Right on the deadline...
Title: Big Damn Heroes: Her Bravest Moment
For: elsibet34 for serenity_santa
Word count: 2868
Rating: PG
Summary: Zoe makes a decision; Inara admits to something unexpected; Kaylee seizes an opportunity; and River makes a choice.
Pairings: Zoe/Wash; Mal/Inara; otherwise, mostly gen. Simon/River in a family sense (though if you really wanted you could read it romantically; I don’t, but I don’t mind if you do).
These fics are inspired by the icon I had made for you by the lovely rhube; I said I wanted something with the four ladies of Firefly, and she came up with this:
I decided what might be interesting was writing a short fic for each woman, based on the idea of them being ‘big damn heroes’ - but not necessarily in the way you might expect…
Zoe
(Note: this is a partner fic to this.)
Zoe didn’t consider herself brave. Folk who reckoned they were brave usually tried to be heroes, and she’d seen too many heroes get themselves and other people killed, and she wanted no part of that. Not that she had any doubts about her ability to get a job done, and she knew she was pretty tough. This, however, was her biggest challenge yet.
Zoe ran her palms down the front of her chaps, smoothing the worn leather. Was she really going to do this? It didn’t seem prudent or practical, which were two of her key concerns in any mission. In fact, it seemed lot more like Mal’s style of mission - foolhardy, with no promise of success and a threat of a whole heap of embarrassment. Still, she’d promised herself she was going to do it, and she never went back on her word.
She walked briskly down to the bridge, hearing Serenity hum around her. Her steps were light, and so Wash didn’t hear her enter the bridge. He was playing with his dinosaurs, and Zoe felt that strange mixture of disdain and reluctant affection that had come to characterise her growing feelings for Wash.
‘Am I interrupting something?’ she asked coolly, and Wash glanced over his shoulder. Other men would at that point have fumbled to hide their toys and stammered out some excuse, but Wash just smiled brightly at her.
‘Only the beginnings of a great power struggle,’ he grinned, completely unabashed, and it was that reply, though Zoe would never admit it, that sealed her decision.
‘Hm,’ said Zoe, looking at him with her eyebrows raised, giving herself a moment to stop her pulse thumping hard in her throat. It didn’t work. She looked out at the planet they had just landed on. Mal had arranged a job here - nothing huge, but they’d need to stay for a couple of days. The sky was a pale pink, stained by the rich red dust of the planet’s soil. The palm trees that were planted by the landing strip looked a little odd, though Zoe couldn’t quite put her finger on why.
‘So, Jocasta. What’s it like?’ she said, her tone entirely cool and disinterested.
‘Not so bad,’ said Wash, who had been here once before, on a break from flight school. ‘It has some beautiful scenery, made of plastic, obviously, and -’
‘Good,’ said Zoe, who had barely heard this, her pulse was so loud in her ears. ‘I’ll see you in half an hour.’ She paused. 'You should probably change your shirt.' Wash glanced down at his shirt, which today was a near-luminous orange, patterned with white sunbursts.
‘What? Are we having a meeting? Mal never said -’ began Wash.
‘You’re taking me out to dinner,’ said Zoe in a deadpan tone. ‘Someplace nice. Where people don’t wear shirts that fluoresce.’ Wash’s mouth dropped open, and Zoe turned before he had a chance to reply, walking briskly off the bridge. Once out of Wash’s sight, Zoe allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction. That, she felt, had gone pretty well.
Back on the bridge, a startled Wash stood up and went to change his shirt.
Inara
Inara had thought she was being brave the day she went to Mal and told him that she was leaving Serenity. The thought of leaving made her stomach wrench, and didn’t that make it a brave decision? To hurt herself and him now, because it was safer in the long run, was a wise decision, and adult decision. The kind of choice that she would never expect Mal to make, and so she had to make for him.
The last of her things packed up, Inara looked around her shuttle. It was strange to see it stripped bare of her possessions. It wasn’t her home any more; it was just a shuttle. Inara gave herself a full minute to cry, and then she composed herself. She was the perfect Companion as she left; dignified but warm, showing the appropriate amount of regret so that the crew would know she cared, but not so much that they would get more upset or, worse, try to persuade her to stay. She held Kaylee close and wiped away the mechanic’s hot tears, enveloping Kaylee in the scent of sweet black musk and promises that they would meet again. When it came to the captain’s turn, Inara met his eyes calmly, and the voice that said goodbye did not waver.
Watching Serenity rise high above the chapterhouse and disappear, Inara felt her heart ache. She ignored the other feeling of relief, as if she had made a lucky escape. Bowing her head in greeting to the priestess who had come out to meet her, Inara made her way inside without looking back.
Inara spent several months at the Training House. She did not see clients, but instead divided her time between teaching and receiving training herself. The priestesses were delighted to have Inara; a Companion of her calibre made an excellent example for the novices. Inara enjoyed the teaching; the girls were like wax, malleable and eager to take the form she was gently shaping them into. For her own part, Inara took advantage of the facilities of the chapterhouse to practice her music and dance. A true Companion, after all, is always practising. In her own time, Inara meditated, and was proud that she managed to keep her mind completely clear of distractions, never once letting thoughts of the crew - or any particular members of the crew - enter her head. She did not, however, have complete control of her dreams; but Inara did her best not to think about that, and she found that her Companion training made it easy to pretend, even to herself.
Inara believed that this quiet life was what she needed, as well as what she wanted, but the ease with which she settled back into life on Serenity after the Operative’s actions made her leave the chapterhouse made her ask herself a few uncomfortable questions. However, as they careened from one dangerous situation to another, there was little time to dwell on such problems, and in those terrible hours of being trapped in a tunnel with the Reavers outside, her fear was so perfectly of the moment that she did not even think about what she might or might not regret.
At last, however, things were peaceful - or as peaceful as they would ever be for the Serenity crew. Wash was buried; Inara spoke the Buddhist funeral syervice over him, but her voice was whipped away by the wind. They rebuilt the ship, Inara given the most artistic task of repainting her name. Life went on, differently from before, but safely enough that she had no real excuse to stay. Yet she found herself wondering if the real excuse had actually been when she left; if it was, in fact, more cowardice than bravery to leave than stay. Watching Zoe’s still, grieving face, Inara felt a shiver of fear of any feeling that could cut so deep; but for the first time in a long time, she began to reconsider her belief that it was not worth the price.
Mal was oblivious to all this. He assumed that Inara would want to leave soon, and so he had hardened himself towards her. He couldn’t expect her to let down her defences long enough to tell him anything that wasn’t Companion flimflam, and so he never tried to make her. So his question to her, as he walked through the ship, was more rhetorical than anything else.
‘Ready to get back to civilised life?’ he asked, the same note of disdain in his voice that was always there when he mentioned her world. Inara meant to say something noncommital, but the words stuck in her throat.
‘I-I…’
Mal turned and looked at her, and she swallowed and said one of the truest things she had said in years.
‘I don’t know.’
The silence between them was both momentary and endless, and then Mal smiled; a cautious smile, perhaps, but one that reached his eyes as well as his mouth.
‘Good answer,’ he said, and walked away, and this time Inara didn’t try to ignore her relief.
Kaylee
Kaylee weren’t ever the most conventional of girls. ‘Heart’s as wide open as her legs’ someone had said once, sorta meanly, and Kaylee had taken exception about that a bit - she weren’t no iànhuò - but she figured a part of it was true. She let everyone knew what she was feeling, and it didn’t take much for a nice looking sorta guy to get ‘twixt her nethers if he knew the right things to say. Which was how when Bester landed on Beylix he got her attention right quick.
Kaylee was pretty impressed when Bester said he was mechanic on a ship. Serenity, she was called, and Kaylee was hot to see her. Beylix weren’t a big place - just a moon, really - but the scrap yards and reclamation centres had been her playgrounds for as long as she could remember, and she’d found she had natural talent at fixing up things. Her daddy did a bit of mechanical work when he could find it, which wasn’t often, and Kaylee helped him out when she wasn’t needed to work on the family smallholding. Farming didn’t hold much appeal for her, though she liked the fresh air. What she really liked was tinkering with machines. The bigger the better. (Which was also how she liked her men, and Bester had proved a little disappointing in that regard, though he was mighty swai all the same.)
When the cap’n had come across her and Bester havin’ cao in the engine room, she hadn’t been too embarrassed. Little flustered, maybe, but Kaylee had never found sexin’ to be something to get too worked up about. It was fun, and nice, and no one should have a stick up their pigu yan about it. Then she’d got to talking about engines and grav boots and the cap’n had offered her a job, and oh! it was so exciting, and Kaylee had said yes rightaway, rushing home to ask her folks.
Her daddy hadn’t been too sure about it -’we don’t know nothin’ about these folks, Kaylee, might be murderers an’ thieves for all we know,’ he’d said, and Kaylee knew what he really meant was that he didn’t want his little girl going far from home - but her mother had been all for it. ‘Think what a great opportunity it is, Bill,’ she’d said, smiling enthusiastically, but Kaylee had seen the strain in her mother’s eyes, the crows’ feet that were deepening daily. Kaylee’s ma knew what her daddy knew too, but unlike him she was sensible enough to admit it - there weren’t enough work to go round on Beylix, least not in anything passing reputable or safe, and if Kaylee was going to have a future, she had to take the best thing that came along.
She’d packed up her stuff right quick, and they’d been gone before she could really catch her breath, dropping off the disgruntled Bester in Paquin. (She’d tried to talk to him about things and say sorry for accidentally stealin’ his job, but he’d just shut himself up in his quarters, and she couldn’t say she blamed him.) For the first couple of weeks it was really fun - she had lots to learn and do, and she liked getting to know Wash, who’d been friendly from the off, and Zoe, who was professional and a mite stern but not cold, and the cap’n who wasn’t one thing or another but Kaylee thought might well end up being her friend. There was a bad day a little while after those first couple of weeks, though. Zoe and Wash had a big fight about the mission Mal insisted on going on, and when they came back from it Mal had broke his hand and Zoe did a patch up job, and they’d lost the cargo they were going to get, and Kaylee felt all at once very homesick.
Mal came down to the engine room, wanting to ask Kaylee something or other, and found her curled up in the hammock she’d slung up there. Sometimes she liked to sleep within sight of Serenity’s engines; the hum was comforting, and she liked to think Serenity knew she was there. Mal called her name, and she turned her face to him, that wide open face that had won her so many friends and made her so easy to hurt. She wiped away the tears, but the hurt was easy enough to see.
‘What’s wrong here, Kaylee? Not that worried about my hand, are you? Cos Zoe, she fixed it up right good. Well, she fixed it up okay, and I reckon that’ll fly,’ said Mal, showing her his bandaged hand.
‘No, cap’n. It’s just…’ Kaylee sighed. ‘You’ll probably think I’m a baby, but… I miss…’
‘Your mom?’ said Mal, surprisingly gently.
‘My daddy, more I guess. Though my ma too. Always more of a daddy’s girl, even when he hadda take a strap to me.’ Kaylee wiped at her eyes again and smiled at Mal. ‘Jus’… Bein’ here’s harder than I thought it would be. Away from them. Makes me feel guilty.’ She looked at Mal. ‘What about you? See your folks much?’
‘My ma’s dead,’ said Mal, shrugging his shoulder.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Not your fault.’ He gave Kaylee a half-smile. ‘But it was hard, the last few years. Couldn’t see her as much as I’d have liked. I did what I could, but…’ He opened his hands in a what-can-you-do gesture. ‘Didn’t stop me feelin’ guilty.’ He looked at Kaylee appraisingly. ‘Is it puttin’ you off stayin’, mei-mei?’
Mal had never used such a tender phrase before. Little sister. Kaylee liked it. She kinda liked the thought of Mal being her big brother. Made bein’ out here in the black a bit less scary.
‘I’m stayin’, cap’n. Just havin’ a moment, is all.’
Mal put a hand on her shoulder.
‘We’ve all got to have them from time to time.’ He paused. ‘Now you’ve had it, so get back to work. We need to get to Zeus as quick as we can manage.’
‘On it, cap’n,’ said Kaylee, swinging out of her hammock as Mal headed out of the engine room. As she picked up her wrench she was already smiling.
River
Brave. Etymology: Middle French. (Obsolete.) Having or showing courage. Courage: the mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty. From the Latin cor. Heart.
Some people might say that River’s bravest moment was when she knew that only she could save Simon’s life, and so had flung herself through the airlock to fight the Reavers. She thought it was courageous only in the sense of cor. Heart. Knowing Simon was hurt, she reacted at once with all her heart, in the only way that it was possible to react. She hadn’t thought about the danger - at least, not in a sense of it being anything more than a secondary concern. Simon was her heart, and she would protect him. The decision had been easy. Not brave at all.
The moment River saw as her most courageous was before Ariel, when Simon had told her he needed to suspend her cerebral, pulmonary, and cardiac activity. To send her to sleep, Simon said, but River knew it was death. Oh, there were some fine hairs that could be split, but it was so close to death it was almost the same. River was afraid of that place. Even in the worst of times in the academy she hadn’t wanted to die. She had fought to stay alive, writing secret messages in letters, hoping that somehow Simon would read them, understand what she meant, come to find her. Save her. Give her back her life.
And so, looking up at Simon’s face, she agreed to let him take her into the dark. Not because she was certain it would work. Because he was Simon. And so she had let him inject her even as the fear strangled her, tears rolling down her face. If Simon really thought it would help her, she’d let him kill her to try to make her whole.
Trust. Not the verb; the noun. Meaning 1: assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something. Simon. True.
For: elsibet34 for serenity_santa
Word count: 2868
Rating: PG
Summary: Zoe makes a decision; Inara admits to something unexpected; Kaylee seizes an opportunity; and River makes a choice.
Pairings: Zoe/Wash; Mal/Inara; otherwise, mostly gen. Simon/River in a family sense (though if you really wanted you could read it romantically; I don’t, but I don’t mind if you do).
These fics are inspired by the icon I had made for you by the lovely rhube; I said I wanted something with the four ladies of Firefly, and she came up with this:
I decided what might be interesting was writing a short fic for each woman, based on the idea of them being ‘big damn heroes’ - but not necessarily in the way you might expect…
Zoe
(Note: this is a partner fic to this.)
Zoe didn’t consider herself brave. Folk who reckoned they were brave usually tried to be heroes, and she’d seen too many heroes get themselves and other people killed, and she wanted no part of that. Not that she had any doubts about her ability to get a job done, and she knew she was pretty tough. This, however, was her biggest challenge yet.
Zoe ran her palms down the front of her chaps, smoothing the worn leather. Was she really going to do this? It didn’t seem prudent or practical, which were two of her key concerns in any mission. In fact, it seemed lot more like Mal’s style of mission - foolhardy, with no promise of success and a threat of a whole heap of embarrassment. Still, she’d promised herself she was going to do it, and she never went back on her word.
She walked briskly down to the bridge, hearing Serenity hum around her. Her steps were light, and so Wash didn’t hear her enter the bridge. He was playing with his dinosaurs, and Zoe felt that strange mixture of disdain and reluctant affection that had come to characterise her growing feelings for Wash.
‘Am I interrupting something?’ she asked coolly, and Wash glanced over his shoulder. Other men would at that point have fumbled to hide their toys and stammered out some excuse, but Wash just smiled brightly at her.
‘Only the beginnings of a great power struggle,’ he grinned, completely unabashed, and it was that reply, though Zoe would never admit it, that sealed her decision.
‘Hm,’ said Zoe, looking at him with her eyebrows raised, giving herself a moment to stop her pulse thumping hard in her throat. It didn’t work. She looked out at the planet they had just landed on. Mal had arranged a job here - nothing huge, but they’d need to stay for a couple of days. The sky was a pale pink, stained by the rich red dust of the planet’s soil. The palm trees that were planted by the landing strip looked a little odd, though Zoe couldn’t quite put her finger on why.
‘So, Jocasta. What’s it like?’ she said, her tone entirely cool and disinterested.
‘Not so bad,’ said Wash, who had been here once before, on a break from flight school. ‘It has some beautiful scenery, made of plastic, obviously, and -’
‘Good,’ said Zoe, who had barely heard this, her pulse was so loud in her ears. ‘I’ll see you in half an hour.’ She paused. 'You should probably change your shirt.' Wash glanced down at his shirt, which today was a near-luminous orange, patterned with white sunbursts.
‘What? Are we having a meeting? Mal never said -’ began Wash.
‘You’re taking me out to dinner,’ said Zoe in a deadpan tone. ‘Someplace nice. Where people don’t wear shirts that fluoresce.’ Wash’s mouth dropped open, and Zoe turned before he had a chance to reply, walking briskly off the bridge. Once out of Wash’s sight, Zoe allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction. That, she felt, had gone pretty well.
Back on the bridge, a startled Wash stood up and went to change his shirt.
Inara
Inara had thought she was being brave the day she went to Mal and told him that she was leaving Serenity. The thought of leaving made her stomach wrench, and didn’t that make it a brave decision? To hurt herself and him now, because it was safer in the long run, was a wise decision, and adult decision. The kind of choice that she would never expect Mal to make, and so she had to make for him.
The last of her things packed up, Inara looked around her shuttle. It was strange to see it stripped bare of her possessions. It wasn’t her home any more; it was just a shuttle. Inara gave herself a full minute to cry, and then she composed herself. She was the perfect Companion as she left; dignified but warm, showing the appropriate amount of regret so that the crew would know she cared, but not so much that they would get more upset or, worse, try to persuade her to stay. She held Kaylee close and wiped away the mechanic’s hot tears, enveloping Kaylee in the scent of sweet black musk and promises that they would meet again. When it came to the captain’s turn, Inara met his eyes calmly, and the voice that said goodbye did not waver.
Watching Serenity rise high above the chapterhouse and disappear, Inara felt her heart ache. She ignored the other feeling of relief, as if she had made a lucky escape. Bowing her head in greeting to the priestess who had come out to meet her, Inara made her way inside without looking back.
Inara spent several months at the Training House. She did not see clients, but instead divided her time between teaching and receiving training herself. The priestesses were delighted to have Inara; a Companion of her calibre made an excellent example for the novices. Inara enjoyed the teaching; the girls were like wax, malleable and eager to take the form she was gently shaping them into. For her own part, Inara took advantage of the facilities of the chapterhouse to practice her music and dance. A true Companion, after all, is always practising. In her own time, Inara meditated, and was proud that she managed to keep her mind completely clear of distractions, never once letting thoughts of the crew - or any particular members of the crew - enter her head. She did not, however, have complete control of her dreams; but Inara did her best not to think about that, and she found that her Companion training made it easy to pretend, even to herself.
Inara believed that this quiet life was what she needed, as well as what she wanted, but the ease with which she settled back into life on Serenity after the Operative’s actions made her leave the chapterhouse made her ask herself a few uncomfortable questions. However, as they careened from one dangerous situation to another, there was little time to dwell on such problems, and in those terrible hours of being trapped in a tunnel with the Reavers outside, her fear was so perfectly of the moment that she did not even think about what she might or might not regret.
At last, however, things were peaceful - or as peaceful as they would ever be for the Serenity crew. Wash was buried; Inara spoke the Buddhist funeral syervice over him, but her voice was whipped away by the wind. They rebuilt the ship, Inara given the most artistic task of repainting her name. Life went on, differently from before, but safely enough that she had no real excuse to stay. Yet she found herself wondering if the real excuse had actually been when she left; if it was, in fact, more cowardice than bravery to leave than stay. Watching Zoe’s still, grieving face, Inara felt a shiver of fear of any feeling that could cut so deep; but for the first time in a long time, she began to reconsider her belief that it was not worth the price.
Mal was oblivious to all this. He assumed that Inara would want to leave soon, and so he had hardened himself towards her. He couldn’t expect her to let down her defences long enough to tell him anything that wasn’t Companion flimflam, and so he never tried to make her. So his question to her, as he walked through the ship, was more rhetorical than anything else.
‘Ready to get back to civilised life?’ he asked, the same note of disdain in his voice that was always there when he mentioned her world. Inara meant to say something noncommital, but the words stuck in her throat.
‘I-I…’
Mal turned and looked at her, and she swallowed and said one of the truest things she had said in years.
‘I don’t know.’
The silence between them was both momentary and endless, and then Mal smiled; a cautious smile, perhaps, but one that reached his eyes as well as his mouth.
‘Good answer,’ he said, and walked away, and this time Inara didn’t try to ignore her relief.
Kaylee
Kaylee weren’t ever the most conventional of girls. ‘Heart’s as wide open as her legs’ someone had said once, sorta meanly, and Kaylee had taken exception about that a bit - she weren’t no iànhuò - but she figured a part of it was true. She let everyone knew what she was feeling, and it didn’t take much for a nice looking sorta guy to get ‘twixt her nethers if he knew the right things to say. Which was how when Bester landed on Beylix he got her attention right quick.
Kaylee was pretty impressed when Bester said he was mechanic on a ship. Serenity, she was called, and Kaylee was hot to see her. Beylix weren’t a big place - just a moon, really - but the scrap yards and reclamation centres had been her playgrounds for as long as she could remember, and she’d found she had natural talent at fixing up things. Her daddy did a bit of mechanical work when he could find it, which wasn’t often, and Kaylee helped him out when she wasn’t needed to work on the family smallholding. Farming didn’t hold much appeal for her, though she liked the fresh air. What she really liked was tinkering with machines. The bigger the better. (Which was also how she liked her men, and Bester had proved a little disappointing in that regard, though he was mighty swai all the same.)
When the cap’n had come across her and Bester havin’ cao in the engine room, she hadn’t been too embarrassed. Little flustered, maybe, but Kaylee had never found sexin’ to be something to get too worked up about. It was fun, and nice, and no one should have a stick up their pigu yan about it. Then she’d got to talking about engines and grav boots and the cap’n had offered her a job, and oh! it was so exciting, and Kaylee had said yes rightaway, rushing home to ask her folks.
Her daddy hadn’t been too sure about it -’we don’t know nothin’ about these folks, Kaylee, might be murderers an’ thieves for all we know,’ he’d said, and Kaylee knew what he really meant was that he didn’t want his little girl going far from home - but her mother had been all for it. ‘Think what a great opportunity it is, Bill,’ she’d said, smiling enthusiastically, but Kaylee had seen the strain in her mother’s eyes, the crows’ feet that were deepening daily. Kaylee’s ma knew what her daddy knew too, but unlike him she was sensible enough to admit it - there weren’t enough work to go round on Beylix, least not in anything passing reputable or safe, and if Kaylee was going to have a future, she had to take the best thing that came along.
She’d packed up her stuff right quick, and they’d been gone before she could really catch her breath, dropping off the disgruntled Bester in Paquin. (She’d tried to talk to him about things and say sorry for accidentally stealin’ his job, but he’d just shut himself up in his quarters, and she couldn’t say she blamed him.) For the first couple of weeks it was really fun - she had lots to learn and do, and she liked getting to know Wash, who’d been friendly from the off, and Zoe, who was professional and a mite stern but not cold, and the cap’n who wasn’t one thing or another but Kaylee thought might well end up being her friend. There was a bad day a little while after those first couple of weeks, though. Zoe and Wash had a big fight about the mission Mal insisted on going on, and when they came back from it Mal had broke his hand and Zoe did a patch up job, and they’d lost the cargo they were going to get, and Kaylee felt all at once very homesick.
Mal came down to the engine room, wanting to ask Kaylee something or other, and found her curled up in the hammock she’d slung up there. Sometimes she liked to sleep within sight of Serenity’s engines; the hum was comforting, and she liked to think Serenity knew she was there. Mal called her name, and she turned her face to him, that wide open face that had won her so many friends and made her so easy to hurt. She wiped away the tears, but the hurt was easy enough to see.
‘What’s wrong here, Kaylee? Not that worried about my hand, are you? Cos Zoe, she fixed it up right good. Well, she fixed it up okay, and I reckon that’ll fly,’ said Mal, showing her his bandaged hand.
‘No, cap’n. It’s just…’ Kaylee sighed. ‘You’ll probably think I’m a baby, but… I miss…’
‘Your mom?’ said Mal, surprisingly gently.
‘My daddy, more I guess. Though my ma too. Always more of a daddy’s girl, even when he hadda take a strap to me.’ Kaylee wiped at her eyes again and smiled at Mal. ‘Jus’… Bein’ here’s harder than I thought it would be. Away from them. Makes me feel guilty.’ She looked at Mal. ‘What about you? See your folks much?’
‘My ma’s dead,’ said Mal, shrugging his shoulder.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Not your fault.’ He gave Kaylee a half-smile. ‘But it was hard, the last few years. Couldn’t see her as much as I’d have liked. I did what I could, but…’ He opened his hands in a what-can-you-do gesture. ‘Didn’t stop me feelin’ guilty.’ He looked at Kaylee appraisingly. ‘Is it puttin’ you off stayin’, mei-mei?’
Mal had never used such a tender phrase before. Little sister. Kaylee liked it. She kinda liked the thought of Mal being her big brother. Made bein’ out here in the black a bit less scary.
‘I’m stayin’, cap’n. Just havin’ a moment, is all.’
Mal put a hand on her shoulder.
‘We’ve all got to have them from time to time.’ He paused. ‘Now you’ve had it, so get back to work. We need to get to Zeus as quick as we can manage.’
‘On it, cap’n,’ said Kaylee, swinging out of her hammock as Mal headed out of the engine room. As she picked up her wrench she was already smiling.
River
Brave. Etymology: Middle French. (Obsolete.) Having or showing courage. Courage: the mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty. From the Latin cor. Heart.
Some people might say that River’s bravest moment was when she knew that only she could save Simon’s life, and so had flung herself through the airlock to fight the Reavers. She thought it was courageous only in the sense of cor. Heart. Knowing Simon was hurt, she reacted at once with all her heart, in the only way that it was possible to react. She hadn’t thought about the danger - at least, not in a sense of it being anything more than a secondary concern. Simon was her heart, and she would protect him. The decision had been easy. Not brave at all.
The moment River saw as her most courageous was before Ariel, when Simon had told her he needed to suspend her cerebral, pulmonary, and cardiac activity. To send her to sleep, Simon said, but River knew it was death. Oh, there were some fine hairs that could be split, but it was so close to death it was almost the same. River was afraid of that place. Even in the worst of times in the academy she hadn’t wanted to die. She had fought to stay alive, writing secret messages in letters, hoping that somehow Simon would read them, understand what she meant, come to find her. Save her. Give her back her life.
And so, looking up at Simon’s face, she agreed to let him take her into the dark. Not because she was certain it would work. Because he was Simon. And so she had let him inject her even as the fear strangled her, tears rolling down her face. If Simon really thought it would help her, she’d let him kill her to try to make her whole.
Trust. Not the verb; the noun. Meaning 1: assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something. Simon. True.