Company For The Journey... Part 1: ~ VIVID MEMORY ~

Kaylee heard her footfalls on the wet ground and imagined they were keeping good time with her own heartbeat as she and River ran, hand in hand, through the woods in the pouring rain and blustery winds. Thunder sounded in the distance, with lightning flashing in the sky only a second after, visible even through the tree cover.

Opal colony supposedly had its own climate control setup. That wasn't typical for a colony world of course, cause they cost so darn much. But the governor and his cronies who'd founded this place were the type that had the money to spend on it. Course, trouble was, to keep working right, one of those things needed monitoring, upkeep, that sort of thing. And the Reavers woulda done away with whomsoever it had been who woulda been doing that, now wouldn't they've? They might even a set the control center on fire, or blown apart some of the satellites on their ways towards planetfall for all she knowed. All of which meant that the relatively idyllic weather they'd been enjoying previous to now wasn't ever likely to have lasted forever onwards. Obviously, Kaylee had hoped that it woulda held out a good deal longer than this... Until they'd at least made it to the colony town woulda been highly agreeable for instance, but well, apparently that simply wasn't to be, now was it?

There was no sense grousing about it now though, was there? She'd enough to worry about at the moment making sure she kept pace with River, who was the one leading them through the trees at a fast pace, her course steady... Though Kaylee didn't have a clue where they were heading exactly.

Kaylee'd at first suggested they find a likely looking clear spot and set up their tent. River had shook her head and pointed up saying over the wind and rain that it wasn't safe and that rabbits like them needed to run, long and far, and she'd taken her hand and they'd run. Kaylee had considered pulling River to a halt and asking her why they needed to run, or why they were apparently rabbits now for that matter, but she'd thought that would probably be wasted effort, because, really, by this point she trusted River more than enough to just go on faith in the matter. If River thought it wasn't safe to stay where they were, then Kaylee wasn't about to ask stay around long enough to find out why. That was only sensible.

Her legs and lungs started to burn after she wasn't sure how long. She was getting used to the rain stinging her eyes, and she didn't feel so cold anymore from all the running she was doing. Her thoughts were gone blank, her eyes just locked on the back of River's head as she followed, both their footfalls in steady rhythm making a drumbeat together with the rain. The lightning seemed to be almost chasing them, Kaylee imagined... and was it more imagination, or was she smelling smoke faint on the air?

Sometime later, they broke out into a clearing at the foot of some rocky hills. Over in one direction, Kaylee could just see a range of mountains off in the distance. Her and River's eyes met then, and Kaylee was shook inside to see fear reflected back plain as day in her girlfriend's eyes. River tried to smile a little for her then, and Kaylee smiled back, feeling shaky too as she felt herself start to shiver a little from the cold and the damp, her legs start to ache even more now that they'd stopped running. River looked away then, and started leading them over towards the rocky hills, going at a slower, but still hurried, pace.

Getting up on into the rocks in a short while, they began climbing up as they went. Kaylee got to feeling a little numb inside after a while of it, like her actions weren't really her own anymore. They really were, she knew. She was telling her legs to keep going, her arms to pull her up, her hands to close on rock, and her eyes to always keep track of River because she was scared in a very deep way of what would happen if they got separated... but, in all of that, River was the only part of it that truly seemed real to her anymore.

A ways up the hills, River helped pull her up onto a ledge. It took all of Kaylee's effort to manage it, and, when she was up and over, sitting on the cold and wet rock, her and River's eyes met a for a moment that seemed sort of timeless somehow, and then the world just slipped away from her and everything went black.

When she woke next, the vivid memory of her experiences running through the rainstorm and climbing up into the hills with River came to her right away and her eyes flew open almost in surprise that it had actually happened. She sat up and immediately regretted it. Her whole body felt like it was all a fire with aches. "Tiantang he wo de zuxian baoyou he baohu wo..." She spoke softly to herself, groaning and looking absently down at her lap to see thin travel blankets pooled there.

"Tiankong shi women de jiayuan, ni de linghun cong yaoyuan de kuangfeng qianwang zhao wo. Na ni gen wo yiran shi wo zuida de kuaile, er wo zuida de fuqi..." She heard the soft words spoken, warming her heart and surprising the heck out of her with the sheer romance of them. Like a love poem...

She looked up then and met River's eyes, felt River's hand caress her cheek, and Kaylee couldn't help but smile in sheer recognition of that feeling she was getting more and more lately whenever she just glanced River's way... A feeling of just rightness and home and deep belonging. She swallowed, and tried to speak, though her emotions weren't making it so easy. "Hey you... Fancy meeting you here." She said, bringing her hand up to touch River's hand on her face.

"Not so fancy." River replied, sounding a little bit shy. "Just a tent with the roof off, inside a cave in a rocky hill. It's positively rustic. I did build a fire for us though?" She offered hopefully, as if that might start to make up for everything yesterday. Her eyes betrayed her though. Something definitely wasn't right.

"Long as you're here, it's more than fancy enough, far as I go." Kaylee offered in return, sighing and closing her eyes a moment, remembering like... "You carried me here, didn't you?" She asked as she opened her eyes and met River's gaze again, her concern mounting all the more when she did.

River just smiled a little. "We're safe now." Was all she said back.

"But safe from what? You never did say, you know." Kaylee questioned, curious. Now that they were apparently out of danger, she did want to know what they'd been running from in such a hurry.

"Holocaust." River replied softly, looking away and dropping her hand from Kaylee's face. "Many are screaming and burning away... Dying in fire, even as we receive it's warmth." She explained, her voice a deep tired and hollow sounding.

Kaylee sat up straighter and touched River's face as River had touched hers. "A forest fire, you mean?" She guessed softly. "From... From the lightning?" She asked. She could smell it on the air, she realized. She had smelled that scent once before, so she knew it for what it was.

River looked up and met her eyes then. "The screams are so very loud." She told her softly, tears falling down her cheeks. She looked just so tired, so drained. "I can't help them, not at all, only you and Lola... I wish... I wish it was over... I wish I could sleep."

"Lola?" Kaylee couldn't help but ask.

"She's over there." River sniffled and tilted her head to the side a bit, indicating where Kaylee should look. "Small and furry, just a young girl like I was once..."

Kaylee looked and saw a rabbit cradled in a towel by the fire. It was probably the most completely adorable thing she'd ever seen in her entire life. She looked back over at River and her heart broke for her more than a little.

Kaylee moved forward then and took River up in her arms in a crushing hug, just clinging to her really, mindless of her own body's aches. "I'm here." She told her girlfriend softly. "Just... Just stay with me. I'm here for you... I always will be..." She spoke it like a promise, feeling somehow almost as if she might understand, even feel a little, what River must be going through. She didn't know how, would probably never know the how of River Tam, but she did believe in her anyway, whatever she said. If River said she felt, heard, the trees and animals and such out there as they burned to death, Kaylee knew it for the truth. And she knew that just knowing, that was all that mattered. The hows and whyfors mattered not at all.

River started to cry in earnest then, to weep really, and to cling to her.

Kaylee just held her and cooed soft words of comfort for her, feeling tears start to fall from her own eyes at how River was suffering. She imagined then, what she guessed must have happened. That River must have known from the start that there was going to be a fire once the rain died down. That that must have been why they'd run. And then, in the hills, when Kaylee had passed out finally, River must have carried her here, probably left their things and gone back for them later. Probably found Lola, and brought her back too. She would have started the fire then, dried Kaylee off, changed her into her dry second set of clothes, got her under the blankets, and set up camp for them, and all while... All while she'd have been hearing death screams in her head somehow... She'd gotten through it anyway though, she'd held it all back... for her. Until now, at least... until River saw that she was awake and safe...

In that moment... Kaylee promised herself, swore it as solemn as could be, that she'd be there for River from now on... no matter what came. She promised herself that, no matter what she had to do, she'd do it.

Kaylee held the woman she loved in her arms like she was until River finally started to calm down some, and then she managed to get River into the tent bedding with her. Luckily, River only had on a pair of shorts and a shirt anyway. They curled up under the covers together, River snuggling up close in her arms and, at length, drifting off into sleep. Kaylee herself felt tired enough that she was sure she could go to sleep again too if she wanted.

She sat up and looked around. The fire's warmth was nice, but if she rolled the tent's roof up over them, it would keep them warmer than the fire would. No, the fire River had started had more been for drying their clothes and things than for keeping them warm. River had set it up so the clothes probably wouldn't catch fire, but she'd had to put them close enough to get dry of course, so the danger was there... In any case, if you had the choice, it really wasn't a good idea to go to sleep with a fire still burning no matter what the circumstances. You never really knew what could happen. She could dowse it of course. It would delay their journey some because they'd need to set the fire again later to dry the clothes the rest of the way, but that hardly mattered much now. What mattered to her was that she'd have to get up out of the tent bed and leave River to do it, even if it was just for a little bit of time, and that was something she just wasn't willing to do right now.

Kaylee laid back on her back, gathering River to her again. She'd just have to stay awake for now, she decided. There was nothing else for it.

For the first little while, her thoughts were calm. River's steady heartbeat, her soft breathing, and the familiar warmth of her body a comfort to her. After a while though, her thoughts grew more stormy. Thoughts of River, River's life, her own life, Inara under the mountain, Serenity... the Captain, Zoe, Wash, Simon, Jayne, Shepard Book... Even if maybe the others might not, the Captain or Zoe, either one woulda come back for her if they could, she was dead sure of it. And there was just no way Simon wouldn't have come back for River by now if he could either. Something had definitely gone sideways up there... and if that was true... If that was true, and with the climate control down like it was...

Well, it might be alright. The weather might even out reasonably on its own before long... It probably would in fact. The terraformers that'd made this place human habitable hadn't made it to be dependent on climate control, after all. The first two sets of colonists on Opal hadn't had it (never mind that they were mostly all dead now). Climate control was just... a luxury feature, really. Keep it from getting too cold, too damp. Keep things sunny and warm with only enough temperate rain to keep the crops nice an happy and the wells full year-round.

Trouble might be though... if the Reavers really had knocked a satellite or two out of the sky on the way down, and/or if they really had burned down the control center... Well, she wasn't any expert, never having even seen one of those setups in person before, but she imagined that a partially functioning or partially malfunctioning climate control system could potentially wreak a lot of damage before it gave up the ghost and died completely... And how long would that take? Days? Months...? Years...? She had no fit way a knowing, did she? Not unless she could find the control center, or some kind of console with ties to it, that she could run a diagnostic from. Once they got to the city, she realized, she'd have to make it a point to follow up on that. Would be way too big a risk not to, circumstances allowing of course. If worse came to worse: no control interface to be found and the weather getting too dangerous to be survivable in... If that happened, then, she considered, they might conceivably have no other better choices than to scrounge for parts to fix Inara's shuttle and try an fly up into orbit to disable a satellite or two... Here's hoping it wouldn't come to that...

Her thoughts having carried her away for a time, it was River stirring just a little in her sleep that brought Kaylee's thoughts back to the present moment again. Kaylee ran her fingers through River's hair, the simple action doing a lot to calm her troubled thoughts again. It was amazing really, just how much it affected her now, just touching River's hair, just... everything. Everything about the woman in her arms, how much she affected her now.

It was actually hard for her to even think about sometimes.

She closed her eyes then, and glanced over at the fire. It had died down to embers now, and she was feeling tired too, like she wasn't sure she'd be able to keep herself awake much longer, even trying as much as she was. Well, River was sleeping peacefully now, so she could probably get away with it for a moment or two. It any case, it was a small chance that anything bad would happen, but she sighed and decided to get up and smother the embers with dirt just to make completely sure they didn't catch the clothes to fire while they slept.

She did that, took just a second to look in on Lola too, and when she turned around to go back to the tent bed, River was sitting up, staring blankly at her, a bewildered look on her face.

Kaylee rushed back over to her and got down on the bedding with her, caressing her face and meeting her eyes. Neither of them said anything, but River kissed her then, just lightly enough that Kaylee absently thought she might be dreaming this.

They settled back down under the covers then and Kaylee pulled the tent roof closed over them, as it was starting to get pretty cold in this little cave of theirs without the fire. Kaylee looked into River's eyes and kissed her back once just as softly before they both took off the clothes they had on, closed their eyes, and went off to sleep again, holding each other as close as they ever had or likely ever could.

Chinese translations:

"Tiantang he wo de zuxian baoyou he baohu wo..." = "Heavens and my ancestors bless and preserve me..."

"Tiankong shi women de jiayuan, ni de linghun cong yaoyuan de kuangfeng qianwang zhao wo. Na ni gen wo yiran shi wo zuida de kuaile, er wo zuida de fuqi..." = "The heavens are our homeland, and you a soul that traveled on the winds from far away to find me. That you are with me still is my greatest joy, and my greatest blessing..."

(please note: I'm only getting my Chinese from Google Translate, so I can't guarantee it's accurate at all)

to be continued

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