Firefly - Giselle (11/?)
Title: Giselle
Fandom: Firefly/Serenity
Disclaimer: I do not own.
Beta-Reader: Thanks go to the amazing revdorothyl.
Character/Pairings: Jayne/River, Blue Hands, Regan Tam
Rating: R
Warnings: Post BDM, Violence of the Reavers and Blue Hands variety.
Notes: The prequel to Little Girl Lost, taking place after Miranda is exposed, and three years before Gabriel Tam sets out to find River.
Summary: As the Alliance is ripped apart at the seams, they attempt to recapture their masterpiece. The story of how Jayne Cobb and River Tam left Serenity.
Warning: Violence.
Chapter Eleven
Regan doesn’t know how long she lies on the rug in her daughter’s room, bleeding on the carpet. All she knows is that it hurts. Her head aches from the strain of what she’s just done, and she wants to cry because her accomplishment today still isn’t enough. Nothing she does will ever be enough. Not where her children are concerned.
She’d woken up with River’s voice screaming in her ears and a hollow voice coming out of a hollow man repeating the dreaded words over and over again.
"Eta karoom na smech."
"Eta karoom na smech."
"Eta karoom na smech."
Without thinking, Regan had thrown back the covers and run to her daughter’s room, where she had proceeded to grab anything and everything that reminded her strongly of River, hoping to give herself just enough psychic reinforcement using physical objects carrying River’s imprint that she’d be able to link with her daughter’s mind. Once, this had been easy, but River had been a child then and hardly ever far from Regan’s sight, and her brain hadn’t been hacked to pieces by men whose graves Regan would gladly dance upon.
The mother of Simon and River Tam had thrown her mind outward into the vast void marked by the physical distance between the planets, trying to catch a snatch of River’s thoughts, but with no success. River’s mind had shut down. Only a faint part of it remained awake and active, but the rest of River’s brain had literally been shut off and no electrical pulses raced over the area. Regan had called to her daughter, but River just continued to scream, unable to hear.
Regan had feared that she would have to reach out to Simon and force him past the shock of learning that his mother was also a Reader to make him go forth and rescue his sister once more. (‘Not Simon. No. No. No. They’d kill him, and River would be lost to her forever. And she’d be forced to mourn both her children, and she didn’t want to ever have to mourn them. Not her children. Not her Simon and her River.’).
It had been then that she’d found him. Jayne Cobb. One of the crew of Serenity, the ship that had housed her children. His thoughts sang of familiarity, but it had been the single-minded purpose of finding River drumming through his mind that had made Regan realize that he was perfect. His thoughts rang of agonizing death for those who had hurt her daughter, and she knew that he was more than capable of delivering that pain. Plus, if he died, at least he was expendable. He wasn’t Simon and he wasn’t River. They were her priority. Nothing else mattered.
Regan knows that there will be severe consequences for her actions. How can there not be, when she’s pushed the very boundaries of nature? Reaching out to another, foreign mind two planets away from Osiris. Regan squeezes her eyes shut tight at the memory of Jayne Cobb’s mind. His mental patterns had been different, compared to the vast majority of people in the ‘verse, and at first Regan had been concerned that the man had had his brain cut into, as well, for his brain waves so closely resembled her daughter’s. But after shoving her way past his mind blocks (one didn’t have to be a Reader to know how to erect strong barriers, even if it was just to bury his own dark memories and not to block out the thoughts of everyone around him), she’d known immediately that his brain hadn’t been altered, …at least not by scientists. Nature itself had stepped in, this time. She’d only had a brief moment to marvel at the irony of the date when he’d had his seizure (what were the chances his brain would have been rewired right at that moment…?), before she’d walked through his iron door and pushed it open from the other side.
The images had been horrific, but they’d served their purpose and gotten his attention. And then, of all things, the man had realized that there was something other than ghosts at work (given his early upbringing, she’d expected that to be the conclusion he would draw), and promised her that he’d save her child.
She stands greatly in debt to this man, and to all the crew of Serenity who sheltered her children. One day, she’ll find a way to repay them all.
The pain in her head has dulled a little, and Regan coughs weakly as she attempts to spit out the excess blood from her mouth. Her daughter will be fine. Just fine. Regan repeats this mantra over to herself as her eyes start to slide closed, her body completely exhausted. But her mind remains awake and active. Her barriers have all tumbled to the ground and she can hear as she’s never allowed herself to hear -- not since her father first showed her how to assemble her mind blocks so that all the voices wouldn’t drive her insane. After what Regan just did, the voices feel gentle and soothing, like she’s only slipped her body into a swimming pool and allowed the water to slowly pull her down. In this relaxed state, Regan has no problem with opening her Sight.
She Sees everything.
~*~
Jayne hates cryo-chambers. He especially hates the fact that they don't come with instructions taped to the side, or a nice, big, red 'OFF' button.
Sure, the girl had slammed something against the inside of the container, but that was probably only because she wasn’t fully frozen yet. Which meant he’d have to wait until she was a human ice cube before flipping the switch so she could thaw out, or risk thawing her out now.
The Doc had gone on and on about the proper way to wake a person from a cryo-chamber during one of his brainstorming sessions when he was concerned that the real reason his sister was crazier than a monkey was because Mal let her out too soon.
Jayne hadn’t really been paying attention to the conversation, seeing as how he’d had a crazy person stuck to his back at the time, which was the reason Simon had gone off on his rant in the first place. It had been a couple of weeks after Ariel and just before Mal and Zoë got the corpse that wasn’t really a corpse in the mail, and the girl had woken up and decided she didn’t feel like walking. She’d latched her arms and legs around his body and insisted on being given a piggyback ride. She'd thrown a real big fit when he'd tried to buck her off. The little imp had clung tighter and muttered on about how he couldn't unravel the red strings because she'd tied them into a Gordian knot. Jayne had stupidly responded by demanding to know where the knot was so he could just cut it, which in turn made the girl burst into loud sobs, wailing on about going two by two. The Doc had thankfully knocked her out right about then. Unfortunately, the Doc didn’t bother to knock himself out and instead ruined dinner by going over all of the various side effects that could have developed ‘cause Mal’s too nosey for his own good.
After kicking aside the one purple-belly who was in the way (and 'cause he didn't want the guy leaning up against the box that housed River, as he didn't want to hear her whining later about touching through proximity), Jayne had tried and failed to figure out how to switch the gorram thing off so that the girl could thaw out and they could make themselves scarce just as soon as Jayne finished 'talking business' with the Blue Hands. Of course, nothing was ever easy.
Which meant that he didn’t get to enjoy his cigar nearly as much as he wanted to.
Jayne supposes that he could ask the two suits real nice if they knew how to get the girl out without breaking her, but chances were they'd give him the wrong directions on purpose. ‘Least, they would until Jayne showed them just how serious he was about getting the girl out of here with no harm. And it hadn’t taken Jayne long to figure out that these two were the type who talked real fast once the fun started.
Maybe if he had actually gone to school, he’d understand why a pair of weaklings like these would be able to scare a girl like River Tam. She’d killed a whole pack of Reavers all on her lonesome, meaning she could take out anything.
Especially a couple of small guys who didn’t pack any shiny weapons (the sonic device wouldn’t do anyone any good if someone got close enough to stick a knife in your back, or shoot you before their body turned to mush), and looked like they hardly worked out at all. Yet, she was utterly scared of them and had been taken out by them.
It didn’t make any sense that she should be scared of them, and he’ll have to work harder to show her that. He knows that he hasn’t even finished figuring out what she can do just yet, but he also knows that by the time he’s done honing her skills, there ain’t going to be nobody who’ll be able to drop her.
Jayne always has been a sucker for joining the team that won without fail every time, and River will be that team. He’s betting on it.
Too bad he doesn't have a couple of days to work these hun duns over (or the time to show River the right way to interrogate somebody -- he’ll have to somehow fit in a session on that soon. Mal will complain, of course, being the righteous son of a bitch he is, but the girl would be a natural. She’s already got the creepy part down pat, and that’s what a real good interrogation needs: fear), but he’s on a timer (Zoë will kick his ass if he misses the birth of her kid and Mal will have Jayne’s head if he takes too long getting back to Serenity with the girl, which could lead to Mal thinking, and that wouldn’t be a good thing). So he'll have to try not to break them too hard and render them completely useless before they give him what he wants. And what Jayne really wants, he’s decided, is to know everything there is to know about River Tam, starting with the why. He’s going to find out why they chose her if it kills him, and by the time he’s done, he’s also going to know who chose her.
Jayne has big plans for the hun duns who chose River Tam as their test monkey.
He decides to figure out what type of potential victims he's dealing with by asking the Blue Hands: "How'd ya find her?"
Depending on their answers, he'll be able to figure out the best way to draw out the information he needs. Jayne's never liked fighting an enemy he knows absolutely nothing about (apart from the fact that they seem to really like those blue gloves), and he's not about to start liking it now. He'll draw out all the information these hun duns know first, and then he'll follow up by finding out all the intel they don’t realize they know. By the time he's finished, he should be able to come up with some sort of game plan (and he can always ask the girl for any ideas. She's a lot better than Mal when it comes to planning. Which is an understatement, since Mal can't plan anything to save his life, as the number of bullet wounds on his body, along with the occasional torture wound and the damage left by heat stroke, can well attest to).
Hopefully, Jayne'll even have the girl back to Serenity and eating dumplings before anyone really notices how long the mercenary and crazy assassin have been off on their own.
The guy with the hole in his lung gasps out something, which Jayne's pretty sure is an insult to his mother. Since Jayne doesn't take kindly to insults towards his mother, he responds by shooting the guy in the kneecap. A move he'd like to think would make Book proud. The guy curses, pulling one of his hands away from damming up the blood that pumps up through the bullet hole in his chest to grab at the area just above his new wound.
"That didn't sound like an answer," Jayne says, turning to look at the other agent to make sure that he also got the message to not mess with Jayne Cobb. The other man has his eyes squeezed shut and his teeth gritted together, and Jayne's about to label him as the weak link when he notices the sweat on the agent's brow and the way he's holding his own knee, his body shaking. Jayne slowly looks over at the guy he'd just shot and notices for the first time that he's sitting so that he doesn't put as much weight on the one side of his hip as opposed to the other.
This is getting slightly more interesting.
Before either of the Alliance agents could register what he was doing, Jayne grabs the right trigger finger of Agent Anderson and bends it back sharply. Agent Mason gasps in pain, while Anderson barely reacts.
Now, that’s very interesting.
Ignoring the impulse to cross himself (and thank the Good Lord for Jayne not sharing a similar arrangement with Mal), Jayne instead repeats himself. "How'd ya find her?"
Agent Mason immediately blurts out that they bribed the doctor.
Jayne grunts. "The male nurse, or whatever he is," Jayne says dismissively.
The Blue Hands frown, unease filling them again.
"Inara's got one of them yearly appointments,” Jayne continues, his tone decidedly uninterested, “that, being the borin’ person she is, is always on the same day. It was only a matter of time 'fore ya found us an' came after the girl. 'Course, that was supposin’ you weren't idiots."
He squats down before them and puts out his cigar on Anderson’s chest. Mason hisses. “See, what I really want… is to know how ya found ‘er in the first place. Why’d yer Academy want her so bad?”
The two Alliance dogs exchanged looks. The type of looks that Mal and Zoë exchanged when they realized that the client they were dealing with wasn’t exactly Mr. Nice-and-Friendly-and-Dumb.
Jayne smacks the back of Anderson’s head, sending his glasses flying. He frowns when he sees the mismatched bloodshot eyes. Eyes don’t come in that colour of purple and green where he hails from. Jayne reaches out and snatches the sunglasses from Mason’s face, not caring that he cuts the bridge of the other man’s nose.
Sure enough, there’s a bloodshot green eye and a bloodshot purple eye staring back at him. Only difference is that the eyes are on the opposite side to each other than Anderson’s.
“What’d ya do? Trade eyeballs as part of yer best friends forever pact?” Jayne asks, forcing himself not to rush through the words so that he doesn’t give his captives the impression that they’ve managed to shake him. There’s no way he’s going to give these hun duns the slightest advantage to use against him.
The two agents exchange another one of those looks, and Jayne knows. He knows that exchanging eyeballs was exactly what they did. Switched eyeballs and pain and God knows what else. He knew that the Alliance was capable of some real sick go se -- he’d known from the moment he’d seen the scan of the girl’s brain, and if he’d had any doubts, they’d been banished when he found out about the PAX. But, somehow the Alliance still manages to surprise him with the lengths they’ll go to create something God never intended.
He wonders briefly what more he’ll see before the end (there’s no question in his mind that he’ll ever part from River Tam’s side. She ended the existence of a pack of Reavers all by herself. One day, she’ll be unbeatable. He just needs to show her the way first).
Jayne gets to his feet again, drawing Binky as he does so. “Names.”
Anderson spits at Jayne’s foot, his eyes brimming with anger. “I will not betray my government.”
Jayne turns his head slightly so they can’t see him smile. “You’re that loyal, huh?”
Nobody’s ever that loyal. Nobody.
Anderson shuffles his feet in a misguided attempt to shift himself back and away from Jayne. He isn’t able to get up and run -- the shot from Boo had made sure of that (unless he visits a talented surgeon, it’ll be a miracle if he ever walks again, and Jayne’s going to make sure that, miracle or otherwise, Anderson isn’t going to walk away from here). “Of course.”
“Even after they did that to you?” Jayne whistles, his body language filled with mocking as he gestures between Anderson and Mason.
There’s a flicker underneath Mason’s cold visage and he refuses to look at his partner.
“Thing is,” Jayne says, stepping closer, and making sure that the dim light hits Binky’s edge so that both men can see how sharp the knife is and imagine just how easily it will slice through human flesh, “no one’s ever loyal when they’re about to die.”
There is a brief moment of silence before Anderson snarls, “What would you know about it?”
A mistake.
Anderson knows this instantly, for suddenly he’s caught Jayne Cobb’s complete attention, only to find out that he doesn’t care for the spotlight being shone in his face. His breathing accelerates as Jayne stares at him.
"Funny how you only really git to know a guy when he’s about to die."
Jayne steps forward.
~*~
There is a girl in a box.
The girl doesn’t like being in the box. It is too cramped and far too hot. If she’d been clothed, she would have died from over-heating.
The girl wants very much to come out of the box.
There are many things happening in the world right now that she’d like to be a part of, but can’t because she’s trapped in a box.
As her mind starts to wake up, so too does her awareness of her family.
Her mother is playing at Sleeping Beauty and she is just now being lifted into a pristine white bed. A bag of rubies is at her side and it drips jewels into her arm. Her father stands at her mother’s side, holding tightly to her limp left hand. The girl almost doesn’t recognize him, for he’s aged so much since she last saw him, and he’s not bothered to get rid of the physical evidence of his age.
Her brother is trying to comfort the warrior queen as she begins the long process of childbirth. She cries out her dead husband’s name, and his ghost answers back. Flesh fingers link with air. She holds his hands as if he were still flesh and blood like her. The mechanic looks on, trying to be soothing, although more nervous than she’ll admit, having never been involved in the child-bearing process before. As she watches the pain Zoë stumbles through, Kaylee rethinks having children.
The Captain, the girl’s second father, attempts to navigate his way through traffic, dragging the Companion behind him. His mind churns with worry and a slight suspicion. It doesn’t make sense that they lost the Companion’s file, and his mind keeps screaming that this is all a trap. The girl is going to have to work hard to reassure him. It’s the only way she can keep him safe.
The girl longs to get out of the box and join her family.
Sadly, she cannot get out by herself, as she can barely move.
She could get out if her friend were to help her.
But he is busy playing hangman.
The girl gives a little sigh as she senses that Jayne is soon to deliver on his promise to her. When he had first offered her the heads of all who had ever hurt her, she hadn’t thought he was joking -- his words rang of truth -- but a part of her, the part that still remembered the world she came from, hadn’t really expected him to do it.
It’s a long list of guilty heads, men and woman unaware of the oozing blood dripping from their hands, and it’s getting longer.
She supposes she should be scared that her friend is so willing to commit murder on her behalf, but she’s not. How can she be scared of him when she’s exactly the same?
The girl tightens her fist, focusing all of her being into her hand as she struggles to punch the side of the box again. She’s ready to come out.
~*~
It doesn’t take long for the two Blue Hands to break, not when Jayne really starts working on them.
The trick is to torture the harder one first, while the weak link watches. They’ll start talking sooner and spill more information in an attempt to stop the same thing from happening to them. ‘Course, it’s somewhat tricky this time, what with the two men having exchanged eyeballs and pain.
Mason is nearly a mass of blood, but he’s alive and still talking while Anderson has nearly passed out from the pain. He won’t be able to ever walk again and his hands are ruined, but Mason’s still talking.
He’s talking names and he’s talking info. He tells Jayne all about the big database the Alliance now has on Serenity and about how they were keeping track of the crew to take advantage of any opportunities offered to them, any times and places where the girl could be taken. All they need to do is say the control phrase and she’s theirs (Jayne had known they’d cheated. Weren’t no way they could have taken out the girl, not when she’s that good, unless they had something on her). Jayne makes them repeat the control phrase over and over, so he soon has it memorized. He couldn’t mess it up now if he tried.
And the names. Jayne won’t forget any of them.
Jayne’s covered with blood. He hopes it rains soon, as he really needs to get this stuff washed off before he and the girl head back to Serenity.
Jayne takes a small break from cutting up Mason to look over Anderson, who, apart from the bullet in his hip (that almost, but didn’t quite, nick an artery), is unwounded. Yet, he’s almost passed out from the pain.
Jayne points to the container. “How do ya git her out?” He demands.
“Open… the lid…,” Anderson pants out.
At that exact moment something thumps against the container from the inside.
Jayne freezes. “She ain’t froze?”
In answer, River punches the inside of the container harder.
Jayne looks down at his prey. His eyes narrow as he offers them a large sneer. “Well, it’s been real fun….”
Anderson squeezes his eyes shut as the mercenary swings down his bowie knife onto Mason’s throat. Mason dies looking surprised, as if he thought betraying his government would actually save his life.
“We will always come after her,” Anderson says as the mercenary steps towards him, intent on doing the same. “It’s in our programming.”
Jayne’s sneer grows. “I’ll be waitin’,” he promises before the knife falls once more.
~*~
They’re dead.
The Blue Hands are dead. River knows this as she suddenly has movement in her body again.
The person who said the control phrase either no longer wants the control phrase to be in effect, or else they’re dead.
They’re dead.
He killed them. For her. He killed them for her.
She claws at the metal insides until her fingers bleed, her nails broken, screaming both in her brain and with her voice. Her own voice. She’d thought she’d never hear it again.
Something bangs on the outside, and she kicks her feet and hammers her fists against the walls so hard she can feel the blood vessels break. The lid is thrown off to land outside her field of vision with a loud crash. Red drips onto her face as large hands in a pair of fingerless gloves lift her weak body by the forearms.
“River!” Jayne runs his hands up and down her back as she sobs hysterically. “I need ya to breathe.”
She nods and tries to take in great gulping breaths of air as Jayne holds her up.
She wraps her arms around his neck, pressing herself as hard as she can into his body. Her hands scratch at his scalp, his neck, shoulders, and arms. His hands are pressing just as hard to her bare back as he tries to convince himself that she’s all right.
Then, Jayne roughly shoves her back, his fingers digging into her shoulders so hard the surface blood vessels in her skin burst immediately. He glares at her and, for the first time since they met, River is actually afraid of him.
“You ever try an’ go off like that again, an’ I’ll slit yer throat myself!” Jayne roars, shaking her so hard her teeth rattle.
Before River can even think of apologizing, he’s crushing her in his embrace. Her head is pressed uncomfortably against his shoulder. River feebly clutches his bicep as tears swim in her eyes.
She watches, as above them, the first streak of lightning cuts through the sky.
River doesn’t notice the heads missing bodies until a lifetime later.
Fandom: Firefly/Serenity
Disclaimer: I do not own.
Beta-Reader: Thanks go to the amazing revdorothyl.
Character/Pairings: Jayne/River, Blue Hands, Regan Tam
Rating: R
Warnings: Post BDM, Violence of the Reavers and Blue Hands variety.
Notes: The prequel to Little Girl Lost, taking place after Miranda is exposed, and three years before Gabriel Tam sets out to find River.
Summary: As the Alliance is ripped apart at the seams, they attempt to recapture their masterpiece. The story of how Jayne Cobb and River Tam left Serenity.
Warning: Violence.
Chapter Eleven
Regan doesn’t know how long she lies on the rug in her daughter’s room, bleeding on the carpet. All she knows is that it hurts. Her head aches from the strain of what she’s just done, and she wants to cry because her accomplishment today still isn’t enough. Nothing she does will ever be enough. Not where her children are concerned.
She’d woken up with River’s voice screaming in her ears and a hollow voice coming out of a hollow man repeating the dreaded words over and over again.
"Eta karoom na smech."
"Eta karoom na smech."
"Eta karoom na smech."
Without thinking, Regan had thrown back the covers and run to her daughter’s room, where she had proceeded to grab anything and everything that reminded her strongly of River, hoping to give herself just enough psychic reinforcement using physical objects carrying River’s imprint that she’d be able to link with her daughter’s mind. Once, this had been easy, but River had been a child then and hardly ever far from Regan’s sight, and her brain hadn’t been hacked to pieces by men whose graves Regan would gladly dance upon.
The mother of Simon and River Tam had thrown her mind outward into the vast void marked by the physical distance between the planets, trying to catch a snatch of River’s thoughts, but with no success. River’s mind had shut down. Only a faint part of it remained awake and active, but the rest of River’s brain had literally been shut off and no electrical pulses raced over the area. Regan had called to her daughter, but River just continued to scream, unable to hear.
Regan had feared that she would have to reach out to Simon and force him past the shock of learning that his mother was also a Reader to make him go forth and rescue his sister once more. (‘Not Simon. No. No. No. They’d kill him, and River would be lost to her forever. And she’d be forced to mourn both her children, and she didn’t want to ever have to mourn them. Not her children. Not her Simon and her River.’).
It had been then that she’d found him. Jayne Cobb. One of the crew of Serenity, the ship that had housed her children. His thoughts sang of familiarity, but it had been the single-minded purpose of finding River drumming through his mind that had made Regan realize that he was perfect. His thoughts rang of agonizing death for those who had hurt her daughter, and she knew that he was more than capable of delivering that pain. Plus, if he died, at least he was expendable. He wasn’t Simon and he wasn’t River. They were her priority. Nothing else mattered.
Regan knows that there will be severe consequences for her actions. How can there not be, when she’s pushed the very boundaries of nature? Reaching out to another, foreign mind two planets away from Osiris. Regan squeezes her eyes shut tight at the memory of Jayne Cobb’s mind. His mental patterns had been different, compared to the vast majority of people in the ‘verse, and at first Regan had been concerned that the man had had his brain cut into, as well, for his brain waves so closely resembled her daughter’s. But after shoving her way past his mind blocks (one didn’t have to be a Reader to know how to erect strong barriers, even if it was just to bury his own dark memories and not to block out the thoughts of everyone around him), she’d known immediately that his brain hadn’t been altered, …at least not by scientists. Nature itself had stepped in, this time. She’d only had a brief moment to marvel at the irony of the date when he’d had his seizure (what were the chances his brain would have been rewired right at that moment…?), before she’d walked through his iron door and pushed it open from the other side.
The images had been horrific, but they’d served their purpose and gotten his attention. And then, of all things, the man had realized that there was something other than ghosts at work (given his early upbringing, she’d expected that to be the conclusion he would draw), and promised her that he’d save her child.
She stands greatly in debt to this man, and to all the crew of Serenity who sheltered her children. One day, she’ll find a way to repay them all.
The pain in her head has dulled a little, and Regan coughs weakly as she attempts to spit out the excess blood from her mouth. Her daughter will be fine. Just fine. Regan repeats this mantra over to herself as her eyes start to slide closed, her body completely exhausted. But her mind remains awake and active. Her barriers have all tumbled to the ground and she can hear as she’s never allowed herself to hear -- not since her father first showed her how to assemble her mind blocks so that all the voices wouldn’t drive her insane. After what Regan just did, the voices feel gentle and soothing, like she’s only slipped her body into a swimming pool and allowed the water to slowly pull her down. In this relaxed state, Regan has no problem with opening her Sight.
She Sees everything.
~*~
Jayne hates cryo-chambers. He especially hates the fact that they don't come with instructions taped to the side, or a nice, big, red 'OFF' button.
Sure, the girl had slammed something against the inside of the container, but that was probably only because she wasn’t fully frozen yet. Which meant he’d have to wait until she was a human ice cube before flipping the switch so she could thaw out, or risk thawing her out now.
The Doc had gone on and on about the proper way to wake a person from a cryo-chamber during one of his brainstorming sessions when he was concerned that the real reason his sister was crazier than a monkey was because Mal let her out too soon.
Jayne hadn’t really been paying attention to the conversation, seeing as how he’d had a crazy person stuck to his back at the time, which was the reason Simon had gone off on his rant in the first place. It had been a couple of weeks after Ariel and just before Mal and Zoë got the corpse that wasn’t really a corpse in the mail, and the girl had woken up and decided she didn’t feel like walking. She’d latched her arms and legs around his body and insisted on being given a piggyback ride. She'd thrown a real big fit when he'd tried to buck her off. The little imp had clung tighter and muttered on about how he couldn't unravel the red strings because she'd tied them into a Gordian knot. Jayne had stupidly responded by demanding to know where the knot was so he could just cut it, which in turn made the girl burst into loud sobs, wailing on about going two by two. The Doc had thankfully knocked her out right about then. Unfortunately, the Doc didn’t bother to knock himself out and instead ruined dinner by going over all of the various side effects that could have developed ‘cause Mal’s too nosey for his own good.
After kicking aside the one purple-belly who was in the way (and 'cause he didn't want the guy leaning up against the box that housed River, as he didn't want to hear her whining later about touching through proximity), Jayne had tried and failed to figure out how to switch the gorram thing off so that the girl could thaw out and they could make themselves scarce just as soon as Jayne finished 'talking business' with the Blue Hands. Of course, nothing was ever easy.
Which meant that he didn’t get to enjoy his cigar nearly as much as he wanted to.
Jayne supposes that he could ask the two suits real nice if they knew how to get the girl out without breaking her, but chances were they'd give him the wrong directions on purpose. ‘Least, they would until Jayne showed them just how serious he was about getting the girl out of here with no harm. And it hadn’t taken Jayne long to figure out that these two were the type who talked real fast once the fun started.
Maybe if he had actually gone to school, he’d understand why a pair of weaklings like these would be able to scare a girl like River Tam. She’d killed a whole pack of Reavers all on her lonesome, meaning she could take out anything.
Especially a couple of small guys who didn’t pack any shiny weapons (the sonic device wouldn’t do anyone any good if someone got close enough to stick a knife in your back, or shoot you before their body turned to mush), and looked like they hardly worked out at all. Yet, she was utterly scared of them and had been taken out by them.
It didn’t make any sense that she should be scared of them, and he’ll have to work harder to show her that. He knows that he hasn’t even finished figuring out what she can do just yet, but he also knows that by the time he’s done honing her skills, there ain’t going to be nobody who’ll be able to drop her.
Jayne always has been a sucker for joining the team that won without fail every time, and River will be that team. He’s betting on it.
Too bad he doesn't have a couple of days to work these hun duns over (or the time to show River the right way to interrogate somebody -- he’ll have to somehow fit in a session on that soon. Mal will complain, of course, being the righteous son of a bitch he is, but the girl would be a natural. She’s already got the creepy part down pat, and that’s what a real good interrogation needs: fear), but he’s on a timer (Zoë will kick his ass if he misses the birth of her kid and Mal will have Jayne’s head if he takes too long getting back to Serenity with the girl, which could lead to Mal thinking, and that wouldn’t be a good thing). So he'll have to try not to break them too hard and render them completely useless before they give him what he wants. And what Jayne really wants, he’s decided, is to know everything there is to know about River Tam, starting with the why. He’s going to find out why they chose her if it kills him, and by the time he’s done, he’s also going to know who chose her.
Jayne has big plans for the hun duns who chose River Tam as their test monkey.
He decides to figure out what type of potential victims he's dealing with by asking the Blue Hands: "How'd ya find her?"
Depending on their answers, he'll be able to figure out the best way to draw out the information he needs. Jayne's never liked fighting an enemy he knows absolutely nothing about (apart from the fact that they seem to really like those blue gloves), and he's not about to start liking it now. He'll draw out all the information these hun duns know first, and then he'll follow up by finding out all the intel they don’t realize they know. By the time he's finished, he should be able to come up with some sort of game plan (and he can always ask the girl for any ideas. She's a lot better than Mal when it comes to planning. Which is an understatement, since Mal can't plan anything to save his life, as the number of bullet wounds on his body, along with the occasional torture wound and the damage left by heat stroke, can well attest to).
Hopefully, Jayne'll even have the girl back to Serenity and eating dumplings before anyone really notices how long the mercenary and crazy assassin have been off on their own.
The guy with the hole in his lung gasps out something, which Jayne's pretty sure is an insult to his mother. Since Jayne doesn't take kindly to insults towards his mother, he responds by shooting the guy in the kneecap. A move he'd like to think would make Book proud. The guy curses, pulling one of his hands away from damming up the blood that pumps up through the bullet hole in his chest to grab at the area just above his new wound.
"That didn't sound like an answer," Jayne says, turning to look at the other agent to make sure that he also got the message to not mess with Jayne Cobb. The other man has his eyes squeezed shut and his teeth gritted together, and Jayne's about to label him as the weak link when he notices the sweat on the agent's brow and the way he's holding his own knee, his body shaking. Jayne slowly looks over at the guy he'd just shot and notices for the first time that he's sitting so that he doesn't put as much weight on the one side of his hip as opposed to the other.
This is getting slightly more interesting.
Before either of the Alliance agents could register what he was doing, Jayne grabs the right trigger finger of Agent Anderson and bends it back sharply. Agent Mason gasps in pain, while Anderson barely reacts.
Now, that’s very interesting.
Ignoring the impulse to cross himself (and thank the Good Lord for Jayne not sharing a similar arrangement with Mal), Jayne instead repeats himself. "How'd ya find her?"
Agent Mason immediately blurts out that they bribed the doctor.
Jayne grunts. "The male nurse, or whatever he is," Jayne says dismissively.
The Blue Hands frown, unease filling them again.
"Inara's got one of them yearly appointments,” Jayne continues, his tone decidedly uninterested, “that, being the borin’ person she is, is always on the same day. It was only a matter of time 'fore ya found us an' came after the girl. 'Course, that was supposin’ you weren't idiots."
He squats down before them and puts out his cigar on Anderson’s chest. Mason hisses. “See, what I really want… is to know how ya found ‘er in the first place. Why’d yer Academy want her so bad?”
The two Alliance dogs exchanged looks. The type of looks that Mal and Zoë exchanged when they realized that the client they were dealing with wasn’t exactly Mr. Nice-and-Friendly-and-Dumb.
Jayne smacks the back of Anderson’s head, sending his glasses flying. He frowns when he sees the mismatched bloodshot eyes. Eyes don’t come in that colour of purple and green where he hails from. Jayne reaches out and snatches the sunglasses from Mason’s face, not caring that he cuts the bridge of the other man’s nose.
Sure enough, there’s a bloodshot green eye and a bloodshot purple eye staring back at him. Only difference is that the eyes are on the opposite side to each other than Anderson’s.
“What’d ya do? Trade eyeballs as part of yer best friends forever pact?” Jayne asks, forcing himself not to rush through the words so that he doesn’t give his captives the impression that they’ve managed to shake him. There’s no way he’s going to give these hun duns the slightest advantage to use against him.
The two agents exchange another one of those looks, and Jayne knows. He knows that exchanging eyeballs was exactly what they did. Switched eyeballs and pain and God knows what else. He knew that the Alliance was capable of some real sick go se -- he’d known from the moment he’d seen the scan of the girl’s brain, and if he’d had any doubts, they’d been banished when he found out about the PAX. But, somehow the Alliance still manages to surprise him with the lengths they’ll go to create something God never intended.
He wonders briefly what more he’ll see before the end (there’s no question in his mind that he’ll ever part from River Tam’s side. She ended the existence of a pack of Reavers all by herself. One day, she’ll be unbeatable. He just needs to show her the way first).
Jayne gets to his feet again, drawing Binky as he does so. “Names.”
Anderson spits at Jayne’s foot, his eyes brimming with anger. “I will not betray my government.”
Jayne turns his head slightly so they can’t see him smile. “You’re that loyal, huh?”
Nobody’s ever that loyal. Nobody.
Anderson shuffles his feet in a misguided attempt to shift himself back and away from Jayne. He isn’t able to get up and run -- the shot from Boo had made sure of that (unless he visits a talented surgeon, it’ll be a miracle if he ever walks again, and Jayne’s going to make sure that, miracle or otherwise, Anderson isn’t going to walk away from here). “Of course.”
“Even after they did that to you?” Jayne whistles, his body language filled with mocking as he gestures between Anderson and Mason.
There’s a flicker underneath Mason’s cold visage and he refuses to look at his partner.
“Thing is,” Jayne says, stepping closer, and making sure that the dim light hits Binky’s edge so that both men can see how sharp the knife is and imagine just how easily it will slice through human flesh, “no one’s ever loyal when they’re about to die.”
There is a brief moment of silence before Anderson snarls, “What would you know about it?”
A mistake.
Anderson knows this instantly, for suddenly he’s caught Jayne Cobb’s complete attention, only to find out that he doesn’t care for the spotlight being shone in his face. His breathing accelerates as Jayne stares at him.
"Funny how you only really git to know a guy when he’s about to die."
Jayne steps forward.
~*~
There is a girl in a box.
The girl doesn’t like being in the box. It is too cramped and far too hot. If she’d been clothed, she would have died from over-heating.
The girl wants very much to come out of the box.
There are many things happening in the world right now that she’d like to be a part of, but can’t because she’s trapped in a box.
As her mind starts to wake up, so too does her awareness of her family.
Her mother is playing at Sleeping Beauty and she is just now being lifted into a pristine white bed. A bag of rubies is at her side and it drips jewels into her arm. Her father stands at her mother’s side, holding tightly to her limp left hand. The girl almost doesn’t recognize him, for he’s aged so much since she last saw him, and he’s not bothered to get rid of the physical evidence of his age.
Her brother is trying to comfort the warrior queen as she begins the long process of childbirth. She cries out her dead husband’s name, and his ghost answers back. Flesh fingers link with air. She holds his hands as if he were still flesh and blood like her. The mechanic looks on, trying to be soothing, although more nervous than she’ll admit, having never been involved in the child-bearing process before. As she watches the pain Zoë stumbles through, Kaylee rethinks having children.
The Captain, the girl’s second father, attempts to navigate his way through traffic, dragging the Companion behind him. His mind churns with worry and a slight suspicion. It doesn’t make sense that they lost the Companion’s file, and his mind keeps screaming that this is all a trap. The girl is going to have to work hard to reassure him. It’s the only way she can keep him safe.
The girl longs to get out of the box and join her family.
Sadly, she cannot get out by herself, as she can barely move.
She could get out if her friend were to help her.
But he is busy playing hangman.
The girl gives a little sigh as she senses that Jayne is soon to deliver on his promise to her. When he had first offered her the heads of all who had ever hurt her, she hadn’t thought he was joking -- his words rang of truth -- but a part of her, the part that still remembered the world she came from, hadn’t really expected him to do it.
It’s a long list of guilty heads, men and woman unaware of the oozing blood dripping from their hands, and it’s getting longer.
She supposes she should be scared that her friend is so willing to commit murder on her behalf, but she’s not. How can she be scared of him when she’s exactly the same?
The girl tightens her fist, focusing all of her being into her hand as she struggles to punch the side of the box again. She’s ready to come out.
~*~
It doesn’t take long for the two Blue Hands to break, not when Jayne really starts working on them.
The trick is to torture the harder one first, while the weak link watches. They’ll start talking sooner and spill more information in an attempt to stop the same thing from happening to them. ‘Course, it’s somewhat tricky this time, what with the two men having exchanged eyeballs and pain.
Mason is nearly a mass of blood, but he’s alive and still talking while Anderson has nearly passed out from the pain. He won’t be able to ever walk again and his hands are ruined, but Mason’s still talking.
He’s talking names and he’s talking info. He tells Jayne all about the big database the Alliance now has on Serenity and about how they were keeping track of the crew to take advantage of any opportunities offered to them, any times and places where the girl could be taken. All they need to do is say the control phrase and she’s theirs (Jayne had known they’d cheated. Weren’t no way they could have taken out the girl, not when she’s that good, unless they had something on her). Jayne makes them repeat the control phrase over and over, so he soon has it memorized. He couldn’t mess it up now if he tried.
And the names. Jayne won’t forget any of them.
Jayne’s covered with blood. He hopes it rains soon, as he really needs to get this stuff washed off before he and the girl head back to Serenity.
Jayne takes a small break from cutting up Mason to look over Anderson, who, apart from the bullet in his hip (that almost, but didn’t quite, nick an artery), is unwounded. Yet, he’s almost passed out from the pain.
Jayne points to the container. “How do ya git her out?” He demands.
“Open… the lid…,” Anderson pants out.
At that exact moment something thumps against the container from the inside.
Jayne freezes. “She ain’t froze?”
In answer, River punches the inside of the container harder.
Jayne looks down at his prey. His eyes narrow as he offers them a large sneer. “Well, it’s been real fun….”
Anderson squeezes his eyes shut as the mercenary swings down his bowie knife onto Mason’s throat. Mason dies looking surprised, as if he thought betraying his government would actually save his life.
“We will always come after her,” Anderson says as the mercenary steps towards him, intent on doing the same. “It’s in our programming.”
Jayne’s sneer grows. “I’ll be waitin’,” he promises before the knife falls once more.
~*~
They’re dead.
The Blue Hands are dead. River knows this as she suddenly has movement in her body again.
The person who said the control phrase either no longer wants the control phrase to be in effect, or else they’re dead.
They’re dead.
He killed them. For her. He killed them for her.
She claws at the metal insides until her fingers bleed, her nails broken, screaming both in her brain and with her voice. Her own voice. She’d thought she’d never hear it again.
Something bangs on the outside, and she kicks her feet and hammers her fists against the walls so hard she can feel the blood vessels break. The lid is thrown off to land outside her field of vision with a loud crash. Red drips onto her face as large hands in a pair of fingerless gloves lift her weak body by the forearms.
“River!” Jayne runs his hands up and down her back as she sobs hysterically. “I need ya to breathe.”
She nods and tries to take in great gulping breaths of air as Jayne holds her up.
She wraps her arms around his neck, pressing herself as hard as she can into his body. Her hands scratch at his scalp, his neck, shoulders, and arms. His hands are pressing just as hard to her bare back as he tries to convince himself that she’s all right.
Then, Jayne roughly shoves her back, his fingers digging into her shoulders so hard the surface blood vessels in her skin burst immediately. He glares at her and, for the first time since they met, River is actually afraid of him.
“You ever try an’ go off like that again, an’ I’ll slit yer throat myself!” Jayne roars, shaking her so hard her teeth rattle.
Before River can even think of apologizing, he’s crushing her in his embrace. Her head is pressed uncomfortably against his shoulder. River feebly clutches his bicep as tears swim in her eyes.
She watches, as above them, the first streak of lightning cuts through the sky.
River doesn’t notice the heads missing bodies until a lifetime later.