Fighting The Hollows... Part 5: ~ SOUL SINGING ~

In the morning, well past dawn, Kaylee woke to find herself pretty much in the same position as when she'd gone to sleep: holding River in her arms. She touched River's hair a little and that one small action seemed to cause River to stir, blink her eyes open, and kiss her. Just a peck really, but it make Kaylee smile a little, and feel just a bit shy also.

"Hey, you." She said softly.

"Hay is for horses, not people..." River spoke sleepily.

"...Then why'd my mom an dad feed it to me in the mornings back home so often?" She asked back in play.

"That's nonsensical." River replied. "Your assertion has no veracity, does it?"

"Only if it makes you smile?" Kaylee asked.

River opened her eyes again and smiled a little, a small but bright seeming smile that charmed Kaylee instantly all the way down to her soul, then River moved to kiss her. Kaylee found herself on her back next thing, and thoroughly enjoyed the feeling.

It was a minute or two later when River was kissing her neck right below her chin that she suddenly stopped and lay her head down on Kaylee's shoulder and sighed. "We both smell badly like. Baths are needed." She admitted as though the idea both appealed to her, for obvious reasons, and disagreed with her because she didn't like the idea of getting up, which Kaylee could relate to also. Still, if they weren't going to be fooling around anymore, a bath was just what Kaylee wanted.

"Sold." Kaylee replied, getting up while River just sort of flopped back on the bed on her back and made an almost whining sort of sound in protest. Kaylee laughed just a little and somehow found that very endearing. I must be in love, she thought ruefully. "Um, how about I go get the bath ready. You just lounge in bed awhile longer? I'd say you earned it, after all."

River moaned just a little and curled up, closing her eyes. "You're the best girlfriend ever." She praised her sleepily.

Kaylee just smiled at that. "I love you too, River." She said softly, turning to get up out of bed. Before she could though, River encircled her in a hug from behind and kissed her cheek.

"Your words are magic." River spoke softly, kissing her again, seeming to have come more awake all a sudden with Kaylee's declaration.

"Says the original magician, brought back from long ago, bag a tricks no one knows how deep." Kaylee replied fondly.

"They're only tricks if you don't know the math, and can't sing the music." River replied softly.

"...I could sing for you. If you wanted..." Kaylee found herself saying somehow, emotion rough in her throat.

"...Songs should only be sung when they call to you, Kaylee Frye... Is one calling you now?" River asked.

Kaylee smiled. "Only if you're a song, and not a person like I thought you were."

"Is it hard to tell the difference?" River asked, still softly, kissing her neck lightly again.

"No... but, I gotta admit, sometimes you do remind me of a song, River Tam." Kaylee admitted, her voice also soft, somehow feeling she was lost in a world she'd never been to before. Maybe the one River lived in so often.

"How?" River asked.

"...The way I feel when you're with me? I don't know how to explain it, really. But, it's not that unlike how I'd feel... when I was listening to a really beautiful song, and it feels like it's moving my soul, because there's just... such amazing beauty there, plain to see." She explained, some amount of shyness weaving its way in between her words. It scared her a little, saying these things out loud. Things she hadn't really completely realized before she'd said them out into the open like this.

"Then... we're a good match, because that's just... very precisely how I feel when I'm with you..." River admitted simply, laying her head on Kaylee's shoulder.

Kaylee felt her heart swell up with emotions, and she knew then, even more than she had before, that she was surely, truly falling in love again. With someone who loved her right back.

That'd only really happened to her once before.

She just hoped... this time, it'd turn out better.

Sometime later, after having taken baths and eating breakfast together, they both set about moving the bodies of the dead Reavers out away from the ship and into the woods, into a nearby clearing, where she and River planned to dig graves for them all. It was hard, sweaty, generally ugly work, but they'd got it down to a rhythm. She was using the litter that River had made for her back before, when she'd had her ribs hurt after the crash, to carry bodies, while River was just simply picking them up in her arms and carrying them like it was no bother at all. How she could just do things like that...

Kaylee had suggested that they make a second litter, but River had said that it felt like they were her weight to carry... as she'd been the one to kill them and everything, Kaylee guessed. She'd counted: there were forty-two Reavers in all. She'd been a little stunned to find out there'd been so many, and that River had fought and killed them all, an her coming out of it with only but a little of a hurt elbow? It was hard for Kaylee to get her mind around it, actually... but then, that was River all over, wasn't it? Inexplicable, and just downright amazing sometimes...

By lunch time, they'd managed to get all of the Reavers into the clearing, lined up in rows next to where they planned to dig the graves for each. "That's the last of them, I'd say." Kaylee spoke up, wiping some sweat from her forehead and going over to River who was bringing one body over to lay it next to another. "Why you doing that?" Kaylee asked curiously.

"They loved each other once, before they lost themselves somewhere out in the dark. Philippe Yang Se and Marcus Cole Wright. They had a son together, named Jared Cole Yang Se, and they'd had a nice... A nice life. They lost their knowing, lost their song, lost each other, all gone... but its right they should be together now, at the last... Don't you think so?" River asked her, her voice reverent and sad, but maybe also edging towards hopeful, and when her and Kaylee's eyes met, Kaylee could see River's eyes were a little misty, like she might cry if she thought about these things much longer.

Kaylee went to her and hugged her and felt River start to cry like she thought might happen. "It's okay, River. It'll be okay, I promise." By this point, the question of how River might possibly know what the names of the two dead Reavers were was barely a concern for her. Sure, a sensible person would say that River was probably just making things up, maybe to cope or make herself feel better or whatever else, but, by this point, Kaylee surely didn't think that was it at all. She'd seen too much. She had no good explanations and had since given up trying to get them from River herself whom, she thought, might well not even know. She did believe that River was connected to something, some greater knowledge or whatever it was, but, whatever the truth might be, she now believed in it. She believed in River... That the things she said, they all had a meaning, even if Kaylee couldn't always quite manage to guess at what those meanings might be.

"You have faith then?" River asked faintly.

Kaylee broke the hug and still held River in her arms as she gently wiped her girlfriend's tears away with her thumb. "I don't know, maybe I do. I do today, at least." Kaylee admitted to her. "And I love you, and you love me, and that makes a big difference too."

"A blessing then, for the those that's left and gone to live other lives. Do you believe in such things?" River asked.

"Do you?" Kaylee asked back gently, touching River's face.

River smiled a sad sort of smile. "I do today, at least." She echoed, nuzzling her cheek into Kaylee's hand a little and closing her eyes a moment. "We should go home now... We have berries we can eat." She said, opening her eyes and meeting Kaylee's curious gaze.

Kaylee felt like her heart skipped a beat almost, that look in her girlfriend's eyes. River had a way of doing that sometimes. Sometimes Kaylee'd look into her eyes, and... she didn't know how to say it exactly, but it was like... That everything that ever was or ever could be, might just be looking right back at her in those eyes somehow. She swallowed a little and moved in to gently kiss River... only a short kiss, but one that made them both smile.

She took River's hand in hers then and they walked together back through the woods, leaving the bodies of the dead to be tended to later.

They were half way back when River spoke. "I think I should build a bigger bathtub." She said thoughtfully.

"You do, huh?" Kaylee replied, a little of a curious smile coming to her lips. "Not that I'm complaining, but why's that exactly?" She asked.

"Proximity." River replied simply.

Kaylee thought about that a few moments and promptly blushed a little. "Proximity, huh?" She asked a little shyly.

"I'd need your permission though. Do you think it's a good idea?" River asked.

Kaylee considered that. "Yeah... Don't see what it could hurt." She admitted softly. "I'll help." She offered.

River didn't say anything back at first, but then, a few moments later. "Kaylee... Why do you suppose we fell in love?" She asked.

Kaylee was caught off guard by that, but thought about her answer seriously.

"Why does anybody...?" She asked back softly some moments later.

to be continued

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