New Member...New Fic...
Hello...I'm new here, though not a new Mal/River Shipper.
Anyhow...I was watching Out of Gas while doing some chores, and got comparing certain things in my head...
So give it a read and...tell me what you think
Of Deathtraps
Disclaimer: If I owned any of the characters…well I’ll still be broke I guess.
Broken.
At least, that was what everyone implied about Serenity after the ship entered his life. By everybody of course, he meant Zoe; after all, she was the only one he had leftover from a previous life. He would have had to be an idiot not to notice that his purchase had problems a-plenty - but really, which home in the ‘verse didn’t? Every cell and every fibre of his being had recognized it as his home from the moment he had set eyes on it, and nothing could or will ever change that.
It was right that he had stuck to his guns despite the frowns of his second-in-command, and the annoyance of the sleazy ship salesman after all.
“Love” he says. “You can learn all the math in the ‘verse’…but you take a boat in the air that you don’t love…she’ll shake you off just as sure as the turn of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she ought to fall down…tells you she’s hurting before she keels. Makes her a home.”
Sure enough, love had made his broken Serenity more of a home than perhaps even what he had back on Shadow. It had made the metallic walls of the ship glow with warmth and welcome even after the loss of loved ones.
Love had made him stay on the night when he was certain that his home had indeed turned out to be the death-trap that Zoe had predicted it would be; nobody ever said these things were rational.
Nothing ever inspired so much within him since the war ended. At least, not until She came along, a broken thing like Serenity had once been. He could not help but find himself comparing her to his beloved ship every once in a while, and then starting with guilt because in the end, wasn’t she a person and not an object? And yet there were the similarities. She had been damaged - badly. She had been abandoned by those who had given her life. Yet she was still walking and talking, even if she wasn’t totally complete. But again, who in the gorram ‘verse was complete?
He found himself keeping her around even when it clearly posed as a threat to not only his life, but the lives of his crew. Leaving Her behind once, he had found himself detouring back for Her against all common sense, and against the wishes of half his crew. Leaving Her behind the second time had been such an impossible idea, that he had clean forgot that his brother was supposed to be taking Her off Serenity to begin with, as he lifted Her from the floor of the Maidenhead and headed back home.
Serenity gave him a place to belong. River gave him someone to belong to, he was beginning to find. She gave him back his purpose, his desire to fight against the injustices meted out by those who saw fit to abuse their authority.
As he explained to Her what it really took to fly a boat just as they took off from Mr. Universe’s now lifeless moon, he was beginning to understand what it would take to fix someone who had been abused by, and was tired of science, even of the benevolent variety Her brother used on Her.
“I’ve staked my crew’s life on the theory that you’re a person,” he had told Her before. Just because he had trusted his instincts over his logic, she was never so lucid, never so…serene.
Now, as he observes Her answering smile, he realizes, exactly the way he realized that he had found a home in Serenity just by laying eyes on her, that he is completely willing to go the extra step now. He is eager to provide what she needed to make her whole again. He is in fact excited at the idea of giving her what no one else, save her brother, had been unwilling to give her up until now.
And if she could find it in herself to love him back, maybe someday, She’d finish what Serenity had started in both of them. Maybe they’d both be less…
broken.
Anyhow...I was watching Out of Gas while doing some chores, and got comparing certain things in my head...
So give it a read and...tell me what you think
Of Deathtraps
Disclaimer: If I owned any of the characters…well I’ll still be broke I guess.
Broken.
At least, that was what everyone implied about Serenity after the ship entered his life. By everybody of course, he meant Zoe; after all, she was the only one he had leftover from a previous life. He would have had to be an idiot not to notice that his purchase had problems a-plenty - but really, which home in the ‘verse didn’t? Every cell and every fibre of his being had recognized it as his home from the moment he had set eyes on it, and nothing could or will ever change that.
It was right that he had stuck to his guns despite the frowns of his second-in-command, and the annoyance of the sleazy ship salesman after all.
“Love” he says. “You can learn all the math in the ‘verse’…but you take a boat in the air that you don’t love…she’ll shake you off just as sure as the turn of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she ought to fall down…tells you she’s hurting before she keels. Makes her a home.”
Sure enough, love had made his broken Serenity more of a home than perhaps even what he had back on Shadow. It had made the metallic walls of the ship glow with warmth and welcome even after the loss of loved ones.
Love had made him stay on the night when he was certain that his home had indeed turned out to be the death-trap that Zoe had predicted it would be; nobody ever said these things were rational.
Nothing ever inspired so much within him since the war ended. At least, not until She came along, a broken thing like Serenity had once been. He could not help but find himself comparing her to his beloved ship every once in a while, and then starting with guilt because in the end, wasn’t she a person and not an object? And yet there were the similarities. She had been damaged - badly. She had been abandoned by those who had given her life. Yet she was still walking and talking, even if she wasn’t totally complete. But again, who in the gorram ‘verse was complete?
He found himself keeping her around even when it clearly posed as a threat to not only his life, but the lives of his crew. Leaving Her behind once, he had found himself detouring back for Her against all common sense, and against the wishes of half his crew. Leaving Her behind the second time had been such an impossible idea, that he had clean forgot that his brother was supposed to be taking Her off Serenity to begin with, as he lifted Her from the floor of the Maidenhead and headed back home.
Serenity gave him a place to belong. River gave him someone to belong to, he was beginning to find. She gave him back his purpose, his desire to fight against the injustices meted out by those who saw fit to abuse their authority.
As he explained to Her what it really took to fly a boat just as they took off from Mr. Universe’s now lifeless moon, he was beginning to understand what it would take to fix someone who had been abused by, and was tired of science, even of the benevolent variety Her brother used on Her.
“I’ve staked my crew’s life on the theory that you’re a person,” he had told Her before. Just because he had trusted his instincts over his logic, she was never so lucid, never so…serene.
Now, as he observes Her answering smile, he realizes, exactly the way he realized that he had found a home in Serenity just by laying eyes on her, that he is completely willing to go the extra step now. He is eager to provide what she needed to make her whole again. He is in fact excited at the idea of giving her what no one else, save her brother, had been unwilling to give her up until now.
And if she could find it in herself to love him back, maybe someday, She’d finish what Serenity had started in both of them. Maybe they’d both be less…
broken.