hell is other people
Title: The Insomniac's Nightmare
Fandom: Firefly
Characters: Post- BDM Crew
Rating: PG-15
Disclaimer: Characters still don't belong to me; written for the "hell" challenge at ff_friday and the missing challenge for firefly_15_fics . Epigraph by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Uh, despite the title, no characters were killed in the writing of this fic, but there is a SPOILER for Serenity (the movie).
"But at three o'clock in the morning, a forgotten package has the same tragic importance as a death sentence...
and in a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o' clock in the morning, day after day."
<
Time--Hour: 28; Minute: 24 Alliance Unified Time>>
Inara brushes her hair 35 times before bed. 100 strokes, despite common advice, would be too rough; a quick combing would be too little. (Beauty is a precise balance that only looks easy to those who want to believe it is effortless. As the lady said, if you want the girl next door, go next door.) She thinks she sees a single silver hair-but, no, just a trick of the light.
She chides herself for the quick burst of relief that darts through her. Gray hairs are nothing to be ashamed of! There are ways to take care of them, as with any other sign of aging...though not, of course, any cure for the underlying condition. It should not be of great consequence: Companions of mature years are often even more sought after than their younger, less experienced counterparts. Women and apples, as they say on the Core, most appetizing when neither too young nor too old. Many Companions, once past the first bloom of youth, engage themselves as private companions to people, usually gentlemen, of a certain age-those old enough to have acquired fortune, free time, and an appreciation for the finer things. These ladies host the most exclusive salons, and move quietly behind the scenes of the upper echelons of Core society. Even the less fortunate are hardly to be pitied. The Guild takes care of its own, and Companions who choose not to enter private employ frequently return to their Guild Houses to become instructors, registrants, mistresses of the robes. A traditional Companion’s career is precisely planned: a decade of preparation in the Guild House, an equal amount of time in society, and then a tasteful withdrawal to adorn some smaller circle.
However, Inara advises her reflection, one thing a respectable Companion does not do as she ages is travel at the outer edges of civilized society on a barely legal freight-transport ship. A young Companion, recently out of the Guild House, could get away with such behavior, especially if she were particularly talented and careful not to give offense to more senior members of the Guild. But such willfulness would be less charming in a lady of, say, thirty years. Inara leans closer to her mirror to smooth cream below her eyes. Besides, there are practicalities to consider: certain options do not exist off the Core planets. A Companion in the Core does not want for society. Unfortunately, the war closed many of the Houses on the outer planets, and there are few out in the Black who could afford to keep a private Companion in the expected style. There are no fools in the Guild, and a Companion does not sell herself short. Nevertheless, affection is cheap when you are young, beautiful, and talented. Somewhat less so when you are no longer young, and less still when you are no longer beautiful. Another two strokes of the brush, for good measure, and Inara studies herself in the mirror, a woman of business assessing her property. She turns the lamp down-merely to prepare for sleep, of course, not to create a dimmer, more flattering illumination. A few more years, she thinks. Yes, with luck, and care, a few more years.
<
Time--Hour: 28; Minute: 37 Alliance Unified Time>>
Mal sees the light in Inara’s shuttle flick out as he passes along the forward catwalk. He checks the shuttle bracers, the carbon monoxide detectors, the air pressure gauges, making his usually nightly rounds before turning in. It’s Kaylee’s watch tonight, and once he’s checked and double-checked, he heads to his room. He shucks his boots, brushes his teeth, rethinking his list of things to do tomorrow (swaps the order of sort ballast and plot approach to Eavesdown). Then he lays down and begins the mental litany that has taken the place of the bedtime prayers he recited as a child. Mal has killed a few folk in his day, though he can’t be more specific than that. He’s known a few-fellow soldiers, mostly, during the war-who liked to keep track, keep score, and he’d always found that a morbidish habit. Mal doesn’t think on the ones who deserved it, but he does keep a counting of the others, the ones who met their ends by accident or misadventure on his watch. It is, he figures, the very least he can do.
His list begins with Chay McBree, a kid who hadn’t even been in the unit long enough to get a nickname, who looked left instead of right and died with a startled look on his face that made him seem even younger than he was. Chay McBree, and then on to Minyi Lee and Norah Zheng, and he stops, as he always does when he gets to this point, and debates whether to include Tracey in this list. Boy had it coming to him, and Mal’s not keen to add any more names, but he figures no one else thinks on him much, and that doesn’t seem quite fair. Still-not my fault, and he leaves Tracey off the list until tomorrow night, when he’ll have the same internal debate and, no doubt, come to the same ruttin’ conclusion. The current list ends with Wash, but Mal doesn’t get that far. It’s been a busy few days, trying to make up time since they stopped for that transport ship, and somewhere between Lundsford Tian and a soldier-of-fortune named Bird, Mal falls asleep.
<
Time--Hour: 28; Minute: 52 Alliance Unified Time>>
Simon and Kaylee are in the market beyond the Eavesdown Docks, near where Serenity was docked the first time he saw her. (“Hey, you, there,” Kaylee had called, and Simon had nearly jumped out of his skin. She didn’t look like a Fed informant, but really, there was no telling…
“Oh, sorry, sorry-I didn’t mean to startle you,” she’d said. “You just looked a mite far from home.”
“Well, I…uh, yes,” he’d said stiffly. “Yes, I am, rather.”
And she’d winked at him slyly. “I know a good ship, if you ever wanna go farther from home?”).
Today, they walk leisurely through the stalls and shops. River is trailing along behind them, Inara and Mal strolling ahead of them. Kaylee spots a man selling birds-a dozen specimens flittering around, tethered to his cart with brightly colored ribbons tied around one foot.
“How d'you figure he gets them to stay still long enough to manage that?” she marvels.
“Why don't you ask?” Simon suggests, and she gives him that adorable bashful look, wrinkling her nose.
There’s a fresh breeze puffing down from the hills, dispelling the usual exhaust-and-rotten-fruit smell of the marketplace. Kaylee is looking…well, uncommonly pretty today, and Simon is trying to find a good way to slip that into conversation.
“Oooh-Simon, look at this,” Kaylee darts to the next stall, where a woman is selling sweets: palm cookies; sweetbean puffs; lemon yellow confits, like the kind Nanny used to make on Osiris. Simon turns to ask River if she remembers…but his sister is not behind him.
“River?” He makes a complete circuit around the bird-seller’s cart. Nothing. “River, come on. This isn't funny! I'm not laughing...River?!”
Several of the other travelers stop to stare at him. Simon is aware that he is making a scene, that he’s attracting unwanted attention, but he can’t care. The crowd swells and parts: people going about their daily shopping, customers and travelers from the ships at the docks. He looks down alley by the shoesmiths, between the little tables in the street café, amongst the tailoring benches…but he sees only strangers. River is nowhere to be found. River is gone.
Simon wakes, heart pounding, choking on his own breath; the sky beyond his porthole is pink with dawn before he manages to fall back to sleep.
<
Time--Hour: 1; Minute: 17 Alliance Unified Time>>
Kaylee sits at the pilot’s console and spins in the chair. She spins until she starts to get dizzy, then sticks out a hand to brace herself against the bulkhead. Checks the dials: still on course, speed consistent-a window pops onto the screen to informs her of the local time and weather at their destination. She spins again, stops to run a quick proximity scan, makes a note in the log. She wishes she’d brought that busted laser tablet up from her room, just so’s she’d have something to fiddle with. She considers running down to get it-after all, scan says there’s nothing solider than a particulate cloud for hundreds and hundreds of miles-but the whole point of having someone on watch is so they actually watch, and wouldn’t it be just luck for some little asteroid to hove onto the screen while she’s trying to find her allen key?
Off to her left, the cortex hums and twitters, snowy static drifting across the screen. She toggles onto the message screen: a couple of expired waves for Mal, one for Zoe, business stuff, old news. Kaylee had gotten a wave once, which had been a little exciting ‘til it turned out to be just Micko the Shop, saying the shipment of weir wire had come in and should he save her some?
She watches the static for a while, thinking that she ought to send somebody a wave. She’s allowed: the cortex box is for the use of the whole crew, though Jayne gets his privileges docked about twice a month, regular as clockwork. Problem is, near about anybody Kaylee knows well enough to wave is already on this boat. No use waving when she could just walk down the hall and tell them whatever she has to tell them.
Maybe she could send a message to her folks-she hasn’t spoken to them since Serenity left Curtis, the day after Mal offered her the mechanic’s spot. Surely if she sent a message to that old cortex box in the general store, somebody would run out to the farm and tell her Ma, or mention it to Dad when he came in to town? She could just send a little message saying she was doing ok and did they ever get the money she’d parceled…or, no, she wouldn’t mention the money, in case it made Dad and Branch feel bad…but she could tell them about Inara and Simon. Well, best not to mention Simon, just in case. But Inara! Why, Kaywinnet Frye was probably the first person ever from Curtis township to meet a real live Companion! Myra Bean would be so jealous; Kaylee’s almost sorry she wouldn’t be there to see her when she gets the news. Only, maybe she shouldn't mention Inara right away, either: people will think she's getting above herself. But even if she doesn't say much, at least Ma and Dad would have the cortex code for Serenity: they’d be able to wave back. Kaylee had written the code down before she left, wrote it down in three separate places, but they must have lost it, because she’d never heard from them. Not from any of them: not Ma, or Dad, or Branch, not Nan Tucker, who had been her best friend at school, or Dil Hayes, who’d been a good friend, too (not her beau, regardless of what Myra Bean liked to say). They must have been busy: the harvest was probably real good.
Kaylee watches the cortex, idly looking for patterns in the static the way she and Dil used to watch for patterns in the clouds over the back field. Serenity is probably too far to get a clear wave through to Curtis. Maybe she'll try some other night.
<
Time--Hour: 2; Minute: 5 Alliance Unified Time>>
In her bunk, Zoe wakes-suddenly, completely-and she does not know why. She lays perfectly still, listening for whatever woke her. No footsteps, no alarms, no sensors beeping out in the corridor. There is nothing but the distant lublubwhir of the engine beneath the deck, thumping along regular as a heartbeat. Must have been a sudden chill, she tells herself strictly, settling beneath the blankets. The room’s a little cooler without Wash. Always about five degrees warmer than anyone else in the room, her husband had waged stealth attacks on the thermostat, turning it down whenever Zoe wasn’t looking, and then sitting around in his ridiculous tropical shirts while she complained that she lived in a meat locker. At nights, though, it had been like sleeping next to a furnace. Since his death, she cannot quite bring herself to adjust the thermostat.
Zoe’s more than halfway asleep when she jerks herself awake again-could she have heard the babies? Surely Simon would have…she’s kicked back the blankets before she realizes that there are no babies. It’s been a week, nearly two, since they’d been waved by the becalmed transport ship Glydia. The unlucky ship, packed with settlers from Bernadette, had blown a connexion rod in the starboard thruster, leaving her to spin in aimless circles until the engine overboiled. And, by-the-bye, did Serenity have such a thing as a midwife on board; the prospect of circling to death out in the Black had sent one of the passengers into premature labor.
Mal had brought them up alongside the Glydia and dispatched Simon with his medical bag and Kaylee with her bag of tools. Six hours later-Zoe remembers, it had been her watch-they’d returned: Kaylee with both bags and the sheared hunk of metal that had jammed up the thruster, Simon with a matched set of squalling infants. He’d set them up under heatlamps in the infirmary for two days, where they kept the whole ship awake while he tended to their mother and Kaylee adapted the Glydia’s radiator to keep it from overheating again. Mal had spent the time fussing about lost time and inventing reasons to delay their departure. The grateful parents, well aware of their bread and the side of its buttering, had named the children Serena and Reynolds (although River, for purposes known only to herself, insisted on calling them Marjorie and Hasty Pudding).
The Glydia had been back on her route, with a functioning coolant system and two new passengers, for over a week, now, but Serenity’s crew had developed a tendency to wander past the infirmary. Probably not the only one hearing things, Zoe reassures herself, though she's not about to ask anyone. She arranges the blankets and runs her hand over the smooth, cool sheets on the other half of the bed, feeling a little foolish. No babies, crying or otherwise. There are no children here.
<
Time--Hour: 2; Minute: 47 Alliance Unified Time>>
In her little room at the corner of the guest quarters, River sleeps as calm and untroubled as the dead.
<
Time--Hour: 3; Minute: 55 Alliance Unified Time>>
Jayne wakes to silence. He rolls over and smacks his pillow a few times. Rolls over again. He’s always been a solid sleeper, not the type to be troubled by dreams or fancies. ‘Course, he’d needed to be. Coming up, they’d slept six to a small room, two or three to a bed, depending on how many blankets there were to share around. Every night, he’d steal the thickest blanket from his younger brothers, only to have his older cousins steal it from him. One winter evening, Jayne remembers breaking the ice that skimmed their water pitcher, dousing the good blanket and his cousins along with it: if he couldn’t have it, no reason they should. Milo and Kip had beaten him but good for that one. Jayne smiles drowsily: good times, those were.
If he hadn’t been able to sleep through ruttin’ near anything, he’d never have gotten a wink, what with Mattie and Kyrna and the twins breathing like motors ‘cause of the damplung. And then later, out on his own but always bunking with the other new guy on the team when he could afford a room at all. A body gets used to all the racket-the silence on Serenity had always been a bit un-nervifying. When he’d first come aboard, the quiet used to wake Jayne near every night. He’d get up and wander about, but this was a respectable trading ship, like Mal said, and you couldn’t get a drink or a whore for love or money. Not that Jayne had any of either to spare, but still…a gorram shame. By the time they’d taken on the new round of passengers-the doc and his crazy sister and that preacher-Jayne had gotten used to the quiet nights. Still, he’d occasionally go on the prowl. He used to run into the Shepherd, of all folk, who got up at strange hours for his praying. Man sure did seem to pray a lot, for a preacher. Jayne didn’t hold with any one person hogging the holiness, and he’d come right out and said so once. But Book had just smiled, said he was sure there was enough to go around, don’t you worry, Mr. Cobb.
He’d said it just like that, too: Mr. Cobb, and Jayne had thought he was teasing at first, but he was serious as…well, serious as a Shepherd, like Ma used to say. Mr. Cobb. Jayne kinda liked the sound of that. He flops onto his back. He used to sit with Book while the man did his recitations. At first, it was just to see how the preacher would react-Jayne liked to discomfit people, and surely no one really sat still for hours and hours going through all those long, word-ful readings? But Book didn’t startle easy, didn’t even seem to notice Jayne, and he did, indeed, murmur his way through pages and pages. Sometimes, Jayne would get bored and leave (Wash was usually up for a game of cards, if he had the watch). Often, though, listening to the preacher was a mighty fine soothification. Jayne would stretch out on the floor of the cargo bay-Book said he liked big, open spaces for his praying-and think on things, with the preacher mumbling in the background. He’d think about Mattie, and whether he might not be able to send a bit more money home to his Ma just until she got well. Maybe Mal would give him an advance on his pay. From there, he’d wonder if anyone ever sent any coin to One-eyed Jin’s girl, that red-headed hooker. Somebody ought to: Jin was all she had, and it wasn’t her fault the idjit went and got himself kilt. For that matter, there was Ricketts, and Tim, and that kid who had walked right onto Jayne’s knife during that bar fight. Who was looking out for their kinfolk?
Jayne kicks his feet free of the blanket. Too ruttin’ hot in here. And too quiet. He thinks maybe he should hum a little, make some noise...but he doesn’t really know any songs except Happy Birthday, and he can't remember all of that. So he tries to recollect some of the things the Shepherd used to recite. There was one…how did it start now? We are guilty, oh my soul
Fandom: Firefly
Characters: Post- BDM Crew
Rating: PG-15
Disclaimer: Characters still don't belong to me; written for the "hell" challenge at ff_friday and the missing challenge for firefly_15_fics . Epigraph by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Uh, despite the title, no characters were killed in the writing of this fic, but there is a SPOILER for Serenity (the movie).
"But at three o'clock in the morning, a forgotten package has the same tragic importance as a death sentence...
and in a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o' clock in the morning, day after day."
<
Time--Hour: 28; Minute: 24 Alliance Unified Time>>
Inara brushes her hair 35 times before bed. 100 strokes, despite common advice, would be too rough; a quick combing would be too little. (Beauty is a precise balance that only looks easy to those who want to believe it is effortless. As the lady said, if you want the girl next door, go next door.) She thinks she sees a single silver hair-but, no, just a trick of the light.
She chides herself for the quick burst of relief that darts through her. Gray hairs are nothing to be ashamed of! There are ways to take care of them, as with any other sign of aging...though not, of course, any cure for the underlying condition. It should not be of great consequence: Companions of mature years are often even more sought after than their younger, less experienced counterparts. Women and apples, as they say on the Core, most appetizing when neither too young nor too old. Many Companions, once past the first bloom of youth, engage themselves as private companions to people, usually gentlemen, of a certain age-those old enough to have acquired fortune, free time, and an appreciation for the finer things. These ladies host the most exclusive salons, and move quietly behind the scenes of the upper echelons of Core society. Even the less fortunate are hardly to be pitied. The Guild takes care of its own, and Companions who choose not to enter private employ frequently return to their Guild Houses to become instructors, registrants, mistresses of the robes. A traditional Companion’s career is precisely planned: a decade of preparation in the Guild House, an equal amount of time in society, and then a tasteful withdrawal to adorn some smaller circle.
However, Inara advises her reflection, one thing a respectable Companion does not do as she ages is travel at the outer edges of civilized society on a barely legal freight-transport ship. A young Companion, recently out of the Guild House, could get away with such behavior, especially if she were particularly talented and careful not to give offense to more senior members of the Guild. But such willfulness would be less charming in a lady of, say, thirty years. Inara leans closer to her mirror to smooth cream below her eyes. Besides, there are practicalities to consider: certain options do not exist off the Core planets. A Companion in the Core does not want for society. Unfortunately, the war closed many of the Houses on the outer planets, and there are few out in the Black who could afford to keep a private Companion in the expected style. There are no fools in the Guild, and a Companion does not sell herself short. Nevertheless, affection is cheap when you are young, beautiful, and talented. Somewhat less so when you are no longer young, and less still when you are no longer beautiful. Another two strokes of the brush, for good measure, and Inara studies herself in the mirror, a woman of business assessing her property. She turns the lamp down-merely to prepare for sleep, of course, not to create a dimmer, more flattering illumination. A few more years, she thinks. Yes, with luck, and care, a few more years.
<
Time--Hour: 28; Minute: 37 Alliance Unified Time>>
Mal sees the light in Inara’s shuttle flick out as he passes along the forward catwalk. He checks the shuttle bracers, the carbon monoxide detectors, the air pressure gauges, making his usually nightly rounds before turning in. It’s Kaylee’s watch tonight, and once he’s checked and double-checked, he heads to his room. He shucks his boots, brushes his teeth, rethinking his list of things to do tomorrow (swaps the order of sort ballast and plot approach to Eavesdown). Then he lays down and begins the mental litany that has taken the place of the bedtime prayers he recited as a child. Mal has killed a few folk in his day, though he can’t be more specific than that. He’s known a few-fellow soldiers, mostly, during the war-who liked to keep track, keep score, and he’d always found that a morbidish habit. Mal doesn’t think on the ones who deserved it, but he does keep a counting of the others, the ones who met their ends by accident or misadventure on his watch. It is, he figures, the very least he can do.
His list begins with Chay McBree, a kid who hadn’t even been in the unit long enough to get a nickname, who looked left instead of right and died with a startled look on his face that made him seem even younger than he was. Chay McBree, and then on to Minyi Lee and Norah Zheng, and he stops, as he always does when he gets to this point, and debates whether to include Tracey in this list. Boy had it coming to him, and Mal’s not keen to add any more names, but he figures no one else thinks on him much, and that doesn’t seem quite fair. Still-not my fault, and he leaves Tracey off the list until tomorrow night, when he’ll have the same internal debate and, no doubt, come to the same ruttin’ conclusion. The current list ends with Wash, but Mal doesn’t get that far. It’s been a busy few days, trying to make up time since they stopped for that transport ship, and somewhere between Lundsford Tian and a soldier-of-fortune named Bird, Mal falls asleep.
<
Time--Hour: 28; Minute: 52 Alliance Unified Time>>
Simon and Kaylee are in the market beyond the Eavesdown Docks, near where Serenity was docked the first time he saw her. (“Hey, you, there,” Kaylee had called, and Simon had nearly jumped out of his skin. She didn’t look like a Fed informant, but really, there was no telling…
“Oh, sorry, sorry-I didn’t mean to startle you,” she’d said. “You just looked a mite far from home.”
“Well, I…uh, yes,” he’d said stiffly. “Yes, I am, rather.”
And she’d winked at him slyly. “I know a good ship, if you ever wanna go farther from home?”).
Today, they walk leisurely through the stalls and shops. River is trailing along behind them, Inara and Mal strolling ahead of them. Kaylee spots a man selling birds-a dozen specimens flittering around, tethered to his cart with brightly colored ribbons tied around one foot.
“How d'you figure he gets them to stay still long enough to manage that?” she marvels.
“Why don't you ask?” Simon suggests, and she gives him that adorable bashful look, wrinkling her nose.
There’s a fresh breeze puffing down from the hills, dispelling the usual exhaust-and-rotten-fruit smell of the marketplace. Kaylee is looking…well, uncommonly pretty today, and Simon is trying to find a good way to slip that into conversation.
“Oooh-Simon, look at this,” Kaylee darts to the next stall, where a woman is selling sweets: palm cookies; sweetbean puffs; lemon yellow confits, like the kind Nanny used to make on Osiris. Simon turns to ask River if she remembers…but his sister is not behind him.
“River?” He makes a complete circuit around the bird-seller’s cart. Nothing. “River, come on. This isn't funny! I'm not laughing...River?!”
Several of the other travelers stop to stare at him. Simon is aware that he is making a scene, that he’s attracting unwanted attention, but he can’t care. The crowd swells and parts: people going about their daily shopping, customers and travelers from the ships at the docks. He looks down alley by the shoesmiths, between the little tables in the street café, amongst the tailoring benches…but he sees only strangers. River is nowhere to be found. River is gone.
Simon wakes, heart pounding, choking on his own breath; the sky beyond his porthole is pink with dawn before he manages to fall back to sleep.
<
Time--Hour: 1; Minute: 17 Alliance Unified Time>>
Kaylee sits at the pilot’s console and spins in the chair. She spins until she starts to get dizzy, then sticks out a hand to brace herself against the bulkhead. Checks the dials: still on course, speed consistent-a window pops onto the screen to informs her of the local time and weather at their destination. She spins again, stops to run a quick proximity scan, makes a note in the log. She wishes she’d brought that busted laser tablet up from her room, just so’s she’d have something to fiddle with. She considers running down to get it-after all, scan says there’s nothing solider than a particulate cloud for hundreds and hundreds of miles-but the whole point of having someone on watch is so they actually watch, and wouldn’t it be just luck for some little asteroid to hove onto the screen while she’s trying to find her allen key?
Off to her left, the cortex hums and twitters, snowy static drifting across the screen. She toggles onto the message screen: a couple of expired waves for Mal, one for Zoe, business stuff, old news. Kaylee had gotten a wave once, which had been a little exciting ‘til it turned out to be just Micko the Shop, saying the shipment of weir wire had come in and should he save her some?
She watches the static for a while, thinking that she ought to send somebody a wave. She’s allowed: the cortex box is for the use of the whole crew, though Jayne gets his privileges docked about twice a month, regular as clockwork. Problem is, near about anybody Kaylee knows well enough to wave is already on this boat. No use waving when she could just walk down the hall and tell them whatever she has to tell them.
Maybe she could send a message to her folks-she hasn’t spoken to them since Serenity left Curtis, the day after Mal offered her the mechanic’s spot. Surely if she sent a message to that old cortex box in the general store, somebody would run out to the farm and tell her Ma, or mention it to Dad when he came in to town? She could just send a little message saying she was doing ok and did they ever get the money she’d parceled…or, no, she wouldn’t mention the money, in case it made Dad and Branch feel bad…but she could tell them about Inara and Simon. Well, best not to mention Simon, just in case. But Inara! Why, Kaywinnet Frye was probably the first person ever from Curtis township to meet a real live Companion! Myra Bean would be so jealous; Kaylee’s almost sorry she wouldn’t be there to see her when she gets the news. Only, maybe she shouldn't mention Inara right away, either: people will think she's getting above herself. But even if she doesn't say much, at least Ma and Dad would have the cortex code for Serenity: they’d be able to wave back. Kaylee had written the code down before she left, wrote it down in three separate places, but they must have lost it, because she’d never heard from them. Not from any of them: not Ma, or Dad, or Branch, not Nan Tucker, who had been her best friend at school, or Dil Hayes, who’d been a good friend, too (not her beau, regardless of what Myra Bean liked to say). They must have been busy: the harvest was probably real good.
Kaylee watches the cortex, idly looking for patterns in the static the way she and Dil used to watch for patterns in the clouds over the back field. Serenity is probably too far to get a clear wave through to Curtis. Maybe she'll try some other night.
<
Time--Hour: 2; Minute: 5 Alliance Unified Time>>
In her bunk, Zoe wakes-suddenly, completely-and she does not know why. She lays perfectly still, listening for whatever woke her. No footsteps, no alarms, no sensors beeping out in the corridor. There is nothing but the distant lublubwhir of the engine beneath the deck, thumping along regular as a heartbeat. Must have been a sudden chill, she tells herself strictly, settling beneath the blankets. The room’s a little cooler without Wash. Always about five degrees warmer than anyone else in the room, her husband had waged stealth attacks on the thermostat, turning it down whenever Zoe wasn’t looking, and then sitting around in his ridiculous tropical shirts while she complained that she lived in a meat locker. At nights, though, it had been like sleeping next to a furnace. Since his death, she cannot quite bring herself to adjust the thermostat.
Zoe’s more than halfway asleep when she jerks herself awake again-could she have heard the babies? Surely Simon would have…she’s kicked back the blankets before she realizes that there are no babies. It’s been a week, nearly two, since they’d been waved by the becalmed transport ship Glydia. The unlucky ship, packed with settlers from Bernadette, had blown a connexion rod in the starboard thruster, leaving her to spin in aimless circles until the engine overboiled. And, by-the-bye, did Serenity have such a thing as a midwife on board; the prospect of circling to death out in the Black had sent one of the passengers into premature labor.
Mal had brought them up alongside the Glydia and dispatched Simon with his medical bag and Kaylee with her bag of tools. Six hours later-Zoe remembers, it had been her watch-they’d returned: Kaylee with both bags and the sheared hunk of metal that had jammed up the thruster, Simon with a matched set of squalling infants. He’d set them up under heatlamps in the infirmary for two days, where they kept the whole ship awake while he tended to their mother and Kaylee adapted the Glydia’s radiator to keep it from overheating again. Mal had spent the time fussing about lost time and inventing reasons to delay their departure. The grateful parents, well aware of their bread and the side of its buttering, had named the children Serena and Reynolds (although River, for purposes known only to herself, insisted on calling them Marjorie and Hasty Pudding).
The Glydia had been back on her route, with a functioning coolant system and two new passengers, for over a week, now, but Serenity’s crew had developed a tendency to wander past the infirmary. Probably not the only one hearing things, Zoe reassures herself, though she's not about to ask anyone. She arranges the blankets and runs her hand over the smooth, cool sheets on the other half of the bed, feeling a little foolish. No babies, crying or otherwise. There are no children here.
<
Time--Hour: 2; Minute: 47 Alliance Unified Time>>
In her little room at the corner of the guest quarters, River sleeps as calm and untroubled as the dead.
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Time--Hour: 3; Minute: 55 Alliance Unified Time>>
Jayne wakes to silence. He rolls over and smacks his pillow a few times. Rolls over again. He’s always been a solid sleeper, not the type to be troubled by dreams or fancies. ‘Course, he’d needed to be. Coming up, they’d slept six to a small room, two or three to a bed, depending on how many blankets there were to share around. Every night, he’d steal the thickest blanket from his younger brothers, only to have his older cousins steal it from him. One winter evening, Jayne remembers breaking the ice that skimmed their water pitcher, dousing the good blanket and his cousins along with it: if he couldn’t have it, no reason they should. Milo and Kip had beaten him but good for that one. Jayne smiles drowsily: good times, those were.
If he hadn’t been able to sleep through ruttin’ near anything, he’d never have gotten a wink, what with Mattie and Kyrna and the twins breathing like motors ‘cause of the damplung. And then later, out on his own but always bunking with the other new guy on the team when he could afford a room at all. A body gets used to all the racket-the silence on Serenity had always been a bit un-nervifying. When he’d first come aboard, the quiet used to wake Jayne near every night. He’d get up and wander about, but this was a respectable trading ship, like Mal said, and you couldn’t get a drink or a whore for love or money. Not that Jayne had any of either to spare, but still…a gorram shame. By the time they’d taken on the new round of passengers-the doc and his crazy sister and that preacher-Jayne had gotten used to the quiet nights. Still, he’d occasionally go on the prowl. He used to run into the Shepherd, of all folk, who got up at strange hours for his praying. Man sure did seem to pray a lot, for a preacher. Jayne didn’t hold with any one person hogging the holiness, and he’d come right out and said so once. But Book had just smiled, said he was sure there was enough to go around, don’t you worry, Mr. Cobb.
He’d said it just like that, too: Mr. Cobb, and Jayne had thought he was teasing at first, but he was serious as…well, serious as a Shepherd, like Ma used to say. Mr. Cobb. Jayne kinda liked the sound of that. He flops onto his back. He used to sit with Book while the man did his recitations. At first, it was just to see how the preacher would react-Jayne liked to discomfit people, and surely no one really sat still for hours and hours going through all those long, word-ful readings? But Book didn’t startle easy, didn’t even seem to notice Jayne, and he did, indeed, murmur his way through pages and pages. Sometimes, Jayne would get bored and leave (Wash was usually up for a game of cards, if he had the watch). Often, though, listening to the preacher was a mighty fine soothification. Jayne would stretch out on the floor of the cargo bay-Book said he liked big, open spaces for his praying-and think on things, with the preacher mumbling in the background. He’d think about Mattie, and whether he might not be able to send a bit more money home to his Ma just until she got well. Maybe Mal would give him an advance on his pay. From there, he’d wonder if anyone ever sent any coin to One-eyed Jin’s girl, that red-headed hooker. Somebody ought to: Jin was all she had, and it wasn’t her fault the idjit went and got himself kilt. For that matter, there was Ricketts, and Tim, and that kid who had walked right onto Jayne’s knife during that bar fight. Who was looking out for their kinfolk?
Jayne kicks his feet free of the blanket. Too ruttin’ hot in here. And too quiet. He thinks maybe he should hum a little, make some noise...but he doesn’t really know any songs except Happy Birthday, and he can't remember all of that. So he tries to recollect some of the things the Shepherd used to recite. There was one…how did it start now? We are guilty, oh my soul