DW/FF crossover fic: The Engineer's Gift (21/27)
Title: The Engineer's Gift
Author: shan21non
Rating: PG-13
Beta Readers: buffyaddict13 and inkhand, who are the best!
Warnings: Swearing in Mandarin!
Pairings: Ten/Rose, Mal/Inara, a bit of Simon/Kaylee
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or Firefly. How is that fair?
Summary: When the Doctor takes a wrong turn, he and Rose find themselves aboard Serenity. Confusion, explosions, mystery, romance, and adventure ensue!
Chapter one Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve Thirteen Fourteen Fifteen Sixteen 17A 17B Eighteen Nineteen Twenty
A/N: Just a quick note on this story. I've finally figured out that it will be 27 chapters long. This is the last chapter that is completely beta'd. I have chapters 22-25 written, but they are in various stages of revisions and beta'ing, so won't be ready to post immediately.
So I just wanted to give a heads up to all of you, my wonderful readers, that updates will be a bit slower from here on out. But hey, only six more chapters to go, and I have them almost entirely written, so it won't be too bad :)
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Chapter Twenty-One
War.
That was the only way to describe what Jayne saw when they set down on Paquin. The scene was so at odds with what he'd observed the last time they were here. Before people had rushed silently through the streets with their eyes on their shoes, trying to disappear. Now they stood in groups, voices raised in righteous anger, or they ran between buildings with weapons in hand and wrath in their eyes.
There was no other explanation. The people of Paquin had gone to war.
"Well, I'm guessin' whatever Mr. Universe did caused something to happen," Wash said. "Either that or there's a fantastic sale on summer clothes at the local Shop-Mart."
The crew stood just in front of Serenity, taking in the chaos. Mal reached out to snag the sleeve of a passer-by, a young man who promptly pointed a rifle at him. In a split second, Zoe had her own Mare's Leg pointed at the back of the boy's head.
"Drop it," she ordered.
"I just got a question. I don't want any trouble," Mal said, holding his hands up in a sign of truce.
The boy's eyes nervously ticked back and forth from Mal to the rest of the crew, and then far to the side, as if he could somehow see Zoe behind him.
"All right," he said finally.
He slowly reholstered his gun, and Zoe did the same.
"What happened here?" Mal asked. "This mornin' this place was as quiet as Sunday mass."
The boy's eyes got wide. His hands flailed wildly as he talked, his words running together in his excitement to tell the story.
"The bugs turned to dust. Only it weren't dust. There was plastic in it. And metal. They wasn't normal."
"Do you know why?" Mal asked.
The boy shrugged.
"Proves the old Browncoats right, doesn't it? The Alliance sent 'em to us. Them bugs wasn't what they said they was, so the Alliance must'a done somethin' funny to 'em."
"Sometimes old Browncoats know what they're talking about," Manuel said, smiling.
The boy shrugged again.
"Plus, 'fore they exploded, a couple of 'em bit people, and they started actin' real funny. We already had a feelin' something weren't right."
"So the people decided to destroy their own town?" Simon asked, squinting through the smoke.
"Not their town. Cleanse it with fire. Start anew," River intoned, taking in the proceedings like a museum curator explaining events long since passed.
The boy gave River a curious look. He apparently decided that he wasn't invested enough in the conversation to figure her out, because he spoke again without mentioning her.
"The law tried to hush us up when the bugs first went to dust, but we got word they was already revoltin' in Slimton, and we knew it was our chance."
Mal nodded, and the boy, sensing he'd been dismissed, ran down the street to join another group of rioters.
"Is this good?" Kaylee asked uncertainly. "Is this what we wanted to happen?"
Her ever-present smile was gone, replaced by a frown that betrayed both anxiety and guilt. She flinched at the sound of a distant gunshot.
"None of it's good. Growing pains are never pretty, but they're a necessary part of life," Book said solemnly.
"That's not very Christian of you, Shepherd," the Doctor said, taking in the surroundings with what looked like disappointment. "What happened to 'The meek shall inherit the earth?'"
Book seemed troubled by the Doctor's words, but rallied.
"Even men of God know that you can't wait for divine intervention every time," he said reasonably.
"Taking action doesn't have to mean taking up arms," the Doctor countered.
"According to Jayne, these people tried to petition their government first. They didn't immediately take up arms," Book pointed out.
The Doctor eyed the mayhem with his nose wrinkled in distaste.
"These people aren't working for a unified purpose. They're just reacting with anger and fear. There's no organization. This is pure and simple chaos, and when the dust clears, there are going to be a lot of dead people and no tenable progress."
"As I believe our friend Hugo asked earlier today, 'Do you think revolutions are made of rose water?'" Book asked. Hugo gave the Doctor a slight nod.
The Doctor sighed. He suddenly seemed very weary. Behind him, a shop window shattered and a clamor of voices rose in celebration.
"In my considerable experience, I've found that revolutions rarely end in the change their enlightened leaders set out to produce," he said.
Jayne didn't care much for a philosophical debate. The preacher and the Doctor could stand around and have a discussion about something that was already happening if they wanted to; he had more important things on his mind.
So, without asking permission, he hopped onto the mule and started the engine. The crew turned towards the noise, startled.
"Where d'you think you're goin'?" Mal asked.
"Don't know," Jayne replied.
He started to ease the mule down the ramp when a body blocked his path. It was Rose. She stood before him, still in her green dress, brows knitted together in concern.
"Do you want someone to go with you?" she asked.
Of course she would ask to go into a town in the midst of a revolt, dressed in an evening gown. She knew exactly what he was looking for and why he had to do it.
"Nah. I gotta do this alone," he said.
She gave him a small smile and stepped aside.
"Good luck."
He nodded, and then he was off.
The sun had set, and only the remnants of daylight radiated out from the horizon, but various fires, probably set by the rioters, lit his way. It was a short ride to the center of town, even with people flooding the roads, and moments later he hopped off the mule and removed his goggles. He blinked away the dust, unsure that he was seeing things right. When the picture didn't change, he was forced to accept that it was real. Half of the buildings in the main square were reduced to rubble.
"Paquin mobs move fast," he murmured.
A group of people rushed past him, shouting something about raiding the armory, and Jayne finally dismounted the mule.
"Hey! Hold up!" he shouted.
A few of the people slowed down and faced him warily.
"Any of you know where the Paks are? Suzette and Darius?"
The face of one woman came into view when she stepped forward.
"Last I heard they was taken in by the police. Had 'em locked up in…" her voice trailed off and her face went slack.
"Oh no. Tell me they got 'em out first," the man beside her pleaded.
"What? Speak plain, gorram it!" Jayne barked.
"They was in a cell on the north side of the police station. But when everything happened with the bugs, the police was the first ones they hit."
"Whadya mean 'hit'?" Jayne demanded.
The woman didn't reply. She simply pointed to something behind him. Jayne turned and what he saw made his stomach drop to his toes. Where once stood the police station that he'd visited less than twenty-four hours ago, now lay only debris. Flames still licked the edges of the wooden structure, although most of it had long since burned and smoldered into ash.
His mouth went dry, and he didn't hear anything else the crowd might have shouted at him. He was running as fast as his feet would take him, racing towards the remains of the station.
"Suzette!" he shouted. "Suzette Pak! Where are you?"
He paused at the edge of the wreckage, craning his neck to look for bodies. He saw what might have been a leg and rushed towards it.
"Suzette!" he shouted again.
But it wasn't Suzette. The stripe down the leg stood out clearly even through the smoke. It was a dead police officer. There were other bodies, all in uniform. Jayne stepped through the rubble as carefully as possible, listening for any signs of life. Then, just when he had almost given up hope, he saw a huddled figure through the smoke.
"Suzette!"
He ran towards the figure, and felt the air rush from his lungs when his view cleared. It was clearly a male. Pushing aside intense feelings of disappointment, Jayne called out to the man.
"Hey! Hey, you! You seen Suzette Pak?"
The figure didn't reply. He maintained his crouched position without a hint of acknowledgement. Jayne was rightly peeved. Here he was, looking for a missing woman, and all this guy could do was kneel there and shake.
Wait a minute, shake? Jayne thought.
He stepped closer, and saw clearly now that the man's shoulders were heaving up and down under the force of his sobs. He was crouched because he held a body in his arms. The body of a woman.
"No," Jayne blurted out.
Suzette Pak lay motionless, face blackened with soot, contusions and cuts obvious on every open spot of skin. Jayne felt his eyes fill with tears, and he didn't bother to blink them again. Who cared if anyone saw him cry? He looked around the burning streets.
This was hell. He had failed her. He was too late. Suzette Pak's body was left here to burn with him in his own personal purgatory.
"It's all my fault," the hunched figure moaned.
Jayne frowned at the figure. What gave him the right to claim the blame here? Just who the hell was this stranger? But then Jayne realized the only person it could be.
"Darius?" he said tentatively.
The young man turned, and his teary eyes met Jayne's.
"Who are you?" he snapped, suddenly clutching his mother's body tighter, folding his own body over hers to protect it.
"I met you and your mama today. In front of the police station."
Darius's eyes, which had looked wide and unfocused, were suddenly squeezed shut. He nodded wordlessly. Maybe he remembered Jayne, maybe he didn't. Either way, he seemed to think the mercenary wasn't there to harm his mother, and he turned back to his grief.
"It's all my fault," he moaned again, rocking back and forth over the body of his mother.
Jayne couldn't figure out what he was supposed to feel now. He stood without saying a word, hands clenched into fists at his sides. Suzette was dead, and her lousy traitor of a son was alive. His emotions flashed from guilt to anger to grief and back again with each passing breath.
"It is your fault," he said finally.
Darius Pak turned towards him again. His youthful face was streaked with dirt and tears. His lip trembled and his brow creased.
"Why are you even here? Leave us alone!" the boy screamed.
Jayne felt his lips curl downward in disgust.
"Who's 'us'? Far as I can figure, you saw to it that it's just you now. You as good as killed your mama," he snarled.
Darius blinked at Jayne in complete shock. Jayne wondered if it was his words that shocked the boy, or confusion at why this strange man was still standing there. He got his answer a second later when Darius's face crumpled in tears.
"I know," he said.
It was Jayne's turn to blink in surprise. He wanted to hurt the boy, he wanted to lash out at the only person there to blame besides himself, but now when he looked at his feet he didn't see a traitor. He saw a boy crying over the death of his mother.
"Gorram it," he muttered.
Screams erupted down the street. Jayne aimed his Le Mat in the direction of the sound, and what he saw made his heart start up in double time. Purple bellies lined up in formation were marching up the street. Someone had called in the reinforcements.
"Hey, we gotta go," Jayne said.
He looked away from the soldiers and down at the boy, but he was still sobbing like he hadn't heard a word.
"Hey! Get up!" Jayne barked.
Darius shook his head furiously, eyes on his mother.
"Leave me. I'm not goin' anywhere."
Jayne gritted his teeth and glanced again at the rapidly approaching battery.
"Look, you stay here, they'll shoot you. Let's go!"
Darius turned to him finally, and he saw that the boy's face was red with rage.
"Who cares?" he spat. "I deserve it, right? I killed her!"
Jayne was seconds from leaving this stupid kid behind and hitting the gas all the way back to the ship. What did he care if Darius Pak wanted to get himself killed? He came back for Suzette, not the boy, and Suzette was dead. He wasn't about to argue with the boy and give the Alliance time to catch him standing around fighting with a teenager.
But before he could turn to leave, Rose's voice was echoing in his head.
"What makes you a good person isn't always doing the right thing; it's learning to do the right thing more often."
"Tā mā de wǒ," he muttered under his breath.
He couldn't save Suzette, but she'd want him to save her son. He was a stupid kid, but it wasn't his fault that his mother was dead. He deserved a second chance.
He turned back to Darius, grabbed his bicep, and pulled. The boy was jerked to his feet before he knew what was happening. Once his brain caught up with him, the boy fought furiously against the mercenary, punching at his chest.
"Let me go! I ain't goin' nowhere without my mama!" he shouted.
"We'll bring her body," Jayne gritted out. "We'll get her to safety so you can give her a fittin' burial, but if you stay here, she won't get any burial at all, because you'll be dead too."
This seemed to finally knock some sense into the boy, because he stopped struggling immediately. Then, wiping his eyes on his sleeve, he looked down the street and saw the soldiers.
"We hafta move fast," he said.
Jayne was about to snap back that he knew that, but there wasn't time. He stooped to take Suzette's shoulders while Darius lifted her feet, and Jayne led them to the mule. Darius clutched his mother's body as he sat in the back and Jayne started the engine. The first shots just began whizzing over their heads as he peeled out into the night.
The Alliance didn't follow. They had enough to deal with in the town center. Jayne drove the mule up to Serenity and found it abuzz with activity.
Simon was bandaging the wounded, assisted by Kaylee. Inara had some sort of ointment in a small ceramic bowl that she was spreading on the wounds ahead of time. Beside them, the Doctor looked like he was showing Rose how to do something with his sonic screwdriver, holding it up to a man's badly injured leg. Shepherd Book was administering last rights over three bodies lined up to one side of the ship. Mal, Zoe, and Wash were nowhere to be seen, and the same was true of Hugo and his friend Manuel. River, he assumed, must be back inside for safety's sake.
At the sound of the mule approaching, everyone looked up. They had questions in their eyes, but they were all so busy with their assorted tasks that they merely acknowledged him with a nod. Everyone except for Rose, who handed the sonic screwdriver back to the Doctor and walked over.
As she came closer, her eyes searched the back of the mule and found Darius still cradling his mother's body.
"Is she-" she began, but she cut herself off.
Jayne's silence was enough to answer her question. She stepped up to the mule and slipped her hand into his. He let her hoist herself up beside him and pull his head down to her shoulder in a makeshift hug.
"This wasn't your fault," she whispered to him.
He didn't cry this time. He was feeling oddly numb.
"I brought her boy back," he said.
He felt her hand go to the nape of his neck, cradling the back of his head as if she was holding an infant.
"That was good of you," she replied.
It was like her words released him of his guilt. He let out a shaky breath and straightened up. She released him and stepped down from the mule.
"Maybe the shepherd'll help us give her a proper burial," he said, clearing his throat.
She nodded resolutely.
"Of course he will."
Rose helped him get the boy and his mother down from the mule, and together they brought Suzette's body down by the others. Book paused in his ritual, draped Suzette's body in a bit of cloth like the others, and showed Jayne around to the back of the ship. It was there that he found the rest of the crew. Mal, Zoe, and Wash were digging graves.
"Alliance is in town. They'll probably be spreading out here soon. We should leave," he told them.
Mal looked up and peered into the distance.
"It'll take 'em hours to reestablish order in town. We'll finish here first."
He went back to digging. Jayne wasn't sure about the wisdom of the decision, but before he could question it aloud, Book's hand was on his shoulder.
"If you can't do something smart, do something right," he said.
Jayne didn't think what the preacher said was in the Bible, but he felt it should be. He grabbed himself a shovel alongside Darius and set to work.
When the bodies were interred and Book had finished his prayers, they set off.
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Chinese Translations:
Tā mā de wǒ = fuck me
End Notes:
This chapter is very different from the last one. Please let me know what you think!
On to chapter 22!