Firefly - Giselle (9/?)
Title: Giselle
Fandom: Firefly/Serenity
Disclaimer: I do not own.
Beta-Reader: Thanks go to the amazing revdorothyl.
Character/Pairings: Jayne/River, Simon, Zoe/Wash
Rating: R
Warnings: Post BDM, Violence of the Reavers and Blue Hands variety.
Notes: The prequel to Little Girl Lost, taking place after Miranda is exposed, and three years before Gabriel Tam sets out to find River.
Summary: As the Alliance is ripped apart at the seams, they attempt to recapture their masterpiece. The story of how Jayne Cobb and River Tam left Serenity.
Warning: There are disturbing images and implications of rape as we're dealing with the Blue Hands.
Chapter Nine
Mommy is crying.
It's the first thing River notices when she is called back from the land of Morpheus. The small, thirteen-year-old girl lies on her back in bed, the pink covers pulled up to her chin and firmly tucked in at the sides. Einstein, her rabbit doll she's had ever since she was a baby, is nestled in the crook of her arm, which is strange, as she never sleeps with Einstein anymore. He is so old and ragged from all the times she insisted on taking him with her every which way she went when she was younger, and she doesn't want to risk him falling apart, so he now sits in a place of honour on her bookshelf. She cuddles him gently to her side, with one of his floppy ears held tight in her fist.
The sunlight slipping through her window brightens up the entirety of her room, making it midday and not morning.
Mommy won't stop crying.
When River sits up, she sees her mother seated on the floor in the middle of the room, her forehead pressed up against her knees and her arms wrapped tight around her legs. The small girl shivers at the horrific sound of her mother's wails. She doesn't think that mother even realizes that she's being so loud.
Pulling back the covers, she slips from the bed, Einstein held tight in her arms, and tip-toes over to her mother. She reaches out a small hand and touches her mother's back.
River screams as a man in a dark suit, sunglasses, and blue gloves back-hands her. The impact slams her against the brick wall. She screams again just as his hand crushes her throat.
“Cease your efforts,” the man says as she feebly tries to scratch out his eyes. There is something dripping down the back of her neck. “No one is coming.”
There's another man at the mouth of the alley. At first River thinks he's there to save her, but then she sees the blue of his gloves.
Her attacker tightens his grip on her neck. “You should not have refused us.” He raises another hand and squeezes her breast painfully.
Tears are slipping down her face, as she realizes that there's only one way out, the way her mother forbade her to use. She reaches out with her mind, ready to slip through his blocks and render him useless, only to bounce back into her own mind. Her eyes flit to her attacker's twin and back again.
They have the same mind.
Two people with one mind.
She screams again as fabric is ripped away and foreign hands touch where they have no permission to.
“Don't look!” Mommy screams, jerking away from River's touch.
River hugs Einstein tighter. “Mommy?”
“Don't look! Don't look!” Mommy screams even as she reaches out to grasp River's shoulders.
She's too old again in this life when they finally catch up with her.
That doesn't stop them this time.
River sits in the corner of the padded room, wrapped in a straitjacket. Her head is shaved and pink lines criss-cross her scalp in a parody of a tic-tac-toe board.
She hasn't seen the sun in an age.
“They went to the edge of the 'Verse,” she sings, “and they saw God and the Devil having tea. God turned his back and the Devil welcomed his children back home. He took their minds and sent them back out from the edge of the 'Verse.”
One of the guards pounds on the metal door, yelling at her to stop singing children's songs.
River laughs - a shrill sound that rips at her vocal cords and strains the eardrums of all listening. “Beware of the Reavers! Men who went too far and saw the face of madness! Men with no heart. Forsaken men. God has turned his back on them. So keep your sons close, for the Reavers are hungry, and your daughters closer, for the Men of Isis are coming and they need brides.” She stumbles to her feet and slams her body up against the door. She falls back onto the floor and picks herself up again. “Miranda! Miranda! The air's poisoned with lies! Dead! Dead! They're all dead!” she shrieks, throwing herself at the door again. “Or are they all alive?”
“Mommy!” River pushes at her mother, trying to make the older woman let go. “Stop!”
Regan flinches, realizing for the first time that her shields are down. “Give me a second, love.” She takes a deep breath, and, her eyes holding River's, slams down shields made of bone and metal and all manner of hard things.
River breathes slightly easier now that she can no longer see all the thousands of horrific images that lurk underneath. Finally having a moment to gain her bearings, River remembers what she did.
She broke the rules.
River falls to her knees before her mother. Regan looks up startled as River starts to cry into Einstein's fur.
“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do it.”
Silently, Regan takes her crying daughter and pulls the child into her lap. She holds River tightly as she rocks her little girl on the cusp of womanhood, uncaring that River is crying onto her silk dress. She strokes her fingers through River's long hair.
“It's good that you did,” she says and her voice wobbles and breaks. “Now we know.”
River doesn't say anything. She knows that she isn't supposed to look forward into time. To know the future is to have no free will of your own. Mother had always emphasized that the gift of Sight was more of a curse than a gift and it was better to leave it alone than to pursue it further.
But when Gabriel Tam had presented River to her future husband only yesterday, a wealthy business associate more than forty years her senior, River couldn't help herself after one peek into his mind. He'd almost beaten one of his lovers to death. And his thoughts when he looked at her…
Mother had seen them too, for she took River's arm and drew her away, citing that there was something wrong with River's dress and it must be fixed immediately, and do try not to miss us too much, gentlemen. Mother had patted River's hand and told her she would take care of it and there was no possible way that her child would ever end up marrying that insect.
River had just wanted to see if her mother would keep her promise. She just wanted to know.
She'd taken a small penknife and sliced a shallow cut down her lifeline. She didn't actually need to do that, but it served to cement her concentration and aid her to See what paths were available to her.
She'd just wanted to know if she would marry a man who would love her.
Mommy's eyes are red and puffy, and River knows that she must have been crying from the very moment River collapsed, the number of visions and the horrific nature of them taking a toll on her young mind.
Dimly, she recalls her mother bursting through her bedroom door and clapping her hands over River's temples, the contact enabling her to easily slip into her daughter's mind and, after a brief struggle, Regan was able to force the vision to cut off just as River saw the only future from which she emerged victorious. Out of thousands of futures, only one in which she wins.
“Mommy?” River hiccups, pulling back slightly so she can look her mother in the face. “Why can't I remember?”
Regan brushes River's bangs away from her face. “I took them away. You shouldn't have to remember those horrible things.” She plants a kiss against River's forehead. “Please, darling. Let me shoulder this burden alone.”
River touches her mother's wet cheek. “But it makes you sad.”
“Very sad,” Regan agrees.
“I could help.” She doesn't want those memories back, she's happy her mother went into her mind and scorched all trace of the vision from River's mind - all traces except for the two horrific memories River had just witnessed, but that was River's own fault and she didn't dare ask for her mother to remove them again. She needed them. Not now, but one day she would have a use for both of those memories.
Also, seeing them again so soon might just break her mother's heart in two.
Regan offers her a pitiful smile now. “It would make me sadder if you had to see them again.” She presses another hard kiss against River's temple. “Let this be my burden, dearest, because I am unable to take your place.”
“I will protect you,” River promises. “I won't let them have you.”
Regan stares at her for a moment before her face crumbles and she begins crying harder than before. River wraps her arms around her mother's shaking shoulders, trying to offer as much comfort as possible.
~*~
As she runs now, River remembers that promise.
When they'd drilled holes through her skull, she had never once revealed her family's heritage. Never revealed the five other Readers she knew. The Government would have only captured her mother and her uncles and executed them. They weren't interested in Readers. At least, not the ones born with the ability. They only wished to create their own Readers, whom they'd be able to control with their hollow men.
The family Lang was safe.
Her mother's family had always been different. Her Grandfather Lang had been the one to insist that she be named River.
“For a River can never be controlled,” he had said when she asked him why he had chosen that name. She wonders now if he might not have known what lay in store for her.
Whenever she saw him as a child, he had always brought her a present. He had brought Simon presents as well, but it was River he spoiled.
“We have to let her be a child while she still can,” Grandfather Lang had said once, when her father had teasingly lectured him on turning River into a first-rate brat. “Her time's limited."
She once wondered why, if he saw what would happen, he did nothing to prevent it, but in the end, she knows why. Regan was the prodigy of the family. While her father and her brothers could Read and sometimes See, their visions were murky and they could not defeat a strong shield. Regan, on the other hand, knew no limits. She danced through mind blocks and her visions were never cloudy, even though most of the time she refused to look at the future paths, hating the fact that the future could be known. Regan had multiple talents, which she had passed on to her daughter.
Grandfather Lang had told Regan once that she and her daughter (a miniature Regan if ever he saw one) scared him. “If you decided to, you could make us all puppets.”
Regan had laughed. “I doubt that.”
Grandfather Lang had smiled and touched his daughter's cheek. “One day, you'll reveal to all the 'verse what Readers are capable of.” His eyes fell on River. “You're very lucky. My mother didn't love me even half as much.”
Now, her feet slapping against the ground, River can at least take comfort in the fact that her mother is still safe and will never be forced to endure the torture that River underwent, even though she knows that Regan would have exchanged places in a heartbeat.
River's heart pounds erratically, in her chest and she wonders if she runs long enough in this state, with her fear transforming all whom she sees into Alliance Agents, whether her heart might not burst from the strain.
There is a small seed in her that wants that end. It would be easier for her to be dead. There would be no more experiments, no more nightmares, no more struggles to recall absent memories. They could have her empty body with which to attempt to figure out how they managed to succeed with her, when the Academy's halls are littered with the small corpses of River's classmates.
But there is another, harder and larger part of her that doesn't want even her body to land in their hands. She wants to live to bask in their defeat, to live in a world where she doesn't need to look over her shoulder or check the shadows.
She grits her teeth as one of her ill-fitting boots slips underneath her foot, causing her to stumble. She catches herself before she can fall and soldiers on. She tightens her grip on her knife and vows that next time she'll bring a gun along and two more knives.
She thinks that she may have been running in circles due to the number of twists and turns she's taken since the hunt began, dodging around the mass of bodies and trying to draw the hollow men away from the crowd. Far too many people have already died because they saw her face, talked to her, heard her speak, or just asked too many questions.
She needs to draw them farther away from the bloodbath just waiting to spill across the ground.
River is the rabbit with the too-sharp claws, running for her life and leading them away from the warren. Through the haze of her fear, she senses that the Alliance dogs are herding her in a certain direction, just as they did on her previous visit to Ariel and on Hecate. No matter. They can draw her to their remote location. This time, as on Hecate, she'll be the one to walk out alive.
She smiles to herself as she shifts her grip on the knife Jayne had sharpened just that morning. With her aim and the blade's fine edge, the knife won't hunger for long for a victim.
All she needs to do is find one hollow man's heart and she'll be able to exploit the Blue Hands' weakness.
Two men sharing one mind create a strong enough barrier that even a Reader of River's skill can't slip through. But kill one, and suddenly there was no defence at all. The River who refused to accept the Academy's invitation in favour of following her passion and dancing on the stage, despite her father's disapproval, that River had found out the Blue Hands' weakness when, in a fit of desperation, she managed to kill one by smacking him repeatedly over the head with an iron cooking pot, while the other had stepped out for a bathroom break (they were human enough to still need those). She had taken advantage of her new found freedom to attack the other Blue Hand's mind, but the overriding fear and the trauma of the last week had taken its toil. Her grip on her Reader abilities wasn't what it could have been and she was unable to immobilize him, That River had died shortly afterwards, her neck snapped when her assailant grew tired of her pathetic attempts to kill him.
With the regaining of her sanity, River had also regained those memories of two other lives. She'll avenge them - those two women who were her and who had never stood a chance.
There are empty warehouses on either side as River continues to run. Large, grey buildings that reek of rats and dust. Far away from the crowds with their potential victims if the 'R. Tam' subject creates too much of a scene. Witnesses are all too easy to get rid of with a sonic device.
River has been boxed in; there's only one warehouse with an open door, and it's through the trap she runs, the noose slipping lightly around her neck.
The dust is strewn with footprints and wooden boards have been pulled away from the shattered windows to let in meager light. There is a storage unit in the corner, similar to the one Simon placed her in when he spirited her out of the Academy. The lid is leaning up against the side of the box.
River stops and waits for the hounds to inch closer and closer, until the moment when they discover that their meek rabbit isn't so meek after all.
River stands in front of the far wall, hunching her shoulders into her body and shivering, playing the part of the frightened little girl perfectly. She gasps, the harsh sound of breath being drawn into starved lungs almost masking the steps of the Blue Hands.
One...
She opens her eyes and strains her ears to calculate how close they're getting (while the Academy had improved her sight through their experiments, they hadn't had a chance to fine-tune her hearing).
Two...
She twists the knife in her hand, adjusting her grip and finding the balance needed to make the throw.
Three...
River spins around on the ball of her left foot, her arm swinging. The knife leaves her hand to plunge into the heart of the Blue Hand on the left. He stumbles back from the momentum of the blade before the electrical signals reach his brain and inform his body of his death. The Blue Hand tumbles to the floor, but River doesn't see him.
Her attention is already caught by the other Blue Hand, who raises a gun at her. His mind screams that it's only a tranq gun - they can't afford any damage done to their prized commodity.
River sneers and flips out of the way as he fires three shots in quick succession. Not very smart. Doesn't he realize that he only has three shots left?
How could she ever be scared of men such as these?
The Blue Hand fires off two more shots that shatter against the wall as she spins out of the way. Ever the dancer.
River walks toward him now, his eyes caught in hers, and she can see the tell-tale tremble running down his gun hand, as she approaches. Like most dreaded creatures that lurk under the bed at night, he's more afraid of her than she of him.
The tranq gun is aimed at her head and she can clearly hear him as he screams at himself to be careful, that he'll kill her if he shoots now: he needs to re-aim, he only has one chance left.
He takes a step back and she strikes.
Her hand is quicker than his finger on the trigger. In a single move, she has shoved his Adam's apple up into his throat, blocking his windpipe and cutting off his airflow. The gun drops from his hand as he claws at his throat in a panic. River watches him for just a moment before she performs a roundhouse kick to the side of his head and revels in the sound of his head snapping too far to the right.
The Blue Hand falls beside his brother, and the Alliance experiment is left standing over them, feeling like she should be laughing as if there were no tomorrow and no threat of coming sorrow. But she doesn't.
River instead walks to the body of her first kill, intent on taking back the knife Jayne gave her. That's when she hears it.
The sound of two people walking up behind her.
River whirls around.
Sees two hands of blue.
"Eta karoom na smech."
Just like that, the fight is over.
The words are said and an electrical pulse sparks from her brain to her nerves. Her body is no longer her own. It tumbles to the ground, and she can make no move to save her face from smacking against the hard cement floor. She suspects from the sound that it hurt, and she may have cracked her cheek bone, but she can't feel it.
She screams but no sound escapes her lips.
Her body has become the ultimate cage. There's no escape route.
Dimly, she registers the sound of approaching feet, but her eyes are closed, having snapped shut when the control phrase was uttered. River tries to concentrate on moving her limbs, but the increasing fear that rises with each step these fresh Blue Hands take toward her frozen body breaks her focus.
She desperately wants to choke on her own tongue, but the stubborn muscle won't move. Nothing works as she wants it to.
The footsteps stop and, suddenly, she's looking into the face of one of the agents. He's pried her eyelid open with two of his fingers. He stares at her for a moment before reaching up and removing his sunglasses.
An eye of green and an eye of purple stare at her. Both eyes are bloodshot. River's stomach turns.
She knows that face. It's haunted her since the moment she first tried to access her future at thirteen. Another life in which she escaped, and became a prima ballerina, and they found her anyway. Only too late to perform their experiments.
The Agent seems to sense her fear for he leans in closer and says: "Hello, R. Tam."
River tries to scream for Simon, for Jayne, for Mal, for Zoë, for her mother, for anyone. But her mouth doesn't move and no sound escapes. Yet, still does she scream.
"It would be wise if you came quietly," the Blue Hand says, "or we'll be forced to take... certain measures." He opens up her other eyelid. "We have teams positioned to strike the piece of scrap metal, Serenity. Our agents have had quite a busy year compiling reports on the crew." He holds up a computer chip. "Quite the number of secrets we dug up against those traitors to the Alliance. I'm afraid something unfortunate might happen to them and their families, if you were to attempt to escape your masters again.
"We were rather lucky that Ms. Serra's condition is such that she requires a yearly visit with her doctor. Luckily for us, the good doctor's worm of a receptionist was interested in making a little profit on the side." One of his hands moves downward, but River doesn't know where it went. She can't see that far, nor can she feel anything. Her body is so numb.
“Anderson! They want her back in one piece,” his partner says.
“And she will be,” Agent Anderson says pleasantly. “However, what her owners don't seem to realize is that the only way to train a wild creature such as this” -- he's touching her; she knows he's touching her, but she doesn't know where -- “is to break them in every way possible.”
“But not here.”
“Hmm?” The Agent removes his hand from River's body. “Oh, you're quite right. This is no place for a tryst between civilized people.”
He stands up, River in his arms, and from the corner of her eye she can see her clothes on the ground. He was just removing her clothes so they wouldn't have any trouble freezing her body. That's all. Simon had to do the same when he put her into the storage box. The Blue Hand didn't touch her anywhere else. She's fine. She's fine.
He places her down in the box and arranges her body on its side. His partner comes up beside him and takes up the lid.
The lid slides over her, killing the light. River's eyes roll up to watch as the light grows smaller and smaller, until it is just a sliver, and then, it's gone.
The china doll has been put away, to be played with another day.
She screams one last time.
~*~
The hair on the back of Jayne's neck stands up. He slowly turns around, his eyes searching the crowd.
The Alliance soldiers in plain clothes are remarkably easy to spot if you know what to look for: the military cuts, the posture, the shifting eyes, the small communication devices in their ears.
Jayne's eyes narrow as his hand falls on his LeMat.
The air grows sharper with the smell of lightning.
Fandom: Firefly/Serenity
Disclaimer: I do not own.
Beta-Reader: Thanks go to the amazing revdorothyl.
Character/Pairings: Jayne/River, Simon, Zoe/Wash
Rating: R
Warnings: Post BDM, Violence of the Reavers and Blue Hands variety.
Notes: The prequel to Little Girl Lost, taking place after Miranda is exposed, and three years before Gabriel Tam sets out to find River.
Summary: As the Alliance is ripped apart at the seams, they attempt to recapture their masterpiece. The story of how Jayne Cobb and River Tam left Serenity.
Warning: There are disturbing images and implications of rape as we're dealing with the Blue Hands.
Chapter Nine
Mommy is crying.
It's the first thing River notices when she is called back from the land of Morpheus. The small, thirteen-year-old girl lies on her back in bed, the pink covers pulled up to her chin and firmly tucked in at the sides. Einstein, her rabbit doll she's had ever since she was a baby, is nestled in the crook of her arm, which is strange, as she never sleeps with Einstein anymore. He is so old and ragged from all the times she insisted on taking him with her every which way she went when she was younger, and she doesn't want to risk him falling apart, so he now sits in a place of honour on her bookshelf. She cuddles him gently to her side, with one of his floppy ears held tight in her fist.
The sunlight slipping through her window brightens up the entirety of her room, making it midday and not morning.
Mommy won't stop crying.
When River sits up, she sees her mother seated on the floor in the middle of the room, her forehead pressed up against her knees and her arms wrapped tight around her legs. The small girl shivers at the horrific sound of her mother's wails. She doesn't think that mother even realizes that she's being so loud.
Pulling back the covers, she slips from the bed, Einstein held tight in her arms, and tip-toes over to her mother. She reaches out a small hand and touches her mother's back.
River screams as a man in a dark suit, sunglasses, and blue gloves back-hands her. The impact slams her against the brick wall. She screams again just as his hand crushes her throat.
“Cease your efforts,” the man says as she feebly tries to scratch out his eyes. There is something dripping down the back of her neck. “No one is coming.”
There's another man at the mouth of the alley. At first River thinks he's there to save her, but then she sees the blue of his gloves.
Her attacker tightens his grip on her neck. “You should not have refused us.” He raises another hand and squeezes her breast painfully.
Tears are slipping down her face, as she realizes that there's only one way out, the way her mother forbade her to use. She reaches out with her mind, ready to slip through his blocks and render him useless, only to bounce back into her own mind. Her eyes flit to her attacker's twin and back again.
They have the same mind.
Two people with one mind.
She screams again as fabric is ripped away and foreign hands touch where they have no permission to.
“Don't look!” Mommy screams, jerking away from River's touch.
River hugs Einstein tighter. “Mommy?”
“Don't look! Don't look!” Mommy screams even as she reaches out to grasp River's shoulders.
She's too old again in this life when they finally catch up with her.
That doesn't stop them this time.
River sits in the corner of the padded room, wrapped in a straitjacket. Her head is shaved and pink lines criss-cross her scalp in a parody of a tic-tac-toe board.
She hasn't seen the sun in an age.
“They went to the edge of the 'Verse,” she sings, “and they saw God and the Devil having tea. God turned his back and the Devil welcomed his children back home. He took their minds and sent them back out from the edge of the 'Verse.”
One of the guards pounds on the metal door, yelling at her to stop singing children's songs.
River laughs - a shrill sound that rips at her vocal cords and strains the eardrums of all listening. “Beware of the Reavers! Men who went too far and saw the face of madness! Men with no heart. Forsaken men. God has turned his back on them. So keep your sons close, for the Reavers are hungry, and your daughters closer, for the Men of Isis are coming and they need brides.” She stumbles to her feet and slams her body up against the door. She falls back onto the floor and picks herself up again. “Miranda! Miranda! The air's poisoned with lies! Dead! Dead! They're all dead!” she shrieks, throwing herself at the door again. “Or are they all alive?”
“Mommy!” River pushes at her mother, trying to make the older woman let go. “Stop!”
Regan flinches, realizing for the first time that her shields are down. “Give me a second, love.” She takes a deep breath, and, her eyes holding River's, slams down shields made of bone and metal and all manner of hard things.
River breathes slightly easier now that she can no longer see all the thousands of horrific images that lurk underneath. Finally having a moment to gain her bearings, River remembers what she did.
She broke the rules.
River falls to her knees before her mother. Regan looks up startled as River starts to cry into Einstein's fur.
“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do it.”
Silently, Regan takes her crying daughter and pulls the child into her lap. She holds River tightly as she rocks her little girl on the cusp of womanhood, uncaring that River is crying onto her silk dress. She strokes her fingers through River's long hair.
“It's good that you did,” she says and her voice wobbles and breaks. “Now we know.”
River doesn't say anything. She knows that she isn't supposed to look forward into time. To know the future is to have no free will of your own. Mother had always emphasized that the gift of Sight was more of a curse than a gift and it was better to leave it alone than to pursue it further.
But when Gabriel Tam had presented River to her future husband only yesterday, a wealthy business associate more than forty years her senior, River couldn't help herself after one peek into his mind. He'd almost beaten one of his lovers to death. And his thoughts when he looked at her…
Mother had seen them too, for she took River's arm and drew her away, citing that there was something wrong with River's dress and it must be fixed immediately, and do try not to miss us too much, gentlemen. Mother had patted River's hand and told her she would take care of it and there was no possible way that her child would ever end up marrying that insect.
River had just wanted to see if her mother would keep her promise. She just wanted to know.
She'd taken a small penknife and sliced a shallow cut down her lifeline. She didn't actually need to do that, but it served to cement her concentration and aid her to See what paths were available to her.
She'd just wanted to know if she would marry a man who would love her.
Mommy's eyes are red and puffy, and River knows that she must have been crying from the very moment River collapsed, the number of visions and the horrific nature of them taking a toll on her young mind.
Dimly, she recalls her mother bursting through her bedroom door and clapping her hands over River's temples, the contact enabling her to easily slip into her daughter's mind and, after a brief struggle, Regan was able to force the vision to cut off just as River saw the only future from which she emerged victorious. Out of thousands of futures, only one in which she wins.
“Mommy?” River hiccups, pulling back slightly so she can look her mother in the face. “Why can't I remember?”
Regan brushes River's bangs away from her face. “I took them away. You shouldn't have to remember those horrible things.” She plants a kiss against River's forehead. “Please, darling. Let me shoulder this burden alone.”
River touches her mother's wet cheek. “But it makes you sad.”
“Very sad,” Regan agrees.
“I could help.” She doesn't want those memories back, she's happy her mother went into her mind and scorched all trace of the vision from River's mind - all traces except for the two horrific memories River had just witnessed, but that was River's own fault and she didn't dare ask for her mother to remove them again. She needed them. Not now, but one day she would have a use for both of those memories.
Also, seeing them again so soon might just break her mother's heart in two.
Regan offers her a pitiful smile now. “It would make me sadder if you had to see them again.” She presses another hard kiss against River's temple. “Let this be my burden, dearest, because I am unable to take your place.”
“I will protect you,” River promises. “I won't let them have you.”
Regan stares at her for a moment before her face crumbles and she begins crying harder than before. River wraps her arms around her mother's shaking shoulders, trying to offer as much comfort as possible.
~*~
As she runs now, River remembers that promise.
When they'd drilled holes through her skull, she had never once revealed her family's heritage. Never revealed the five other Readers she knew. The Government would have only captured her mother and her uncles and executed them. They weren't interested in Readers. At least, not the ones born with the ability. They only wished to create their own Readers, whom they'd be able to control with their hollow men.
The family Lang was safe.
Her mother's family had always been different. Her Grandfather Lang had been the one to insist that she be named River.
“For a River can never be controlled,” he had said when she asked him why he had chosen that name. She wonders now if he might not have known what lay in store for her.
Whenever she saw him as a child, he had always brought her a present. He had brought Simon presents as well, but it was River he spoiled.
“We have to let her be a child while she still can,” Grandfather Lang had said once, when her father had teasingly lectured him on turning River into a first-rate brat. “Her time's limited."
She once wondered why, if he saw what would happen, he did nothing to prevent it, but in the end, she knows why. Regan was the prodigy of the family. While her father and her brothers could Read and sometimes See, their visions were murky and they could not defeat a strong shield. Regan, on the other hand, knew no limits. She danced through mind blocks and her visions were never cloudy, even though most of the time she refused to look at the future paths, hating the fact that the future could be known. Regan had multiple talents, which she had passed on to her daughter.
Grandfather Lang had told Regan once that she and her daughter (a miniature Regan if ever he saw one) scared him. “If you decided to, you could make us all puppets.”
Regan had laughed. “I doubt that.”
Grandfather Lang had smiled and touched his daughter's cheek. “One day, you'll reveal to all the 'verse what Readers are capable of.” His eyes fell on River. “You're very lucky. My mother didn't love me even half as much.”
Now, her feet slapping against the ground, River can at least take comfort in the fact that her mother is still safe and will never be forced to endure the torture that River underwent, even though she knows that Regan would have exchanged places in a heartbeat.
River's heart pounds erratically, in her chest and she wonders if she runs long enough in this state, with her fear transforming all whom she sees into Alliance Agents, whether her heart might not burst from the strain.
There is a small seed in her that wants that end. It would be easier for her to be dead. There would be no more experiments, no more nightmares, no more struggles to recall absent memories. They could have her empty body with which to attempt to figure out how they managed to succeed with her, when the Academy's halls are littered with the small corpses of River's classmates.
But there is another, harder and larger part of her that doesn't want even her body to land in their hands. She wants to live to bask in their defeat, to live in a world where she doesn't need to look over her shoulder or check the shadows.
She grits her teeth as one of her ill-fitting boots slips underneath her foot, causing her to stumble. She catches herself before she can fall and soldiers on. She tightens her grip on her knife and vows that next time she'll bring a gun along and two more knives.
She thinks that she may have been running in circles due to the number of twists and turns she's taken since the hunt began, dodging around the mass of bodies and trying to draw the hollow men away from the crowd. Far too many people have already died because they saw her face, talked to her, heard her speak, or just asked too many questions.
She needs to draw them farther away from the bloodbath just waiting to spill across the ground.
River is the rabbit with the too-sharp claws, running for her life and leading them away from the warren. Through the haze of her fear, she senses that the Alliance dogs are herding her in a certain direction, just as they did on her previous visit to Ariel and on Hecate. No matter. They can draw her to their remote location. This time, as on Hecate, she'll be the one to walk out alive.
She smiles to herself as she shifts her grip on the knife Jayne had sharpened just that morning. With her aim and the blade's fine edge, the knife won't hunger for long for a victim.
All she needs to do is find one hollow man's heart and she'll be able to exploit the Blue Hands' weakness.
Two men sharing one mind create a strong enough barrier that even a Reader of River's skill can't slip through. But kill one, and suddenly there was no defence at all. The River who refused to accept the Academy's invitation in favour of following her passion and dancing on the stage, despite her father's disapproval, that River had found out the Blue Hands' weakness when, in a fit of desperation, she managed to kill one by smacking him repeatedly over the head with an iron cooking pot, while the other had stepped out for a bathroom break (they were human enough to still need those). She had taken advantage of her new found freedom to attack the other Blue Hand's mind, but the overriding fear and the trauma of the last week had taken its toil. Her grip on her Reader abilities wasn't what it could have been and she was unable to immobilize him, That River had died shortly afterwards, her neck snapped when her assailant grew tired of her pathetic attempts to kill him.
With the regaining of her sanity, River had also regained those memories of two other lives. She'll avenge them - those two women who were her and who had never stood a chance.
There are empty warehouses on either side as River continues to run. Large, grey buildings that reek of rats and dust. Far away from the crowds with their potential victims if the 'R. Tam' subject creates too much of a scene. Witnesses are all too easy to get rid of with a sonic device.
River has been boxed in; there's only one warehouse with an open door, and it's through the trap she runs, the noose slipping lightly around her neck.
The dust is strewn with footprints and wooden boards have been pulled away from the shattered windows to let in meager light. There is a storage unit in the corner, similar to the one Simon placed her in when he spirited her out of the Academy. The lid is leaning up against the side of the box.
River stops and waits for the hounds to inch closer and closer, until the moment when they discover that their meek rabbit isn't so meek after all.
River stands in front of the far wall, hunching her shoulders into her body and shivering, playing the part of the frightened little girl perfectly. She gasps, the harsh sound of breath being drawn into starved lungs almost masking the steps of the Blue Hands.
One...
She opens her eyes and strains her ears to calculate how close they're getting (while the Academy had improved her sight through their experiments, they hadn't had a chance to fine-tune her hearing).
Two...
She twists the knife in her hand, adjusting her grip and finding the balance needed to make the throw.
Three...
River spins around on the ball of her left foot, her arm swinging. The knife leaves her hand to plunge into the heart of the Blue Hand on the left. He stumbles back from the momentum of the blade before the electrical signals reach his brain and inform his body of his death. The Blue Hand tumbles to the floor, but River doesn't see him.
Her attention is already caught by the other Blue Hand, who raises a gun at her. His mind screams that it's only a tranq gun - they can't afford any damage done to their prized commodity.
River sneers and flips out of the way as he fires three shots in quick succession. Not very smart. Doesn't he realize that he only has three shots left?
How could she ever be scared of men such as these?
The Blue Hand fires off two more shots that shatter against the wall as she spins out of the way. Ever the dancer.
River walks toward him now, his eyes caught in hers, and she can see the tell-tale tremble running down his gun hand, as she approaches. Like most dreaded creatures that lurk under the bed at night, he's more afraid of her than she of him.
The tranq gun is aimed at her head and she can clearly hear him as he screams at himself to be careful, that he'll kill her if he shoots now: he needs to re-aim, he only has one chance left.
He takes a step back and she strikes.
Her hand is quicker than his finger on the trigger. In a single move, she has shoved his Adam's apple up into his throat, blocking his windpipe and cutting off his airflow. The gun drops from his hand as he claws at his throat in a panic. River watches him for just a moment before she performs a roundhouse kick to the side of his head and revels in the sound of his head snapping too far to the right.
The Blue Hand falls beside his brother, and the Alliance experiment is left standing over them, feeling like she should be laughing as if there were no tomorrow and no threat of coming sorrow. But she doesn't.
River instead walks to the body of her first kill, intent on taking back the knife Jayne gave her. That's when she hears it.
The sound of two people walking up behind her.
River whirls around.
Sees two hands of blue.
"Eta karoom na smech."
Just like that, the fight is over.
The words are said and an electrical pulse sparks from her brain to her nerves. Her body is no longer her own. It tumbles to the ground, and she can make no move to save her face from smacking against the hard cement floor. She suspects from the sound that it hurt, and she may have cracked her cheek bone, but she can't feel it.
She screams but no sound escapes her lips.
Her body has become the ultimate cage. There's no escape route.
Dimly, she registers the sound of approaching feet, but her eyes are closed, having snapped shut when the control phrase was uttered. River tries to concentrate on moving her limbs, but the increasing fear that rises with each step these fresh Blue Hands take toward her frozen body breaks her focus.
She desperately wants to choke on her own tongue, but the stubborn muscle won't move. Nothing works as she wants it to.
The footsteps stop and, suddenly, she's looking into the face of one of the agents. He's pried her eyelid open with two of his fingers. He stares at her for a moment before reaching up and removing his sunglasses.
An eye of green and an eye of purple stare at her. Both eyes are bloodshot. River's stomach turns.
She knows that face. It's haunted her since the moment she first tried to access her future at thirteen. Another life in which she escaped, and became a prima ballerina, and they found her anyway. Only too late to perform their experiments.
The Agent seems to sense her fear for he leans in closer and says: "Hello, R. Tam."
River tries to scream for Simon, for Jayne, for Mal, for Zoë, for her mother, for anyone. But her mouth doesn't move and no sound escapes. Yet, still does she scream.
"It would be wise if you came quietly," the Blue Hand says, "or we'll be forced to take... certain measures." He opens up her other eyelid. "We have teams positioned to strike the piece of scrap metal, Serenity. Our agents have had quite a busy year compiling reports on the crew." He holds up a computer chip. "Quite the number of secrets we dug up against those traitors to the Alliance. I'm afraid something unfortunate might happen to them and their families, if you were to attempt to escape your masters again.
"We were rather lucky that Ms. Serra's condition is such that she requires a yearly visit with her doctor. Luckily for us, the good doctor's worm of a receptionist was interested in making a little profit on the side." One of his hands moves downward, but River doesn't know where it went. She can't see that far, nor can she feel anything. Her body is so numb.
“Anderson! They want her back in one piece,” his partner says.
“And she will be,” Agent Anderson says pleasantly. “However, what her owners don't seem to realize is that the only way to train a wild creature such as this” -- he's touching her; she knows he's touching her, but she doesn't know where -- “is to break them in every way possible.”
“But not here.”
“Hmm?” The Agent removes his hand from River's body. “Oh, you're quite right. This is no place for a tryst between civilized people.”
He stands up, River in his arms, and from the corner of her eye she can see her clothes on the ground. He was just removing her clothes so they wouldn't have any trouble freezing her body. That's all. Simon had to do the same when he put her into the storage box. The Blue Hand didn't touch her anywhere else. She's fine. She's fine.
He places her down in the box and arranges her body on its side. His partner comes up beside him and takes up the lid.
The lid slides over her, killing the light. River's eyes roll up to watch as the light grows smaller and smaller, until it is just a sliver, and then, it's gone.
The china doll has been put away, to be played with another day.
She screams one last time.
~*~
The hair on the back of Jayne's neck stands up. He slowly turns around, his eyes searching the crowd.
The Alliance soldiers in plain clothes are remarkably easy to spot if you know what to look for: the military cuts, the posture, the shifting eyes, the small communication devices in their ears.
Jayne's eyes narrow as his hand falls on his LeMat.
The air grows sharper with the smell of lightning.