Fic: Down this Chain of Days, Chapter 6 (Firefly, River/Mal, PG-13)
Title: Down this Chain of Days: VI: Cover Me in Sympathy
Rating: PG-13
Words: 2425
Pairings: River/Mal, Simon/Kaylee
Summary: For Mal and River, 'happily ever after' takes some work - especially when people from their past keep turning up.
Notes:: Chapter title and cut text from Sorrow, by The National.
Finally, Simon meets up with his father! And no matter how serious and full of feelings I wanted the Tam siblings to be, they just kept on...acting like teenagers. Funny how that happens.
VI. Cover Me in Sympathy
It isn't until they're settled in a back room of the bar (the same back room Mal had used the day before, which she knows because she can still feel his presence, lingering) that it begins to feel strange; when she sees Simon and their father take seats across a table from each other and she feels wrenched back into the past, back into a world nothing like the one she inhabits now. Taking the chair next to Simon, she catches his eye, knows he feels it too. They have both grown used to a certain measure of independence, used to justifying themselves to no one but Mal. To their father though, they are clearly children, and wayward.
He does try, at first. “Simon. I thought I would never see you again.”
“Yes, well...” Simon looks to her, as though for support, then takes a breath. “As I recall, you said you wouldn't come for me again if I got myself into trouble. I'm not surprised you didn't expect to see me again. I am rather surprised that you'd want to now, actually.”
Their father gives a laugh, brief and bitter. “Things have changed, believe me. Did you think it wouldn't matter, once you were gone? That they would just forget about us, that there would be no ramifications for anyone else?”
Simon raises an eyebrow. “Clearly they couldn't have been too terrible, since you're here now, alive and healthy and apparently with the money necessary to travel. But gosh Dad, I'm terribly sorry if my saving River from a place where they were cutting up her brain inconvenienced you at all.”
“It was more than an inconvenience, as I'm sure you must be well aware. You're not a fool. Your mother and I were lucky to escape the inquiry with our records and wealth fairly intact. Very lucky indeed.”
“Oh, and would you like to know what kind of luck we've had, running to the ends of the galaxy, being chased down by your precious government while you sat at home, trying to save your-”
“Do not talk to me like that,” their father cuts him off, using a tone that terrified them as children.
“You don't have the right to tell me how I should talk anymore,” Simon says, his voice rising.
“Simon.” River places a hand on his, tries to project calm. “Don't fight, either of you.”
He sighs. “You're right, mei mei, we shouldn't be wasting time-”
“They'll kick us out if you're too loud,” she says, looking to the door. “I make them nervous. Got into a fight here once.” Gabriel looks at her like she's grown a second head; Simon simply rubs his forehead. “Well,” she clarifies, “Captain got into a fight. I just helped.”
“Don't ask,” Simon says, shaking his head slightly at their father. “But she's right, we shouldn't do this. Why don't we start over - hi Dad, how's Mom doing?”
For a moment she believes their father will refuse to play along with Simon's grating false cheer; then she remembers exactly where Simon acquired his usual veneer of imperturbable sophistication.
“She's...well. She does her best; she misses you both, of course.”
“We ruined her life,” River says, head tilted, concentrating on the stream of thought. “Can't go out among her friends anymore. They ask questions, look at her with pity. She doesn't like it. Sits at home and sighs. Weeps. She never dances anymore.”
Gabriel looks at her oddly. “Does she do that often? It's disturbing,” he says to Simon.
“She can hear you,” Simon responds, in a tone like sand, gone dust-dry. “And speak for herself, for that matter. But no, she only tends to do that nowadays with people she doesn't trust.” River treats their father to her sweetest smile, so as to be regular and pretty, normality in girl form. Or possibly to be more strange, unsettling; being around Mal so long has left her with wicked habits, all tangled up with older and more polite inclinations.
His eyebrows draw together as he watches her, before he seems to recall his part in the conversation, and sighs. “It's true, your mother isn't happy. Having you back at home would ease her mind greatly.”
“Never dance again,” River murmurs, shaking her head.
Their father, having chosen to ignore her, continues on. “It's time that you come back home, Simon. It's safe to do so now, I'm quite certain of it. The time and trouble-” He pauses for a moment, and in his head River can read the pages as he flips through them, seeking the proper pattern of logic and order and firm paternalism to make his children obey. “I understand why you did what you did. I'll even agree that it needed to be done, and I'm thankful you were able to do it, truly. But it's time to put it behind us now. Things won't be exactly the same, obviously - your medical career will have been damaged beyond repair in government circles, but we can set up a private practice for you, get River the help she needs-”
“What are you talking about?” Simon asks, cutting off his plans. “You don't actually think - we're not going anywhere with you. You realize that, right?”
“Don't be foolish, of course you are,” Gabriel says, his tone as mild as though he were telling Simon that of course he had to finish his homework. “Why in the 'verse would you want to stay out here, doing...whatever it is you've been doing? I don't even know where you've been living all this time; nowhere your mother would approve of, from those clothes,” he says, and the smile on his lips stretches tight, making River wonder at the fine line between caring and scorn.
Simon, who hasn't worn one of his silk vests since the last time they needed someone with a fine upstanding look for a job, doesn't care to respond.
“We fly,” River says. “On a ship. A transport.” She frowns down at her pale purple skirt, wrinkles and dust tracking her passage through the world; not shiny enough for Inara, it must have come from Kaylee. “I should get more clothes of my own. Never seem to have enough of my cut left to spend.”
“That's because you always spend yours on fruit, you greedy brat,” Simon mutters, giving her a look.
“And chocolate. And whiskey, on occasion. You're just mad because I share with the Captain and not you,” she tells him.
Their father clears his throat, the sound rasping, startling them both. “A transport ship? One where you both work?”
“Of course,” Simon responds. “Or did you think we were just carted along for free because of our outstanding personalities?”
“I used to be,” River says. “When I didn't comprehend. But then I got better, and became useful.”
“I see,” he says, slowly, and she wonders at the untruth of it; his sight is a clear illusion. “Explain to me exactly why you'd choose to stay there, instead of returning home where you belong?”
“The ship is our home, now,” she says.
“Simon,” he says, ignoring her once more, shutting her out as unimportant, untrustworthy, “surely you can see it would be far better for both of you back on Osiris. River is clearly not - not herself. It can't be easy, caring for her by yourself on some ship.”
Simon sees their father's illusion now too, and his disbelief hits her so hard she nearly giggles. The two of them exchange a look, sharing the feeling that the days have turned back, leaving them conspirators once more; children united against the petty tyrannies of being young. Some things, it seems, never change, though their time aboard Serenity has made their language looser and their tongues sharper than they once were.
Shaking his head, Simon responds to their father. “River's doing very well, actually. And don't talk about her as though she isn't right here. Neither one of us is alone; there are people other than us aboard the ship.”
“And is it fair to them, to ask strangers to put up with that sort of burden? I should think they'd be relieved to see you go.”
River feels the hot spike of anger accompanying the automatic denial in her throat; feels it double, as Simon shares her feeling, visibly forces himself to remain still. “They haven't been strangers for a long time now. They would never abandon us, and to think that we'd leave them...it's ridiculous.”
Reaching for his hand, River squeezes it, smiles at him when he turns his head to her. And when the corner of Simon's mouth lifts in return, she knows he has seen just how ridiculous the conversation has become; knows he's determined now to act like a member of Serenity's crew, rather than a Tam, and she sits back with a grin.
“We can't just leave the ship,” he says. “We have certain...connections there, both River and I.”
“Connections? What exactly are you trying to say, Simon?”
“I'm getting married,” Simon says, flatly. “To the ship's engineer. And River has...” he trails off, looks to River, reining in the mischief in his eyes. “What exactly would you call it?”
“An attachment,” she says, careful, keeping her face serious.
“Right. An attachment to the Captain.”
Gabriel's eyebrows rise; River suspects that, as Simon did for so long, their father sees her as a child still, rather than a woman. “An attachment, meaning...?”
“We are together,” she supplies. “Linked, romantically. Sexually.” Both men wince; she smiles.
“You allowed this to happen?” their father demands, turning on Simon.
“I'm sorry Dad; do you think it would have been a good idea to challenge the Captain of the ship I live on to a duel over my sister's lost honor, or some feng le nonsense like that? She is an adult now, if you hadn't noticed. Surely you remember how stubborn she gets. It isn't as if she asked my opinion on the matter beforehand; probably because she knew what I'd have said about it.” Keeping her face bland, River kicks her brother under the table; as a defense of her autonomy and her relationship with Mal, his speech leaves something to be desired.
“I can't-” Gabriel sits back in his chair, and for a moment River nearly feels sorry for him, he is so lost, so out of his element, his illusions beginning to crack around him. “My daughter is in a relationship with the Captain of a transport ship. And my son plans to marry an engineer?”
Simon smiles, and to River, it's like a reflection of Kaylee, a bit of her warm self there with them. “I do. She's a good woman; talented and kind and giving. She makes me happy, and I love her. What could you possibly find wrong with that?”
“And I suppose you're full of justifications about your Captain as well?” Gabriel asks River, fleeing the challenge in Simon's gaze, seeking a more flexible target.
“He's a pirate,” she says, studying her fingernails. “He sees me, and I adore him.”
“Please tell me she doesn't mean that literally.”
“She certainly means part of it.” Simon sighs, turning to her. “But River, the Captain is not a pirate.”
She looks at him, brow furrowed. “Bandit?” she tries.
Their father's obvious distaste is mounting, and though Simon's mouth is quirked with barely suppressed laughter, his thoughts are attempting to tell her this is pushing things too far. “River, this is not helping. Really, we do honest work,” he says, trying to placate their father.
“Mostly,” she adds. “When we can find it. If it pays well, and doesn't involve cows.”
“Mei mei,” Simon says firmly, “stop talking now.”
She sticks her tongue out at him. “You could have said congratulations,” she says, turning to their father. “To Simon. Would have been polite.”
“Indeed,” he says, rather sharply. “Politeness would seem to be a quality in short supply, out here.”
“Ought to add to it, then,” she comments, letting her eyes wander as a current of thought begins to hiss in the back of her mind.
“I...I don't even know where to begin,” their father says. “This is your decision then? You won't be persuaded otherwise?”
River cocks her head, the current eddying and swirling behind her eyes, growing louder, formed now almost into a readable pattern -
“No, Dad. This is our-” Simon stops abruptly as River flings herself from her chair, because now the pattern is clear, it's here and why couldn't she see this sooner -
“Have to go,” she says, pulling at the window, checking the alley beyond with rapid movements. “Now, Simon. They're coming.”
“What in the name of - who is coming?” their father asks, still seated at the table even as Simon grasps her urgency at once, is by her side as she throws a leg over the sill.
“River, was it him?” he asks, staying her with a hand on her arm, and she knows there's no time for this, no time for anything, but the hope in her brother's eyes belongs still to a little boy, and not having retained any of a girl herself, she can't bear to not respond.
“Not him. No betrayal. Just followed him,” she says, staccato bits of speech as she pushes herself over the sill to land in the dust beyond.
Simon stands at the window, hesitating, though she's frantic now with impatience, shaking with the conflicting needs to run and wait.
“Dad, come on, hurry,” he says, turning back, making his choice. “Don't ask questions, just - if you want to live, come with us. Now.”
She waits to hear Simon drop behind her, and then she does not stay, catching his hand and setting off down the maze of back alleys. Like a rat in a trap, run run run, she thinks.
Behind them, their father follows.
Chapter 5 - Master Post - Chapter 7
Rating: PG-13
Words: 2425
Pairings: River/Mal, Simon/Kaylee
Summary: For Mal and River, 'happily ever after' takes some work - especially when people from their past keep turning up.
Notes:: Chapter title and cut text from Sorrow, by The National.
Finally, Simon meets up with his father! And no matter how serious and full of feelings I wanted the Tam siblings to be, they just kept on...acting like teenagers. Funny how that happens.
VI. Cover Me in Sympathy
It isn't until they're settled in a back room of the bar (the same back room Mal had used the day before, which she knows because she can still feel his presence, lingering) that it begins to feel strange; when she sees Simon and their father take seats across a table from each other and she feels wrenched back into the past, back into a world nothing like the one she inhabits now. Taking the chair next to Simon, she catches his eye, knows he feels it too. They have both grown used to a certain measure of independence, used to justifying themselves to no one but Mal. To their father though, they are clearly children, and wayward.
He does try, at first. “Simon. I thought I would never see you again.”
“Yes, well...” Simon looks to her, as though for support, then takes a breath. “As I recall, you said you wouldn't come for me again if I got myself into trouble. I'm not surprised you didn't expect to see me again. I am rather surprised that you'd want to now, actually.”
Their father gives a laugh, brief and bitter. “Things have changed, believe me. Did you think it wouldn't matter, once you were gone? That they would just forget about us, that there would be no ramifications for anyone else?”
Simon raises an eyebrow. “Clearly they couldn't have been too terrible, since you're here now, alive and healthy and apparently with the money necessary to travel. But gosh Dad, I'm terribly sorry if my saving River from a place where they were cutting up her brain inconvenienced you at all.”
“It was more than an inconvenience, as I'm sure you must be well aware. You're not a fool. Your mother and I were lucky to escape the inquiry with our records and wealth fairly intact. Very lucky indeed.”
“Oh, and would you like to know what kind of luck we've had, running to the ends of the galaxy, being chased down by your precious government while you sat at home, trying to save your-”
“Do not talk to me like that,” their father cuts him off, using a tone that terrified them as children.
“You don't have the right to tell me how I should talk anymore,” Simon says, his voice rising.
“Simon.” River places a hand on his, tries to project calm. “Don't fight, either of you.”
He sighs. “You're right, mei mei, we shouldn't be wasting time-”
“They'll kick us out if you're too loud,” she says, looking to the door. “I make them nervous. Got into a fight here once.” Gabriel looks at her like she's grown a second head; Simon simply rubs his forehead. “Well,” she clarifies, “Captain got into a fight. I just helped.”
“Don't ask,” Simon says, shaking his head slightly at their father. “But she's right, we shouldn't do this. Why don't we start over - hi Dad, how's Mom doing?”
For a moment she believes their father will refuse to play along with Simon's grating false cheer; then she remembers exactly where Simon acquired his usual veneer of imperturbable sophistication.
“She's...well. She does her best; she misses you both, of course.”
“We ruined her life,” River says, head tilted, concentrating on the stream of thought. “Can't go out among her friends anymore. They ask questions, look at her with pity. She doesn't like it. Sits at home and sighs. Weeps. She never dances anymore.”
Gabriel looks at her oddly. “Does she do that often? It's disturbing,” he says to Simon.
“She can hear you,” Simon responds, in a tone like sand, gone dust-dry. “And speak for herself, for that matter. But no, she only tends to do that nowadays with people she doesn't trust.” River treats their father to her sweetest smile, so as to be regular and pretty, normality in girl form. Or possibly to be more strange, unsettling; being around Mal so long has left her with wicked habits, all tangled up with older and more polite inclinations.
His eyebrows draw together as he watches her, before he seems to recall his part in the conversation, and sighs. “It's true, your mother isn't happy. Having you back at home would ease her mind greatly.”
“Never dance again,” River murmurs, shaking her head.
Their father, having chosen to ignore her, continues on. “It's time that you come back home, Simon. It's safe to do so now, I'm quite certain of it. The time and trouble-” He pauses for a moment, and in his head River can read the pages as he flips through them, seeking the proper pattern of logic and order and firm paternalism to make his children obey. “I understand why you did what you did. I'll even agree that it needed to be done, and I'm thankful you were able to do it, truly. But it's time to put it behind us now. Things won't be exactly the same, obviously - your medical career will have been damaged beyond repair in government circles, but we can set up a private practice for you, get River the help she needs-”
“What are you talking about?” Simon asks, cutting off his plans. “You don't actually think - we're not going anywhere with you. You realize that, right?”
“Don't be foolish, of course you are,” Gabriel says, his tone as mild as though he were telling Simon that of course he had to finish his homework. “Why in the 'verse would you want to stay out here, doing...whatever it is you've been doing? I don't even know where you've been living all this time; nowhere your mother would approve of, from those clothes,” he says, and the smile on his lips stretches tight, making River wonder at the fine line between caring and scorn.
Simon, who hasn't worn one of his silk vests since the last time they needed someone with a fine upstanding look for a job, doesn't care to respond.
“We fly,” River says. “On a ship. A transport.” She frowns down at her pale purple skirt, wrinkles and dust tracking her passage through the world; not shiny enough for Inara, it must have come from Kaylee. “I should get more clothes of my own. Never seem to have enough of my cut left to spend.”
“That's because you always spend yours on fruit, you greedy brat,” Simon mutters, giving her a look.
“And chocolate. And whiskey, on occasion. You're just mad because I share with the Captain and not you,” she tells him.
Their father clears his throat, the sound rasping, startling them both. “A transport ship? One where you both work?”
“Of course,” Simon responds. “Or did you think we were just carted along for free because of our outstanding personalities?”
“I used to be,” River says. “When I didn't comprehend. But then I got better, and became useful.”
“I see,” he says, slowly, and she wonders at the untruth of it; his sight is a clear illusion. “Explain to me exactly why you'd choose to stay there, instead of returning home where you belong?”
“The ship is our home, now,” she says.
“Simon,” he says, ignoring her once more, shutting her out as unimportant, untrustworthy, “surely you can see it would be far better for both of you back on Osiris. River is clearly not - not herself. It can't be easy, caring for her by yourself on some ship.”
Simon sees their father's illusion now too, and his disbelief hits her so hard she nearly giggles. The two of them exchange a look, sharing the feeling that the days have turned back, leaving them conspirators once more; children united against the petty tyrannies of being young. Some things, it seems, never change, though their time aboard Serenity has made their language looser and their tongues sharper than they once were.
Shaking his head, Simon responds to their father. “River's doing very well, actually. And don't talk about her as though she isn't right here. Neither one of us is alone; there are people other than us aboard the ship.”
“And is it fair to them, to ask strangers to put up with that sort of burden? I should think they'd be relieved to see you go.”
River feels the hot spike of anger accompanying the automatic denial in her throat; feels it double, as Simon shares her feeling, visibly forces himself to remain still. “They haven't been strangers for a long time now. They would never abandon us, and to think that we'd leave them...it's ridiculous.”
Reaching for his hand, River squeezes it, smiles at him when he turns his head to her. And when the corner of Simon's mouth lifts in return, she knows he has seen just how ridiculous the conversation has become; knows he's determined now to act like a member of Serenity's crew, rather than a Tam, and she sits back with a grin.
“We can't just leave the ship,” he says. “We have certain...connections there, both River and I.”
“Connections? What exactly are you trying to say, Simon?”
“I'm getting married,” Simon says, flatly. “To the ship's engineer. And River has...” he trails off, looks to River, reining in the mischief in his eyes. “What exactly would you call it?”
“An attachment,” she says, careful, keeping her face serious.
“Right. An attachment to the Captain.”
Gabriel's eyebrows rise; River suspects that, as Simon did for so long, their father sees her as a child still, rather than a woman. “An attachment, meaning...?”
“We are together,” she supplies. “Linked, romantically. Sexually.” Both men wince; she smiles.
“You allowed this to happen?” their father demands, turning on Simon.
“I'm sorry Dad; do you think it would have been a good idea to challenge the Captain of the ship I live on to a duel over my sister's lost honor, or some feng le nonsense like that? She is an adult now, if you hadn't noticed. Surely you remember how stubborn she gets. It isn't as if she asked my opinion on the matter beforehand; probably because she knew what I'd have said about it.” Keeping her face bland, River kicks her brother under the table; as a defense of her autonomy and her relationship with Mal, his speech leaves something to be desired.
“I can't-” Gabriel sits back in his chair, and for a moment River nearly feels sorry for him, he is so lost, so out of his element, his illusions beginning to crack around him. “My daughter is in a relationship with the Captain of a transport ship. And my son plans to marry an engineer?”
Simon smiles, and to River, it's like a reflection of Kaylee, a bit of her warm self there with them. “I do. She's a good woman; talented and kind and giving. She makes me happy, and I love her. What could you possibly find wrong with that?”
“And I suppose you're full of justifications about your Captain as well?” Gabriel asks River, fleeing the challenge in Simon's gaze, seeking a more flexible target.
“He's a pirate,” she says, studying her fingernails. “He sees me, and I adore him.”
“Please tell me she doesn't mean that literally.”
“She certainly means part of it.” Simon sighs, turning to her. “But River, the Captain is not a pirate.”
She looks at him, brow furrowed. “Bandit?” she tries.
Their father's obvious distaste is mounting, and though Simon's mouth is quirked with barely suppressed laughter, his thoughts are attempting to tell her this is pushing things too far. “River, this is not helping. Really, we do honest work,” he says, trying to placate their father.
“Mostly,” she adds. “When we can find it. If it pays well, and doesn't involve cows.”
“Mei mei,” Simon says firmly, “stop talking now.”
She sticks her tongue out at him. “You could have said congratulations,” she says, turning to their father. “To Simon. Would have been polite.”
“Indeed,” he says, rather sharply. “Politeness would seem to be a quality in short supply, out here.”
“Ought to add to it, then,” she comments, letting her eyes wander as a current of thought begins to hiss in the back of her mind.
“I...I don't even know where to begin,” their father says. “This is your decision then? You won't be persuaded otherwise?”
River cocks her head, the current eddying and swirling behind her eyes, growing louder, formed now almost into a readable pattern -
“No, Dad. This is our-” Simon stops abruptly as River flings herself from her chair, because now the pattern is clear, it's here and why couldn't she see this sooner -
“Have to go,” she says, pulling at the window, checking the alley beyond with rapid movements. “Now, Simon. They're coming.”
“What in the name of - who is coming?” their father asks, still seated at the table even as Simon grasps her urgency at once, is by her side as she throws a leg over the sill.
“River, was it him?” he asks, staying her with a hand on her arm, and she knows there's no time for this, no time for anything, but the hope in her brother's eyes belongs still to a little boy, and not having retained any of a girl herself, she can't bear to not respond.
“Not him. No betrayal. Just followed him,” she says, staccato bits of speech as she pushes herself over the sill to land in the dust beyond.
Simon stands at the window, hesitating, though she's frantic now with impatience, shaking with the conflicting needs to run and wait.
“Dad, come on, hurry,” he says, turning back, making his choice. “Don't ask questions, just - if you want to live, come with us. Now.”
She waits to hear Simon drop behind her, and then she does not stay, catching his hand and setting off down the maze of back alleys. Like a rat in a trap, run run run, she thinks.
Behind them, their father follows.
Chapter 5 - Master Post - Chapter 7