. "Lost little girls with deep emotional problems, right? Don't think I didn't see your eyes light up back there."

Liam glanced back. "She can hear us."

"I don't care, do I?"

River was having a hard time sorting them out.

2.

The running part went well, in River's opinion. A short dash through messy halls, a quiet time of waiting for Blood to blow things up and provide a distraction, and then a loud, explosive wait for Mal to do his part of the plan.

Mal was ready, of course. He was always ready for his part.

River was more than a little worried about him. This game was for keeps, for real; no going back. Full-out rebellion against a monolith that couldn't be budged.

It was for idealists. Not Mal, the realist. Not Mal, who she could not bear to see die the inevitable death of idealists.

They entered Serenity in a hurry, running up the gangplank. River realized it was a trap the second her foot hit the ramp.

"Down!" she yelled, jumping to one side.

Blood dove, but Liam just turned around, bemused. As he turned a gun fired, and the bullet must have just missed him. He twisted and leapt off the gangplank.

Yoko pulled a gun out, firing into the ship haphazardly. A volley of gunfire came out of the ship, far more than Mal or even Jayne could have supplied. At least twelve weapons, some of them automatic.

She could sense Jayne and Mal, both of them with plans to get the ship back from the dozen soldiers who had showed up; she could sense soldiers.

And in the middle of them all, she could sense somebody far more dangerous than either of them. Somebody who hadn't brought too many soldiers with him because they was after somebody in particular; an Operative, with all the power to commandeer a whole fleet, and all the sense to keep this trap small, so they wouldn't see it coming.

The gunfire ceased, and a cold, female voice from within the ship rang out. "My, my, Liam. Careless, much? Surely you didn't sabotage the Blade with only this little cargo ship for an escape?"

Liam, pressed against the side of the ship, let out a musical curse in Chinese. Blood craned his neck, trying to see into the ship without presenting his head as a target. "How d'you think he knew?" he asked Liam, backing up towards River slowly.

When he reached her he put a hand out and grabbed her shoulder. She wasn't entirely sure why; to restrain her, keep her from attacking? Reassure her? Just make sure she was still there?

That didn't matter. The effect was electrifying. His grip was cool, strong, and masculine, and it made her heart pound.

She had heard of this; she had experienced it, second-hand, through the couples that formed up on Serenity. It had seemed more distant then—less powerful, less arresting. Less scary.

She pushed the hand off her shoulder as if she'd been stung. He didn't notice, focusing on the gunfire. "Liam, you bring grenades?" he asked.

She slapped the back of his head, hard. "The crew's still alive!" she growled.

Zoe and Kaylee were on the bridge, with more enemy soldiers. Inara in the engine room with Jayne—Mal and Simon, in the infirmary.

"If you surrender, your associates will remain unharmed," shouted the too-cold voice from inside. His mind was as cold as his voice.

River glanced back at the others, who'd been behind them on the gangplank. Yoko had been cut down, lying in a spreading crimson pool; Brian was wounded, and crawling for cover. The dwarf was nowhere in sight.

Blood twisted his head from side to side. "That hurt, you bloody witch! Touch me like that again and I'll break both your hands."

"Try," she advised him. He wasn't looking at her, and she could see tension almost radiating off the taut muscles of his back. The pirate was utterly focused on the door, and she wondered just who their enemy was. And why they hadn't just set a bomb to kill everybody when they returned.

"I'm serious," yelled their enemy once more. "You want me to come out there?"

Blood sighed. "Did he gas them, or storm the ship?"

Liam shook his head. "Gassed them; there's that stench to the air."

"Lovely," complained Blood. He turned around to face River. "Crazy, you head for the top of the ship; climb up and gain access through the back door. Liam an' me, we'll do something reckless."

She took a few seconds to think about that, biting her lower lip. "You wouldn't stand a chance."

"Yeah, but that's sort of the point." He stared at her lower lip, though, and she stopped biting it quickly. He smirked at her, apparently all too aware of the effect he had on her, and how uncomfortable she was with it. "They won't be expecting something that crazy, will they? Now, scoot!"

But she had no intentions of doing that. She knew that no matter how good they were, there was a hail of bullets waiting for them. She might be able to do it; storm in there and single-handedly take them all out. Jumping where they didn't expect, away from the places they were about to point their weapons. The only problem was that with that many guns, that many different minds, she might miss one—catch just one little bullet.

That would never do.

His face shifted; apparently, he understood her hesitation. "Don't think it!" he hissed. "Nothing noble, nothing stupid! Liam and me, we have a plan! This ain't all as it seems—that woman in there has a history with us, and it's not simple!"

But she could hear the words he wasn't saying, and couldn't stop a bubbling little laugh. "Wait, this is about a woman?" she asked, smiling.

He scowled. "It's not just—that's complicated, and what-not! Bloody psi…"

But now that she was this close and staring him in that face, she picked up on something she hadn't before, in the bar. Everything in him was written on his face, emotions playing openly there. Shock, fear, and a gnawing worry.

Not for himself, or for Liam. And not for his crew. For this woman, with the cold voice.

River squinted into his face. She hadn't realized they were so close in height; he carried such a formidable physical presence with him that it was easy to miss his diminutive stature, but as soon as his anger ebbed, it was right there.

It was odd.

He lashed out, punching her in the face. She stumbled and sprawled across the ground, more surprised than hurt.

"We're coming out!" he yelled, pulling his guns out and tossing them to the ground where the soldiers inside could see them. "Don't shoot!"

Liam stepped around the corner of the ship, his hands up. River hadn't noticed, but he wasn't armed at all. That was a little bit shocking.

Her hand dipped down to her belt and recovered the wickedly curved knife Jayne had given her. It was easy to hide, easy to use, and in his words, 'too girly for a real man.'

That was a pretense, of course. It was his way of saying thank you for saving his life from the Reavers; something he could never say out loud, and was ashamed even to think. Especially for a feng dian girl like her.

She wasn't entirely sure what she was expecting. The woman who walked out to meet Liam and Blood was tall, taller than Blood. Her blonde hair was intricately braided and pulled back out of her face, and she was wearing white leather clothes that made her look more than a little slutty.

She was carrying a shotgun, and she pointed it right at Blood's face.

"Screw with me and I will blow your attack dog's head right off," she said to Liam.

Liam smiled at her, and he was suddenly smooth, and charming. Like a snake about to strike. "I think we ought to leave."

"You overloaded the Blade's main engines?" she asked. "You're going to blow the entire civilian population of this dock to bits, and not lose a minute's sleep over it? You are a monster."

His smile never wavered. "If we don't leave now, we'll be part of that equation. Dong ma?"

She never wavered. Her eyes were gray, and steely. River probed outward, looking under the surface, rolling into a ready crouch. From here she could get close enough to cut all three of their throats, and then head inside, into the ship, to rescue everybody else.

Under the woman's surface, into her head, River found things that were private and secret. Images of both of these pirates naked. Images of one them tied up. Secrets within secrets. Infiltrating the Resistance, only to find them infiltrating her, turning her against her masters.

Then discovering what monsters these men could truly be. Finding something hidden and dark—a connection the very highest echelons of the Alliance. Liam did all their sabotage because his voiceprint and thumbprint could walk him through any guarded door, past any security check.

Then, the cavalry arrived.

3.

Mal walked right out onto the gangplank as if he owned the ship. Of course, he did own it; he'd just temporarily lost control when a dozen soldiers had walked in the door, weapons up.

Bad odds.

But then they had just been plain stupid. Keeping the crew under guard is important, sure. And keeping them somewhere secure is important.

But breaking them up into groups? Putting them in separate sections of the ship? A dangerous error.

Jayne had taken advantage of it fairly quickly, using a wrench as his weapon. Inara had proved useful too, using her training adeptly.

And Simon, in the infirmary? Had passed a sedative in a syringe to the captain, keeping one for himself. Their captors hadn't stood much of a chance.

Zoe and Kaylee? Their biggest problem had been that Kaylee was shocked and horrified at how much Zoe had hurt their captors.

The dozen men in the cargo hold had been pointed the wrong way, focused too hard on an external threat that was not coming in. Disarming them was easy; doing it quietly had been a challenge.

Mal loved a challenge.

He pressed the barrel of a gun that wasn't his own against the base of the woman's neck. "Drop it," he said, smiling at the way she jerked her head slightly to one side, taken entirely off guard.

Take him, on his own ship? Hold him, on his own ship? Use him as part of a trap, on his own ship?

Mal thought not.

She dropped the gun. Blood rushed, in scooping it up, and wrapped an arm around the woman's shoulders, pulling her into the ship. "Let's GO!" he said urgently.

Liam glanced back at River, and beckoned to her. "Get the doctor," he said to Mal. "Look's like we're going to need him." He nodded back at Brian, the towering mountain of muscle and hair, who the dwarf was dragging back towards them.