Nothing's going to come crashing down on him this time, noooo...
Who: Billy & Kaylee
When: BACKDATED to the day the amnesia hit
Where: Billy's house
What: What do you mean, who am I?
( This isn't somehow my fault, is it? )
When: BACKDATED to the day the amnesia hit
Where: Billy's house
What: What do you mean, who am I?
( This isn't somehow my fault, is it? )
"You're - you're in my house," he replied, bewildered. "You fell asleep here last night. Kaylee... it's me."
No recognition at all. Had he done this? The experiment he'd been working on last night hadn't had anything to do with memory erasure, but he always had a few things in the works. Had something combined with something and gone off? He racked his brain to think what in his lab might have caused this effect.
"...Billy," he tried again, watching her face. "Cranston?" Still nothing. He was starting to reach the point of full-fledged alarm. If he had done this, could he reverse it? If he hadn't done it, could he reverse it? His hands hung uselessly at his sides. "I won't try anything." Unless it could fix her. "I promise. I'm... your friend. I'd never hurt you, Kaylee." This last was in a softer voice, a promise he meant down to the core of him, one that it had taken a long time to trust himself enough to give.
And one he may have already broken. Why didn't she know him?
Reply
Still, there was a difference coming from Billy- something friendly-like, that Kaylee thought she could trust, though she had no idea why she would be thinking so.
"You- you know me?" Kaylee asked, tears starting to well up in her eyes, though she did her best to blink them away. "Where are we? Did we already land on Boros? Is the Captain here?" Kaylee's questions rolled out one after the other- she was frightened, and finding someone she thought she could trust was quickly breaking down her attempts to be brave.
Reply
"Um, we're in Canada." That might not be enough for her. "On Earth. Er... Captain Reynolds was here, but... I don't think he's here right now." Hopefully that would be slightly less scary than telling her 'He disappeared months ago'.
What else could he do? If he ran off to his lab right now and left her alone, who knew what would happen? He worried the ends of his sleeves in his hands. There was one thing. She wouldn't even appreciate the sacrifice he was making, but if it helped...
"I could call Jayne, though. If you want."
If only Mal were still here. Or even River. Or anyone but Jayne!
Reply
"Wha-?" Kaylee trailed off, unable to take in all of the information at once. Where had the Captain gone? How had they gotten here in the first place?
She jumped at the mention of the familiar name, though, standing up and nodding.
"You know Jayne? Where is he? Is he close by?"
Reply
He didn't know what to do. He scarcely wanted to leave her alone even long enough to make a phone call, but being here, he could do nothing but stand helplessly and stare at her.
"I'll- water," he stammered, edging backwards toward the door. "Phone call, then I'll get you some water. Okay?"
Reply
However, the rest of his story was just fēng diān- how could they possibly be on Earth?? That just didn't make sense! Still, the room she was in did look like something out of her history book from school.
Kaylee glanced down, finally noticing the clothes she was wearing. The cargo pants were hers- though they looked a lot worse than she remembered them looking. The shirt she'd never seen before, but it was pink with a cute white cat, and looked like something she'd pick out. But it was still more'n crazy to wake up in a strange place in strange clothes with a strange guy.
What in the shì jiè was going on??
Reply
"Uh." He cleared his throat, uncomfortable and still worried. "I couldn't reach him. I tried your- um, his apartment, and the airfield, and the bar." Inwardly he cursed Jayne for not being around the one time Billy actually really wanted to find him. "I'm sure he's just... out, someplace. We'll keep trying."
Reply
"Whadda mean, 'his apartment'?" Kaylee asked, looking puzzled. "Jayne lives on Serenity. Where are we again? And how do you know Jayne?"
Kaylee was starting to get suspicious, now- everything was just a mite too calm. Normally, worrisome problems came along with chaos and craziness. The fact that she still had no idea where she was (or how she'd come to be there) was scaring her as well, and she looked up at Billy, lost and confused.
Reply
"Kaylee..." Oh brother. She wasn't going to like this one bit. "He doesn't live on Serenity anymore. Neither do you. You live here, in Aternaville, on Earth; you share an apartment with him, and River." At least until River had vanished, but he hoped name-dropping her would help his credibility. "You have for years. You've got to remember!"
Reply
"It's just- none of this is making no sense!" she said, her voice wavering a little. "I mean, how'd I get here, for one? And years? Years I been livin' here?"
She sighed again, shaking her head.
"So how long you known me? Do you know where this apartment is? Mebbe-" she trailed off, biting her lip. "I mean, if I'm supposed to be rememberin', mebbe seeing my own place will help?"
Kaylee felt like all she was doing was asking questions, but it was all she could do right now. Her head was spinning, she was confused, and she was not where she was supposed to be. At least Billy seemed nice, and like he wanted to help her.
Reply
After showing her where she'd left her flip-flops, he led the way out the door, and they started down the street toward the apartment complex. He kept sneaking glances at her out of the corner of his eye. Penny had made him an expert at sneaking glances.
"You and I," he said abruptly, tired of the silence and hoping he might be able to jog some memory, "you and I met almost two years ago. In the hardware store. I was buying a few things, and you - you gave me some good recommendations." He smiled briefly, just a little twitch of his mouth upward, his eyes cast down toward the sidewalk. "You told me machines speak to you. And later, later you showed me the car you were restoring. Is... any of this sounding familiar?"
Reply
Once she started paying attention, Kaylee listened closely, nodding at times.
"It- it don't sound familiar, but it does sound like me, if that makes sense," she finally replied, turning to look at Billy. "In a hardware store and all. And trying to help you out, it sounds like."
She thought for a moment, then looked at him again.
"I have a car?" she asked, a note of excitement in her voice. "Like, a real, non-flying car? With an internal combustion engine that runs on gasoline?"
Reply
"Yeah. You have a car. You've been working on it this whole time." Except the months she'd been missing. "It sort of runs now. I can show you that too, if you want - I think it's at the airfield still."
What else could he tell her? He had a short list forming in his head of things she really ought to know, but most of that information would probably be pretty scary to her.
"The thing is... the thing is. We're on Earth, like I said. And it's um, it's 2010." He rushed through that last part. "We still don't know exactly how you or your friends got here. There's a unique energy convergence that runs through this particular town, which connects it to other worlds and timelines, and it draws certain individuals here. Like you and your friends. You just woke up here one day." And you can't go back. He closed his mouth on that. She didn't need to be confronted with that quite yet - at least not before he got the chance to show her some of the reasons being trapped here wasn't so bad.
Of which he hoped he was one.
Reply
But it also sounded like she hadn't been trying to get back to Serenity, either.
She listened as the words came tumbling out of Billy's mouth, not understanding half of it, but as she often did with River, getting the gist of things.
It hadn't been a long walk, and Billy was leading her up the steps of an apartment building. Kaylee stopped for a moment, turning to look at him.
"And I can't get back, can I?" Kaylee asked, trying to smile, but feeling sad all the same. "Wouldn't have a big project like a car going if I was plannin' on leavin' anytime soon, would I? Don't make no sense to do that."
Reply
"Um. No." He stuffed his hands in his pockets, looking away. Remembering when he'd thought he might have pinpointed a way to return people to where they'd come from, only to realize that he wasn't sure they wouldn't just vanish into oblivion. And feeling guilty for feeling relieved that he could honestly tell her nobody knew how to get her home.
"Sometimes people disappear as suddenly as they appear. But there's no predicting it. Kaylee..." Might as well get a little more of the bad news over with while they were at it. "River used to be here, and so did your Captain, Mal. They're both gone. Jayne's still here, though." Of all people. Not that Billy had had a terrific track record with any of Kaylee's friends.
Reply
"Don't seem quite fair, does it?" Kaylee asked, trying to smile again. "Gettin' stuck with Jayne, that is. Would'a liked to have gotten marooned with Simon or the Captain or Inara," she shrugged. "Funny how that works out."
Kaylee nodded towards the door, thinking for a moment.
"So I'm supposing I have a key?" she asked, her hands going to the pockets of her cargo pants and eventually finding a sparkly pink 'K' keyring with a half-dozen keys on it. "Any idea which one it is?"
Reply
Leave a comment