Firefly - Giselle (12/?)
Title: Giselle
Fandom: Firefly/Serenity
Disclaimer: I do not own.
Beta-Reader: Thanks go to the amazing revdorothyl.
Character/Pairings: Jayne/River
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.
Chapter Notes: A Fenghuang is a Chinese Phoenix that in modern times has come to be linked with the feminine so that the bird can be paired with the Chinese dragon, which has male connotations. The Fenghuang is the ruler of all birds and is the symbol for the Empress, while the Chinese Dragon was the symbol for the Emperor. Together, they are another common yin and yang metaphor.
Chapter Twelve
Man and woman sit curled up in the alleyway, surrounded by the unlamented dead. The rain splatters against the ground, mixing in with the red syrup of blood and watering it down to the point where it can easily slip unnoticed through the storm drains. The raindrops land on the bodies of the dead and on their severed heads, matting their hair against their scalps. A lightning flash reveals the look of surprise on the one face and the resignation on the other. The rain collects the metal cryogenic chamber, creating a small pool.
Leaning up against the chamber are the man and the woman, the man fully clothed and the woman nude except for a too-large jacket that originally belonged to the man. He holds her tight against his chest as the rain plasters the man's thin, sleeveless shirt up against his body. The harsh droplets roll off his skin to land gently on the woman held tightly in his arms.
River cries silently into Jayne's neck, knowing that he'll pretend it's just the rain if she wants him to.
When the thunder had first roared, announcing the coming of the deluge, Jayne had had the presence of mind to hastily drag off his army jacket and shove River's arms through the sleeves before she forced herself back into his embrace and continued crying. His army jacket swallows her small body, providing a warm cocoon that smells of Jayne and retains the heat of his body, and his arms are a heavy prison around her person. His fingers dig into her shoulder blade and her waist so hard that his knuckles have gone white under his tan. Her skin will be all black and blue and purple tomorrow. She’ll have to come up with a plausible story for Simon so he doesn’t obsess over them, as there’s no possible way her big brother will ignore these bruises. River will think of a good excuse just as soon as she can think again.
Her nails pierce his flesh through his t-shirt. Her legs rest over his knee. River's ear is pressed tight against Jayne’s carotid artery and, as her sobs subside into hiccups, she takes comfort in the steady beat.
Jayne breathes out a deep sigh and forces himself to loosen his grip on her shoulder so that her delicate bones will no longer be in danger of breaking if he applies just a little more pressure. "We should git back."
"Can't ever go back," River says, her mouth pressed up against his collarbone, eyes watching the rain as it continues to pelt down. "Can never go back."
Jayne abruptly gets to his feet, swinging River up into his arms. She squeals and quickly moves her hands away from his chest to dig her fingernails into the back of his shoulder blades. "Still gotta go back," he grunts, his tone brooking no argument. "Ain't the thing to be leavin' the ship now, when Zoë's about to pop."
River sighs heavily. "Not what she meant." She pats his wet hair. "Have run across the finish line and captured the ribbon. Can't walk backwards to the start line."
Jayne blinks. "That made a whole lotta sense," he mutters.
"Put me down," River growls, smacking his shoulder and trying to wriggle out of Jayne's arms. Jayne tightens his hold on her, a scowl appearing on his face. The blood hasn't fully washed off his face yet, so he looks even more ferocious than usual. Wild and deadly. The animal with his long, sharp teeth and cruel claws, who has just enjoyed a hearty meal and satisfied only one of his primal hungers.
"What the hell's yer problem?" Jayne demands as he tries to keep the stupid, wiggling girl from tumbling out of his grasp and smacking her head open on the wet pavement. She's like a fish, all slippery skin and sharp, unpredictable moves. Of course, no sooner does he think that she's going to crack her head open if she continues on like this than she really does almost fall on her head.
It's only the quick reflexes of both Jayne and River that stop the girl from painfully greeting the pavement yet again today. River grabs onto Jayne's arm that is suddenly around her waist and flips herself onto her feet in the middle of a puddle, sending the water splashing up to stain Jayne's cargo pants and River's bare legs. Tears prick River's eyes again at the throbbing sensation now running up the base of her legs, her body reacting to both the shock of landing her bare feet on hard pavement and to the feeling that is slowly seeping into her formerly paralyzed limbs. She just wants to stop crying and stop being weak and pick up the shattered pieces that were River Tam and glue them back together, ignoring the gaping holes where there were pieces of her that she'd never find again.
She hates how pathetic she is.
"Legs are for walking," she snaps at Jayne.
Jayne slowly extracts his arm from around her waist. "Okay," he says, stepping back a little. His eyes are narrowed as he studies her, and she wants to cry all over again because he's suddenly shut off from her. His eyes are mirroring the storm right now, and she can feel his anger all piping hot. It doesn't scald her, but the level of anger he's currently radiating is scary. His eyes fall on the bodies and heads of the Blue Hands and he wants to bring them back a thousand times over, just so he can kill them again and again.
His anger reminds her of the Reavers. Beings who only existed to destroy and maim and kill.
River swallows her fear (why should she be afraid? He's not angry at her, only... himself, she realizes after one skim of his thoughts. He should have been faster, he thinks. Nobody else could have been as fast to find her, she knows), which isn't as hard as she thought, and takes his hand. Jayne jerks in surprise, and he looks first to his hand held tightly in hers and then to her face. Slowly, his fingers curl over the back of her hand-- lightly, as if she were a robin or a rabbit that he could accidentally crush in the palm of his hand. She could break free easily if she wanted to.
She doesn't want to.
River points to the warehouse building where she'd blindly walked into a trap. "Garments await in the lion's den."
She steps forward and splashes into another puddle, this one deeper than the last. She frowns down at her feet. If she continues to get her feet wet, logic dictates that she will most likely catch a cold or worse, which will lead to her being confined to her bed, which will lead to Simon's constant mothering, which will lead to needles. She doesn't want any more needles. Not ever. She turns back to Jayne, dropping his hand and raising up her arms. "You may carry her."
Jayne snorts, unimpressed. "Oh, may I, yer royal pain in the ass?"
"You may," River says regally. She ruins the effect by bouncing on her toes.
Jayne snorts again, but this time she can see the amusement that he tries to control and hide away. River beams back at him. His mood lightens and the storm warring inside him begins to fade away. He lifts her up under the armpits and sets her against his hip. River obediently wraps her legs and arms around him. She tucks her head under his chin and giggles at the feel of her wet hair getting caught in his stubble.
"This is just a one-time thing," he tells her as he walks the short distance over to the empty warehouse.
"Correct," she agrees, knowing that they're both lying.
Jayne gives a low whistle as he steps under the cover of the abandoned warehouse and surveys the damage. River slips down from his body and scurries over to the abandoned pile of clothes that lie scattered around the area where she'd fallen -- face first -- when the control phrase was uttered. She touches her hand to her cheek now and winces as she feels the swollen flesh. She'll have to come up with a plausible excuse for Simon.
"You got an elbow to the face," Jayne says, his voice booming as it echoes against the walls of the empty building. "Crowd's crazy out there, what with the storm an' the grenade going off. Some sorry son of a bitch gotcha." Jayne pulls her knife out of the one Blue Hand's heart, and wipes it off on the man's suit. "Naturally, I hit 'im in the kisser."
River reaches up to toy with the zipper of Jayne's jacket. The jacket is long and she's half-tempted to steal it and add it to her collection of dresses. It would be quite acceptable, as it ends just above her knees, and while the sleeves are so long that she has to keep pushing them back past her skinny wrists, she's very comfortable and warm and ... another feeling that she's forgotten the name and significance of. All she knows is that she feels content right here in this moment, wearing Jayne's jacket. She doesn't want to give it up.
"Storyteller," River says, inching the zipper down and up. "Weaves his stories so tight, it's impossible to guess at the truth."
Jayne turns his head to stare over his shoulder at her. "You want to tell 'em?"
River bites her lip and looks down at her feet. Her toes wiggle back at her in greeting. River wrinkles her nose. She doesn't have to think long. "...No."
Jayne looks away. "It's yer choice. Always has been."
"Big responsibility for just one person."
"Yeah, well... it's yer fight."
"Yours, too. They know your face now." She shudders, remembering the computer chip Anderson had flaunted in front of her.
Jayne thinks of her when she attacked the crowd at the Maidenhead. "Been that way for a while now. The fight bein' mine, too. Probably continue on that way until I stop breathin'." He frowns, suddenly growing harder, his mind actively working to block her out. River clutches the neck of his jacket tightly as her mind grows cold without his warmth. "You see anything from me while you was in that box?" he asks, the iron door in his mind growing harder and harder until it almost hurts River, like so many other minds did.
River shakes her head; her drying curls bouncing off her cheeks. "Girl's mind was off. Couldn't do anything when they touched her. Only exist and wish to die."
Jayne's anger suddenly explodes from behind his barriers. River gives a little cry and clutches at her head as the storm she'd thought had blown away returns with a vengeance. She'll have to rebuild her mental doors as soon as she is able. She falls to her knees and curls into a ball. She tries to latch onto something, any line of thought to put in his place, to force him back out.
"Swan Lake, Nutcracker, The Fire Bird, Giselle, Ondine, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Coppelia--"
Jayne crouches next to her and his hand comes to rest on River's shoulder blades, and she stops speaking as he rubs at her back. She slowly reaches out and places a hand on his knee.
"Nothing happened," she says, her voice firm and confident. She pauses. "Of a sexual nature," she amends. "The girl fell on her face when they said the control phrase, and her clothes were removed so as to avoid problems in the cryogenic process -- the addition of garments on a person adds certain risks, as they involve an unknown variable -- and she was put in the cryogenic chamber but not frozen, and then she was rescued." She finishes ticking off the various events on her fingers. She looks up to make sure that Jayne is watching. "Many things happened, but the girl was not raped." River takes his face in her hands. "She wasn't." She smiles and pecks his forehead.
Jayne blinks. Tilts his head. "Suppose I shouldn't worry too much when you're back to yer usual crazy self."
River nods encouragingly. "He shouldn't, or his hair will turn grey before he's ready."
The side of Jayne's mouth twitches upward. "I ain't ever gonna live long enough to see any grey hair, Crazy."
River's smile falters as she realizes that she doesn't know how long he'll live. All she knows is that there will be that much more Blue Hand blood on his hands before he meets his maker. Her mouth droops.
Jayne tugs on River's hair. "Or I could end up outlivin' ya all, like Book said."
River catches Jayne's hand that holds her lock of hair between two fingers. "I would like it very much if you did."
Jayne stares at River as if he's never seen her before.
"You should get dressed," he says roughly, standing up and turning his back on her. He stuffs his hands into his pockets and stares down at the ground. He lists off his numerous weapons alphabetically in his mind - backwards.
River scrambles to her feet, studying Jayne's back. The rain has plastered his thin shirt to his skin, and she can see his muscles and his scars and the barest outline of his ribs. No matter how much he eats now, Famine's touch will forever leave a mark. A bead of rainwater escapes the thin material of Jayne's sleeveless shirt to leave a trail over the red dragon imprinted on his left arm.
She wonders if Jayne even understood what the symbolism of the red dragon meant when he had it tattooed on his arm. Had he known that the Chinese dragon was a master of water and how lucky the colour Red was considered to be in the Core? Or had he chosen the colour red because of the negative memories he associated with it? A reminder of his past he couldn’t escape?
"You gonna stop gawking any time soon?" Jayne demands, his eyes bright and ferocious as he glares at her. The intensity of his stare matching the dragon's, for that was what Jayne was. A dragon.
Did that make her the princess? The beautiful maiden, whom he would take to his cave full of countless treasures and keep until he grew tired of the cost of keeping up the lifestyle of a princess, and equally tired of the number of times he would have to go out and kill the valiant knight who braved his wrath in order to rescue the princess and gain her hand in marriage and half her kingdom? The princess whom the dragon would then devour? Would that be her?
River bites her quivering lip as she picks up her torn dress.
Jayne immediately turns his head and starts thinking even harder about his gun collection.
River unzips his jacket and allows the heavy garment to slip from her thin shoulders to the floor.
She looks up when Jayne's mind flashes.
Oh. Oh.
She smiles as she steps into her dress, and takes up her hair, twisting it so that the excess water can escape without getting her dress wet and increasing her chances of contracting a dreaded illness. There's another flash from Jayne's mind, and this time she can See clearly what he's envisioning.
She's never considered herself very pretty, despite Inara's and Kaylee's and her own mother's belief that she is so. Given the way that boys her age stay away from her, it's hard to believe that she has anything more than a fleeting prettiness, as they always lose interest so quickly and go after other girls.
But the way Jayne sees her… River looks over her shoulder at him, her smile so wide it hurts. Nobody's ever seen her that way before. She's beautiful, and yet, she's still River Tam. The River Tam who's smarter than everyone else and who rubs soup in people's hair. The girl who thinks quantum physics is an appropriate dinner conversation and who can't tie her own shoes anymore. That girl -- no, woman -- he thinks she's beautiful (not that he's using words, but it's just in the way he sees her… even Inara isn't that pretty).
He's trying not to think of her that way right now, when he's worried that she still might have lied about being raped. He's seen enough to worry that she might be concealing the truth in an attempt to prove to herself that nothing happened, to repress the memory, but until she tells him otherwise, he won't outright question her. But he is thinking of her in a way she's never quite been thought of before. Not just sexually, but something more.
"Ya done yet?"
Jayne's voice startles River out of her happy musings.
River says the first thing that comes to her mind. "First, betrayal. Second, rescue. What will await the third time we alight on Ariel?" She slips her feet into her boots. "ABAB pattern?"
"No," Jayne says shortly.
River looks up sharply to see Jayne's turned around and glaring at her. She sees the truth in his face. Her stomach fills with the dark serpents of guilt, and they try to drag down her heart, which has suddenly metamorphosed into a balloon. She shakes her head. "No...," she agrees, "there will be no more betrayals from the man. The girl has lost her Judas." River picks up Jayne's coat and holds it out to him. "But gained something better in return."
Jayne avoids her eyes as he puts his hand on her head, squishing her hair over her eyes, and she thinks he might be blushing, which she hadn't thought was possible. He draws his fingers up, as he has a thousand times before, to lightly scratch at River's scars. River's eyes fall closed obediently and she smiles softly as Jayne traces the raised lines on her scalp. His hand slowly slides down to the base of her skull, raising River's chin up. She opens her eyes to stare up into Jayne's eyes.
Pools of blue -- she would have to be very brave to swim in those waters that were mostly stormy and choppy, and only calm occasionally. And sometimes they were ice, too. They'd been ice when he was destroying her enemy. The ice has broken now, and the waters are calmer than she's ever seen them.
He has a dragon's eyes. It's strange that she didn't make the connection until now. (She wonders what kind of eyes she has?)
She reaches up and brushes aside a small speck of blood from his cheek(Anderson's, she realizes, as soon as her thumb makes contact), and there's his smile. Just a small twitch of the mouth, but she saw it and it's captured forever in her memory.
His hand is the first to fall and break contact. River reluctantly pulls her fingers away.
"The wheel is turning. Its acceleration is building. We can't go back."
Jayne frowns. "Wheel…. You mean time?"
At her encouraging nod, he snorts.
"What're ya complainin' for? It'd be boring if nothing ever changed."
She tightens her hold on his jacket. "You are a creature of habit--"
"So?" Jayne tugs the jacket out of her arms. "I'll make new habits." He drapes the heavy coat over her shoulders. "Don't need to git yerself any wetter." Another flash from his mind, before he buries another image of her.
River ducks her head, smiling. "They'll be good changes."
There's a knowing glint in Jayne's eye as he smirks at her. "Really?" he drawls.
"Really," River promises, thrusting her arms through the sleeves.
They go back out into the rain, which immediately welcomes them into the fold. Jayne stops and waits for River as she pauses by Anderson's body and retrieves the computer chip from his inside coat pocket. She is as quick as possible and would have stood back up immediately if the image in the puddle hadn't caught her attention.
A blue and red phoenix flies across River's bare right arm, its tail feathers curling every which way as she spreads her wings and sings of victory. River blinks, and the image is gone.
She slowly stands back up and sees Jayne looking at her.
River swallows and points up to the sky and storm swirling above them. "Dragons are masters of water."
Jayne nods slowly. "Uh-huh."
"And they only have one mate," she continues, her hand falling to rest at her side. "Many princesses, but only one mate, the fenghuang."
"Crazy!" Jayne snaps and turns around to stomp off, clearly not wanting to discuss their feelings any further than he already had.
River skips after him, humming to herself. When the time comes, she won't be just another princess, but Jayne’s fenghuang: the only creature the dragon would never grow bored with and toss aside. The only creature the dragon would claim as his very own, and the only creature who could claim him as her own.
Fandom: Firefly/Serenity
Disclaimer: I do not own.
Beta-Reader: Thanks go to the amazing revdorothyl.
Character/Pairings: Jayne/River
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.
Chapter Notes: A Fenghuang is a Chinese Phoenix that in modern times has come to be linked with the feminine so that the bird can be paired with the Chinese dragon, which has male connotations. The Fenghuang is the ruler of all birds and is the symbol for the Empress, while the Chinese Dragon was the symbol for the Emperor. Together, they are another common yin and yang metaphor.
Chapter Twelve
Man and woman sit curled up in the alleyway, surrounded by the unlamented dead. The rain splatters against the ground, mixing in with the red syrup of blood and watering it down to the point where it can easily slip unnoticed through the storm drains. The raindrops land on the bodies of the dead and on their severed heads, matting their hair against their scalps. A lightning flash reveals the look of surprise on the one face and the resignation on the other. The rain collects the metal cryogenic chamber, creating a small pool.
Leaning up against the chamber are the man and the woman, the man fully clothed and the woman nude except for a too-large jacket that originally belonged to the man. He holds her tight against his chest as the rain plasters the man's thin, sleeveless shirt up against his body. The harsh droplets roll off his skin to land gently on the woman held tightly in his arms.
River cries silently into Jayne's neck, knowing that he'll pretend it's just the rain if she wants him to.
When the thunder had first roared, announcing the coming of the deluge, Jayne had had the presence of mind to hastily drag off his army jacket and shove River's arms through the sleeves before she forced herself back into his embrace and continued crying. His army jacket swallows her small body, providing a warm cocoon that smells of Jayne and retains the heat of his body, and his arms are a heavy prison around her person. His fingers dig into her shoulder blade and her waist so hard that his knuckles have gone white under his tan. Her skin will be all black and blue and purple tomorrow. She’ll have to come up with a plausible story for Simon so he doesn’t obsess over them, as there’s no possible way her big brother will ignore these bruises. River will think of a good excuse just as soon as she can think again.
Her nails pierce his flesh through his t-shirt. Her legs rest over his knee. River's ear is pressed tight against Jayne’s carotid artery and, as her sobs subside into hiccups, she takes comfort in the steady beat.
Jayne breathes out a deep sigh and forces himself to loosen his grip on her shoulder so that her delicate bones will no longer be in danger of breaking if he applies just a little more pressure. "We should git back."
"Can't ever go back," River says, her mouth pressed up against his collarbone, eyes watching the rain as it continues to pelt down. "Can never go back."
Jayne abruptly gets to his feet, swinging River up into his arms. She squeals and quickly moves her hands away from his chest to dig her fingernails into the back of his shoulder blades. "Still gotta go back," he grunts, his tone brooking no argument. "Ain't the thing to be leavin' the ship now, when Zoë's about to pop."
River sighs heavily. "Not what she meant." She pats his wet hair. "Have run across the finish line and captured the ribbon. Can't walk backwards to the start line."
Jayne blinks. "That made a whole lotta sense," he mutters.
"Put me down," River growls, smacking his shoulder and trying to wriggle out of Jayne's arms. Jayne tightens his hold on her, a scowl appearing on his face. The blood hasn't fully washed off his face yet, so he looks even more ferocious than usual. Wild and deadly. The animal with his long, sharp teeth and cruel claws, who has just enjoyed a hearty meal and satisfied only one of his primal hungers.
"What the hell's yer problem?" Jayne demands as he tries to keep the stupid, wiggling girl from tumbling out of his grasp and smacking her head open on the wet pavement. She's like a fish, all slippery skin and sharp, unpredictable moves. Of course, no sooner does he think that she's going to crack her head open if she continues on like this than she really does almost fall on her head.
It's only the quick reflexes of both Jayne and River that stop the girl from painfully greeting the pavement yet again today. River grabs onto Jayne's arm that is suddenly around her waist and flips herself onto her feet in the middle of a puddle, sending the water splashing up to stain Jayne's cargo pants and River's bare legs. Tears prick River's eyes again at the throbbing sensation now running up the base of her legs, her body reacting to both the shock of landing her bare feet on hard pavement and to the feeling that is slowly seeping into her formerly paralyzed limbs. She just wants to stop crying and stop being weak and pick up the shattered pieces that were River Tam and glue them back together, ignoring the gaping holes where there were pieces of her that she'd never find again.
She hates how pathetic she is.
"Legs are for walking," she snaps at Jayne.
Jayne slowly extracts his arm from around her waist. "Okay," he says, stepping back a little. His eyes are narrowed as he studies her, and she wants to cry all over again because he's suddenly shut off from her. His eyes are mirroring the storm right now, and she can feel his anger all piping hot. It doesn't scald her, but the level of anger he's currently radiating is scary. His eyes fall on the bodies and heads of the Blue Hands and he wants to bring them back a thousand times over, just so he can kill them again and again.
His anger reminds her of the Reavers. Beings who only existed to destroy and maim and kill.
River swallows her fear (why should she be afraid? He's not angry at her, only... himself, she realizes after one skim of his thoughts. He should have been faster, he thinks. Nobody else could have been as fast to find her, she knows), which isn't as hard as she thought, and takes his hand. Jayne jerks in surprise, and he looks first to his hand held tightly in hers and then to her face. Slowly, his fingers curl over the back of her hand-- lightly, as if she were a robin or a rabbit that he could accidentally crush in the palm of his hand. She could break free easily if she wanted to.
She doesn't want to.
River points to the warehouse building where she'd blindly walked into a trap. "Garments await in the lion's den."
She steps forward and splashes into another puddle, this one deeper than the last. She frowns down at her feet. If she continues to get her feet wet, logic dictates that she will most likely catch a cold or worse, which will lead to her being confined to her bed, which will lead to Simon's constant mothering, which will lead to needles. She doesn't want any more needles. Not ever. She turns back to Jayne, dropping his hand and raising up her arms. "You may carry her."
Jayne snorts, unimpressed. "Oh, may I, yer royal pain in the ass?"
"You may," River says regally. She ruins the effect by bouncing on her toes.
Jayne snorts again, but this time she can see the amusement that he tries to control and hide away. River beams back at him. His mood lightens and the storm warring inside him begins to fade away. He lifts her up under the armpits and sets her against his hip. River obediently wraps her legs and arms around him. She tucks her head under his chin and giggles at the feel of her wet hair getting caught in his stubble.
"This is just a one-time thing," he tells her as he walks the short distance over to the empty warehouse.
"Correct," she agrees, knowing that they're both lying.
Jayne gives a low whistle as he steps under the cover of the abandoned warehouse and surveys the damage. River slips down from his body and scurries over to the abandoned pile of clothes that lie scattered around the area where she'd fallen -- face first -- when the control phrase was uttered. She touches her hand to her cheek now and winces as she feels the swollen flesh. She'll have to come up with a plausible excuse for Simon.
"You got an elbow to the face," Jayne says, his voice booming as it echoes against the walls of the empty building. "Crowd's crazy out there, what with the storm an' the grenade going off. Some sorry son of a bitch gotcha." Jayne pulls her knife out of the one Blue Hand's heart, and wipes it off on the man's suit. "Naturally, I hit 'im in the kisser."
River reaches up to toy with the zipper of Jayne's jacket. The jacket is long and she's half-tempted to steal it and add it to her collection of dresses. It would be quite acceptable, as it ends just above her knees, and while the sleeves are so long that she has to keep pushing them back past her skinny wrists, she's very comfortable and warm and ... another feeling that she's forgotten the name and significance of. All she knows is that she feels content right here in this moment, wearing Jayne's jacket. She doesn't want to give it up.
"Storyteller," River says, inching the zipper down and up. "Weaves his stories so tight, it's impossible to guess at the truth."
Jayne turns his head to stare over his shoulder at her. "You want to tell 'em?"
River bites her lip and looks down at her feet. Her toes wiggle back at her in greeting. River wrinkles her nose. She doesn't have to think long. "...No."
Jayne looks away. "It's yer choice. Always has been."
"Big responsibility for just one person."
"Yeah, well... it's yer fight."
"Yours, too. They know your face now." She shudders, remembering the computer chip Anderson had flaunted in front of her.
Jayne thinks of her when she attacked the crowd at the Maidenhead. "Been that way for a while now. The fight bein' mine, too. Probably continue on that way until I stop breathin'." He frowns, suddenly growing harder, his mind actively working to block her out. River clutches the neck of his jacket tightly as her mind grows cold without his warmth. "You see anything from me while you was in that box?" he asks, the iron door in his mind growing harder and harder until it almost hurts River, like so many other minds did.
River shakes her head; her drying curls bouncing off her cheeks. "Girl's mind was off. Couldn't do anything when they touched her. Only exist and wish to die."
Jayne's anger suddenly explodes from behind his barriers. River gives a little cry and clutches at her head as the storm she'd thought had blown away returns with a vengeance. She'll have to rebuild her mental doors as soon as she is able. She falls to her knees and curls into a ball. She tries to latch onto something, any line of thought to put in his place, to force him back out.
"Swan Lake, Nutcracker, The Fire Bird, Giselle, Ondine, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Coppelia--"
Jayne crouches next to her and his hand comes to rest on River's shoulder blades, and she stops speaking as he rubs at her back. She slowly reaches out and places a hand on his knee.
"Nothing happened," she says, her voice firm and confident. She pauses. "Of a sexual nature," she amends. "The girl fell on her face when they said the control phrase, and her clothes were removed so as to avoid problems in the cryogenic process -- the addition of garments on a person adds certain risks, as they involve an unknown variable -- and she was put in the cryogenic chamber but not frozen, and then she was rescued." She finishes ticking off the various events on her fingers. She looks up to make sure that Jayne is watching. "Many things happened, but the girl was not raped." River takes his face in her hands. "She wasn't." She smiles and pecks his forehead.
Jayne blinks. Tilts his head. "Suppose I shouldn't worry too much when you're back to yer usual crazy self."
River nods encouragingly. "He shouldn't, or his hair will turn grey before he's ready."
The side of Jayne's mouth twitches upward. "I ain't ever gonna live long enough to see any grey hair, Crazy."
River's smile falters as she realizes that she doesn't know how long he'll live. All she knows is that there will be that much more Blue Hand blood on his hands before he meets his maker. Her mouth droops.
Jayne tugs on River's hair. "Or I could end up outlivin' ya all, like Book said."
River catches Jayne's hand that holds her lock of hair between two fingers. "I would like it very much if you did."
Jayne stares at River as if he's never seen her before.
"You should get dressed," he says roughly, standing up and turning his back on her. He stuffs his hands into his pockets and stares down at the ground. He lists off his numerous weapons alphabetically in his mind - backwards.
River scrambles to her feet, studying Jayne's back. The rain has plastered his thin shirt to his skin, and she can see his muscles and his scars and the barest outline of his ribs. No matter how much he eats now, Famine's touch will forever leave a mark. A bead of rainwater escapes the thin material of Jayne's sleeveless shirt to leave a trail over the red dragon imprinted on his left arm.
She wonders if Jayne even understood what the symbolism of the red dragon meant when he had it tattooed on his arm. Had he known that the Chinese dragon was a master of water and how lucky the colour Red was considered to be in the Core? Or had he chosen the colour red because of the negative memories he associated with it? A reminder of his past he couldn’t escape?
"You gonna stop gawking any time soon?" Jayne demands, his eyes bright and ferocious as he glares at her. The intensity of his stare matching the dragon's, for that was what Jayne was. A dragon.
Did that make her the princess? The beautiful maiden, whom he would take to his cave full of countless treasures and keep until he grew tired of the cost of keeping up the lifestyle of a princess, and equally tired of the number of times he would have to go out and kill the valiant knight who braved his wrath in order to rescue the princess and gain her hand in marriage and half her kingdom? The princess whom the dragon would then devour? Would that be her?
River bites her quivering lip as she picks up her torn dress.
Jayne immediately turns his head and starts thinking even harder about his gun collection.
River unzips his jacket and allows the heavy garment to slip from her thin shoulders to the floor.
She looks up when Jayne's mind flashes.
Oh. Oh.
She smiles as she steps into her dress, and takes up her hair, twisting it so that the excess water can escape without getting her dress wet and increasing her chances of contracting a dreaded illness. There's another flash from Jayne's mind, and this time she can See clearly what he's envisioning.
She's never considered herself very pretty, despite Inara's and Kaylee's and her own mother's belief that she is so. Given the way that boys her age stay away from her, it's hard to believe that she has anything more than a fleeting prettiness, as they always lose interest so quickly and go after other girls.
But the way Jayne sees her… River looks over her shoulder at him, her smile so wide it hurts. Nobody's ever seen her that way before. She's beautiful, and yet, she's still River Tam. The River Tam who's smarter than everyone else and who rubs soup in people's hair. The girl who thinks quantum physics is an appropriate dinner conversation and who can't tie her own shoes anymore. That girl -- no, woman -- he thinks she's beautiful (not that he's using words, but it's just in the way he sees her… even Inara isn't that pretty).
He's trying not to think of her that way right now, when he's worried that she still might have lied about being raped. He's seen enough to worry that she might be concealing the truth in an attempt to prove to herself that nothing happened, to repress the memory, but until she tells him otherwise, he won't outright question her. But he is thinking of her in a way she's never quite been thought of before. Not just sexually, but something more.
"Ya done yet?"
Jayne's voice startles River out of her happy musings.
River says the first thing that comes to her mind. "First, betrayal. Second, rescue. What will await the third time we alight on Ariel?" She slips her feet into her boots. "ABAB pattern?"
"No," Jayne says shortly.
River looks up sharply to see Jayne's turned around and glaring at her. She sees the truth in his face. Her stomach fills with the dark serpents of guilt, and they try to drag down her heart, which has suddenly metamorphosed into a balloon. She shakes her head. "No...," she agrees, "there will be no more betrayals from the man. The girl has lost her Judas." River picks up Jayne's coat and holds it out to him. "But gained something better in return."
Jayne avoids her eyes as he puts his hand on her head, squishing her hair over her eyes, and she thinks he might be blushing, which she hadn't thought was possible. He draws his fingers up, as he has a thousand times before, to lightly scratch at River's scars. River's eyes fall closed obediently and she smiles softly as Jayne traces the raised lines on her scalp. His hand slowly slides down to the base of her skull, raising River's chin up. She opens her eyes to stare up into Jayne's eyes.
Pools of blue -- she would have to be very brave to swim in those waters that were mostly stormy and choppy, and only calm occasionally. And sometimes they were ice, too. They'd been ice when he was destroying her enemy. The ice has broken now, and the waters are calmer than she's ever seen them.
He has a dragon's eyes. It's strange that she didn't make the connection until now. (She wonders what kind of eyes she has?)
She reaches up and brushes aside a small speck of blood from his cheek(Anderson's, she realizes, as soon as her thumb makes contact), and there's his smile. Just a small twitch of the mouth, but she saw it and it's captured forever in her memory.
His hand is the first to fall and break contact. River reluctantly pulls her fingers away.
"The wheel is turning. Its acceleration is building. We can't go back."
Jayne frowns. "Wheel…. You mean time?"
At her encouraging nod, he snorts.
"What're ya complainin' for? It'd be boring if nothing ever changed."
She tightens her hold on his jacket. "You are a creature of habit--"
"So?" Jayne tugs the jacket out of her arms. "I'll make new habits." He drapes the heavy coat over her shoulders. "Don't need to git yerself any wetter." Another flash from his mind, before he buries another image of her.
River ducks her head, smiling. "They'll be good changes."
There's a knowing glint in Jayne's eye as he smirks at her. "Really?" he drawls.
"Really," River promises, thrusting her arms through the sleeves.
They go back out into the rain, which immediately welcomes them into the fold. Jayne stops and waits for River as she pauses by Anderson's body and retrieves the computer chip from his inside coat pocket. She is as quick as possible and would have stood back up immediately if the image in the puddle hadn't caught her attention.
A blue and red phoenix flies across River's bare right arm, its tail feathers curling every which way as she spreads her wings and sings of victory. River blinks, and the image is gone.
She slowly stands back up and sees Jayne looking at her.
River swallows and points up to the sky and storm swirling above them. "Dragons are masters of water."
Jayne nods slowly. "Uh-huh."
"And they only have one mate," she continues, her hand falling to rest at her side. "Many princesses, but only one mate, the fenghuang."
"Crazy!" Jayne snaps and turns around to stomp off, clearly not wanting to discuss their feelings any further than he already had.
River skips after him, humming to herself. When the time comes, she won't be just another princess, but Jayne’s fenghuang: the only creature the dragon would never grow bored with and toss aside. The only creature the dragon would claim as his very own, and the only creature who could claim him as her own.